From Spain, Manuel de Falla

Widely regarded as the greatest Spanish composer of the 20th century, Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) developed an interest in native Spanish music, in particular Andalusian flamenco, while studying with Felipe Pedrell in Madrid in the late 1890s.

From 1907 to 1914, he lived in Paris where he met, and was influenced by, Ravel, Debussy and Dukas. Works such as the ballet El amor brujo and the one-act opera La vida breve are notably nationalistic in character, though a Stravinskian neo-classicism can be heard in works such as the Harpsichord Concerto, composed when he lived in Granada from 1921 to 1939.

The character of southern Spanish music,  flamenco and the type of Andalusian vocal folk music known as cante jondo,  is integral to his creative spirit. Most dramatically, it inspired El Amor brujo (Love, the Magician, 1915), the powerful narrative of gypsy life, which he first conceived as a theater piece for flamenco singer, actors and chamber orchestra.

Falla’s aim was “truth without authenticity,” and he had realized it by the time he was 29, when he wrote his first masterpiece, La vida breve, a spare, tragic zarzuela about a young woman, forsaken by her lover, who comes to his wedding feast to die. Falla moved to France a few years after writing it, and when it was performed there, in 1913, it brought him instant recognition.

All his life, he continued to adopt new ideas as he was exposed to other approaches to musical nationalism. Like his Harpsichord Concerto, his lively and cheerful El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat) plainly shows the influence of Igor Stravinsky.

The CSO will perform Suite No. 2 from Falla’s The Three-Cornered Hat in concerts Nov. 8-9 under Riccardo Muti.