|
|
 Manuel de Falla (1876–1946), artist unknown. Courtesy of Naxos. Bloomingdale School of Music expresses thanks to Harmonia Mundi, Naxos, and G. Schirmer for their media permissions. |
MANUEL
DE FALLA by Kevin Shihoten When you search the Arts Section of The New York Times over the last 25 years on nytimes.com, instances of Manuel de Falla's most famous compositions (The Three-Cornered Hat, El amor brujo, Nights in the Gardens of Spain) appear on average more than six times as often as his neoclassical works (Concerto, Psyche, El Retablo de Maese Pedro), which are widely considered his masterpieces. In recognition of the 60th anniversary of Falla's death in November 2006, this page presents a brief overview of his life leading to the creation of his relatively overlooked neoclassical output. Regarded as the most significant 20th century Spanish composer, Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) synthesized aspects of nationalism and neoclassicism, propelling Spanish music to the forefront of European modernism. His asceticism and demureness are striking alongside the profound effect his oeuvre has had on the mass perception of Spanish music. Of particular interest, then, are the highly divergent elements of his life and persona. Falla's childhood illustrates the roots of his extreme Catholicism and captivation by puppets, the piano and Christopher Columbus. He had a propensity for writing but switched professional aspirations to composition at age seventeen, a choice affected by his intense faith. From his hometown of Cádiz on the southwestern coast of Spain, his family moved in 1897 to Madrid, where he later entered the Madrid Conservatory as a piano student of José Tragó. Though an accomplished pianist, Falla couldn't subsist as a performer or composer of showy salon music and so resorted to writing zarzuela, a popular Spanish drama form with singing and dancing, but was ultimately unsuccessful. He also began studies with composer and musicologist Felipe Pedrell (1841-1922), who introduced him to Spanish folk music. In 1905, Falla won a Spanish opera competition with his first major work, La vida breve ('The Short Life'), which incorporated Wagnerian characteristics and Gypsy cante jondo ('deep song'). He was never given the performance he believed was promised to him of the work at Madrid's Teatro Real. Disenchanted, he got an accompanying gig in 1907 and wound up living in Paris for seven years. In Paris, Falla met and fell under the influence of Debussy, Diaghilev, Dukas, Stravinsky, and other musical luminaries. He attended performances of and supported the revival of pre-19th century music, which "satisfied his yearning for cosmic order governed by the law of God." 1 Finally, with the enduring support of Debussy and Dukas, La vida breve was premiered in Nice and then performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, garnering him the acclaim of French critics. By 1914, however, Paris began preparing for war and Falla returned to his family in Spain. Back in Madrid, the Spanish premiers of La vida breve and El amor brujo ('Love, the Magician,' 1915) roused ambivalence among native critics, who questioned the works' French influence and service to nationalism. In both pieces, Falla sought to bring together the essence of folk music with art music. He also finished in 1915 Nights in the Gardens of Spain, a sensuous and elaborate symphonic work for piano and orchestra, and later collaborated with Diaghilev and choreographer Massine in his ballet, The Three-Cornered Hat. With cubist sets designed by Picasso, an expanded score and ironic use of folk elements, it was a hit in London in 1919, but again received mixed reactions in Madrid. Around this time, Falla grew increasingly drawn to neoclassical principles. In his 1919 puppet opera Retablo de maese Pedro ('Master Peter's Puppet Show'), he adapted an episode from Miguel de Cervantes's (1547-1616) Don Quixote, and utilized the music of early Spanish guitarist Gaspar Sanz. With austere sonorities, a smaller orchestra and latent hints at Gregorian chant, the work represented a drastic change in Falla's style and received "near unanimous approval" at its official premier in Paris. 2 Even Madrid's critics began embracing him, likening him to Stravinsky after a 1924 performance. The following year, The New York Times offered complete praise for the work at its Town Hall debut. |
 Manuel de Falla (1876–1946), artist unknown. Courtesy of Naxos. In my opinion El retablo and the Concerto give proof of incontestable progress in the development of his great talent. He has, in them, deliberately emancipated himself from the folklorist influence under which he was in danger of stultifying himself. - Igor Stravinsky, in his autobiography 8 Falla envisioned an 18th century court concert in the Alhambra Palace in his next work, a miniature for voice, strings, and harp entitled Psyché and set to words by Georges Jean-Aubry (1882-1949). Evocative of Debussy, for whom he maintained deep admiration in spite of his leanings towards Stravinskian neoclassicism, it elicited the following sentiment from composer Rodolfo Halffter (1900-1987): 3 I don't believe that there exists in Europe today [1932] another master, with the exception of Maurice Ravel, who writes so perfectly as Manuel de Falla. Everything is calculated and nothing is left to luck. The reading of a score by the maestro from Cádiz gives the impression that nothing is lacking. Each of his works is a lesson in Latin clarity, in precisions, and also sensitivity. 4 At the request of early music revivalist Wanda Landowska, Falla wrote the three-movement Concerto (1926), integrating even more motley harmonic, formal, and timbral features. "A composite of Hispano-Castilian elements rather than an echo of impressions of Andalusia or another Spanish province," wrote Landowska, it is scored for harpsichord, violin, flute, oboe and clarinet. 5 Its first movement is based on a song by 16th century composer Juan Vásquez, and the middle movement is akin to medieval plainchant, strongly exhibiting Falla's religious conviction. Of the sprightly last movement, "the greater one's understanding of the Spanish influence of Domenico Scarlatti, the more one comprehends [it]," wrote Falla. 6 The Concerto is perhaps Falla's most compelling work. University of Melbourne professor Michael Christoforidis writes: Falla's stylistic evolution in the 1920s resulted in a more eclectic and abstracted form of nationalism through the assimilation of neoclassical ideals, although these were interpreted within the framework of contemporary theories of Spanish identity. The progressive integration and conflation of folk and preclassical sources in Falla's work of this period compelemented his reinterpretation of Spanishness in terms of "Castilian" or "general Hispanic" values, through which he consciously sought to redefine Spain and its music, not as a manifestation of the exotic Other on the European periphery, but as a culture linked to the continent's historical and artistic traditions. In doing so, Falla forged one of the most powerful and coherent syntheses of nationalist and neoclassical ideals, and attempted to reconcile tradition with modernity. 7 1 Hess, Carol A. Sacred Passions: The Life and Music of Manuel de Falla. New York: Oxford University, 2005. p. 51. 2 Ibid., p. 141. 3 Ibid., p. 151. 4 Harper, Nancy. Manuel de Falla: His Life and Music. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2005. p. 105 5 Ibid., p. 209. 6 Ibid. p. 235. 7 Ibid., p. 236. 8 Ibid., p. 211. |
|||
|
|||||
