Manuel De Falla - world's unluckiest recorded composer?

[Richard Tarleton]

I think I was perhaps speaking in irony!
I find them enjoyable and even quite engaging, but I would say not in the class of Rodrigo for example.

My view (as very much a Hispanophile, and amateur classical guitarist to boot) would be the diametric opposite of yours, nick I think there were a number of reasons for Falla's small output, but I'd regard him as every way a superior composer to Rodrigo. Falla managed a sort of rarified distillation of Spanish music, informed by his time in Paris and the influence of Debussy and Ravel, and explored the folkloric roots of gypsy music as well; Rodrigo wrote a lot of very pleasing stuff but nothing approaching the musical depth of de Falla. Burnett James sees him as a sort of Spanish Bartok......

[visualnickmos]

Hello Richard

I take on board what you say; it may well be that I have not given myself enough time to actually explore more fully de Falla's oeuvre. You have sparked a fuse, and I now want to learn more - any pointers? Would I be correct in thinking he wrote a fair number of works for piano?

PS I do like the idea of the 'Spanish Bartok'

[Don Petter]

DP: have you tried not walking on them?

Me not walk on them all the time. Sometimes finger-thing him broke in post.

[visualnickmos]

I found your evaluation truly shocking, visualnickmos, for I'd always rated de Falla as a discriminating composer, capable of originality, whereas I'd rated Rodrigo as fluent writer of unexceptional trifles.

I had not the slightest intention of being 'truly shocking!' but by the same token I don't see Rodrigo as a composer of unexceptional trifles; some (not me) say the same of Delius.

As I have said in a later post - I may not be as well versed in de Falla's work as I'd like to be. I'm happy to learn and explore more; there is no such thing as having "arrived" at final knowledge in anything creative; it is expanding and amorphous.

[Don Petter]

I think Larrocha's EMI Falla piano CD, from her classic period, should not be overlooked, though her later recordings had better sound:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Obras-Para-Piano-Larrocha/dp/B000002S4A/ref=sr_1_19?ie=UTF8&qid=1398548923&sr=8-19&keywords=falla+larrocha

(Having been brought up on them, I don't mind those Hispavox recordings, but they were much improved in some later EMI reissues. Not sure the Falla ever received that treatment, though.)

Brain lapse there! The Falla pieces are of course included in the Larrocha Icon box, so that's the place to get them, and a lot of other wonderful performances as well:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/EMI-Classics-Alicia-Larrocha/dp/B003D0ZNJC/ref=sr_1_sc_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1398550176&sr=8-2-spell&keywords=delarrocha+icon

[Ferretfancy]

Whenever I read about Spanish music, the name of Pedrell always comes up, but I've never heard a note of his music. Was he simply an influence on others, or are there compositions that we simply don't hear in Britain ?

[Barbirollians]

There is a fabulous Argerich Nights in the Garden of Spain on one of those EMI Lugano boxes .

[richardfinegold]

Whenever I read about Spanish music, the name of Pedrell always comes up, but I've never heard a note of his music. Was he simply an influence on others, or are there compositions that we simply don't hear in Britain ?

I think he was one of Roberto Gerhard's teachers and that he died in the 1920s. Gerhard wrote a piece whose title features his name.

[richardfinegold]

An interesting article about a ditto book, rfg - the suggestion that the composer and music that really fitted the bill for Franco's Spain was Rodrigo, and the Concierto de Aranjuez.....

I have just returned from dinner with a good friend who grew up in Spain. His family is from La Mancha. I was discussing this thread with him. One of his interesting comments was that his family supported Franco because the town that they lived in was occupied early in the war by the Falangists. To express
support for the Republicans would have endangered them and been suicidal. Staying neutral was not an option.
I don't know anything about Rodrigo's politics, and I certainly agree that Falla was the superior composer. However, I would like to believe that Rodrigo
was in a situation similar to my friend's family. I would like to believe that the Falangists took a shine to his music, promoted him as a representative of what they felt was 'true' Spanish
culture, and that to resist the approval of the Fascists would have been a Quixotic (pun intended) gesture.

[richardfinegold]

I see that my collection is lacking the de Falla Harpsichord Concerto, and I haven't heard the piece for years. What versions would be the recommendations here?

[Richard Tarleton]

Hello Richard

I take on board what you say; it may well be that I have not given myself enough time to actually explore more fully de Falla's oeuvre. You have sparked a fuse, and I now want to learn more - any pointers? Would I be correct in thinking he wrote a fair number of works for piano?

PS I do like the idea of the 'Spanish Bartok'

If you've got on top of the main works in the OP you're well on the way, it was your assessment of it I was challenging! As a road map I'd try to get hold of a copy of "Manuel de Falla and the Spanish Musical Renaissance" by Burnett James, 1979, Gollancz - I picked up a copy in a bookshop (remember them?) for £5 but there are copies on the internet.

All his most important works, with the addition of the "Homenaje" for guitar I mentioned above, are listed in the OP.... I don't know all his piano works - here's a list of his entire output (separate link for stage works) which really is tiny. To understand his importance at the time, and the Bartok bit, I'd also suggest looking at the definitive "Federico García Lorca - A Life" by Ian Gibson, which tells of their collaboration, correspondence, travelling puppet theatre etc....a creative spark snuffed out tragically early.

[Richard Tarleton]

I have just returned from dinner with a good friend who grew up in Spain. His family is from La Mancha. I was discussing this thread with him. One of his interesting comments was that his family supported Franco because the town that they lived in was occupied early in the war by the Falangists. To express
support for the Republicans would have endangered them and been suicidal. Staying neutral was not an option.
I don't know anything about Rodrigo's politics, and I certainly agree that Falla was the superior composer. However, I would like to believe that Rodrigo
was in a situation similar to my friend's family. I would like to believe that the Falangists took a shine to his music, promoted him as a representative of what they felt was 'true' Spanish
culture, and that to resist the approval of the Fascists would have been a Quixotic (pun intended) gesture.

Richard I'm sure that's absolutely right. Some time last year I reviewed Paul Preston's "The Spanish Holocaust" on the What are you reading now thread, a harrowing, devastating account of what happened in every town and village affected by the Civil War. If one of Franco's psychotic generals, with an army of pitiless Morroccan native troops at his back, was occupying your village I'm sure the situation was as your friend describes. And even after the war Franco did not believe in reconciliation but pursued his enemies without mercy. By the time I visited Spain for the first time (1972) the dictatorsip had softened considerably - the "dictadura" had become the "dictablanda" but was still pretty oppressive. (I travelled the length of the country by train, starting at San Sebastian and spending time in Madrid, Granada and Cordoba. I played the guitar in Granada, but in the youth hostel, not the Alhambra!)

Likewise your assessment of Rodrigo and his music - not a political animal at all I'm sure. I can claim two degrees of separation there - the former proprietor of the late lamented London Spanish Guitar Centre knew him and his daughter Cecilia well.

[Roehre]

.....
Seems to me that poor old MdeF got a lot of things hugely wrong if he wanted to keep his full output available on disc, and indeed performed in the concert hall. How so? Principally, works of dodgy genre, unusual scoring, the wrong length. EG:
- Three-Cornered Hat, a short but not very short ballet needing orchestra plus solo soprano,
- El Amor Brujo, another mid-length ballet, another solo singer, and best heard in the original small-orch/ large-chamber version, which it usually isn't;

El Sombrero de tres Picos in its original guise as El Corregidor y la Molinera fits nicely together with the chamber version of El Amor brujo and I do recall having seen such a double bill in not too far a past.

In terms of recordings, any form of suite of the Tres Picos (the three main dances e.g.) is easily coupled with El Amor brujo (the Grace Bumbry recording does so, e.g.) or the Vida breve, while the whole of the Tres Picos sometimes is coupled with the harpsichord concerto (as Boulez did on CBS)

[Oh damn, I've forgotten to mention his final master-work, Atlantida. Very few problems with this of course ]

But as it is unfinished we've got here also the problem: is Halffter's realisation a viable one?

[Roehre]

..... I'd always rated de Falla as a discriminating composer, capable of originality, whereas I'd rated Rodrigo as a fluent writer of unexceptional trifles.

I mainly concur, but would describe Rodrigo's position differently: I consider his output as uneven, many unexceptional trifles or worse, but also some works which deserve respect a la De Falla, like his 1952 Villancicos y Canciones de Navidad.
But actually re-chewing the Concierto d'Aranjuez a couple of times after its succes: more tradesman than a deeply inspired composer I'm afraid.

[Sir Velo]

I'd probably agree on the whole with the assessment of Rodrigo as a patchily inspired composer. although I am not particularly sure why he in particular, has been singled out for comparision with de Falla. However much it overshadows the rest of his output let's not forget that the Aranjuez concerto is an inspired piece of composition, particularly the slow movement which is one of those pieces (to paraphrase Stravinsky) which appears to have written itself without the composer's conscious intervention.

Other works of Rodrigo which are well worth forumites' attention are the guitar pieces, "Tres Piezas Espanolas" (which have been recorded marvellously by Bream) and the orchestral tone poem, "Per la flor del lliri blau", alternatively lyrical and epic in the best Iberian manner.