Manuel De Falla - world's unluckiest recorded composer?

[Richard Tarleton]

And I'm very fond of the "other" guitar concerto, the Fantasía para un Gentilhombre, which recycles the music of the 17th century Gaspar Sanz. This was written for Segovia, who never played the Concierto de Aranjuez (unless in private).

[HighlandDougie]

I bought this

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Falla-Nights-Gardens-Spain/dp/B005FLQRFQ/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1398589175&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=falla+javier+peranes

with no great expectations of the music on it (apart from the 'Nights ...') and was immediately struck with the originality of much of the solo piano music. It's a disc I return to often.

[Sir Velo]

And I'm very fond of the "other" guitar concerto, the Fantasía para un Gentilhombre, which recycles the music of the 17th century Gaspar Sanz. This was written for Segovia, who never played the Concierto de Aranjuez (unless in private).

[Roehre]

And I'm very fond of the "other" guitar concerto, the Fantasía para un Gentilhombre, which recycles the music of the 17th century Gaspar Sanz. This was written for Segovia, who never played the Concierto de Aranjuez (unless in private).

And IMO this is on par with e.g. Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances

[LeMartinPecheur]

Well, my OP seems to have gone up several very interesting side-streets... Not that I mind at all as a hopeless OT-er myself - "Only connect!"

To pick up some of them:
Ferretfancy and Pedrell. I've been meaning to find out a bit more about him too and have just put his name into Amazon.uk. Hurrah, 16 hits! But most of them are for Roberto Gerhard's pieces Cancionero de Pedrell and Homenaje a Pedrell. Try amazon.esp and we get 17 hits but only a few 'real' Pedrell CDs inc. one opera.
Grove says that he had some sort of late outbreak of self-criticism and destroyed a lot of his own works. Seems too that he was always at least equally committed to criticism and musicology. The (Spanish) writer of the Grove article offers no real opinion of his musical quality or claim that he demands re-evaluation.

fhg #4- - Harpsichord Concerto. No star-ratings at all on Amazon UK for recordings of this work (barring a now very expensive EMI Composers in Person CD including Falla's own recording). I can't help much as I have it only on an LP of Achucarro/ Mata in quite a handy coupling of this work on both harpsichord and piano together with Nights in the Gardens of Spain. The latter seems to be still available on CD but not the Concerto. There is an Igor Kipnis/ Boulez recording still availabe, quite expensive on an all-Falla CD but much cheaper here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spanish-Harp...to+harpsichord The Veyron-Lacroix/ Dutoit recording from LP days was well-rated by Penguin Guide and is cheap on CD.

Roehre #43 - Atlantida. Its unfinished state was obliquely alluded to in my OP! I'm thinking that your posed question, "Is Halffter's realisation a viable one?" could be just as validly rewritten as "Was de Falla's own conception (itself a dodgy concept in that this seems to have changed over the years) ever a viable one?" A secular oratorio with - apparently - visual elements (paintings? projections??)? But an opera dictionary on my shelves lists it as such! I did manage to hear a large chunk of this work (a suite arr. Fruhbeck de Burgos) at a 1996 Prom but can't say I remember too much about it ...except the presence of Katerina Karneus

HighlandDougie #47. There are indeed a lot of piano works, but most of them are from before his unique voice emerged in La Vida Breve (composed c.1904). All told they fill a CD. Or a bit more if you really scrape the barrel since Naxos seems to have a 'Vol 2', though their Vol 1 would seem to include the voice/pf works too. The big mature piano work is the Fantasia Baetica. I've just ordered this 'complete pf works' cheapie to explore this end of the oeuvre http://www.amazon.co.uk/Falla-Piano-...ds=falla+piano

[HighlandDougie]

There are indeed a lot of piano works, but most of them are from before his unique voice emerged in La Vida Breve (composed c.1904). All told they fill a CD. Or a bit more if you really scrape the barrel since Naxos seems to have a 'Vol 2', though their Vol 1 would seem to include the voice/pf works too. The big mature piano work is the Fantasia Baetica. I've just ordered this 'complete pf works' cheapie to explore this end of the oeuvre http://www.amazon.co.uk/Falla-Piano-...ds=falla+piano

I'll be interested in how you get on with the J-F Heisser CD. It's the Fantasia Baetica with which I was most struck (commissioned by Arthur Rubinstein, no less) but the Four Spanish Pieces (1906 - 1909) do seem to represent a composer finding his voice.

This most interesting thread has inspired me to go and dig out the Charles Dutoit/Robert Veyron-Lacroix Erato LP which is lurking in my loft.

[gurnemanz]

But Falla's 'Greatest Hits' are really just a few dances from the ballets and maybe the 7 Popular Spanish Songs, whether sung or in instrumental transcriptions. So if a classical-music newbie asks you "Which are Falla's really big works?", it's a tricky answer. Maybe resort to the good old Professor Joad one, "Well, it depends what you mean by BIG..."

I'm very fond of the Seven Songs. There is a marvellous rendition from 1930 by Maria Barrientos with the composer accompanying on the great value EMI Composers in Person box and a more operatic but very effective version from Marilyn Horne on Decca Essential de Falla Twofer. I also enjoy Gérard Souzay with Jacqueline Bonneau from 1951. The Kochanski violin setting also works well for me, eg as done by Oistrakh on Melodiya. I recently acquired a lovely more mellow-sounding viola version from Karen Dreyfus on an interesting disc from the American independent Bridge label

[LeMartinPecheur]

I'm very fond of the Seven Songs. There is a marvellous rendition from 1930 by Maria Barrientos with the composer accompanying on the great value EMI Composers in Person box and a more operatic but very effective version from Marilyn Horne on Decca Essential de Falla Twofer. I also enjoy Gérard Souzay with Jacqueline Bonneau from 1951. The Kochanski violin setting also works well for me, eg as done by Oistrakh on Melodiya. I recently acquired a lovely more mellow-sounding viola version from Karen Dreyfus on an interesting disc from the American independent Bridge label

gurnemanz: I'd just ordered that Twofer Not that I'm too deprived of versions of this work - I can field at least Jill Gomez, Victoria de los Angeles, Patricia Rozario.

Can't easily track down single songs or instrumental versions, but I have a few!

EDIT 2 minutes later. Curse you Red Baron, you've led me astray into ordering that EMI C in P box S/h off Marketplace so wallet not too depleted, but I'll now have a spare copy of the Bartok/ Dohnanyi disc if anyone wants to PM me...

[Richard Tarleton]

Here is a reasonable performance of the Homenaje by Swedish guitarist Marten Falk. There's a lovely performance of it by Julian Bream, recorded at the Maltings shortly before he retired for his valedictory DVD My Life In Music, but the video quality on the pirated You Tube clip is appalling. His classic recording of the work is on his 1964 album Popular Classics for Spanish Guitar, recorded in the Adam Library at Kenwood House.

[Ferretfancy]

Here is a reasonable performance of the Homenaje by Swedish guitarist Marten Falk. There's a lovely performance of it by Julian Bream, recorded at the Maltings shortly before he retired for his valedictory DVD My Life In Music, but the video quality on the pirated You Tube clip is appalling. His classic recording of the work is on his 1964 album Popular Classics for Spanish Guitar, recorded in the Adam Library at Kenwood House.

Oddly, I was listening to that performance earlier today, it is included in the recent Living Stereo box. I must say I was very disappointed by the muffled recording by Robert Auger. Bream's disc called The Guitar in Spain has a superb performance beautifully recorded by John W Bower, presumably in the Wardour Chapel near his home.

[Richard Tarleton]

Oddly, I was listening to that performance earlier today, it is included in the recent Living Stereo box. I must say I was very disappointed by the muffled recording by Robert Auger. Bream's disc called The Guitar in Spain has a superb performance beautifully recorded by John W Bower, presumably in the Wardour Chapel near his home.

Interesting! Thanks for the reminder ferret, I'd forgotten that recording - the double album accompanied the 6-part BBC series of the same name. I still have the LPs. I've just spun that section of the DVD of the TV series, and Bream actually talks about and plays it in Falla's house in Granada - in fact all the pieces for the series were recorded on location in Spain. Whether anything was re-recorded back home for the records, it doesn't say.

I still have the original LP of the 1964 recording - it is certainly very resonant, especially the opening track, Albeniz's Granada. Kenwood was an early favourite of Bream's before he decamped to the country. Anorak fact - his favourite Robert Bouchet guitar was stolen from his car during the recording, he had to complete the recording on another one. Best of all IMV is the final Maltings version from the "My Life in Music" DVD, played on the legendary "Rose Augustin" Hauser guitar.

Bream makes the interesting point on the film that Falla was the first composer to write for the guitar who could not actually play the instrument, and that Homenaje was his only guitar piece.

[richardfinegold]

I'm very fond of the Seven Songs. There is a marvellous rendition from 1930 by Maria Barrientos with the composer accompanying on the great value EMI Composers in Person box and a more operatic but very effective version from Marilyn Horne on Decca Essential de Falla Twofer. I also enjoy Gérard Souzay with Jacqueline Bonneau from 1951. The Kochanski violin setting also works well for me, eg as done by Oistrakh on Melodiya. I recently acquired a lovely more mellow-sounding viola version from Karen Dreyfus on an interesting disc from the American independent Bridge label

I got to know these from a Teresa Berganza/Narcisso Ypes lp that featured songs by Lorca (arrangements of Spanish folk songs) on the B side. I would search that out.

[mathias broucek]

AAARGH, so now we need a bassoon!

Seriously though guys, this all serves to highlight the problems of programming such works. My own society for example would never get beyond 10 performers, sadly.

Pulcinella: this is my ordered Master Peter (etc) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Falla-Brujo-...ref=sr_1_3?s=m

If you make it TWO oboes and TWO bassoons you could simply add two trumpets, three trombones and some percussion and do Poulenc's Suite Francais!

OT but I was once involved in a performance of the Poulenc where vagaries of heating led to the harpsichord going sharp..... The harpsichordist did an amazingly sensitive job on the 13 foot Steinway we wheeled-on to replace it....

[CallMePaul]

And I'm very fond of the "other" guitar concerto, the Fantasía para un Gentilhombre, which recycles the music of the 17th century Gaspar Sanz. This was written for Segovia, who never played the Concierto de Aranjuez (unless in private).

I believe that Segovia was due to give the premiere, but he was unable to return to Spain in time from a concert tour in Latin America because his ship was delayed. The concert promoter decided that the show must go on, and with the composer's agreement another guitarist was engaged to play the work. Segovia felt slighted and refused to play the piece despite numerous requests. The Fantasía para un Gentilhombre was written for Segovia after the guitarist and composer had settled their differences and resumed their friendship.

[Richard Tarleton]

I believe that Segovia was due to give the premiere, but he was unable to return to Spain in time from a concert tour in Latin America because his ship was delayed. The concert promoter decided that the show must go on, and with the composer's agreement another guitarist was engaged to play the work. Segovia felt slighted and refused to play the piece despite numerous requests. The Fantasía para un Gentilhombre was written for Segovia after the guitarist and composer had settled their differences and resumed their friendship.

What is your source for this, Paul? Graham Wade's biog of Segovia suggests Segovia knew nothing about the Barcelona premiere before it happened -

Another disaster had struck [in November 1940] when the Bank of France went down, and Segovia's account with it. Segovia might have been even more disgruntled if he had known that several thousand miles away Joaquín Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez was to have its premiere in Barcelona that day [9 November]; the guitarist being Regino Sainz de la Maza

Segovia was at the time fully occupied with Manuel Ponce's Concierto del sur, the movements for which the composer was sending him as he wrote them - he gave the first performance in Montevideo in October 1941. He wasn't on a concert tour, he was living in Montevideo in exile after losing everything in the Spanish Civil War. And perhaps the clincher - Rodrigo dedicated the work (composed in 1939) to Sainz de la Maza.