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THE MUSIC OF FALLA AND RAVEL
By Fred Plotkin
Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) was born in Cádiz, Spain and readily absorbed the musical sounds and idioms of his native country. The fascination of Spain has appealed to many composers from all over Europe, including Verdi, Rossini, Lalo, Chabrier, Debussy, Rimsky-Korsakov, and especially Georges Bizet, whose opera "Carmen" so thoroughly evokes Spanishness that it is hard to believe it was written by a Frenchman and sung in French. Yet the appeal of another nation or culture is often lost on someone who grows up in those contexts because what is exotic to a foreigner is natural to a native.
In 1907, Falla moved to Paris to expand his musical horizons and experience a more varied musical scene than he knew at home. As a young man he had heard the music of Edvard Grieg, which is at once quite cosmopolitan yet unabashedly Norwegian. He also realized how danceable Grieg's music sounded and sought to emulate that feeling in a Spanish context. As often happens when artists live abroad, they sense their origins more deeply. The absence of their own language, flavors, and fragrances impels them to summon these familiar sensations in their work. With Grieg's as a model, Falla devoted himself to creating music that spoke of his native country.
"The Three-Cornered Hat" ("El sombrero de tres picos") was a ballet commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev for his Ballets Russes during a visit to Madrid in 1916. There would be excellent dancers for the premiere, performing choreography by Léonide Massine amid scenery by none other than Pablo Picasso. At the last minute, the star dancer took ill, and Massine had to perform on opening night. He later wrote in his memoirs about performing the "Miller's Dance":
I began stamping my feet repeatedly and twirling my hands over my head. As the music quickened I did a series of high jumps, ending with a turn in mid-air and a savage stamp as I landed. ... The mental image of an enraged bull going into the attack unleashed some inner force which generated power within me. ... For one moment it seemed as if some other person within me was performing the dance.
You can picture all of this yourself as you listen to the music. It is worth thinking about the influence of Grieg's ideas here, if not his sound.
"Nights in the Gardens of Spain" ("Noches en los jardines de España") was originally a set of nocturnes for solo piano that Falla wrote in 1909 during his Paris residency. Inspired by his reading of books about his native land, it is an interesting blend of French impressionism and Spanish impulses. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Falla returned to Spain and set about expanding the work so that it would have an orchestral element to contrast with the solo piano line. As you listen (and observe Barenboim playing the piano while conducting), notice how austere the piano part is in comparison to the lush orchestral part. This work is not a piano concerto, but a composition in which solo piano is a prominent voice among the many voices of instruments in the orchestra.
This piece depicts three gardens. The first is the Generalife, the jasmine-scented gardens surrounding the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. When Falla wrote this work he had not yet seen Granada, but drew his impressions from reading. The second is a distant, unidentified garden that the composer invites you to envision through his music. The third garden is in the Sierra de Córdoba, and the music has a very pronounced gypsy flavor.
Top banner photos: Chicago Symphony Orchestra and conductor Daniel Barenboim. |
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Violinists of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. |
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Daniel Barenboim, the music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. |
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