Berlin 17-04-2010
Manuel de Falla - www.foto-face.com
Manuel de Falla was born 1876, in the port city of Cádiz in South-western Spain – perhaps, the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the Iberian – expect for the fact that it has a port and a harbor; it is in every way a very typical Andalusian city.
He was primarily home taught, by his mother and received his first piano lessons at age nine by a piano professor. Thereafter from the late 1890s onward he studied music, piano and composition in Madrid – and in 1899 by unanimous consensus he was won 1st first prize at the piano competition at his school of music
At this time, referred to as his “ Madrid period” Falla became interested in native Spanish folk music, specifically Andalusian Flamenco – which can be strongly felt in many of his major works and his early’ zarzuelas’ pieces.
His first major composition was the 1 act Opera La vida breve [ The Brief Life] composed in 1905, and revised on numerous occasions before its final premiere in 1913.
Falla spent seven years in Paris starting in 1907, where he met many of the major contemporary French composers who had influenced on his style, namely; Ravel, Debussy and Dukas.
Composing did not come easy to him and there were few compositions until his return to Spain when France entered into the First World War He wrote little more music, however, until his return to Madrid at the beginning of World War I, which is usually considered his most creative period.
There he wrote several of his best known pieces;
- The ballet El amor brujo -Love the Magician, 1915
- Nights in the Gardens of Spain- Noches en los jardines de España , 1916 A Nocturne for piano and orchestra
- The ballet The Three-Cornered Hat-El sombrero de tres picos, 1917 which was later produced by Diaghilev with costumes by the newly upcoming Spanish painter Picasso.
From 1921 to 1939 Manuel de Falla lived in Granada, and amongst other works wrote there the puppet opera El retablo de maese Pedro -Master Peter’s Puppet Show, 1923, along with a concerto for harpsichord and chamber ensemble in 1926.
The puppet opera marked the first time the harpsichord had entered the modern orchestra; and the concerto was the first for harpsichord written in the twentieth century.
One could say that this started a revival of the harpsichord led by Wanda Landowska a Polish/French harpsichordist whose performances, teaching, recordings and writings played a large role in reviving the popularity of the harpsichord.
She commissioned concerti from Francis Poulenc and Manuel de Falla - Martinu and Philip Glass have also written concertos for harpsichord.
Both of the harpsichord works by de Falla were written with Wanda Landowska in mind and what they lack in Spanish folk influence is made up for by a typical ‘de Falla sort of neoclassicism’ which can comfortably stand on its own artistic merit.
The fascist Francisco Franco, a sly, cowardly weakling took power in Spain - assisted into office with the active support of Hitler and Mussolini and the inactive acquiescence of England and most of the Europe governments of the time – prominent exceptions being the Socialist government of Leon Blum in France and the then Soviet Union.
At this time, De Falla tried but failed to prevent the murder of his close friend – the greatest Spanish poet of the last century -Federico García Lorca in 1936.
De Falla left Spain in 1939, as did all the other morally up-righteous patriotic Spaniards -who had not been murdered or jailed and were still able to move – and went to live in Argentina.
Manuel de Falla never married and had no children and it is generally accepted today that he was gay. He died in Argentina in 1946 and his remains were later returned to Spain and entombed in the cathedral at Cádiz.
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As a continuation of our’ OTA-Berlin Constituency Blog Mini-Composer-Biography Series’ we present the first of the Spanish Composers for the new OTA-Berlin serviced apartments building opening in beginning of May 2010.
Tags: Manuel de Falla, Mini-Composer-Biography, OTA-Berlin Spanish Composer Building
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