Spanish composer and pianist. He was taught the piano by his mother and
harmony by 2 local musicians, but his ambition was to be a composer and he wrote
2 zarzuelas, the first of which was produced in 1902. Falla then studied
composition in Madrid for 3 years with Felipe Pedrell. Pedrell, sometimes called
the founder of 20th century Spanish music, insisted that a nation's music should
be based on folk-song, and this was to be a profound influence on Falla and his
Spanish fellow composers Albeniz, Granados, and Turina. However, it was the
spirit rather than the letter of Spanish folk-music to which Falla eventually
turned.In 1905, Falla won the Madrid Acadademy of Fine Arts prize for the best lyrical
drama by a Spanish composer with his 2-act opera La Vida Breve (which was
however not to be performed until 1913). In the same year he won the Ortiz y
Cusso prize for Spanish pianists. For 2 years he taught the piano in Madrid and
in 1907 went to Paris, where he befriended and became influenced by Dukas, Ravel, abd Debussy. In 1914, Falla moved
back to Spain where he lived until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. In
1939, after conducting 4 concerts in Buenos Aires, he settled in Argentina.
After World War I, Falla's style became less overtly folkloristic (if no less
inherently Spanish), gradually to be replaced by a more severe and ascetic
style, influenced in equal measure by the early Spanish polyphonic masters, the
neo-classical idiom of Stravinsky, and the traditional Flamenco singin
style Canto Hondo. Falla, like Ravel, was a fastidious perfectionist, who would
agonize over each and every bar, and usually took years to complete a work. As a
result, his oeuvre is small but each mature work is a totally original
masterpiece.
His major large-scale works are the above mentioned opera La Vida Breve (Life
is Short, 1905), the ballet-pantomine El amor brujo (Love the
Magician, 1915), Noches en los Jardines de España (Nights in the Gardens of
Spain, probably his most popular work) for piano and orchestra (1916), the
ballet El Sombrero de Tres Picos (The Three-cornered Hat, 1919), the puppet play
El Retablo de Maese Pedro (Master Peter's Puppet Show, 1923), the austere
Harpsichord Concerto (1926), and the enormous ‘scenic cantata’ Atlántida which
was begun in 1926, left unfinished and later completed by Ernesto Halffter.
Falla wrote only few piano works, which nevertheless are important additions
to the Spanish piano repertoire. The most important are the Albeniz-inspired
Quatro Piezas Españolas (1908) and the Fantasia Baetica (1919). He also provided
splendid piano reductions of El Amor Brujo and El Sombrero de Tres Picos,
containing items like the famous Danza Ritual del Fuego
(Ritual Fire Dance). His ever popular song cycle Siete Canciones Popolares
Españolas was arranged for piano solo by Ernesto Halffter.
Recordings
