Manuel de Falla

One of Spain's most important composers, Manuel de Falla brought all the shimmering colors of the country into his music. Born Manuel María de los Dolores Clemente Ramón del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús Falla y Matheu on November 23, 1876, in Cadiz, he came from a wealthy merchant family and received a fitting musical education: solfeggio from his pianist mother, who taught him the basics, followed by more advanced training with a teacher, Eloisa Galluzo, and harmony, counterpoint and composition with Alejandro Odero and Enrique Broca. At an early age, he discovered music through concerts, and gave his first public performance with his mother, playing Josef Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross at St. Francis Church. At the age of twelve, he developed a passion for literature and journalism, editing the amateur magazines El Burlón and El Casbabel ; in secret, he composed the opera El conde de Villamediana, since lost, as well as the Gavotte et musette for piano of 1892. Confident of his musical vocation, he undertook further studies at Madrid's Royal Conservatory with José Tragó, who saw in him a virtuoso, and added to his repertoire a Romanza for cello and piano, a Scherzo and a Mazurka for piano. His studies were rewarded with a unanimous first prize for piano in 1899, and Falla became a much-appreciated concert performer, presenting his new compositions between works by Chopin, Schumann and Grieg, namely a Piano Quartet, the poem Mireya for flute, violin, cello, viola and piano, and an Andalusian Serenade for violin and piano. In 1900, he wrote his first zarzuela, a mini-opera in one act, La Juana y la Petra, o la Casa de Tócame Roque, listed among his many lost scores. In 1901, Falla's meeting with Felipe Pedrell, a musicologist and teacher with extensive knowledge of Spanish music, aroused his interest in flamenco and encouraged him to devote himself to composition. Falla would later claim him as his greatest influence. In 1902, Falla penned the zarzuela Los Amores de la Iñesz, which was performed twenty times at Madrid's Teatro Cómico, followed by others that remained unperformed. In 1905, he produced his first masterpiece, La Vie brève, an opera in two acts with libretto by Carlos Fernández Shaw, which won first prize at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in San Fernando. Although it should have been presented in Madrid, no theater accepted it, and it was given its first performance in Nice, France, eight years later, on April 1, 1913. After winning another piano competition in Madrid, he decided to leave the Spanish capital and settle in Paris, where he earned his living as a pianist and set up a pantomime troupe that he took on tour. He rubbed shoulders with Paul Dukas, Claude Debussy, his compatriots Isaac Albéniz and Ricardo Viñes, as well as Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky and Alexis Roland-Manuel, who introduced him to the entire Spanish artistic community, including Enrique Granados, Pau Casals and Pablo Picasso. After a difficult start, he made a name for himself with recitals, and saw his Quatro canciones populares españolas performed by Viñes at Salle Érard. He set to work on Nocturnes for piano, which when orchestrated would become Nuits dans les jardins d'Espagne, a score completed in 1915 and unveiled at Madrid's Teatro Real on April 9, 1916. Meanwhile, he gave recitals in London and travelled to Switzerland and Italy. Thanks to the success of La Vie brève at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, recognition finally arrived in Madrid, where Falla returned in November 1914, due to the First World War. He took advantage of this late success to present successively the incidental music La Pasión for Maria Lejárraga's play, his Siete canciones populares españolas performed by Luisa Vela at the Ataneo and the pacifist prayer Oración de las madres que tienen a sus hijos en brazos at the Hotel Ritz. On April 15, 1915, he completed his work with El Amor brujo, a ballet inaugurated at the Teatro Lara with dancer Pastoria Imperia under the direction of conductor José Moreno Ballesteros. Despite some criticism, the piece was performed twenty-eight times. Next came Nuits dans les jardins d'Espagne, with the Madrid Symphony Orchestra and pianist José Cubiles conducted by Enrique Fernández Arbós. Spain attracts Serge de Diaghilev's Parisian Ballets Russes, who tour the country with Igor Stravinsky and dancer Léonide Massine, accompanied by Falla. Falla's friends and early supporters, the writer Maria Martínez Sierra alias Maria Lejárraga and her husband, the publisher Gregorio Martínez Sierra, assist him in the production of the comic opera Fuego fatuo, featuring pieces by Chopin, but the work falls behind schedule and the project falls through. Their relationship soured when the same thing happened with Don Juan de España, and El Corazón ciego was their last collaboration in 1919. The following year, he created the orchestral suite Homenajes, dedicated to Claude Debussy and Paul Dukas, before turning his attention to his last major work, El sombrero de tres picos (also known as Le Tricorne), a ballet premiered by Diaghilev's company at London's Alhambra Theater on July 22, 1919, with choreography by Massine and sets by Picasso. He dedicated to Rubinstein a Fantasía Bética premiered by the pianist in New York, before leaving for Granada, where he eventually settled, while his works were performed in Paris, including Pour le tombeau de Claude Debussy, premiered by guitarist Miguel Llobet. He composed other works performed in Granada(Misterioso de los reyes magos after Federico García Lorca) or Seville (the opera El retablo de Maese Pedro), as well as a Concerto for harpsichord for Wanda Landowska, who visited him. Admitted to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Granada, Falla took up his post in 1928 and travelled to supervise performances of his works, failing to complete in time the scenic cantata Atlántida, planned for the Barcelona World Fair in 1929. The Spanish Civil War and the situation in Europe prompted him to move to Argentina with his sister María del Carmen. Arriving in October 1939, he gave several concerts at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and moved to Córdoba, then to Alta Gracia, where he breathed his last in his sleep on November 14, 1946, at the age of 69. His remains were repatriated to Cadiz for his funeral and burial in the cathedral crypt.

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