Manuel de Falla

Manuel de Falla y Matheu (November 23, 1876 – November 14, 1946) was a Spanish composer of classical music.

Related Topics:
November 23 - 1876 - November 14 - 1946 - Spanish - Composer - Classical music

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He was born in Cádiz. From the late 1890s he studied music in Madrid, studying piano with José Tragó and composition with Felipe Pedrell. It was from Pedrell that de Falla became interested in native Spanish music, particularly Andalusian flamenco (specifically cante jondo), the influence of which can be strongly felt in many of his works. Among his early pieces are a number of zarzuelas, but his first important work was the one-act opera La vida breve (A Brief Life, written in 1905, though revised before its premiere in 1913).

Related Topics:
Cádiz - Madrid - José Tragó - Felipe Pedrell - Andalusia - Flamenco - Cante jondo - Zarzuela - Opera - A Brief Life

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He spent the years 1907 to 1914 in Paris, where he met a number of composers who had an influence on his style, including the impressionists Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy and Paul Dukas. He wrote little more music, however, until his return to Madrid at the beginning of World War I. There he composed several of his best known pieces, including the three nocturnes for piano and orchestra Noches en los jardines de España (Nights in the Gardens of Spain, 1916) and the ballets El amor brujo (Love the Magician, 1915, which includes the much excerpted and arranged "Ritual Fire Dance") and El corregidor y la molinera (The Magistrate and the Miller's Wife) which, after revision, became El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat, 1917, produced by Serge Diaghilev).

Related Topics:
Paris - Impressionists - Maurice Ravel - Claude Debussy - Paul Dukas - World War I - Nocturne - Ballets - Serge Diaghilev

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From 1921 to 1939 he lived in Granada, where he wrote the puppet opera El retablo de maese Pedro (Master Peter's Puppet Show, 1923) and a concerto for harpsichord and chamber ensemble (1926). In these works, the Spanish folk influence is somewhat less apparent than a kind of Stravinskian neo-classicism.

Related Topics:
Granada - Master Peter's Puppet Show - Concerto - Harpsichord - Chamber - Stravinskian - Neo-classicism

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Also in Granada, he began work on the large-scale choral piece La Atlántida (Atlantis), based on a text by Jacinto Verdaguer, which he continued after moving to Argentina in 1939. The piece remained incomplete at his death (it was completed posthumously by Ernesto Halffter).

Related Topics:
Jacinto Verdaguer - Argentina - Ernesto Halffter

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De Falla died in Alta Gracia in the Argentine province of Córdoba.

Related Topics:
Alta Gracia - Córdoba

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