Tone Poem Tuesday

A composer with whom I am very unfamiliar: Manuel de Falla (1876-1946), who is often considered Spain’s greatest composer. In truth, I’m not sure I ever listened to any of his music until the other day when I listened to his ballet El amor brujo. The title translates to “Love, the Sorcerer”, and the ballet tells the story of an Andalusian Romani  girl who is haunted by the ghost of her dead husband even as she tries to move on to another love.

From the outside looking in, the classical music of Spain never seems to get a lot of love. There’s a stereotype of Spain’s music basically being a lot of classical guitar and not a whole lot else. I honestly don’t know if that’s the least bit fair or not, but it does seem that the Germanic symphonic tradition doesn’t seem to have really taken strong root in Spain, for whatever reason. Geographic? Cultural? Both? I honestly don’t know.

This ballet is deeply colorful and dramatic, as a ballet should be; I was surprised to hear voices in it, and of course, the dance rhythms are present throughout.

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One Response to Tone Poem Tuesday

  1. David Rupp says:

    De Falla’s “Nights in the Gardens of Spain” might appeal to your musical tastes. The Wikipedia article has some links to performances on Youtube: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nights_in_the_Gardens_of_Spain

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