Nights in the Garden of Spain Recording Review

Manuel de Falla:Nights in the Gardens on Espana

Context

Manuel de Falla was built-in in 1876, in the southern Castilian city of Cádiz. He studied harmony and counterpoint from a young historic period, too as learning the piano. Past 1900, he and his family had moved to Madrid, where Falla studied at the Regal Conservatoire of Music. Falla thrived within music education, and he won numerous prizes for both his piano playing and his compositions. Later on premiering some of his pieces such asCanción para piano,Falla too began teaching piano. Whilst furthering his composition style, he began using Castilian folk-song equally a key foundation for many of his pieces to come. Falla became a nationalistic composer and styles such every bit flamenco can he be heard throughout his works. Farther to this, Falla, in his lifetime, produced a wide range of works, spanning from opera to bedchamber works, to solo studies, and then to large-scale orchestral works.

In 1907, Falla moved to Paris for some time, where he met the leading French composers of the fourth dimension – Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Paul Dukas. Plough-of-the-century Paris was a hot-spot for Spanish impressionists within classical music. Kingdom of spain's colourful political climate and history played a large part in lots of different works past composers, for instance, Georges Bizet and Paul Dukas. Then no wonder Falla came to Paris – it offered a thriving musical scene similar no other. Falla was able to non only cover his heritage, but also larn about other cultures and how to blend various musical styles into his music.

Manuel de Falla in Paris, 1913

I composer that he forged a particularly strong bail with was Igor Stravinsky. Falla and Stravinsky travelled effectually Europe together for some time, trying to get Falla's opera,La vida breve,premiered. Shortly after World War I began, Falla was forced to return back to Madrid. Upon his render to the capital, Falla wrote some of his most famous works, including Nights in the Gardens of Spain. He wrote two ballets, many chamber works and the nocturnes thatNights in the Gardens of Kingdom of spainis based on. In 1921, Falla moved to Granada for an extended amount of time (until near 1939). He wrote a fairly successful boob opera chosenEl retablo de maese Pedro.He also equanimous a concerto for harpsichord and chamber ensemble.

Falla also began working on his large-scale orchestral cantataAtlántida(Atlantis). Betwixt 1939-1940, Falla moved to Argentine republic, which is where he stayed equally he died in 1946. He finishedAtlantiswhilst out there, likewise as being named equally a Knight of the Order of Rex Alfonso X. Once his health began to deteriorate, Falla moved to a house in the Alta Gracia mountains. Interestingly, Falla never married, nor did he have any children. He died in 1946, with his sister María by his side. Now, Falla is known as one of the leading Spanish composers from the 20th Century. Although he was not considered a prolific composer, his works bear much importance, and bring a lot of culture and musical integrity within the ever-expanding sphere of classical music.Nights in the Gardens of Spainwas written in Falla's 'mature catamenia', and thus is a perfect example of the diverse compositonal techniques that Falla learnt through his all-encompassing travels around the world.

The Music

Nights in the Gardens of Spainwas composed between the years of 1909 and 1915, and was premiered in 1916, in Madrid's Teatro Existent. Interestingly, Falla was not going to start composing music for the foundation idea of this work that he had. Yet, his newfound friends, Debussy and Ravel thought otherwise. They inspired and pushed Falla to follow through his ideas through music. Firstly, Falla began working on a set of nocturnes for solo piano, however, with advice from Ricardo Viñes (a famous pianist who premiered works by Satie, Debussy and Ravel), Falla made changes to the orchestration and instrumentation of the work and made the piece for piano and orchestra. Falla defended this piece of work to Viñes. Polish-American pianist, Arthur Rubinstein was in the audition for the premiere of this work and he liked it so much that he took it to Buenos Aires for its international premiere.

Ricardo Viñes

This work was referred to by Falla every bit "Symphonic impressions", which gives a clue as to what the structure of the work may be like. Different a symphonic verse form, which is typically in one movement, Falla'sNights in the Gardens of Spainis three movements long, each depicting a garden in Spain. It has been said that the score is Falla's most impressionistic score, which lines up with the people he was associating himself with whilst in Paris.

En el Generalife('In the Generalife')

The start movement begins with a mysterious tremolo from the upper strings, which sets the tone up for the motion.  The piano enters with a wonderful dream-like melodic cell, which is very resonant of Debussy's influence on Falla. The movement is quite nighttime in places, but also quite nostalgic too. The orchestra proclaims a the tonic chord and the piano bursts with excitement in a very fast scalic passage.

The tempo is now slightly faster throughout the whole ensemble and the piano is working as one with the orchestra. A climax is built up, to which the strings play a wonderful polish melody, which and so brings the mood back down. The pianoforte then takes this melodic prison cell and creates a hopeful variation from information technology. The horn and so plays a counter-tune, whilst the piano plays a strong chord progression below. A horn chorale leads us into a flute solo, which is then interrupted past a nighttime tremolo from the lower strings. The piano returns in with the dream-like atonal melodic cell. A trumpet fanfare enters and a swirl of notes from the upper strings leads the piano dorsum in with some other call and response figure.

A new section has started, which is led by the oboe and clarinets. The piano enters, alone this time, with a virtuosic passage, based on the Phrygian mode. A solo violin enters underneath and plays a counter-melody. The initial tune from the start of this section returns again in the same form, which leads in to a solo piano section. This section is very impressionistic and the pianoforte is essentially the soloist, all the same, it is not very often the dominant part here. The tone turns slightly darker afterward an ominous figure from the bassoons. The pianoforte plays a fast passage of semiquavers which repeats a single-note theme. This is soon shadowed by the upper strings in their upper registers. The trumpets proclaim above this theme and the piece turns very romantic in style.

The piano and orchestra play as one with open up chords until the end of the movement. Essentially, these movements aim to evoke places and sensations, thus its non programmatic, but it is incredibly expressive and is left up to the listener to decipher what they hear. The titles for each movement of course help to picture what Falla is thinking of, however the melancholic mystery that is created within this first motility inspires Falla'due south aim of producing evocations of sound. Therfore, this move is based effectually the gardens in the Generalife (a Spanish summertime palace), which are full of jasmine-scented shrubbery that surround the palace.

Danza lejana('A Afar Dance')

The second movement is the only ane without a specific garden in listen, instead, it looks into the art of Castilian dance. The movement begins with a dance melody, principally played past the flutes. This is then taken over by the clarinets. This jaunty tune is taken to the piano, where information technology is developed to fruition. Although this is a playful trip the light fantastic, there are some undertones of darkness below the surface. The march-like section brings a newfound intensity to the movement, which is confirmed by the fanfares from the horns and trumpets. The piano tries to break this tension with a sort of love theme, which is taken on by the orchestra also. A climax is created however, and the tension builds once again, which naturally increases the intensity within the trip the light fantastic. The playful melodic cell is played as a variation on the piano, which is used every bit a call and response between the piano and the cello.

The main melodic theme is heard once more (and in fact is heard throughout this whole move). A very intense section is played, and the lower strings lead us into the high tremolos played by the strings. An ominous anomalous chord is played past the brass to a higher place the strings. There is no stable central established in this movement, instead information technology is based around modal movement. A night lower-annals theme is played on the pianoforte, which rapidly works it style up the whole of the instrument, before neatly seguing into the final motion.

En los jardines de la Sierra de Córboba('In the Gardens of the Sierra de Córdoba')

An explosion of sound is heard as a result of the segue from the 2nd movement and you can certainly hear the Spanish guitar-inspired phrases. There are a prepare of interludes played between the pianoforte and the orchestra, which result in them both playing unison at points. This movement is triumphant in many ways, and the proclamation from the horns brings this idea to the forefront as the piano takes heart stage with a assuming melodic figure.

The piano plays a wonderfully bright set of glissandos and leads into some other fast, spritely interlude. A potent march-style figure is so heard, and this creates a very strong pathway for the soloist to enter once again. The call and response between not simply the pianist and orchestra, only within the orchestra itself is powerful. The pianoforte plays some wonderfully romantic sections of music, which is so resonant of a calm day in a beautifully sunny garden. Falla is actually pulling at your heartstrings at this point, and to progress from this he uses the strings to bring the tension downward until the piano returns.

The side by side section is slightly more ominous than that before it, which gives us yet some other side to Falla and his compositional style.  Past varying the ranges inside the upper strings, it gives us colour and interest within the music. The first violins then play an extremely high notation inside their annals, which creates an uneasy experience within the music. The work ends with staccato chords played by the piano and pizzicato lower strings. The ending is neatly faded in and ends very delicately, in comparing to the large-scale orchestral writing that came only before.

Last Thoughts

Nights in the Gardens of Espanais essentially three nocturnes stitched together to create a bold and powerful concerto-like work. The pieces are dynamic, resonant of Spain, only also completely aware of the progression of classical music at that time. Its intriguing though, with a title, and subtitles then descriptive, surely this is programme music? Perhaps it'due south somewhere in betwixt. Falla wrote about this topic after much consideration and he said that:

"If these symphonic impressions have accomplished their object, the mere enumeration of their titles should be a sufficient guide to the hearer. Although in this piece of work – equally in all which have a legitimate merits to be considered as music – the composer has allowed a definite pattern…the end for which information technology was written is no other than to evoke place, sensations and sensations. The music has no pretensions to being descriptive, it is merely expressive. Just something more than the sound of festivals and dances has inspired these evocations of sound, for melancholy and mystery have their part also."

Ⓒ Alex Burns

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Source: https://classicalexburns.com/2021/09/26/manuel-de-falla-nights-in-the-gardens-of-spain-hola-espana/