El Amor Brujo (Ballet Suite)
Performances: Jan 19/20, 2008

Falla’s music is completely Spanish in feeling and expression.  All the characteristic features of Spanish popular music are to be found in his works.  So authentic is his reconstruction of the native idioms that many critics have classified a work like “El Amor Brujo” as a pure folklore product.  But this ballet contains not a single folk tune, though it is directly inspired by the gypsy folklore of Andalusia .  The process by which Falla achieves this authentic yet personal reconstruction is one of assimilation rather than imitation.—Gilbert Chase.

            Born to a prosperous Cadiz family, Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) started piano study with his mother and, like Gershwin, quickly made his way through a long series of piano teachers.  Torn between a musical and a literary career, Falla eventually chose music.  Around the same time, at age 17, Falla discovered the music of Grieg and was so impressed with Grieg’s nationalism that he decided “to create one day something similar with Spanish music.”

            Falla studied at the Madrid Conservatory in 1898-99 and was heavily influenced by Felipe Pedrell, a central figure in Spanish nationalistic music.  In 1907, he traveled to Paris and was heavily influenced by Dukas, Debussy, and Ravel.  At the start of World War I, Falla returned to Spain and wrote two of his most famous compositions, El Amor Brujo (“Love, the Sorcerer,” 1915) and El Sombrero de Tres Picos (“The Three-Cornered Hat,” 1917-19).  Then, following in the footsteps of his friend Stravinsky, he turned to neo-classicism, adapting his music to Classical form and style.

            In 1919, he moved to Granada, creating a social circle of intellectuals, among whom was the poet Lorca.  To the end of his life, every composition would take longer than the last, as Falla struggled for refinement and perfection in every phrase.  He spent his final years in exile in Argentina, escaping the Franco regime.

            Gregorio Martinez Sierra based his libretto for El Amor Brujo on an Andalusian gypsy tale.  A beautiful gypsy girl, Candelas, and her lover, Carmelo, are thwarted by interruptions of the ghost of Candelas’ former lover.  By luring the ghost away through the charms of another gypsy girl, Candelas and Carmelo free themselves for each other.  Falla’s atmospheric score, originally for eight instruments and later scored for full small orchestra, has a genuine touch of the supernatural.  Four of the movements utilize a soprano soloist.