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Manuel de Falla y Matheu (Spanish pronunciation:[maˈnweldeˈfaʎa], 23 November 1876 – 14 November 1946) was a Spanish composer and pianist. Along withIsaac Albéniz,Francisco Tárrega, andEnrique Granados, he was one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century. He has a claim to being Spain's greatest composer of the 20th century,[1] although the number of pieces he composed was relatively modest.
Falla was born Manuel María de los Dolores Falla y Matheu inCádiz. He was the son of José María Falla, aValencian, and María Jesús Matheu, fromCatalonia.[1]
In 1889 he continued his piano lessons with Alejandro Odero and learned the techniques ofharmony andcounterpoint from Enrique Broca. At age 15 he became interested in literature and journalism and founded the literary magazinesEl Burlón andEl Cascabel.[2]
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By 1900 he was living with his family in the capital, where he attended the Real Conservatorio de Música y Declamación. He studied piano withJosé Tragó, a colleague ofIsaac Albéniz, and composition withFelip Pedrell. In 1897 he composedMelodía for cello and piano and dedicated it toSalvador Viniegra, who hosted evenings ofchamber music that Falla attended. In 1899, by unanimous vote, he was awarded the first prize at the piano competition at his school of music. He premiered his first works:Romanza para violonchelo y piano,Nocturno para piano,Melodía para violonchelo y piano,Serenata andaluza para violín y piano, andCuarteto en Sol y Mireya. That same year he started to usede with his first surname, makingManuel de Falla the name he became known as from that time on. When only the surname is used, however, thede is omitted.
In 1900 he composed hisCanción para piano and various other vocal and piano pieces. He premiered hisSerenata andaluza y Vals-Capricho para piano in theAteneo de Madrid. Due to the precarious financial position of his family, he began to teach piano classes.
It was from Pedrell, during the Madrid period, that Falla became interested in the music of his nativeAndalusia, particularly Andalusianflamenco (specificallycante jondo), the influence of which can be strongly felt in many of his works.[3][page needed] Among his early pieces are a number ofzarzuelas likeLa Juana y la Petra andLa casa de tócame Roque. On 12 April 1902 he premieredLos amores de la Inés in the Teatro Cómico de Madrid. The same year he met the composerJoaquín Turina and saw hisVals-Capricho ySerenata andaluza published by the Society of Authors.
The following year he composed and performedAllegro de concierto for theMadrid Royal Conservatory competition.Enrique Granados took first prize with his composition of the same title, but the Society of Authors published Falla's worksTus ojillos negros andNocturno. Falla then began his collaboration with composerAmadeo Vives on the zarzuelasPrisionero de guerra,El cornetín de órdenes andLa cruz de Malta (only fragments of these works survive).
His first important work was the one-actoperaLa vida breve (Life is Short, orThe Brief Life, written in 1905, though revised before its premiere in 1913). With a libretto byCarlos Fernández Shaw,La vida breve won Falla first prize in theReal Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando musical competition, with a prize of 2500 pesetas and a promise of a production at theTeatro Royal in Madrid—a pledge which unfortunately was not fulfilled[4] In April 1905 he won the first prize in a piano competition sponsored by the firm of Ortiz and Cussó. On 15 May his workAllegro de concierto premiered at the Ateneo de Madrid and on 13 November the Real Academia presented him with his prize forLa vida breve.
Falla moved to Paris in 1907, where he remained for seven years. There he met a number of composers who had an influence on his style, includingMaurice Ravel,Claude Debussy andPaul Dukas, as well asIgor Stravinsky,Florent Schmitt,Isaac Albéniz and the impresarioSergei Diaghilev.[1] In 1908King Alfonso XIII awarded him a royal grant that enabled him to remain in Paris while he finished hisCuatro piezas españolas. In 1910 Falla met Stravinsky and in 1911–12 traveled to London, Brussels and Milan to give concerts and investigate possible venues forLa vida breve, which he had composed shortly after his arrival in Paris in 1907 but which, despite the support of Dukas and Falla's own best efforts, was not finally performed until 1 April 1913 at the Municipal Casino inNice, with the libretto translated into French by the dramatistPaul Milliet. A second production was given the following year at the Opéra-Comique, to acclaim from critics such asPierre Lalo and André Coeuroy.[1] He wroteSiete canciones populares españolas, which he finished in mid-1914. Shortly after,World War I began, forcing Falla to return to Madrid.[1] While at no stage was he a prolific composer, it was then that he entered into his mature creative period.
In Madrid he composed several of his best-known pieces, including:
From 1921 to 1939 Manuel de Falla lived inGranada, where he organized theConcurso de Cante Jondo in 1922. In Granada he wrote the puppet operaEl retablo de maese Pedro (Master Peter's Puppet Show, 1923) and aconcerto forharpsichord andchamber ensemble (Harpsichord Concerto, 1926). The puppet opera marked the first time Falla included the harpsichord in his orchestra. Both of these works were written withWanda Landowska in mind. In these works, the Spanish folk influence is somewhat less apparent than a kind ofStravinskianneoclassicism.[1][5][6]
During the 1920s and 1930s, he frequently visitedBarcelona and Catalonia and became associated with various Catalan artists, critics and intellectuals, such asJoan Lamote de Grignon, Oleguer Junyent, Frank Marshall, Rafael Moragas,Jaume Pahissa andSantiago Rusiñol.[7] He showed great interest in the sound of thecobla and attended several concerts of the Cobla Barcelona.[7] He also collaborated with various Catalan institutions, such as the Associació de Música Da Camera, theBanda Municipal de Barcelona or theOrquestra Pau Casals, with whom he premiered theConcerto for clave withWanda Landowska.[7] In 1925, after an honorary banquet held at the Hotel Majestic, Falla said: «I have to tell you, and I say it with all my soul, that, without the Catalans, I might not have been able to carry out my work, or to be who I am».[7]
Also in Granada, Falla began work on the large-scale orchestral cantataAtlántida (Atlantis), based on the Catalan textL'Atlàntida byJacint Verdaguer.[7]
Falla continued work onAtlántida after moving toArgentina in 1939, followingFrancisco Franco's victory in theSpanish Civil War. The orchestration of the piece remained incomplete at his death and was completed posthumously byErnesto Halffter. He also premiered hisSuite Homenajes inBuenos Aires in November 1939. In 1940, he was named a Knight of the Order of KingAlfonso X of Castile. Franco's government offered him a large pension if he would return to Spain, but he refused.
Falla did spend some time teaching in exile. Among his notable pupils was composerRosa García Ascot. His health began to decline and he moved to a house in the mountains where he was tended by his sister María del Carmen de Falla (1882–1971). He died ofcardiac arrest on 14 November 1946 inAlta Gracia, in the Argentine province ofCórdoba, 9 days before his 70th birthday. He had left in writing that he wanted to be buried in the Sierras de Córdoba in Argentina. The Spanish Embassy of Francisco Franco took charge of his possessions when the family decided to bring him back to Spain.[citation needed] In 1947 his remains were brought back to Spain and entombed in theCádiz Cathedral. One of the lasting honors to his memory is the Manuel de Falla Chair of Music in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters atComplutense University of Madrid. Manuel de Falla never married and had no children.[8]
Falla's home in Granada was a villa overlooking the city which has been preserved as a biographical museum.[10]In the 1970s a concert hall, the Auditorio Manuel de Falla, was built on an adjacent site. The hall opened with a concert of works by Falla.[11] It has since become the home of theCity of Granada Orchestra.
His image appeared on the Spanish 1970100-pesetas banknote.
A station onMadrid Metro'sLine 10 is named after him.
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