vivesAmadeo Vives
vivesAmadeo Vives
Amadeo Vives
Other light composers who may be listed are Rafael Calleja, Enrique Brú, Alberto Foglietti, Pablo Luna, Vicente Lleó, and Arturo Saco del Valle.
Of a more serious character is the music of Amadeo Vives, born at Collbato. At the age of 10 he went to Barcelona to study with his brother, a musician in a regimental band. He became an acolyte in a church and his first compositions were written under the influence of the organ music which he then heard. From Barcelona he strayed to Málaga where he became a conductor, and from there he went to Madrid where he played in churches and cafés indifferently, it would seem. At times he was even reduced to peddling on the streets and to writing musical criticism for a Barcelona paper.Artús(after a Breton legend), produced in Barcelona in 1897, established his fame. He founded the celebrated Orfeó Catalá in Barcelona, afterwards directed by Millet, and his male choruses written for this organization are said to be among his best works. The list of his operas includesDon Lucas del Cigarral, his first attempt at the traditional classic Spanish zarzuela, produced in Madrid in 1899,Enda d'Uriach, for which Angel Guimerá wrote the book (Barcelona; 1900);Colomba(Madrid; 1910);Maruxa, "égloga lírica en 2 actos" (1914); andTabaré(1914), and about thirty zarzuelas includingEl Tesoro,El Señor Pandolfo, andBohemios.
Joaquín Larregla was a native of the mountain town of Lumbier in Spanish Navarre. After some schooling at Pamplona he entered the Madrid Conservatory under Zabalza and Arrieta. He has made somewhat of a name both as pianist and composer. He is especially, according to Manuel Manrique de Lara, the composer of Navarre, his works "evoking the landscapes, songs, and traditions of his province." He is a member of the Bellas Artes and an instructor in the Conservatory. His works includeNavarra Montañesca,Miguel Andrés, andI Viva Navarra!
The war, it may be suggested, has had a most salutary effect on Spanish music, while it has killed the tonal art in most other countries. It has driven the Spaniards, however, back into their own country and thus may be directly responsible for the foundation of a definite modern school of Spanish music. One of those to leave Paris in 1914 was Manuel de Falla, of whom G. Jean-Aubry says, "Today he is the most striking figure of the Spanish school, tomorrow he will be a composer of European fame, just as is Ravel or Stravinsky."
Manuel de Falla was born at Cadiz, November 23, 1877. He studied harmony with Alejandro Odero and Enrique Broca; later he went to Madrid where he studied piano with José Trigo and composition with Felipe Pedrell. He was still under fourteen when the Madrid Academy of Music awarded him the first prize for his piano playing. Between 1890 and 1904 he divided his time between composing and piano playing, both as soloist and in concerted chamber music. The compositions of this period were not published, however, and now de Falla cannot be urged to speak of them. In 1907 he went to Paris, where, from the very first, he received a warm welcome from Paul Dukas. Debussy was also friendly. His only published works at this time wereQuatres Pièces Espagnoles:Aragonesa,Cubana,Montañesa, andAndaluza, for piano, andTrois Mélodies:Les Colombes,Chinoiserie, andSeguidille, words by Théophile Gautier. In 1910 he made his début as a pianist in Paris and the following year in London....
On April 1, 1913, the Casino at Nice produced his first opera,La Vida Breve(which so early as 1905 had won a prize at the Madrid Academy of Fine Arts) with Lilian Grenville as Salud; on December 30, 1913, the work was performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris with Marguerite Carré as Salud. The first performance of this lyric drama in Spain occurred at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, November 14, 1914.La Vida Brevehas been compared toCavalleria Rusticana, "aCavalleriawritten by a consummate musician penetrated with a keen desire to express his thoughts without making easy concessions to the mob."... The orchestration has been warmly praised. "In the first act he has linked the two scenes with an admirable evocation of Granada at dusk; faint sounds of voices rise from the distant town and all the atmosphere is laden with nonchalance, fragrance, and love."
With the beginning of the war de Falla left France for his native land. He launchedLa Vida Brevein Spain with some success and on April 15,1915, his second opera,El Amor Brujo, was produced at the Lara Theatre in Madrid. Aubry tells us that this work was a failure. However, the composer suppressed the spoken and sung parts, enlarged the orchestration, and made of it a symphonic suite, "semi-Arabian" in style. Pastora Imperio, too, has used this music for her dances.
Aubry pronounces de Falla'sNocturnes, produced in Madrid in 1916, the most important orchestral work yet written by a Spaniard. The Spanish title reads:Noches en los Jardines de España. There are three parts described by these subtitles:En el Generalife,Danse Lejana, andEn los Jardines de la Sierra de Córdoba. The piano plays an important part in the orchestration but is never heard alone. "The thematic material is built, as inLa Vida Breveor inEl Amor Brujoon rhythms, modes, cadences, or forms inspired by but never borrowed from Andalusian folk-song."
When the Russian Ballet visited Spain Serge de Diaghilew was so much interested in the work of de Falla that he commissioned him to write a ballet on the subject of Alarcón's novel, "El Sombrero de tres Picos."
Joaquín Turina is another important figure inthe modern school. Debussy compared his orchestral work,La Procesión del Rocio, to a luminous fresco. In an article in "The Musical Standard," January 6, 1917, Guilhermina Suggia writes: "This work, composed in 1912 and dedicated to Enrique Fernández Arbós, depicts one of those striking processions in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary of which Richard Ford writes in such picturesque fashion in the old edition of Murray's 'Handbook of Spain' (1845)." Every year in the month of June,la procesión del rociotakes place, and all the grandees in the town of Seville come out in their carriages to take part in the festivity. Turina has also composed an opera,Fea y con Gracia(1905), a string quartet, and numerous works for piano, among which may be mentionedTrois Danses Andalouses(Petenera,Tango, andZapateado),Sevilla, a suite, andRecuerdos de mi rincón(Tragedia cómica para piano).
José María Usandizaga, one of the most promising of the younger composers, died in 1915. He was born in 1888 at San Sebastian and died therefore at the age of 27, one year after his opera,Las Golindrinas, was successfully produced at Madrid (February 4, 1914) with the tenor Sagi-Barba in the leading rôle. Usandizaga was a manof exceedingly frail physique, weak and lame, and he died of tuberculosis. He was a pupil, I believe, of Vincent d'Indy. His posthumous opera,La Llama, was produced at San Sebastian and Madrid during the winter of 1917-18. Gregorio Martínez Sierra, one of the foremost writers of the younger generation, furnished the books for both his operas.
Enrique (more properly Enrich or Enric; Enrique is the Castilian form of this Catalan name) Morera is, perhaps, the leading Catalan composer. He is best-known for his choral arrangements of folk-songs, some of which have been heard in New York through the medium of the Schola Cantorum, but he has written music for Guimerá's plays, and a lyric drama entitledL'Alegría que passa, the book for which was furnished by Santiago Rusiñol.
Conrado del Campo has written aDivina Comediafor orchestra and Bartolomé Pérez Casas aSuite Murciennewhich G. Jean-Aubry includes in a list of modern Spanish orchestral music. Pérez Casas is at present the conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Madrid. He and Turina conducted the orchestra for the Russian Ballet during the May, 1918, visit of that organization to Madrid.
I have the very prettyImpressions Musicalesfor piano of Oscar Esplá. The subtitle isCuentos Infantiles; composición escrita en 1905 para una fiesta de niños. There are five parts which are entitled, respectively,En el Hogar,Barba Azul,Caperucita Roja,Cenicienta, andAntaño. This music is not very Spanish; indeed it reminds me strongly of the music of Rebikof.
R. Villar has written many pieces for piano, includingPáginas Románticos,Nereida,Foot-Ball, several songs, and pieces for violin and piano and 'cello and piano. V. Costa y Nogueras is the composer ofFlor de Almendro(1901),Inés de Castro(1905) andValieri(1906). J. Gómez is the composer of aSuite in Afor orchestra which has been arranged for the piano. It includesPrelude,Intermezzo,Popular Song, andFinale-Dance.
P. 85."perhaps the first of the important Spanish composers to visit North America": Albéniz came to the United States as a pianist in the seventies when he was about fifteen years old.