FALLA, MANUEL DE. (1876-1946). Spanish composer of Nights in the Gardens of Spain and other 20th-century masterpieces. Two TLSs. (“Manuel de Falla”). 2pp & 4pp. 4to. Granada, September 28, 1928 & December 30, 1928. (To French composer, critic and his biographer ALEXIS ROLAND-MANUEL, 1891-1966). In French with translation.

September 28, 1928:

“Your letter – ‘gratísima’! – which only a soul such as yours can inspire, and which I have read with moved gratitude, arrived when I was preparing my departure. During the trip I thought of writing to you every day, but neither in Siena (where I absolutely lacked time ‘for everything’) nor even in the train, because friends from Barcelona accompanied me on this trip, was I able to find a favorable moment... However, having returned to Granada yesterday, my first letter is for you, dear friend, and now for a double reason, for I have just found the magazine Musique with the beautiful fragment of your book. Although two of your questions relate to this fragment, my answer will still be helpful to you.

1) If I am not mistaken, the first of Los Amores de la Inés in the spring of 1902. (A regrettable memory!).

2) It was only during the Competition that La Vida breve was composed. (From October 1904 to April 1st, 1905).

3) The PEREJIL (the Parsley): The proximity of Cadiz to the island of Calypso (Isla del Perejil) was – I think – the origin of the name of the Old Garden of Cadiz, which was (as today its ‘successor’ the Parque Genevés, much larger, but also less friendly) in a rampart overlooking the sea, moreover invisible. But it is probably the garden of Calypso that the name ‘Perejil’ wanted to evoke.

4) I personally knew Pedrell, but not at all his music.

5) My parents were Andalusians born in Cadiz, whose families had also been Andalusians for several generations, although they came from the kingdom of Valencia (Valence) for my father, and from Catalonia for my mother.

6) L’ATLANTIDA is my new work. I make the music on the Catalan text of the admirable Jacinto Verdaguer, to which, in my adaptation, I have added other texts (sacred for the greatest part) and new scenes. It will be for solo, choir and orchestra. Thank God the work is going well, and in two months – at the latest – you will be able to talk about it freely, but, in the meantime, please KEEP QUIET...

7) SALAZAR: himself informed about your book by Musique, I spoke to him about it and even indicated your intention concerning the dedication, which, naturally, was welcomed by him with joyful gratitude. Yet you can mention it to him in your letter. As he will tell you, his book will be published for the beginning of the year – more or less. He has informed me of his trip to Granada on this topic.

I will write to you again very soon, because today I have absolutely no time to deal ‘in detail’ with your chapter, which was already published, and I have several clarifications to give you. This letter is even finished two days after its start... You well know what returning from a trip means!

The most affectionate memories of us both go to you and Madame Suzanne. To you, my very dear friend, my warmest wishes for your new work.

Vale et memento mei. [In Latin: Farewell and remember me]”

December 30, 1928:

“What Christmas present could I ever receive more beautiful and loved than your manuscript? And how far I am from being worthy of it! My sister and I have read it with much emotion and ‘jondo’ [?] gratitude for the faithful friend and beloved artist of whom we keep such an indelible recollection. And, as always, we have admired that clarity of thought and accuracy of expression which are so specific to you. Be certain, dear friend, that the walls of this corner of Antequeruela often listen to your name and of our wishes for a happy New Year to you and to Doña Suzanne, we would like to add those we make for an upcoming stay of the two of you in Granada.

Perhaps you have already received a Compilation of Spanish songs of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries which I have taken the liberty of sending you from Madrid, thinking with joy of the pleasure its reading and study might procure you. This book, which is included among the books I prefer, is the only one published in Spain on the music of the time in question, and this thanks to Barbieri. By the way, we have talked about it in Grenada. But let us go back to your manuscript: without the responsibility that, with regard to the biographical and historical part, implies for me your stay in Granada, I would have no modification to point out to you. Yet it is only this relative responsibility that compels me to do so. But don’ be scared! Out of all that I am about to tell you, you will only take what seems to you indispensable in order to restore the truth of the facts, and what remains for me to point out to you (historical part) will be much shorter. Today is when I am sending you the ‘big piece’...

For the beginning, only a few details to be modified:

Page 2) ‘Middle Ages – Russia and Spain’: absolutely correct, but you are using the word GANA, very Castilian by the way, but incomprehensible in the way you are using it, at least to us Spaniards...

Page 5) Alphonse le SAVANT in place of LE SAGE.

Page 7) ITALIAN ORIGIN OF THE COMPOSERS OF ‘ZARZUELAS’: it seems to me that Barbieri, (born in Madrid, by the way) is the only one of whom one could say that. However, some of his ‘Zarzuelas’ (pan Y TOROS, BARBERILLO, etc.), remain for us as the only examples of truly Spanish musical character in his time. – As for the serious defects in the Castilian declamation of which you so rightly speak, it in the OPERAS of that period (and of the next one) that they are found, and this due to the habit of always hearing operas sung in Italian. But when, even at the beginning of this century, one would hear an opera in Spanish written by a Spanish composer, one would have the impression of listening to a bad translation. But I repeat, it was in the OPERAS; this really troublesome defect would disappear when the same composers wrote ZARZUELAS, and even if the musical style resembled Italian, as was often the case.

Page 10/ This is – roughly – what I would say: ‘a mother who very skillfully plays pieces of pianistic virtuosity, request, etc.

.. .. / Not when I WAS NINE, but during my early childhood, when I was only two or three. It was then that the songs, dances and stories of the Morilla opened to me the doors of a wonderful world. And afterwards, when it became possible for me to read, storybooks with beautiful etchings developed this enchantment. However, between the ages of 8 and 9, my first vocation had revealed itself: I wanted to be... a writer, and in my own way, I began being one by regularly publishing a kind of domestic magazine whose title, after long research, was finally provided to me by that of a chocolate factory: ‘La Industria Española’! It was then that Eloisa GALLUZZO, a friend of my good mother, and by the way an excellent pianist, took charge of my initiation to music / following some improvisations that I would do for fun on my grandfather’s harmonium. As you can see, the kitchen and the Morilla were already somewhat far away... A few months later, we go to Seville, etc. (The rest is excellent!) - Éloisa Galluzzo, for whom I had a lot of affection despite her blows with a stick on my indocile fingers, continued her teaching, with the collaboration of my mother, for two or three years (until her entry as a Sister of Charity in an Asylum for Elderly Men) and Alejandro ODERO, who had been her master (a remarkable artist, a student of his father and of the Conservatoire de Paris for piano and harmony) took charge of the continuation of my musical education. However, my vocation, despite my love for certain music (not all of them!) still leaned towards the literary side (prose and not verse). My taste for history was mingled to it; particularly the history of Spain, in which I found a sort of splendid continuation of the old legends that had charmed my early childhood. Its study had an irresistible attraction on me, which was reinforced by good results at the exams. Now, at that time, my ideals for the future were still far away from music as the only profession. This and the city of Colomb were my joys, for I was ‘taciturn’ (page 11) only in appearance. Let us also add my performances in a small puppet theater whose only audience was my sister, and in which Don Quixote and his adventures occupied a place of predilection.

As for the ‘Conde de Villamediana’ (VILLAMEDIANA: only one word) it was an opera, because the ‘zarzuela grande’ has never counted among my sympathies.

Page 13) VINIEGRA. Although he did much (first indirectly and later directly) to encourage my final vocation, it is not to him that I owe it. (It seems to me necessary to rectify some confusion in the facts with which you deal – so beautifully, incidentally – on pages 13 and 14.)

Since the age of ten, I had often attended, with my parents, the musical evenings of Señor Viniegra: there, one would mainly play chamber music, yet it was there that my classical musical initiation took place, however, without any immediate result. My final vocation really revealed itself at the symphonic concerts of the Museum of Cadiz (page 14).

Page 14) From that moment, something like a conviction as fearful as it was profound, compelled me to leave everything to devote myself entirely to the study of composition. And this vocation became so strong that I was even afraid of it, the illusions it aroused in me being too much above what I thought I was capable of doing. I do not say this from the purely technical point of view, for I knew that with time and work technique can be acquired by any one of average talent; but it is INSPIRATION, in the true and highest sense of the word; that mysterious strength without which – as we know too well – nothing really useful can be achieved, and of which I thought myself incapable. Now, without the powerful help of my religious convictions, I would never have had the courage to pursue a path mostly filled with darkness. Yet, curiously enough, in my first vocation (the literary one) fear was always absent, and this, no doubt, because it was simply a child’s whim. Besides, unjustified fear has never dominated my character.

ZURBARÀN-BEETHOVEN. All this is exact, but to Beethoven’s name I must add another, much more modest, but which deserves my gratitude: that of GRIEG. His music, which was played in Cadiz for the first time, won my deepest sympathy both for the freshness of its lyrical substance and its tonal-harmonic ‘fabric,’ and for its rhythmic ‘frankness.’ I also liked the absence of vanity and the abundance of goodwill. - (Don’t you think that Grieg needs to have his trial redone? Undoubtedly some of the censures with which his music has been overwhelmed are unfortunately justified; but... how much nonsense has been said on his account with impunity!) –

.. 14-15) Now let’s move on to the German family (excellent friends). I would like to see disappear what concerns the lessons, because they really were only a pretext to ensure my regular collaboration to the four-handed readings. Roughly, one might say, ‘It is due to a lady of this family that he had to deepen, etc., etc.’ (Your lines on Wagner are wonderful!).

As for my virtuosity as a pianist (page 15), it has never existed, because my patience and assiduity in ‘purely musical’ studies were never shared by the instrumental ones. But here is what is true about that: thanks to the rigidity of my first teaching I acquired a solid ‘mechanism’ that much facilitated, for me, both reading with 4 hands (which I first did with my mother and with Odero, and later with the German lady in question) and my studies and analyses. At the same time, I tried to apply to the interpretation of what I was playing the knowledge acquired in my purely musical studies; but when, later on, I worked at the piano with TRAGO, he who is an admirable master, was able to take advantage of this ‘while putting things in order.’ This is how I obtained the two piano prizes, despite my inferiority from the strictly pianistic point of view. Also adding to this the dexterity easily acquired by the ‘deciphering’ at the piano of orchestral scores, and here is all that remains of this claimed pianist virtuosity!…

Let’s continue now with VINIEGRA: It was indeed at that time that I began to truly profit from his musical gatherings, where chamber music was always played. My participation at the piano was to me of the most precious use, because thanks to this, the secrets of the ‘sonic fabric’ began to be revealed to me. That’s why my first attempts at composition were in the classical forms of chamber music. - (A remark concerning MIREILLE (Page 16): these pieces for quintet were not made ‘on opera motives’, but inspired by Chant V of Mistral’s poem). – As for the word ‘ward’ (page 15), to me, it does not seem exactly applied. I certainly owe a lot of affection to Viniegra’s memory for his encouragement and for his very personal interest in my first essays (he almost always played the cello part, at his home and even elsewhere), but at that time my resolution was already settled on.

And that’s it for today, dear friend. I will very soon send you the rest with your manuscript. And once again: it will be much shorter; don’t be afraid! and please forgive the ‘lata’ of this letter!!

And THANK YOU!! for your precious volume on RAVEL; I keep it with love and a DOUBLE reason...

Here’s a photo taken by a friend last summer in the small dining room. I'm sending it to you in case it could be of use.

Vale and me ama.[ In Latin: Farewell and love me] Manuel de Falla

Did you receive a letter Salazar tells me he wrote to you?”

Falla studied music at the Real Conservatorio de Música y Declamación and was a student of harmony and counterpoint instructor Alejandro Odero (1851-1897), Catalan composer and guitarist Felipe Pedrell Felip Pedrell Sabaté (1841-1922) and Spanish pianist and composer José Tragó y Arana (1856-1934). He was also influenced by musical evenings hosted by Salvador Viniegra y Lasso de la Vega (1862-1915), mentioned several times in our letter. Through Pedrell, Falla became interested in the music of his native Andalusia, especially flamenco and its cante jondo which influenced many of his compositions. Our letters discuss numerous works including his zarzuela Los Amores se la Ines, La Vida breve, Le Perejil, his operas Conde de Villamediana and his new work L’Atantida with a libretto by Catalan writer Jacinto Verdaguer (1845-1902), considered by Falla his most important composition but unfinished at his death. The childhood puppet shows of Don Quixote undoubtedly led to his composition of El retablo de maese Pedro, a one-act opera for puppets based on a portion of Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote that premiered in 1923, and which he staged throughout Spain later that year. Falla also discusses the influence of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) and Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) and mentions Richard Wagner (1813-1883). Also referenced are his friend Adolfo Salazar (?-1958), a composer, musicologist and critic; Spanish composer of zarzuela Francisco Asenjo Barbieri (1823-1894); and French writer Frédéric Mistral(1830-1914) whose Occitan poem Mirèio inspired for Charles Gounod’s opera Mireille, also mentioned by name.

Our recipient was a student of Vincent d’Indy and Albert Roussel and a friend of Erik Satie who introduced Roland-Manuel to Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), about whom Roland-Manuel penned three volumes: Ravel, Ravel et son oeuvre and Ravel et son oeuvre dramatique. Roland-Manuel taught at the Paris Conservatoire from 1947-1961, during which time he helped write Stravinsky’s theoretical work The Poetics of Music. Our letters concern his book Manuel de Falla published by Paris’ Cahiers d’Art in 1930 and, as our letter illustrates, excerpts of which were published in the journal Musique.

Excerpts of our letters are published in the biographical sketch on the Archivo Manuel de Falla website (manueldefalla.com/en/childhood-and-youth) from a photocopy in the Archivo Manuel de Falla, Granada. Folded with normal creasing and wear and in very good condition.