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Manuel de Falla

In 1927 Manuel de Falla began thinking about his next work, Atlántida. In November, he wrote to the painter and set designer who was to be his collaborator, José María Sert: “It will have to be a short work, of course, given, as I say, that time is against us”^{29[29] Handwritten draft of letter from Manuel de Falla to José María Sert, dated Granada, 10 November 1927. A.M.F. (correspondence folder 7619).}. This is a remarkable statement considering that when the composer died almost twenty years later, in 1946, the score of Atlántida remained unfinished. In fact, there was talk of giving the first performance of the work in 1929 during the Latin American Exhibition in Seville. This possibility was explored in a letter which Sert sent to Falla towards the end of 1927, in which the painter cites from a letter he himself received from the Duke of Alba:

I saw the King and told him about your plan, with Claudel and Falla, for a production on the subject of Columbus. His Majesty is delighted to grant you his permission for it to be performed in the Patio de los Naranjos of his Alcázar in Seville^{30[30] Handwritten letter from José María Sert to Manuel de Falla, dated Paris, [December?, 1927]. A.M.F. (correspondence folder 7619).}.

With the arrival of a new decade, the 1930s, Spanish society began to get out of control, oscillating between eager hopes for social improvement (flavoured with a hint of revolution), and the counterrevolutionary reaction against such excesses and personal interests, with the hope of safeguarding what some saw as the essence of Spain and all things Spanish.

Once proclaimed in April 1931, the Second Spanish Republic began to mark out a new non-denominational system of government. This resulted in a dramatic clash between the Church and the State: a topic discussed by Falla and his friend Fernando de los Ríos (at the time Minister of Public Education and the Arts) in the correspondence that they maintained during the first few months of 1932. On 23 January, Falla wrote to Fernando de los Ríos expressing his sorrow at the Republic’s line on religious matters, and asking the following questions of the socialist leader: “Why confuse an anticlerical position with an attack on Christianity? Why this ‘official’ attempt to make the Republic hostile to everything truly Christian, however antimonarchist it may be?”^{31[31] Typed draft of letter from Manuel de Falla to Fernando de los Ríos, dated Granada, 23 January 1932. A.M.F. (correspondence folder 7492).} Reaffirming his admiration and fondness for his interlocutor, the Minister of Public Education replied on 19 April 1932:

[...]unfortunately, it seems that you haven’t heard how, in discussing the religious question in Parliament at the most decisive moment in this period of Spanish history, facing my party and against the majority, I maintained the most moderate and respectful attitude that could be defended, an attitude that the right-wingers are now sorry they didn’t adopt themselves: those same right-wingers who in their newspapers depict me as a symbol of anti-religiousness, and in private continually ask me for protection [...]^{32[32] Handwritten letter from Fernando de los Ríos to Manuel de Falla, dated 19 April 1932 [Madrid]. A.M.F. (correspondence folder 7492).}.

Referring to Falla, Juan Ramón Jiménez once wrote: “He went to Granada seeking silence and time, and Granada overwhelmed him with harmony and eternity”^{33[33] JIMÉNEZ, Juan Ramón. Olvidos de Granada. Granada, Padre Suárez, 1969, p. 55.}. But that was in 1926. Years later, in 1935, Falla complained to the great conductor Enrique Fernández Arbós:

[...] yesterday (Sunday), as a “prelude” to the [Corpus Christi] festivities, the wretched loudspeakers were playing for SIXTEEN consecutive hours […]. When that happened on another occasion, it made me ill: and I recovered only on our first trip to Majorca^{34[34] Typed draft of letter from Manuel de Falla to Enrique Fernández Arbós, dated Granada, 17 June 1935. A.M.F. (correspondence folder 6968).}.

Indeed, escaping from the noise and from social unrest, Manuel de Falla and his sister María del Carmen travelled to Palma de Mallorca in 1933 and 1944. On the island, they were looked after by a good friend, the Majorcan priest and musician Juan María Thomàs.

Silence was just the first of many things Falla was to lose, and some of his losses were even more painful and traumatic. Perhaps his greatest loss of all was that of his beloved Granada – and, by extension, of Spain too.

On 20 July 1936, the new military authorities in Granada declared a state of war in the province. Of course, the anti-republican movement was not to embody the view expressed by Falla in a forceful letter of reply to Ramiro de Maeztu, who had written to him on 8 July 1936 seeking the composer’s support for the “Counterrevolution” in progress. Falla wrote:

The only remedy we have for [the revolution] is […] not a conservative Counterrevolution – which would surely maintain even the most abominable things – but another revolution, more profound and with higher aims, guided by the love of God above all other things, and the love of our neighbours as ourselves^{35[35] Typed draft of letter from Manuel de Falla to Ramiro de Maeztu, undated [July 1936?]. A.M.F. (correspondence folder 7228).}.

The assassination in Granada of Federico García Lorca on 19 August 1936 brought home to Falla the harsh reality of the civil war. Lorca was to be the lost friend to whom the composer would painfully allude in the future. Attempting to save Hermenegildo Lanz, another friend and artistic collaborator, from a fate similar to that of the poet, Falla wrote to Captain José Nestares on 3 September 1936, asking him to let him know “what I can do […] to help our friend at this juncture”^{36[36] Handwritten letter from Manuel de Falla to Captain José Nestares, dated Granada, 3 September 1936. A.M.F. (correspondence folder 7326).}.

In his very personal recollections of the man for whom he carried out secretarial duties in Granada, Luis Jiménez Pérez records one of his very last conversations with Falla, conducted in the dark days of the civil war, in which the composer made the following observations about his working conditions:

Yes: I’ve worked on “Atlántida” by way of proving that divine Providence never truly abandons the believer. […] At first I had no great resolve to work on “Atlántida”, but since I had to take the score to a safe place for fear of the bombardments […]^{37[37] JIMÉNEZ, Luis. Mi recuerdo humano de Manuel de Falla. Granada, Anel, 1980, pp. 71-72.}.

In October 1937, that fear of the bombardments caused Falla to request an estimate for the construction of an air-raid shelter at his house in the Antequeruela Alta.

With the Spanish Civil War at an end, and the Second World War about to begin, Manuel de Falla and his sister María del Carmen set out from their house in Granada on 28 September 1939 to embark on a voyage that was to take them to Argentina. The original motive for the journey was an engagement for a series of four concerts that Falla was to conduct at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. Family and friends turned out to wish them well as they departed from the Antequeruela Alta for the last time. An emotional account of the composer’s farewell was written by Hermenegildo Lanz – “at 7 o’clock in the evening of the day of the departure”.