Moreda Rodriguez, Eva

English

Enlighten

 TranspositionMusique et Sciences Sociales 7 | 2018Le prix de la musiqueMichael Christoforidis, Manuel de Falla and Visionsof Spanish MusicLondon/ New York, Routledge, 2018.Eva Moreda RodríguezÉdition électroniqueURL : http://journals.openedition.org/transposition/2563ISSN : 2110-6134ÉditeurCRAL - Centre de recherche sur les arts et le langage Référence électroniqueEva Moreda Rodríguez, « Michael Christoforidis, Manuel de Falla and Visions of Spanish Music », Transposition [En ligne], 7 | 2018, mis en ligne le 15 septembre 2018, consulté le 18 octobre 2018.URL : http://journals.openedition.org/transposition/2563 Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 18 octobre 2018.La revue Transposition est mise à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative CommonsAttribution - Partage dans les Mêmes Conditions 4.0 International.Michael Christoforidis, Manuel deFalla and Visions of Spanish MusicLondon/ New York, Routledge, 2018.Eva Moreda RodríguezRÉFÉRENCEMichael Christoforidis, Manuel de Falla and Visions of Spanish Music, London/ New York,Routledge, 2018.1 Michael Christoforidis’s Manuel de Falla and Visions of Spanish Music (Routledge, 2018) is amonograph of a kind that we do not find often in English-language academic publishinganymore.  It  is  not single-handedly committed to the advancement of  an overarchinghypothesis or to ‘telling a story’. It is instead the book of an experienced scholar whooffers a series of stand-alone essays (some of which were previously published and arenow offered in revised form) on a topic he has worked on for the majority of his career,filling lacunae in his own and others’ work, adding much-needed nuance, opening upavenues of enquiry without necessarily following them through to the end. From thispoint of view, it is a pleasure (again) to read Christophoridis on a topic in which he is suchat ease – the life and works of Manuel de Falla and his role within international andSpanish modernism –, seamlessly navigating a wealth of primary sources concerning bothnotated music and the written word. In page 1 of the book, Christophoridis acknowledgesthe  Archivo  Manuel  de  Falla  in  Granada  for  having  given  a  transformative  push  toscholarship on the composer from its opening in the 1980s; Christophoridis’s book itself isperhaps the best testament to the richness and depth of the archive, in which one canstill discover traces of abandoned projects (such as La gloria de don Ramiro, discussed in pp.33-4 and 178-9) as well as correspondence and private writings that help situate Fallawithin the complex national and international landscape.2 Christoforidis sees Falla as an international composer who appears to us at his best in itscastellanista late works (El retablo de maese Pedro, the Concerto for harpsichord). In whichMichael Christoforidis, Manuel de Falla and Visions of Spanish MusicTransposition, 7 | 20181concerns the discussion of  Falla’s  international  stature,  we find some of  the obviousnames here – Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky – and places – Paris -, with plenty of new,rich detail to illustrate Falla’s positioning within this landscape, for example about hisengagement  with  orchestration,  which  is  discussed  at  length  in  the  book.  In  whichconcerns Falla’s standing as a castellanista composer, there are remarkable, meticulouslyresearch  contributions  about  his  early  works  (particularly  Siete  canciones  popularesespañolas in chapter 4: Christoforidis does not say the last word on this song set, but hisdetailed study of Falla’s original sources certainly opens up avenues of enquiry), but it isabout El retablo and the Concerto that Christoforidis writes most enthusiastically (threechapters  on  the  former,  two  on  the  latter).  The  stress  of  Falla’s  castellanista  works,although well justified, has nevertheless a lineage (dating to Adolfo Salazar in the 1920sand then Federico Sopeña in 1940s Spain) that Christoforidis could have engaged withmore thoroughly, critically discussing his own positioning within it.3 Other chapters are more concerned with aspects of Falla’s biography and his standingwithin  religious,  philosophical  and  political  trends  of  the  time.  Chapter  7,  on  theinfluence of José Ortega y Gasset on El retablo, is almost a must, given the ubiquitous, ifsometimes convoluted, influence of the philosopher on Spanish musical circles of thistime. Chapter 10, on Falla’s ideas about Catholicism throughout the 1920s and 1930s andthe  influence  of  Jacques  Maritain,  is  particularly  illustrative  and  well-researched.  Afurther  chapter  (chapter  6)  falls  under  the  banner  of  what  we could  call  critical  orcultural organology, analysing Falla’s engagement with the guitar at a time in which themodern literature for the instrument was starting to develop.4 This is a book that should be read side by side with Carol A. Hess’s ground-breakingcontributions  to  the  redefinition  of  Falla’s  oeuvre for  the  international  researchcommunity1,  the work of  the later generation of  scholars currently working on Falla(Chris Collins, Elena Torres Clemente) and Christophoridis’ extensive body of work on thecomposer, most of which is cited in the bibliography. The clarity of the book, as well asthe abundance of illustrations and examples, make it accessible not only to scholars ofSpanish twentieth-century music: in fact, the book could also prove a useful teaching aidfor those teaching twentieth-century music at  university level;  the material  is  surelyengaging, relevant and clear enough to merit the inclusion of Falla in the teaching ofmusical modernism and neoclassicism.NOTES1. HESS Carol A., Manuel de Falla and Modernism in Spain, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 2001;HESS Carol A., Sacred Passions. The Life and Music of Manuel de Falla, New York, Oxford UniversityPress, 2005.Michael Christoforidis, Manuel de Falla and Visions of Spanish MusicTransposition, 7 | 20182AUTEURSEVA MOREDA RODRÍGUEZEva Moreda Rodríguez is Lecturer in Music at the University of Glasgow. She is the author of thebooks Music and exile in Francoist Spain (Ashgate, 2015) and Music criticism and music critics in earlyFrancoist Spain (Oxford University Press, 2016), as well as a number of peer-reviewed articles onthe cultural and political history of Spanish music in the nineteenth and twentieth century thathave appeared in Music and letters, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Twentieth-Century Music, Hispanic Research Journal and Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, among others. Moreover, she has a keeninterest in the Digital Humanities and has authored a number of resources in the field of culturalmapping, which can be seen on the sites Spanish Music in Exile (http://musicinexile.wordpress.com) and Inventing the recording (http://earlyphonography.arts.gla.ac.uk). She regularly writes programme notes, edition introductionsand CD liners and delivers public talks and lecture-recitals mostly in the field of Spanishtwentieth-century music, and is frequently consulted by performers on this repertoire. Eva’swork has been supported by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, the Music &Letters Trust and Indiana University’s Lilly Library, among others. She is currently PrincipalInvestigator on an AHRC Leadership Fellowship researching the arrival of the phonograph inSpain (1878-1905).Michael Christoforidis, Manuel de Falla and Visions of Spanish MusicTransposition, 7 | 20183

Michael Christoforidis, Manuel de Falla and Visions of Spanish Music

London/ New York, Routledge, 2018.

Enlighten: Publications

http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/171879/1/171879.pdf

Michael Christoforidis, Manuel de Falla and Visions of Spanish Music London/ New York, Routledge, 2018.

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Enlighten

Enlighten: Publications