THE COMPOSER, LOVE, AND AN OPERA
[…] I only hope that you’re having fun and that you’re happy, being wary of the cars and all the other things up there […] in that wicked city of Madrid […]7[7] Handwritten letter from Francisco de Paula Fedriani to Manuel de Falla, dated Seville, 4 May [1901?]. A.M.F. (correspondence folder 6962)..
At the Ateneo de Madrid, the young musician presented an evening of music on 6 May 1900 in which he gave the first performance of two of his earliest works: Vals-Capricho and Serenata andaluza.His family’s precarious economic situation and the state of the Spanish musical scene, which presented composers with few opportunities other than that of writing zarzuelas, influenced Falla’s decision to dabble in the género chico – though it was not to his taste, as he himself wrote in 1923:
The artistic aims of composers [of zarzuelas] amount to little more than their quick and easy performance, and that they should be no less easy for the audience to understand […]8[8] FALLA, Manuel de. “Felipe Pedrell (1841-1922)”. Essay published in La Revue Musicale (February 1923). In: Escritos sobre música y músicos. Introduction and notes by Federico Sopeña. Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, “Austral” series, no. 53, 4th edn., 1988, p. 85..
Only one of Manuel de Falla’s zarzuelas made it to the stage: Los amores de la Inés, first performed at the Teatro Cómico in Madrid on 12 April 1902, with reasonable success.In 1901, while living in Madrid, he came into contact with a figure of crucial importance: Felipe Pedrell, the Catalan musicologist and composer, who was at that time living in the Spanish capital, giving lessons at the Conservatoire and the Ateneo. According to Falla himself (as set down by Jaime Pahissa in his biography of the composer):
Delighted to have found in Spain at last something which I had been hoping for since beginning my studies, I went to Pedrell to ask him if he would teach me, and it is from his teaching […] that I received the clearest and most solid guidance for my work9[9] PAHISSA, Jaime. Vida y obra..., p. 35..
In 1905 Manuel de Falla scored a double professional triumph, as both pianist and composer. These triumphs were accomplished, however, amidst the uneasy atmosphere of a failed engagement with his cousin María Prieto Ledesma: a subject frequently discussed by Father Fedriani in his letters to his protegé, as in the following excerpt from a letter dated 5 April 1905:Be very calm, my son, and stop being silly; you know that if it is God’s will, and when it is God’s will, then it will come to pass, and if it doesn’t happen, then it will be for your own good 10[10] Handwritten letter from Francisco de Paula Fedriani to Manuel de Falla, dated Seville, 5 April 1905. A.M.F. (correspondence folder 6962)..
And seven months later:The whole thing is eminently practical […]. If her character or some circumstance makes her want mysteries like you, then that’s not for you 11[11] Handwritten letter from Francisco de Paula Fedriani to Manuel de Falla, dated 14 November 1905 [place of provenance not stated]. A.M.F. (correspondence folder 6962)..
Meanwhile, in April 1905, Falla won the Ortiz y Cussó piano competition, organised by the Madrid Conservatoire. In November of the same year, the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando awarded first prize in its opera competition to La vida breve, the work of Manuel de Falla, to a libretto by Carlos Fernández Shaw.
