La Vida Breve Imslp

[Albertina Drybread]

FullscorePublishing hope this lovely, lyrical piano miniature, composed in 1900, reaches a wider audience in its new engraving. It should inspire any intermediate pianist to learn the flowing left-hand arpeggios and two-part right-hand (in order to define the tune and give it its appropriate prominence). Cancin means 'Song' in Spanish, so let the tune sing!

Cancin is also available arranged for Flute (or Clarinet in B flat / Alto Sax in E flat) & Piano, published by Fullscore Publishing here. All transposed instrumental parts are included in a free, single, downloadable pdf file.

Manuel de Falla, (born 1876 in Cdiz, Spain, died 1946 in Alta Gracia, Argentina) was, along with Isaac Albniz, Francisco Trrega, and Enrique Granados, one of Spain's most important musicians of the early 20th century. In his music he achieved a fusion of poetry, asceticism, and ardour that represents the spirit of Spain at its purest.

Falla took piano lessons from his mother and later went to Madrid to continue the piano and to study composition with Felipe Pedrell, who inspired him with his own enthusiasm for 16th-century Spanish church music, folk music, and native opera, or zarzuela. In 1905 Falla won two prizes, one for piano playing and the other for a national opera, La vida breve (first performed in Nice, France, 1913).

In 1907 he moved to Paris, where he met Claude Debussy, Paul Dukas, and Maurice Ravel (whose orchestration influenced his own) and published his first piano pieces and songs. In 1914 he returned to Madrid, where he wrote the music for a ballet, El amor brujo (Love, the Magician; Madrid, 1915), remarkable for its distillation of Andalusian folk music. Falla followed this with El corregidor y la molinera (Madrid, 1917), which Diaghilev persuaded him to rescore for a ballet by Lonide Massine called El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat; London, 1919). Noches en los jardines de Espaa (Nights in the Gardens of Spain; Madrid, 1916), a suite of three impressions for piano and orchestra, evoked the Andalusian atmosphere through erotic and suggestive orchestration. All these works established Falla internationally as the leading Spanish composer.

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Gimnez wrote many zarzuelas - his detractorswould have said too many. At its best, his work has an elegant finish andtuneful verve that disarm criticism, but for sheer intensity one stands in aclass by itself. First seen at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid on19th September 1900, La tempranica may be short and simple, but itcovers a surprising amount of musical and dramatic ground. Though the score isundeniably eclectic, the skill with which Gimnez marshalls hisraw materials provides an experience of genuine force and originality. Latempranica remains one of the most influential achievements of the zarzuelatradition.

Romea's libretto is innocent of pretension, and very wellstocked with the usual selection of picture-postcard Songs and Dances of GypsyLife. Gimnez's triumph was to turn all this theatrical baggageinto potent music drama of some depth. Maria La tempranica (perhaps bestrendered as 'headstrong') is a convincing character, growing in stature as herstory unfolds. The gypsy songs and dances, well done in themselves, illuminateher dark, intractable nature from within rather than simply providing localcolour. The Freischtz-like hunting horns of the opening, thepowerful verismo passion of the central duet, the shockingly urban waltzrepresenting the transition to alien City life at the climax of the action -all these work psychologically as well as theatrically. And though she comes inthe end to accept second-best, Gimnez's Maria leaves us with asense of a woman much closer to tragedy than, say, the unfortunate Salud inFalla's obviously indebted La vida breve.

Scene 1 -Countryside near Granada, close to the Sierra Granadina. After a stirringPreludio a hunting party enters, to the sound of horns. They are friendsof Don Luis, singing in praise of the joy of the chase(Coro:"Nmero de los cazadores"). The Englishman, Mr.James, amuses them with his attempts at Castilian, horribly mangled withEnglish. He is eager, like all good tourists, to hear some typical peasantcanciones, and Don Luis sends his servant, Curro, to the nearby farm tolook for Grabi, a gypsy youth ('breaches' role) who works at the localblacksmiths. When the boy sees Don Luis, he welcomes him joyfully - the wholefamily love Don Luis, none more so than his sister Maria. In spite of Don Luis'attempts to shut him up, Grabi ingenuously goes on explaining howdevoted she is to her "Seorito". Mr. James suspects a loveaffair, especially when Don Luis changes the subject and swiftly asksGrabi to sing something. The boy obliges with a cheeky song about thewicked ways of the tarantula - or perhaps the dangers of falling in love(Zapateado: "La tarntula un bicho mu malo".)

Don Luis is shamed by his friends into telling the truth. Losinghis way amongst the dangerous mountain peaks, he fell and knocked himselfunconscious, coming to in the tiny hovel of his rescuers, Maria's family. Thegirl, known as La tempranica, nursed Luis (whom she believes to be asimple, unattached country landowner) to full recovery, and - truthful to hername - fell impulsively in love with him. Luis is evasive about whether hereturned her love. He certainly left the gypsies as soon as he was able,without even saying goodbye to the girl. Maria was inconsolable for many weeks,though Grabi tells Luis that she is learning to forget him.

Warned not to tell Maria of Don Luis' proximity, the boy naturallyrushes to let her know. La tempranica instantly appears, demanding tospeak to Luis alone. The others leave them, and in a searching duet, he triesto calm her repeated protestations of love, whilst carefully avoiding the truth- which is that, since leaving her, he has married a beautiful woman of his ownclass. He warns her repeatedly that love between them is impossible, but shewill not accept his word and swears to win him at all costs (Romanza yDuo: "Tempranica, Tempranica")

Scene 3 -the city of Granada. An orchestral Interlude leads us from country(tanguillo with castanets) to town (a sophisticated waltz) andinto the brief final scene. Maria has come to plead with Don Luis, bringing herbrother with her. As soon as she catches a glimpse of his wife and baby son,reality breaks her dream apart. Patching up her shredded dignity as best shemay, she decides to accept the love of the devoted Miguel and make what she canof her life. The zarzuela ends as she proudly calls her fianc to her(Finale: "Tempranica me ya-man".)

Written in Spanish, a very comprehensive biographical exposition by Ascensin Garca de las Mozas may be found at the Universidad de Cdiz institutional repository of Research and Learning Objects (RODIN) =1

Gimnez was born in Seville.[1] A son of the Granada musician Jos Mara Gimnez and his wife Antonia Bellido, he moved with his family to the city of Cadiz, where he soon became a choirboy.[2] Although the details of his early years are not entirely certain, Gimnez spent his childhood and adolescence in Cdiz.[3] A child prodigy, he began music lessons with his father and continued his education with Salvador Viniegra. By the age of 12, he was already playing among the first violins of the Teatro Principal orchestra in Cdiz. Five years later, he became the director of an opera and zarzuela company, making his debut in Gibraltar with a production of Giovanni Pacini's Safo.

A scholarship permitted Gimnez to enrol at the Conservatoire de Paris in June 1874, where he studied violin with Jean-Delphin Alard and composition with Ambroise Thomas. He received first prizes for harmony and counterpoint. After graduation, he traveled to Italy and then returned to Spain, settling in Madrid. In 1885, he was appointed director of Teatro Apolo de Madrid and shortly afterwards of the Teatro de la Zarzuela.

A prolific composer, Gimnez also collaborated with the leading authors of sainetes (a comic genre found in Spanish theatre), including Ricardo de la Vega, Carlos Arniches, the brothers Serafn and Joaqun lvarez Quintero, and Javier de Burgos, to obtain the libretti for his zarzuelas. He co-wrote the music of a number of his works with Amadeo Vives, who hailed him the "musician of elegance" because of his sense of rhythm and easy melodies.

La tempranica was perhaps his most ambitious and successful work. Presented at the Teatro de la Zarzuela on 19 September 1900, it followed a text by Julin Romea. Gimnez skillfully managed to combine moments of intense lyricism with scenes of colloquial explosion in a zarzuela which, according to Carlos Gmez Amat, "had all the qualities of the genre and none of the faults".[5] The influence of Gimnez is often noticeable in the compositions of subsequent Spanish composers such as Joaqun Turina and Manuel de Falla (especially the stylistic correspondences between La tempranica and the latter's opera La vida breve). Federico Moreno Torroba adapted the celebrated zarzuela into an opera by setting the spoken parts to music. In 1939, Joaqun Rodrigo also paid his respects with a Homenaje a la tempranica, which contained a solo part for castanets.

Towards the end of his life, Gimnez lived in a precarious economic situation, which was made worse by the Madrid Conservatory's refusal to grant him a professorship in chamber music. He died in Madrid aged 68.

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