ABSTRACT
Granada and its Romantic associations had been a catalyst for the creation of Manuel de Falla’s first opera, La vida breve. During his years in Paris (1907–14), the town provided Falla with the means of creating an artistic identity that could capitalize on his Andalusian background. Alhambrism, the nostalgic construction of Granada as the last European refuge of Arab culture, was one of the most enduring Romantic manifestations of exoticism. It remained popular in Paris into the early twentieth century and, as explored in compositions by Isaac Albéniz and Claude Debussy, could be construed as an early modernist manifestation of musical exoticism. In Chapter 3, I present a fresh approach to the subject of Alhambrism in relation to Falla, situating it in the context of Falla’s sustained engagement with the evolution of Alhambrist themes in the music of Albéniz and Debussy, which broadened the younger composer’s creative horizons and informed the conception of Noches en los jardines de España (Nights in the Gardens of Spain) (1909–16).
