ABSTRACT
As one of the composers whose music was most radically shaped by the guitar, Manuel de Falla identified the instrument, its music and its performance styles as intrinsic elements of his Andalusian idiom and evolving musical nationalism. This chapter provides a nuanced overview of the range of Spanish guitar styles evoked in Falla’s music to 1920. These range from the guitar’s folk and flamenco manifestations to the sonorities of the popular estudiantina ensembles and the instrument’s evolving classical traditions, focusing on Falla’s ties with Miguel Llobet and Angel Barrios. Falla reflected deeply on the guitar’s timbre and its harmonic and ornamental styles, which resulted in a variety of sonorous evocations of the instrument that can be traced in his scores. Underpinning this process was a sustained exploration of the guitar’s history, repertory and technique, all of which eventually enabled him to compose in an innovative manner for the instrument, particularly in the Homenaje (1920). Falla’s creative life coincided with the Spanish guitar’s modern revival, and he would become an important figure in shaping its classical trajectory.
