ABSTRACT
During the composition of El retablo de maese Pedro [Master Peter’s Puppet Show] (1918–23) in the early 1920s, Manuel de Falla arrived at a new awareness of the possibilities of the chamber orchestra. This chapter explores aspects of Falla’s creative process in this work and explores how he approached the integration of disparate influences and a reappraisal of features present in his earlier works. After his return to Madrid in 1914, Falla’s experiences in this domain included completing works characterized by radically contrasting sonorities, scoring the early versions of his ballets for theatrical orchestras of reduced proportions, and studying recent advances in the music of his Parisian contemporaries, most notably the scores of Igor Stravinsky. This knowledge was supplemented by a growing interest in pre-Romantic music, which resonated with early music revivals and emerging neoclassical trends in post-war Europe. El retablo’s novel sonic landscape was also achieved through the reconfiguration of a number of features and evocative allusions present in Falla’s earlier works.
