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Program

Pan American Symphony Orchestra

Sergio Alessandro Bušlje, Artistic Director and Conductor

Presents

Passion and Fire

The Music of Spain

• Allegra De Vita, mezzo

• María Juncal, bailaora

Amadeo Vives
(1871-1932)

Fandango from Doña Francisquita

Manuel de Falla
(1876-1946)

7 Canciones Populares Españolas

• El paño Moruno
• Seguidilla Murciana
• Asturiana
• Jota
• Nana
• Canción
• Polo

Isaac Albeniz
(1860-1909)

Asturias

 

Intermission

Enrique Granados
(1867-1916)

Intermezzo from Goyescas

Manuel de Falla
(1876-1946)

El Amor Brujo

• Introducción y Escena
• En la Cueva (La Noche)
• Canción del Amor Dolido
• El Aparecido
• Danza del Terror
• El Circulo Mágico (Romance del Pescador)
• A Media Noche (Los Sortilegios)
• Danza Ritual del Fuego
• Escena
• Canción del Fuego Fatuo
• Pantomima
• Danza del Juego de Amor
• Final: Las Campanas del Amanecer

This performance was made possible in part by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities

Patrons are requested to silence cell phones and other electronic devices during performances.

The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not allowed in this venue.
Program order and artists are subject to change.

Terms and Conditions

Pan American Symphony Orchestra Personnel

Program Notes

Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909)

One of the greatest musicians Spain has known, Albéniz had a clear calling to be a pianist from an early age. Though Catalan at heart, Albéniz introduced into his works the musical idioms native to the Andalusia region of Spain, creating a synthesis of Spanish styles combined with contemporary European music. Albéniz imagined himself of Moorish ancestry, and his own comments on his music derive from images of the Alhambra - the elaborate Moorish palace-fortress that overlooks the Andalusian city of Granada, which he visited on several occasions.

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Sevilla

The Suite Española was originally written for solo piano and is a compilation of works Albéniz wrote in 1886 in honor of the Queen of Spain. Like his other works for the piano, these pieces depict different regions and musical styles of Spain. The work originally consisted of four pieces: Granada, Cataluña, Sevilla, and Cuba. The editor Hofmeister republished the Suite Española in 1912, after Albéniz's death, and added Cádiz, Asturias, Aragón, and Castile.

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Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)

Born in 1876 in Cadiz, the historical seaport town at the southern-most tip of Andalusia, Manuel de Falla has been called the greatest Spanish composer of the 20th century. His formal musical education began with piano lessons, and when de Falla was 20 years old, his family moved to Madrid where he studied with the distinguished teacher José Tragó. He then went on to study composition with Felipe Pedrell, the teacher and scholar who led the revival of Spanish music towards the end of the 19th century. De Falla was also influenced by Louis Lucas’ theories of deriving harmonies from natural resonances. 

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El Amor Brujo

When De Falla was asked to compose a song for the gypsy dancer and singer, Pastora Imperio, he listened to some songs sung by her mother and to some old gypsy tales by the Spanish poet Gregorio Sierra. His first composition was a small song and dance that he turned into a bigger chamber ballet that premiered in Madrid on April 15, 1915. The audience at that time was comprised of primarily gypsies and the work did not gain much attention. He expanded the work in 1927 and this time the Spanish public took notice. It was a great success. El Amor Brujo  (Love, the Sorcerer) is a ballet-pantomime in one act based on a story about love, death, exorcism, and release with two main characters, the sensual Candela and the handsome Carmelo. The ghost of Candela’s first husband haunts their love affair. Candela, knowing her husband’s infidelities, entices her friend, Lucia, to flirt with the ghost and distract him from her new love affair.

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Siete Canciones Populares Españolas

In 1904 Falla won a national composition contest with his opera  La vida breve  and hoped this would lead to performances of the work, thereby making him enough money to move to Paris. The organizers of the competition failed to secure a performance, so a frustrated Falla took off on a European tour as a pianist for a mime troupe. In 1907, the not-quite-so-young but not-yet-mature composer finally found himself on his own in the French capital. Musical Paris was bubbling with things Spanish at the time. Debussy was composing  Ibéria , Ravel was working on  Rapsodie espagnole  and  L’heure espagnole , and Falla’s compatriot Albéniz had just completed the fourth book of his Iberia for piano.

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Amadeo Vives (1871-1932)

Born in Collbató, near Montserrat, on November 18, 1871, Amadeo¹ Vives was an early pupil of Felipe Pedrell, the father figure of 20th Century Spanish music. While studying in Barcelona with composer José Ribera, he helped found the influential Orféo Catalá (1891), a key element in Catalunya's musical renaissance. Madrid soon beckoned, and he lived the rest of his life there, first publishing a series of concert works, solo and much-loved choral songs - notably L'emigrant (1894), which became a rallying cry for Catalan exiles around the globe - before turning to the zarzuelas on which his reputation rests. He wrote nearly 100 zarzuelas. Vives' interests extended beyond Zarzuela. He wrote a successful stage play Jo no sabia que el món era aix í (1929) as well as several unsuccessful operas, though his dream was to become an orchestral and symphonic composer.

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Fandango from Doña Francisquita

Doña Francisquita  is an excellent retrospective on the romantic zarzuela tradition and its crowning glory. It belongs to the finest of all 3-act género grande zarzuelas. The work was immediately recognized not only as Vives’ masterpiece, but as the greatest full-length zarzuela of its era and it is one of the few zarzuelas that is internationally known. The fast-moving libretto, based on Lope de Vega’s comedy La discrete enamorada, involves complicated emotional plot twists and turns and inspired Vives to compose scenes of high-quality opera. Doña Francisquita is the most frequently recorded Spanish theater work with its colorful evocation of 19 ^th century Madrid and its memorable vocal and choral writing.

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Enrique Granados (1867-1916)

Pantaleon Enrique Joaquin Granados y Campiña is known as one of the greatest of the Spanish Romantic composers. He was also a talented painter in the style of the Spanish master, Goya. As a young man, Enrique Granados studied piano in Barcelona. In 1887, he went to Paris to study with De Beriot and, most importantly, Felipe Pedrell. It was in Paris where he composed most of his 12 Spanish dances. He returned to Barcelona in 1889. His first successes were at the end of the 1890's, with the Zarzuela Maria del Carmen , which earned the attention of King Alfonso XIII. As a composer, Granados dedicated himself almost exclusively to the piano, and critics say his music possesses a Chopinesque passion and tenderness as well as virtuosity. In 1911, Granados premiered his suite for piano, Goyescas , which became his most famous work. It is a set of six pieces based on paintings of the Spanish painter, Goya, whom Granados admired all his life. Such was the success of this work that he was encouraged to expand it. As a result, he wrote an opera based on it in 1914, but unfortunately the outbreak of World War I forced the European premiere to be canceled. It was performed for the first time in New York City on January 28, 1916, at the Metropolitan Opera House, and was very well received. Shortly afterward, he was invited to perform a piano recital for President Woodrow Wilson.

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Intermezzo from Goyescas

Enrique Granados made his reputation as a composer of piano music, but also composed six operas, of which  Goyescas  was the last. Goyescas was compossed in 1911 as a series of piano pieces, inspired by the paintings of Francisco Goya. Five years later, the piano suites were expanded into an opera, and the famous Intermezzo was added, like so much instrumental music in opera, to cover a scene change. It is one of the last pieces the composer wrote.

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Thank You Supporters

DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities

Latin American Music Center, Catholic University of America

Embassy of the Republic of Argentina

Embassy of Uruguay

Volunteers

Claudia Salvador

Diane Nielsen

Soledad Guerra

Daphne Ostle

Daniela Ochoa

Petra Debelack

Maureen Carrington

Silvia Rodriguez

Clara Blomberg Rodriguez

èßäAVCelebrates Pride Month
At the Kennedy Center, all are welcome and safe regardless of orientation, gender, identity, or expression. We believe in celebrating the authenticity of our guests, staff, and artists, and we commit to presenting all stories on our stages.