A vida dos arreiros from Los Amantes de Galicia (1942)

There is a long tradition of French composers who loved Spain and found inspiration in its music, but not even Emmanuel Chabrier, whose España was so influential in this respect, went so far as to make himself virtually a Spanish composer as Henri Collet did. Most of Collet’s instrumental music has a Spanish theme of one kind or another and nearly all of his songs, like the short but indisputably idiomatic A vida dos arreiro, are settings of Spanish words.