Extracts from The Three-Cornered Hat

Part 1

Afternoon -

Dance of the Miller’s Wife -

The Grapes

Part 2:

Night: the Neighbours’ Dance

The Miller’s Dance

Final Dance

Most composers would have jumped at the chance to work with Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes. For several years before and after the First World War, and during the War as well, nothing could have been more glamorous than to have had a ballet commissioned and performed by the Ballets Russes. But Manuel de Falla, a very serious-minded Spaniard, was not interested in glamour and he long resisted Diaghilev’s overtures until - persuaded perhaps by the enthusiasm of the Ballet Russes choreographer, Léonide Massine, for Spanish dance - he agreed to write a score for a scenario based on Alarcon’s story “The Three-Cornered Hat” (El Sombrero de tres picos). Having already composed the music for a mime play on the same subject, the composer probably thought there would not be very much to do. The work involved in providing extra dances and rewriting the original score for large orchestra was extensive, however, and was still unfinished when rehearsals began. Even so, the first performance of “The Three-Cornered Hat,” did take place as scheduled, at the Alhambra Theatre in London, on 22 July 1919. With authentically inspired choreography by Massine and set and costume designs by no less an artist than Pablo Picasso, it was one of the greatest of all Ballets Russes successes.

Afternoon

The curtain rises on a scene set outside a mill on a warm afternoon in Andalusia. The Miller is identified by a sultry murciana, a broodingly sombre dance low on clarinet and cor anglais, and the Miller’s Wife with the beginning of a contrastingly bright jota high on first violins. The other main character of the story, the lustful local Magistrate - old and fat but dangerous because of the office he holds - is distinctively characterised by a short but unmistakably clumsy bassoon solo. The Miller’s Wife imitates him in a mischievous dance on pizzicato violins and piano, to the evident amusement of the giggling woodwind, and then - pretending she is unaware of his presence - puts on a full-scale flamenco show for him…

Dance of the Miller’s Wife

The dance she chooses is a vigorous and sexy fandango resounding with authentic local colour translated into orchestral terms - magnified guitar figurations on strings and piano, clattering castanet sounds on xylophone and heightened vocalisations on woodwind. Irresistibly rhythmic throughout and seductively melodious in the middle section, it is too much for the Magistrate to bear. He makes his advance on her by way of another clumsy little bassoon solo. Her reply is an exquisitely turned minuet which firmly, though very gracefully, puts him in his place as a survivor from a previous era…

The Grapes

Not be put off, the Magistrate allows himself to be teased by a game in which the Miller’s Wife provocatively dangles a bunch of grapes in front of him while he gives chase and, just at the point where he seems to be getting near her, falls flat on his back. Groaning horns and grotesque rising glissandos on the cellos suggest his painful efforts to get up. He is not at all mollified by the not very gentle efforts of the Miller and his Wife to dust him down and goes off in anger, to their great amusement. They express their joy in a particularly boisterous horn tune before she resumes the fandango the Magistrate had interrupted in the previous section.

Night: the Neighbours’ Dance

The second part of the ballet takes place by the mill on a starlit midsummer night. The Miller’s neighbours are celebrating the occasion by dancing a languorous seguidilla based on two tunes: the more prominent of them is an alborea, a traditional gypsy wedding song, introduced by unhurried violins in the opening bars; the other, briefly presented by flute and bassoon in octaves, is a borrowing from a zarzuela by Jeronimo Jimenez, La Boda de Luis Alonso, which was brought to Falla’s attention by Diaghilev himself.

The Miller’s Dance

Massine, who was not only the original choreographer of The Three-Cornered Hat but also the first Miller, seems to have decided at a very late stage that he needed a high-profile solo at this point. Certainly, the music for The Miller’s Dance was written in London and in less than twenty-four hours. Paradoxically, as well as being one of the most picturesque episodes in the ballet, it is probably the most vividly flamenco in style. A farruca introduced by a macho horn call and a brooding cor anglais cadenza, it is a virile display of asymmetrically rhythmic heel-stamping on double-stopped strings and brass alternating with brief snatches of plaintive melody on oboe and horn.

Final Dance

Just how the Corregidor abuses his authority by having the Miller arrested, how he takes advantage of his enforced absence in a vain attempt to seduce the Miller’s Wife, and how he is found out - and embarrassingly arrested by his own police - would take too long to explain in detail. His discomfiture is, however, a cause for an exuberant village celebration. The eventful final scene is based on a lively jota, the melody proclaimed by high-energy violins and woodwind accompanied by a strident trumpet counterpoint and heavy rhythms in the rest of the orchestra. This main theme is heard three times in all, while the intervening episodes sort out the confusion, reconciling the Miller and his Wife and punishing the Magistrate, who ends up being tossed in a blanket. There is no better example of sustained rhythmic exuberance linked with picturesque narrative in any Diaghilev ballet finale.

Gerald Larner©2003