Nights in the Gardens of Spain

(Noches en los Jardines de España)

symphonic impressions for piano and orchestra

En el Generalife

Danza lejana

En los jardines de la Sierra de Cordoba

Before Falla wrote his Nights in the Gardens of Spain all the best Spanish music in the orchestral repertoire was by French composers - Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole and Debussy’s Ibéria, to name the two most distinguished examples, and Chabrier’s España, to name the most popular. Albeniz and Granados, both of whom had studied in Paris, had created a distinctively Spanish solo-piano repertoire, however, and Falla was naturally working on the same lines during the seven years he spent in Paris before the First World War. In fact, the Nights in the Gardens of Spain were originally conceived in Paris as a set of Nocturnes for piano solo. It was on the advice of the great Spanish pianist Ricardo Viñes that Falla rethought the Nocturnes as a score for piano and orchestra and on the insistence of the conductor Enrique Arbos that he completed the work in 1915.

Although the Nights in the Gardens of Spain were written in their final form at Sitges near Barcelona, they are an essentially Andalusian inspiration. The composer’s aim was to combine the most characteristic qualities of flamenco with the French impressionist techniques he had absorbed during his time in Paris, not least through his friendship with Ravel. The pianist in these “symphonic impressions for piano and orchestra” is not, as the subtitle suggests, a concerto soloist. He or she is a sublimated guitarist or singer mingling, not always in the foreground, with the evocations of people and places in the orchestra.

Set in the gardens of the Generalife near the Alhambra at Granada (and not far from where the composer was to buy a small house and garden of his own in 1920) the first movement is the longest and perhaps the most inspired of the three. The nocturnal atmosphere is suggested by the whispered tremolandos of the violas as they introduce the main theme, characteristically winding round one central note, and the play of the fountains by the rustling piano arpeggios on the entry of the soloist with the same theme. Shafts of bright light and fits of dancing activity precede the introduction of a new but similarly lyrical melody on piano and a masterfully flexible development of both themes echoing with fragments of dance rhythms, melodic variants on solo strings and in guitar-like keyboard figuration, a piano cadenza and a lingering ending.

The Danza lejana has no specific setting except that, as the title indicates, it is “at a distance.” At least, it starts at a distance, with its gentle malaguena on woodwind, but it gets nearer. It reaches a climax on a variant of the main theme of the first movement and then recedes as the malaguena material returns and, though not without some dramatic intrusions, finally and most poetically dies out.

The last movement, set in the mountains at Cordoba, follows without a break on a sudden crescendo. It proceeds at first like a rondo based on the vigorous sevillana joyously introduced by the orchestra in the opening bars and later taken up by the piano. The tempo slows down for the first episode, which is a mixture of fandango rhythms on the horns and a passionate vocalisation of cante jondo in idiomatically decorated octaves on the piano. But, although the sevillana makes one return appearance, the tendency from this point on is to extend the melodic lines, broaden the expression and, after one last burst of cante jondo on the piano, to take a deep and nostalgic look into the Andalusian soul.

Gerald Larner©