Hundred Years of Cruel Love (1915-2015) Manuel de Falla, Between Classical and Popular Music

Abstract

Manuel de Falla´s Cruel Love subtitled Gypsy story in two parts is a ballet with cante jondo whose premiere was given, in a first chamber version, in Madrid´s Lara Theatre in April of 1915. With only two characters on stage, the attractive gypsy Candelas and her boyfriend Carmelo who are haunted by the ghost of her previous lover, we encounter an original anti-romantic version of the relationship between love and death struggling for the liberation of the soul through that of the body, through flamenco dance and cante jondo. This work was written after a seven-year stay (1907-14) in the Paris of La Belle Époque and contributes to the renewal of nationalism in music as it has the special interest of questioning the social frontiers between “classical music” and “popular music”. The result is a both complex and popular piece in which are found synthesized such different influences as those of Felipe Pedrell, Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinski.