De Falla, Manuel: Manuel De Falla – Noches En Los Jardines De Espana – Mari Kodama

   in Piano International (Sep, 2017)
For all its seemingly effortless melodic invention, Nights in the Gardens of Spain took a long time – six years – to achieve its final form, changing from a set of solo piano nocturnes to the programme-concerto we know today. Subtitled ‘symphonic impressions’, it’s a rapt, lushly imagined score, to my ears allegorically pastoral, though Joaquin Turina believed it ‘the most tragic and sorrowful’ of Falla’s works. While there is intensity in each of its three unequal movements, I do not hear tragedy here. Rather, seriousness of purpose is the dominant characteristic, speaking more of the passions – and, yes, their occasional attendant dramas – awakened at night-time.

With a running …