THE TURBULENT TEMPER OF SPAIN*

Sterile spirits can indeed the fertile find:
The indehiscent sire Pedrell** the fecund Falla found.
The chrysalis of inspiration shed the embryonic sound,
Evolved in Falla soon, the cocoon left behind.
From faint and suave ebullience melody emerged:
A plethora of Muse with latent spirits surged.

His music, pregnant with a love sublime,
In passion bursts the solemn prime.
A sword of fire unsheathed, it wounds a vent
That bleeds a nectar of ambrosial scent,
A lymph of pure albinic joy that blends
With godly ichor rushing though poetic veins.

His passion warms the grave and glacier heart,
Injects his burning blood into a host of men,
Whose hearts now throb impetuously again.
Reverberating echoes in relentless art
Unfold a vast symphonic canvas, lieu
Of feeble lush, a lusty vigour, potent, new,
Emerging triumph, avid bliss,
Climactic as an ardent gypsy kiss.

In evocation of the mystic soul,
The herald of the essence of the whole
Reveals, in sinous blend of song and dance,
The oriental rhythms of flamenco in gitano cries,
That canto hondo, deep as a religious trance.

His ecstasy is beacon in the torrid skies,
A stimulus to the august and classic. Vicar of the nigh,
The loud and vivid youth, he beckons future spry
And draws true strength from icy memories of pain,
Amores brujos surging once again
As magic litanies intoned in vain,
Intoned by an impassioned viceroy
Drummer of the Turbulent Temper of Spain.

*Written in 1976. Republished 2006 on the occasion of the 140th anniversary of the birth and the 60th anniversary of the death of MANUEL DE FALLA (1876-1946)

**Felipe Pedrell (1841-1922), a noted Spanish scholar who devoted his life to research in the field of Spanish folk music. He was de Falla’s composition teacher at the Madrid Conservatory. His barren works have not remained a part of the repertory, but he did succeed in inspiring others, for his most important works were not compositions -- but composers. Hence the paradox of the “indehiscent sire”, who was in a sense Falla’s father, and yet a man who failed to produce great music himself.