Siete canciones populares españolas

Lyrics#

All the texts deal with love and the courting process, whether playfully, seriously, or tragically. The first song, for example, alludes to the importance of virginity to a girl’s value on the marriage market, though the text itself is about a shop reducing the price of a delicate cloth due to a stain. “Nana” is a lullaby: it deals with love’s outcome. “Polo” expresses a wild desire for revenge on an unfaithful lover.

Song list#

• 1. El paño moruno (The Moorish Cloth)
• 2. Seguidilla murciana
• 3. Asturiana
• 4. Jota
• 5. Nana
• 6. Canción
• 7. Polo

Arrangements#

Falla and Paul Kochanski arranged six of the songs (omitting No. 2 and changing the order) for violin as Suite populaire Espagnole. This arrangement has been further adapted, by Maurice Maréchal for cello and piano, and by Werner Thomas-Mifune for an ensemble of six celli. They have been arranged for guitar by Miguel Llobet and for orchestra by Ernesto Halffter, student and friend of Falla, in 1951, and Luciano Berio in 1978.

Recordings#

Falla recorded the work with Maria Barrientos, a coloratura soprano who had retired from the operatic stage to concentrate on concert performances. Other singers to have recorded the work include * Victoria de los Ángeles soprano; Gerald Moore, piano * the mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza in the 1960s and with Juan Antonio Álvarez Parejo in 1986 * the cantaora Estrella Morente with Javier Perianes. Morante’s 2016 disc also features Canciones españolas antiguas, a similar folksong collection by Falla’s friend and collaborator Federico García Lorca. Norwegian trumpet soloist Tine Thing Helseth recorded them on trumpet on her self-titled album “Tine " (2013), employing a cup mute in at the end of No. 4 and throughout No. 5.