Lorca in Tune with Falla

Silenced Keys to Literary and Musical Interplays between Lorca and Falla

“…85 ----often employed in musical compositions by Falla. 86 The Rider explains that Amargo despairs about reaching well--lit Granada, because he feels so comfortable lamenting in the dark. 87 When the Rider points out the brilliance of the city lights, Amargo feels out of his element .…”

“…The poem "Amparo" consists of six brief strophes, three containing tercets in vocalic rhyme like Lorca´s poem "The soleá," 102 which derived its trilineal strophes, interrupted by refrains, from Falla´s opera The Short Life. 103 In "Amparo" the three--line units are interrupted by three strophes of varying lengths, one that defines Amparo in a parenthesized couplet as an equator between jasmine and spikenard 104 : timid little yellow clustered flowers and a bold, pink three--foot high plant with bell--shaped flowers. A piece of nature, like Lola, she combines modesty with aggressiveness.…”

“…The poetic subject addresses that character with an intimate tone in these terms: "You hear the wondrous/ fountains in your patio," 105 a lapping sound of water frequent in Granada and imitated by Falla in his nocturne, "In the Generalife." 106 In a lecture on the adoptive city of Falla, Lorca has remarked, "Granada culminates in its orchestra of fountains full of Andalusian pain and in the vihuela player Narváez and in Falla and Debussy." 107 Unsettling birdsongs also reach Amparo´s ear.…”