[P. 16.] To these should be added Juan Nadal, tenor with the Chicago Opera Company, José Mardones, bass, Hipolito Lazaro, tenor, and Rafaelo Diaz, tenor, with the Metropolitan Opera Company.
[P. 18.] "Where are they?": Pedrell's La Celestina has found many admirers. Camille Bellaigue in "Notes Brèves" recommends it warmly to the director of the Opéra-Comique in Paris: "Aussi bien, après tant de 'saisons' russes, italiennes, allemandes, pourquoi ne pas en avoir une espagnole?"... Manuel de Falla's La Vida Breve was produced in Paris before it was heard in Madrid. G. Jean-Aubry praises it highly.... And José María Usandizaga's Las Golindrinas has proved immensely popular in Spain.
Pianists have not been slow to realize the value and beauty of Spanish music which they have placed on their programs, if not in profusion, at least in no niggardly manner ... but so far as I know no Spanish music has yet been played by our New York symphony societies, although works of Granados, and possibly those of other Spanish composers, have been heard elsewhere in America. This neglect is not only lamentable; it is stupid. Whether the music is good or bad, interesting or dull, New York should be permitted to hear some of it. I should suggest, to begin with, Albéniz's Catalonia, Joaquín Turina's La Procesión del Rocio, Conrado del Campo's Divina Comedia, Pérez Casas's Suite Murcienne, and Manuel de Falla's Noches en los Jardines de España. Of these I should prefer to hear the second and last.
[P. 18.] "It is doubtful, indeed, if the zarzuela could take root in any theatre in New York": No longer doubtful. Now that we have heard The Land of Joy it is certain that a group of zarzuelas, presented by a good company with a good orchestra in the Spanish fashion, would be greeted here with enthusiasm.
[P. 18.] "in Spain Italian and German operas are much more popular than Spanish": This situation must be quite familiar to any American or Englishman, for neither in America nor in England has English opera any standing. See note to Page 70.
[P. 24.] "Don Quixote": Anton Rubinstein wrote a tone-poem with this title.... This list could be made much longer. The second of Debussy's Estampes for piano, La Soirée dans Grenade should certainly be mentioned here.... Pablo Casals ('cellist) and Ruth Deyo (pianist) played Loeffler's Poème Espagnol at a concert in Boston March 24, 1917.
[P. 25.] "Raoul Laparra": This composer, of Basque blood, has been almost constantly obsessed with the idea of Spain and has probably written more consistently Spanish music than some Iberian composers who might be mentioned. There is to be another dance-opera, he writes me, to add to La Habanera and La Jota, to be called Le Tango et la Malagueña, thus completing the series of "three dramas suggested by three dances." Mr. Laparra married an American and is at present living in America. He has completed an opera entitled Le Conquistador, which obviously has do with the Spanish occupation of America. He has also written a book, "La Musique Populaire en Espagne" (Delagrave; Paris). "The best Spanish composer is the people," is his phrase.
At a concert in Aeolian Hall, January 6, 1917, Harold Bauer played Laparra's Rhythmes Espagnols (announced as the first performance in New York). These proved to be a series of characteristic dance impressions. The composer supplied the following comment:
"There exists a world in Spain, little known outside the Iberian peninsula itself, made up of these people with their schools, their traditions. That is what I have tried to seize, that is what I am passionately interested in. Without the use of native tunes I have moulded my music on the native rhythms and forms and thereby endeavoured to interpret the spirit of the people. Thus Petenera is conceived in the characteristic style and rhythm created by the singer of that name, an Andalusian woman, who lived in the last century. Old singers who had heard her told me that she sang 'like an angel.' Nobody could tell the date of her birth or death, and she has become a legendary character for whom all Andalusia wept and still weeps, although her beauty and her voice caused many men much unhappiness.
"Tientos reproduces the impression of those mysterious comments of the guitar before or during the singer's sobbing melodic figures. The singer and the guitar-player improvise together and, strangely enough, always in harmony, as though animated by a single impulse.