Ernesto Halffter & Cristobal Halffter & Cristobal Halffter.(Review)

Ernesto Halffter. Hommage a Salvador Dali. Paris: Editions Max Eschig (T. Presser), c1997. [Notes, 1 p.; score, p. 2-16. M.E. 8920-8922. DM 28; duration: 5'; separate ed. of "Fanfare pour quatre trompettes, timbales et percussion" (mvt. 1), 2 p. M.E. 8920. DM 25; duration: 30".]

Cristobal Halffter. El ser humano muere solamente cuando lo olvidan: Paigina en recuerdo de Arthur Rubinstein para piano solo (1987/1993). Vienna: Universal Edition, [1995], c1993. [Score, 4 p. ISMN M-008-02509-9; UE 30 133. DM 12.]

Cristobal Halffter. Zeitgestalt fur Streichquartett (1996). Vienna: Universal Edition, [1998], c1996. [Score, 12 p. ISMN M-008-05635-2; UE 30374. DM 22. 4 parts. ISMN M-008-06016-8; UE 30374a. DM 22; duration: ca. 7'.]

Contemporary Spanish music owes an enormous debt to the Madrilean Halffter-Escriche family, from whom have come not one, nor two, but three extremely gifted composers. Beginning with Rodolfo (1900-1987) and his younger brother Ernesto (1905-1989) and continuing today with their nephew, Cristobal (b. 1930), distinctive styles of each of these Halffterian composers have added depth and dimension beyond the stereotypical Baetica musical idioms that are universally associated with Iberian music. As might be expected, the "Generacion del '27" (those pre-Spanish Civil War artists, such as Federico Garcia Lorca, Salvador Dali, Conchita Supervia, and "La Argentina") musical figurehead of Manuel de Falla (1876-1946), as well as Isaac Albeniz (1860-1909) and Enrique Granados (1867-1916), influenced much of the Halffters' music. Foreign influences also played a role, principally those of the French Impressionists, German Expressionists, and the Darmstadt generation.

Yet the indelible musical fingerprint of Falla is either subtly or overtly omnipresent in the three Halffters' works, as indeed it naturally would be, and may be considered to be the generating force behind their stylistic evolution, directly or indirectly. The autodidact Rodolfo received some counsels from Falla in the 1920s in Spain and with Arnold Schoenberg in Barcelona in 1932, to the extent that he converted early in his career from atonality to polytonality. Later he would become Mexico's, not Spain's, first dodecaphonic composer, having fled his native land during the Spanish Civil War. Falla's so-called "theory of resonance--harmonic development through the derivation and juxtaposition of harmonic aggregates called "superpositions"--was not only applied by Rodolfo in his polytonal phase, but blatantly assumed a prominent position in some of his dodecaphonic writing when he combined bitonality with a liberal usage of the twelve-tone technique. Of the three Halffters, Rodolfo may be said to have most evolved Falla's aesthetic and harmonic language. In 1980, at a commemoration of his eightieth birthday at the Juan March Foundation in Madrid, he said, "My dodecaphonic music and my polytonal music are, in reference to their aesthetic content, very similar" (Nancy Lee Harper, "The Piano Sonatas of Rodolfo Halffter: Transformation or New Techniques?" [D.M.A. thesis, University of North Texas, 1985], 36). He continued, If Falla were alive and could hear my dodecaphonic works, I am sure that he would be scandalized. He, who believed in the eternal law of tonality, would have refused to admit that there was a certainty of the collapse of tonality. I would have tried to explain to him that my adherence to the twelve-tone system did not represent a substantial change of aesthetic position nor of musical ideology and that I continued being one of his most faithful servants.

Ernesto, as is widely known, became Falla's "disciple," meshing much of his musical personality to that of Falla, and thus perhaps developing stylistically less than his brother or his nephew. Nonetheless he had a brilliant career as a composer and conductor. Halffter's association with many of the greatest artistic figures of the '20s and '30s--Garcia Lorca, Dali, Ravel--as well as his concert activity at the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid, his directorship of Falla's newly created orchestra in Sevilla, his career as an arranger and later as a film composer, besides his ample talent as a classical composer, earned him a unique position in Spanish musical life. After the dispersion of those gifted members of the "Generacion del '27," Ernesto became the natural choice to complete Falla's enormous last work, the scenic oratorio Atlantida. His music, always attractive and accessible to the public, never stylistically developed much beyond its natural, early manifestation. The startling impression Ernesto m ade upon the world at the age of nineteen unfortunately was never surpassed. His early works, Sinfonietta and Sonatina, along with some later ones, such as Llanto por Ricardo Vines and Rapsodia portuguesa, still remain favorites, while his multiple arrangements of Falla's Siete canciones populares espanolas continue to be enjoyed all over the world. Among his awards, Ernesto twice received the Spanish National Music Prize, was elected to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, and was bestowed the Great Cross of Alfonso X the Wise.

After Ernesto, Cristobal has fortunately carried the musical torch, perhaps solidifying the eternal flame of glory for the Halffters. Early on, he received advice from his uncle Rodolfo, who counseled,