CCMusic.com

Manuel de Falla is regarded as the greatest Spanish composer of the twentieth century. Established in Paris from 1907 to 1914, he met Debussy, Ravel and Dukas and steeped himself in their works. Exploring and capturing Hispanic musical idioms he invented scores for lavish ballets, colour-saturated orchestras, splashy voices, refined pianos, thus contributed greatly to universal modernism. Setting his main works in their diverse context, this edition invites exploration and discovery. It spans almost a century of recording history, encompassing a host of great instrumentalists, singers, conductors and orchestras, many of them from Spain and France. And among legendary sessions from which he gained fame is Falla himself at the piano, still astonishing today.