“Nights in the Gardens of Spain”, by Manuel de Falla, started as a series of solo piano nocturnes in 1909 but, encouraged by Ricardo Viñes, don Manuel converted them into a work for piano solo and orchestra. It was finished in 1915, the premiere taking place on April 9, 1916 at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Enrique Fernández Arbós conducting the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid .
The timpani part is splendid, as everything written by Falla. This is, maybe, his most “French” and Impresionistic work, so our part is kind of a palette which is constantly “painting”.
Sadly, the edition by Eschig is far from being equally great and, as it usually happens, it has not been improved since it was first published, so we have been playing for more than 100 years using poorly-edited parts.
It features a very busy layout on three pages, making for an incovenient reading. If we add to that what is sadly common on rental parts (marks and indications everywhere left for posterity by unconsiderate colleages), we are left to work with very inconvenient materials. There are missing indications regarding dynamics, articulation and tempi, note durations do not match those of the instruments that we are doubling, we are lacking indications present, indeed, in the score, there are faulty tempi indications or placed incorrectly, the instrumental cues are bad, etc.
Extracting the part from the score was poorly done, which makes for wasting time in rehearsals, specially in first readings. It is not helpful in countries like the UK, where the working pace is very fast and rehearsals are scarce. It does not help neither those approaching this wonderful work for the first time.
This week I am playing a fantastic program including “Nights”, “Homenajes” (also by Falla. It is my first time and I am amazed at how wonderful this work is), “Afternoon of a Faun” (C. Debussy) and “Pavana for a Dead Princess” (M. Ravel). A profoundly impresionistic repertoire.
As you may already know, I like editing my own parts (specially if, as it is the case with “Gardens”, they are not properly edited). I have almost touched nothing: I have simply “tidied up” the layout and made all the indications (tempi, dynamics, articulations, phrasing, etc.) consistent witht the score and the rest of the instruments. I have not written down pitch changes, as every timpanist has his/her own method, so I leave that to you.
Here is my edition of “Nights in the Gardens of Spain”, hoping that you enjoy it.
Feel free to use it. If you are playing it, please tag me on social media.
…et in Arcadia ego.
© David Valdés