Composing Pulcinella was, said Igor Stravinsky: âMy discovery of the past, the epiphany through which the whole of my late work became possible.â Begun in 1919 for Sergei Diaghilevâs Ballets Russes, who first performed it the following year, it proved to be a pivotal work in 20th-century music, and the portal to the new world of neoclassicism through which many other composers would follow, too. But Diaghilev had originally offered the Pulcinella commission to Manuel de Falla, who had been too busy to take on the task, and who later that year began work on a chamber opera, El Retablo de Maese Pedro (Master Peterâs Puppet Show), based upon an episode in Cervantesâ Don Quixote.
Heard one after the other in these fine, if slightly dry, performances from Pablo Heras-Casado and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the comparison between the two almost contemporary works is fascinating, not only in their sound worlds, but in their use of existing musics â from Pergolesi in Pulcinella and from a whole range of Spanish folk sources in El Retablo. Whether Falla was influenced at all by Stravinskyâs score (which was first performed three years earlier than the opera) isnât clear, but the similarities between them are sometimes remarkable.
But the real gem on this disc is a suitably intense account of Fallaâs Harpsichord Concerto, with Benjamin Alard as the soloist. It was his final large-scale work, completed in 1926, and with an accompanying ensemble of just five instruments, itâs perhaps more chamber music than concerto. But with its Spanish source material thoroughly integrated into its severe neoclassicism, itâs one of the neglected masterpieces of 1920s modernism.
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