Ravel and Falla: Echoes of Spain

Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast

Joshua Weilerstein

Arts, Performing Arts, Music

4.9 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Nowadays it's hard to imagine Maurice Ravel as a "bad-boy" revolutionary, a member of a group whose name can be loosely translated as The Hooligans. To most listeners today, Ravel's music is the very picture of sumptuous beauty. But the group he belonged to, Les Apaches ("The Hooligans"), earned its name because of its members' uncompromising attitudes about music; attitudes that clashed sharply with the conservative tastes of the establishment.

Another composer who belonged to Les Apaches was the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla. Falla is certainly not as well known as Ravel, but the two became fast friends when he arrived in Paris in 1907. They formed a kind of mutual-admiration society that proved immensely fruitful for both of them. Falla was deeply impressed by Ravel's Spanish-inflected music, marveling at its authenticity given that Ravel was French. But Ravel, now a symbol of French music, was the son of a Swiss father and a Spanish-speaking mother, and he was born just eleven miles from the Spanish border in the Basque region. His Spanish voice was no affectation; it came from somewhere deep within, and Falla noticed this immediately, remarking that Ravel's Rapsodie espagnole was "a Spain ideally presented by his mother."

Today on the show we'll explore the Spanish world of Falla and Ravel through two central works: Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain and Ravel's Rapsodie espagnole. These pieces, both astonishing in their creativity and craftsmanship, offer a wonderful opportunity to compare and contrast the music and approaches of these two close friends. We'll also talk about Les Apaches and their goals, legacy, and some of their legendary members.

All this and more is coming up on this final collaboration on Ravel and Friends with G. Henle Publishers! Join us!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Sticky Notes, the Classical Music Podcast.
0:13.4	My name is Joshua Weilerstein.
0:15.1	I'm a conductor and I'm the music director of the Orchestra National Leal and the chief conductor
0:19.6	of the Allborg Symphony.
0:21.3	This podcast is for anyone who loves classical music, works in the field, or is just getting
0:26.3	ready to dive in to this amazing world of incredible music.
0:29.9	Before we get started, I want to thank my new Patreon sponsors, Lily, Michael, Asaf,
0:34.6	Sheena, Leah, Shaoye, Kate, Owl, E.J., Johnny, Dunnug, John, Eric, Adam, John, Mark, Maria, Ehohani, Charles, and Mike,
0:48.9	and all of my other Patreon sponsors for making Season 10 possible.
0:53.5	If you'd like to support the show, please head over to patreon.com slash sticky notes podcast.
0:58.8	And if you are a fan of the show, please take a moment to give us a rating or review on Apple
1:02.4	Podcasts or Spotify.
1:04.3	It is greatly appreciated.
1:07.2	So I've just finished two really exciting weeks, one with the CBSO, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Youth Orchestra, which was augmented by many members of the CBSO for a performance of Shostakovich's 7th Symphony.
1:21.4	And then I was with the Guildhall School Symphony Orchestra in London, doing a program with Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, Jesse Montgomery's
1:28.4	Coincident Dances, and Ravel's Concerto in G. This really is so wonderful always to work with
1:34.7	students and with younger musicians. There's a different kind of enthusiasm on stage, and especially
1:39.4	these kind of side-by-side things, which we did with the CBS. So this is always some of the most
1:45.5	unforgettable weeks that I can do, and especially with a piece like Shostakovich 7, which you
1:50.6	don't get to do very often, and was really quite a special experience. For this week, I am really
1:57.7	happy to share with you the final episode in this collaboration with Henley
2:01.9	publishers on Ravel and Friends. This was an episode that I have been wanting to do for a long
	...

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