Spanish Musicians: Pablo Casals and Manuel de Falla

This article features a pair of stamps depicting Spanish Musicians: Pablo Casals and Manuel de Falla. Of course, countries often feature favorite musicians on their stamps. This tradition dates back a century to the first set of composer stamps from Austria in 1922. On this blog you can read many articles about such sets. For example, check out this set of French composer stamps. Or this set of Cuban stamps. Or see these sets from Britain, Germany, and the United States, among others.

This article features a pair of Spanish stamps from 1976 honoring two famous classical musicians. It was the centennial year of both of their births. The first is the internationally famous cellist Pablo Casals, and the second is the fascinating composer Manuel de Falla. Both musicians are favorites of mine and I think the stamps are quite striking.

Pablo Casals

The Spanish cellist Pablo Casals was born in 1876 in Catalonia. His father was a parish organist and choirmaster who made sure the young Casals had instruction in piano, violin, organ, and composition. At the age of eleven, he fell in love with the cello and began playing it. In 1888, he began studies in the Escola Municipal de Música in Barcelona. In 1893, the composer Isaac Albéniz heard him play and sent letters of introduction to Madrid where Casls was later able to play at the palace and then given a royal stipend to study at the Madrid Royal Conservatory.

His international reputation began in the summer of 1899 when he went to London. There, he performed at The Crystal Palace and then for Queen Victoria. Subsequently, he played public concerts in Paris and then toured Spain and The Netherlands. By 1901 he was touring in the United States and in 1903 South America. He had a meteoric rise to the highest levels of the music world, playing at the White House for President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904.

Casals was at the top of the music world seven decades, until his death in 1973. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest cellists who ever lived and left behind an enormous discography.

The horizontal stamp of Casals has the value of 3 pesetas. On the left is a portrait of Casals in black and right, he looks down, perhaps as if playing the cello, though we only see his bust. On the right half of the stamp we, in blue ink we see the upper portion of a cello with hands playing. Although the cello on the stamp shows more than the four strings of a cello (I count five), the juxtaposition of his portrait with this detail of him playing is quite attractive. The two-tone stamp is also rather beautiful.

Manuel de Falla

The second stamp in the pair features the composer Manuel de Falla. He was born in the Spanish port city of Cádiz in 1876. He took piano lessons from Alejandro Odero and learned harmony and counterpoint from Enrique Broca. By the 1890s, the young Falla was already composing. His family moved to Madrid where in 1900 he was able to attend the Madrid Conservatory. To help with the finances of the family, Falla also began to teach piano lessons and classes.

It was in Madrid where he began to take an interest in the music of his native region of Andalusia. In particular, he was drawn to the rhythms of flamenco dancing, which would have a profound influence on his compositions. In 1905, Falla wrote a one-act opera, La vida breve, which won him first prize in a music competition.

Falla went to Paris in 1907 where he was able to meet many of the leading composers of the day including Maurice Ravel, Claude Debusy, Igor Stravinsky, and Isaac Albéniz. The seven years in Paris were tremendously important for him to develop his style as a composer. However, the outbreak of World War One forced him to return to Madrid. In 1921, he moved to Granada where he would live for the next eighteen years. During this period, he took up an interest in Catalan folk music and worked with many leading musicians from Barcelona. He also befriend the harpsichordist Wanda Landowska and wrote several piece for her.

In 1939, Falla moved once again, this time to Argentina, following the victory of Francisco Franco. He died there in 1946. While Manuel de Falla had a large legacy for his classical music, incorporating the sounds of Spanish folk music, his output was relatively modest. He is best known for many of his piano compositions as well as for ballets inlcuding El amor brujo (1915) and El sombrero de tres picos (1917). The later was produced by Serge Diaghilev with set designs by Pablo Picasso.

The stamp of Manuel de Falla has a design similar to its pair for Casals. On the right, in black ink, is a portrait of Falla. In this case he looks defiantly ahead. On the right, in red ink, is a woman dancing around a fire. This may recall his interest in Spanish folk music, or his famous works for the ballet stage. It is an equally striking stamp to the Casals and together they make an attractive pair.

Fantastically, Casals did record a Manuel de Falla piece, Nana from Canciones Populares Españolas. Take a listen!