Composer: Falla
Composition: La Vida Breve
Performers: Nancy Fabiola Herrera ms, Aquiles Machado t, BBC Philharmonic/Juanjo Mena
Catalogue Number: Chandos CHAN20032

La Vida Breve was the breakthrough work for Manuel de Falla; composed before he moved to Paris where none other than Debussy urged him to revise it for performance, smoothing the transitions from number to number. The combination of local Andalusian colour, dance and verismo social comment was very much of its time but the need for specialist performers, brevity and dramatic implausibility have kept it a rarity on the stage.

The plot concerns an infatuated...