Not even the devoted efforts of Falla’s pupil Ernesto Halffter could succeed – despite putting together two distinct versions – in making a convincing whole of the oratorio his master left in a jumble of disorganized fragments. Both textually and musically it remains a disparate collection of ideas that the composer, through ill-health and the depression caused by the cumulative effects of the Spanish civil war, an unhappy refuge in Argentina and then the great European war, was for over two decades unable to muster into order. Yet it was conceived with the most elevated of aims – a mystic ‘re-emergence’ of submerged Atlantis signifying a celebration of Spain’s extending the bounds of Christianity. It recalls classical legends of the country’s formation and dramatizes Columbus’s fulfilment of the Senecan prophecy of a new world. There is much splendid music in the widest diversity of styles, particularly for the chorus who, with a baritone narrator, carry the main weight of the work – curiously, neither Hercules nor Columbus, key figures in the story, has a solo. (The present version has a fuller Part 2 – the section left in the greatest chaos, full of unfinished sketches and alternate jottings – than that in Colomer’s version for Auvidis, 7/93.)
Sardinero is a noble-voiced narrator, Ricci brings pathos to her solo as the dying Queen Pyrene; in the charmingly folk-like “Isabella’s dream” a steadier line than Tarres produces would have been preferable. The chorus, who have some of the most impressive sections – such as the hymn to Barcelona, the hymn of Columbus’s expedition at sea, and the final “supreme night” – are mostly good, though once or twice (as in “Herald voices”) showing signs of tiredness; and the orchestra provide useful support. Balance is a bit variable. In view of its troubled genesis, the work is inevitably flawed, and some people might prefer merely a suite of its finest sections, such as was given recently at the Proms; but the full Halffter reconstruction, now accepted as definitive, gives us a glimpse of the masterpiece Atlantida might have been. The booklet contains a first-class note by Enrique Franco.
There have been other excellent performances of the ever-fresh Three-cornered hat, but none better than this imaginative and scintillating reading by Fruhbeck and the Philharmonia. So vivacious and idiomatic is the playing, so flexible and alive to all the score’s sly, witty allusions, and so subtle are the nuances, that the stage-pictures seem to be conjured up before our eyes. Some of the tempos are unusual: a faster fandango for the miller’s wife, a steadier final jota, and most strikingly, a slower but marvellously taut and incisive farruca for the miller’s dance. The recording, now over 30 years old, is as vivid as the performance. Terrific!'