With Dutoit's outstanding Decca coupling of Falla's El amor brujo and El sombrero de tres picos (8/83) still dominating the catalogue, thoughtful recording companies have to decide what extra they can offer in this repertoire. Virgin Classics have come up with the enterprising idea of returning to Falla's original scores. Both works were written for chamber orchestra, and one of the attractions of this disc (admirably recorded in EMI's Studio No. 1 at Abbey Road) is the translucent textures which were part of Falla's original conception, in which Nicholas Cleobury obviously revels for throughout both ballets he achieves playing of pleasing refinement and delicacy.
El amor brujo was written with a specific gipsy dancer in mind (Pastora Imperio) and, not surprisingly, the vocal portions of the score are here much more expansive, including a highly dramatic flamenco-style spell to rekindle lost love; ''For the sake of Satan, for the sake of Barrabas! I want the man who has forgotten me to come searching for me!''. This is superbly sung by Claire Powell, who is perfectly cast, as is the equally vibrant Jill Gomez in the companion work. There is also a good deal of extra atmospheric writing for the orchestra, usually marked misterio, and several very attractive linking passages missing from the version we know today, while in Act 1 ''El circulo magico'' comes after the piece we now call the ''Ritual Fire Dance'' here the ''Dance at the end of the day''. I made direct comparisons with Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos's admirable Decca Ovation recording and allowing for tempo differences the original ballet is at least ten minutes longer in duration, including an extra ''Interludio'' in Act 2. It must be said that the revised full orchestral score is both more robustly vivid (without any loss of delicacy in, for instance, the deliciously seductive ''Pantomima'') and more succinct. Falla's cuts were dramatically effective in tautening the music and the action, while both the famous ''Ritual Fire Dance'' and the resplendent finale have added excitement. Here that is partly because Cleobury does not seek to make the ''Fire Dance'' bite as pungently in its rhythmic force as does Fruhbeck de Burgos, and he is certainly not carried away by the ecstatic feeling of the closing pages (''The dawn is coming! Ring out, bells, ring out! My glory is returning'') which sound comparatively limp alongside the full-blooded playing of the New Philharmonia Orchestra on Decca. But like its companion work on this Virgin CD, the extended original version makes perfect gramophone listening.
El corregidor y la molinera was also conceived for chamber orchestra and first appeared in 1917 in Madrid (two years after the unsuccessful premiere of El amor brujo) as a mime play with music. Its gentle, sardonic humour is well expressed in Falla's witty score, which in its original format is comparatively lightweight in effect. Although, as with the predecessor, there is considerable extra linking music, which is often delightful, again the effect is tamer without the full orchestral palette. The glorious opening fanfare with drums and ''Oles'' which we know in El sombrero de tres picos is missing, the First Act is without a positive ending and the finale of the Second Act only offers a whiff of the famous ''Jota'' which closes the famous Diaghilev El sombrero de tres picos so resplendently. At the time Falla was rewriting and rescoring his work for the Ballets Russes, Diaghilev was staying with the King of Spain who asked the great musical catalyst exactly what he did. ''Your majesty'', replied the impresario, ''I do not compose, choreograph, paint scenery, or design costumes. But I am indispensible.'' And so he was!'