Manuel de Falla y Matheu was an Andalusian composer of classical music. Photo / Supplied
In another of his explorations of classical gems for the pop-earred and uninitiated, Nick Smith conducts his own Spanish inquisition.
The charge of plagiarism against Australian pop plodders Men At Work is surely an injustice. There are scores of more egregious examples which got away scot-free.
Down Under was a monster hit for the Aussies in 1981 but the flute refrain was partially lifted from a children's song, Kookaburra, costing the group 5 per cent of royalties from 2002.
It seems harsh when you consider pop acts from Elvis to Janet Jackson have been ripping off classical music for decades and the long-dead composers don't even get a name-check.
Even the jazz greats mined yesteryear's classics for inspiration. Many people, even those with only a passing acquaintance with jazz, will have heard of two albums, Miles Davis' Kind of Blue and Sketches of Spain. On Sketches, Davis credits two tracks - Concerto de Aranjuez and Will o' the Wisp - to 20th century Spanish composers, Joaquin Rodrigo and Manuel de Falla.
Davis could easily have extended partial credit to de Falla for the other three tunes as well; snatches of melody from the Spaniard's dance music, El amor brujo (Love the magician), are to be heard all across the album. Davis arranger Gil Evans is named as the composer, yet the track Saeta directly incorporates melody and parts of the brass arrangement from de Falla's Introduccion y escena (roughly, Setting the scene). But then both de Falla and Evans were mining the same rich vein of music: traditional Spanish folk (the dangerous ancient stuff, not the kaftan-wearers). Evans clearly owes a debt - but is it to de Falla or his Andalusian and Catalonian forbears?
It's a pointless argument. Back in the day, classical superstars beat a path to Spain to write pieces inspired by the region's unique east-meets-west musical tradition. They were all at it and the difference between plagiarism and inspiration is wafer thin.
And as Davis proved, Spanish classical music can cross over to a modern audience, following paths denied its more refined European composers. Iberian music really is different: raw but cinematically orchestral; exotic yet familiar.
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra deliberately named their new show Sketches of Spain (playing this week in Napier, Hamilton and Auckland) to alert general music fans that - of all classical programmes - this is the one they will know.
Thousands of Kiwis own a copy of Davis's album and many will want to hear the original source.
The orchestra play the key Davis track, the de Aranjuez concerto, de Falla's Three Cornered Hat and Spanish-inspired pieces from Debussy and Rimsky-Korsokov.
Directing proceedings is the Porto Symphony Orchestra conductor, Christoph Konig, who has "been absolutely living in that very Latin, Spanish environment for many years," says NZSO chief executive, Peter Walls. "This is the real deal, the way we're doing this."
Another who's deeply concerned with Spanish musical authenticity is Josep Pons, the director of Spain's national orchestra, who in 1991 got his hands on the original version of de Falla's El amor brujo.
De Falla had re-orchestrated the music, taking out some of the rough and raw folk edges to create in 1925 one of the most popular dance scores in the classical canon.
But the version he wrote 10 years earlier is closer to its folk sources and better for it. This one is written for only 15 instruments and the close recording of each instrument brings a real immediacy to the sound. The biggest change, though, is the singing.
El amor brujo is peppered with sung and spoken parts and, as de Falla had it in the original piece, Pons employs a genuine Catalan flamenco singer (cantaora) rather than soprano to voice these parts.
Cantaora Ginesa Ortega gets pretty woolly and wild on these tracks. You can hear why it antagonised classical audiences, and probably still does. Bum notes abound and classical buffs hate that.
General music fans, however, are less hung up about note-perfect singing, often preferring the emotional truth an untrained voice brings to a piece.
Ortega doesn't leave you wondering. She's like a Spanish version of Sinead O'Connor at her most demented and unhinged; you can just about hear the smack of Ortega's foam-flecked lips and see her eyes rolling into the back of her head. It sounds thrilling.
This El amor brujo reeks of the volatile Spanish temperament of legend.
Lowdown
CD: El amor brujo by Manuel de Falla, directed by Josep Pons
Key track: Danza del fin del dia
Pop equivalent: Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain, supplemented with vocals by a demented, angry Sinead O'Connor
Download: Track four at http://www.amazon.co.uk/De-Falla-El-Amor-brujo/dp/B004XQCP3C
Live: NZSO performing Sketches of Spain Napier Municipal Theatre, Tue 30 August, 7.30 pm; Hamilton Founders Theatre, Thurs 1 Sept, 7.30 pm; Auckland Town Hall, Fri Sept 2, 7 pm
- TimeOut