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Two opposed conceptualizations of Granada, shared across poetry, painting (and photography) and music, combined to create a contrasting transmedia soundscape of the city throughout the twentieth century. Granada "the Beautiful" responded to the romantic myth of the city and was rooted mainly in the Alhambra, an Arab palace among the mountains, filled with gardens and water fountains. This idealized image could be heard in Manuel de Falla's literary and pictorial dream: Noches en los Jardines de España [Nights in the Garden of Spain] (1916), and also appeared in Federico García Lorca's musical conception of his city (1933). Fifty years later, the democratic transformation of Spain generally led to a punk, poetic deconstruction of the city in Rimado de ciudad [Rhyming from the City] (1983), singing about the margins of the city: Granada "the Wounded", emerging from the suburbia and from the dark streets of the Arab quarter: the Albaicín. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No other work represents Spanish ness in the international context like Manuel de Falla's El amor brujo. The score underwent a series of adaptations from the original gitanería (1915) to the suite for concert version (1916) and finally the ballet (1925), acclaimed all over the world. The composer himself transcribed some of the more characteristic musical numbers for piano, like the »Ritual fire dance«, which was played and recorded by Arthur Rubinstein on several occasions. Although Falla is labelled as a nationalist composer, the première of El Amor Brujo aroused sensitivities regarding how Spanish it sounded, first in Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona and later when it was premiered in other countries. Not only did the modern conception of the work puzzle the audiences, but also the peculiar use of popular material and the colourful character of the instrumentation. Thus it was described as nationalist, frenchified, popularist or espagnolade all at once. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]