Ernesto Halffter Escriche (16 January 1905, Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

–5 July 1989, Madrid) was a Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 and conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

. He was the brother of Rodolfo Halffter

Rodolfo Halffter

Rodolfo Halffter Escriche was a Spanish composer.-Life:Born in Madrid, Spain into a family of musicians, he was the brother of Ernesto Halffter and uncle of Cristóbal Halffter, also composers. His father Ernesto Halffter Hein came from Königsberg, Germany...

.

Halffter was part of the Grupo de los Ocho (Group of Eight

Group of Eight (music)

The Group of Eight was a group of Spanish composers and musicologists, including Jesús Bal y Gay, Ernesto Halffter and his brother Rodolfo, Juan José Mantecón, Julián Bautista, Fernando Remacha, Rosa García Ascot, Salvador Bacarisse and Gustavo Pittaluga. The group was founded in the spirit of Les...

), which formed a sub-set of the Generation of '27

Generation of '27

The Generation of '27 was an influential group of poets that arose in Spanish literary circles between 1923 and 1927, essentially out of a shared desire to experience and work with avant-garde forms of art and poetry. Their first formal meeting took place in Seville in 1927 to mark the 300th...

.

At the age of thirteen, he started to compose music for the piano. A critic sent a copy of Halffter's string trio, "Homenajes", to Manuel de Falla

Manuel de Falla

Manuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish Andalusian composer of classical music. With Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Joaquín Turina he is one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century....

, beginning a long relationship that included composition lessons from Falla. "Sinfonietta" is one of his earliest and best works; it shows the influence of Scarlatti

Domenico Scarlatti

Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti was an Italian composer who spent much of his life in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. He is classified as a Baroque composer chronologically, although his music was influential in the development of the Classical style...

. Later, he became more nationalistic with "Rapsodia portuguesa for piano and orchestra", composed in 1938, during the Spanish Civil War

Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

. In 1934 he became director and conductor of the Seville

Seville

Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...

 Conservatory of Music but, married to the Portuguese pianist Alice Câmara Santos, chose to live in Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

 during this period up to 1954. Among his notable pupils were composers Vicente Asencio

Vicente Asencio

Vicente Asencio y Ruano was a Spanish composer. He is perhaps best known for his works for guitar of which guitarists Andrés Segovia and Narciso Yepes were notable exponents. His most well known works for this instrument are Elegía a Manuel de Falla , Sonatina , Colletici Íntim , and Dipso...

 and Ann-Elise Hannikainen

Ann-Elise Hannikainen

Ann-Elise Hannikainen is a Finnish composer. She was born in Hanko, Finland, the daughter of Heikki and Marianne Hannikainen...

, who also became his life-companion during his later life.

When Falla died in 1946, he left his cantata "Atlàntida

Atlàntida

Atlántida is an opera by Manuel de Falla based on a Spanish translation of the Catalan poem L'Atlàntida by Jacint Verdaguer.Atlántida started in the 1920s as a cantata, but grew over 20 years to become a full opera. De Falla died in Argentina before it was finished, leaving a loose collection of...

" incomplete; Ernesto Halffter was asked to complete it. It premiered in 1962, but Halffter later revised it. The second version was completed in 1976.

In 1974, the Dalí Theatre and Museum

Dalí Theatre and Museum

The Dalí Theatre and Museum , is a museum of the artist Salvador Dalí in his home town of Figueres, in Catalonia.- History :The heart of the museum was the building that housed the town's theatre when Dalí was a child, and where one of the first public exhibitions of young Dalí's art was shown...

 in Figueras, Spain, was opened. Halffter was a personal friend of Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí

Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....

, and was asked to write a piece of music to celebrate the event.

He was awarded Spain's Premio Nacional de Música

Premio Nacional de Música

The Premio Nacional de Música forms part of the annual National Awards in Spain....

 for composition in 1984.

He wrote music for a dozen films. Perhaps the most noteworthy is Don Quixote de la Mancha

Don Quixote de la Mancha (1947 film)

Don Quixote de la Mancha is the first sound film version in Spanish of the great classic novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. It was directed and adapted by Rafael Gil and released in 1947...

, the 1947 film version of Cervantes

Cervantes

-People:*Alfonso J. Cervantes , mayor of St. Louis, Missouri*Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, 16th-century man of letters*Ignacio Cervantes, Cuban composer*Jorge Cervantes, a world-renowned expert on indoor, outdoor, and greenhouse cannabis cultivation...

's classic novel. He also adapted and conducted the music for "El Amor brujo" (1967), based on the ballet by Falla. It was directed by Francisco Rovira Beleta

Francisco Rovira Beleta

Francisco Rovira Beleta was a twice Academy Award nominee Spanish screenwriter and film director. His film Los atracadores was entered into the 12th Berlin International Film Festival. His 1962 film Los Tarantos was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Film category...

, was nominated for an Oscar and features guitarist Narciso Yepes

Narciso Yepes

Narciso Yepes was a Spanish guitarist.-Biography:Yepes was born into a family of humble origin in Lorca, Region of Murcia. His father gave him his first guitar when he was four years old. He took his first lessons from Jesus Guevara, in Lorca...

.

Compositions

• Deux esquisses symphoniques pour orchestre (La chanson du lanternier; Paysage mort) (1922-1925)
• Hommages: petite suite pour trio (1922)
• Sinfonietta (1925)
• Dos canciones (1927)
• L'hiver de l'enfance (1928-34)
• Canciones del niño de cristal (1931-34)
• Canzone e pastorella for cello and piano (1934)
• Amanecer en los jardines de España (1937)
• Señora (1938)
• Rapsodia portuguesa for piano and orchestra (1939)
• Seis canciones portuguesas (1940-41)
• Cançao do berço (1940-41)
• Canto inca (1944)
• Seguidilla caselera (1945)
• Canción de Dorotea (1947)
• Fantasía española for cello and piano (1952)
• Atlàntida (completion of Falla's work: 1961; revision 1976)
• Canticum (1964)
• Psalmi (1967)
• Concerto for guitar and Orchestra (1969)
• Madrigalesca for guitar (1969)
• Homage to Salvador Dalí for trumpets, percussion, tenor, piano and mixed choir (1974)
• Pregón (1974)
• Sonatina, one-act ballet