Musical hierarchy The Sinfonietta by Ernesto Halffter - reviewed by PATRIC STANDFORD '... an impressive job ...'

The name Halffter became significantly associated with music in Spain and Latin America during the twentieth century, and it began with two brothers, Rodolfo and Ernesto, the sons of an immigrant German family that settled in Madrid at the turn of the last century. Rodolfo sailed off to Mexico at the age of 35 and there wrote and conducted orchestral works and ballets; established the important magazine Nuestra Música; became manager of the principal Mexican publishing company in 1946 and continued to rise -- he died in 1987.

As a composer he was firmly under the spell of Manuel de Falla, as also was his brother Ernesto who stayed in Madrid and concentrated his time far more exclusively on composition to his death in 1989. Also powerfully influenced by de Falla, Ernesto eventually drew aside the stylistic veil in favour of influences from Stravinsky, Ravel and Poulenc, and some of these can already be heard in this welcome recording of a group of his early compositions which includes the fine Sinfonietta in D of 1925.

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