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journalist, and she combined journalism
with the practice of law. She was impris-
oned twice during the Franco era, once for
distributing antigovernment pamphlets and
the second time on a false charge of aiding
Basque terrorist bombers. These experi-
ences led her to write a series of exposés
about the shocking conditions in women's
prisons. Her early career as a lawyer spe-
cializing in women's and family issues gen-
erated a series of topics on feminist issues
between 1969 and 1975.
Far from being satisfied with the end of
the Franco oppression, she redoubled her
activities with a feminist assault on the
patriarchal institutions that survived the
transition to political democracy. Her writ-
ings of this period include half a dozen
topics and major articles on the role and
rights of women in Spain.
A poet, playwright, and novelist, as well
as lawyer, politician, and international
champion of women's issues, Falcón
summed up her public life in
Memorias
políticas
(Political memoirs)
(1959-1999)
an
autobiographical narrative in which she
recalls her early struggle against censorship,
the persecution and tragic exile of her com-
rades, and her own imprisonment and then
moves on to the still-flawed environment
of Spain today, a country in which the
repressive power of elites and the irrelevant
trappings of monarchy still stir the indigna-
tion of this unreconstructed revolutionary.
ence on another pupil, E
NRIQUE
G
RANADOS
.
In Paris, between 1907 and 1914, Falla
came under the additional influence of
Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel whose
“impressionistic” approach he adapted to
his own ideas. What resulted was a stream
of composition that did not re-create Span-
ish traditional themes but rather created
original work inspired by them. Among his
most notable achievements were the com-
position for piano and orchestra
Noches en
los jardines de España
(
Nights in the Gardens of
Spain,
1909-15), the opera
La vida breve
(The brief life, 1914), the folk songs
Siete
canciones populares
(“Seven popular songs,”
1914), and the ballets
El amor brujo
(
Love,
the Magician,
1915) and
El sombrero de tres
picos
(
The Three-Cornered Hat,
1919). In addi-
tion, he composed a concerto for harpsi-
chord, as well as chamber music. By the
1930s he was acknowledged as the leading
Spanish composer and enjoyed interna-
tional recognition. He left Spain at the end
of the S
PANISH
CIVIL
WAR
and spent the rest
of his life in Argentina. His principal work
in these last years was
Atlántida
(Atlantis).
This massive composition was left unfin-
ished at his death but was completed by
others and presented in Madrid in 1961.
Farnese, Alessandro
(1545-1592)
Spanish general
As the son of M
ARGARET
,
DUCHESS
OF
P
ARMA
(daughter of C
HARLES
I), Farnese was a
nephew of P
HILIP
II and of J
OHN
OF
A
USTRIA
(Don Juan de Austria). Educated in Spain
and a combatant at L
EPANTO
in 1571,
Farnese was thoroughly identified with that
country's grand designs. He was particularly
attached to Don Juan de Austria under
whom he had served at Lepanto and accom-
Falla, Manuel de
(1876-1946)
Spanish composer
An Andalusian pianist, Falla studied com-
position under Felipe Pedrell, an advocate
for a distinctive Spanish music based on
national themes, who also exerted his influ-
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