The first of the two suites Falla extracted from The Three-Cornered Hat is the less popular, although it does contain plenty of colorful, Spanish-inflected music. Falling into four movements, it includes all the major dances of the ballet's Part 1, minus some "fill" music, and transplants one dance from near the end of the ballet.

First is "Mediodia," or Afternoon (alternately translated as Dusk), which sometimes includes a bumptious opening fanfare that Falla added to the full ballet so the audience would have more time to look at a drop curtain designed by Picasso. The main matter consists of restless, undulating figures; sharp Spanish rhythms; distant fanfares and birdcalls; and a hint of the final dance that will conclude the ballet (and the second suite).

Second is "Danza de la molinera," or Dance of the Miller's Wife, the ballet's principal female character. This is a fandango, with soaring string melodies, an urgent rhythmic undercurrent, and colorful support by the winds, brass, and percussion (the horns are especially integral to the sonic fabric).

Third is a dance borrowed from near the end of the ballet, "El Corregidor," a portrait of the pompous local official who wears the three-cornered hat of the title. This begins as an old-fashioned courtly dance, almost a minuet, but it's interrupted by comic little woodwind solos and clumsy crashes before switching to an almost frantic music-box-style string melody.

Finally, "Las Uvas" (The Grapes) accompanies a scene in which the Corregidor flirts with the miller's wife, who is teasing him with a bunch of grapes. Again, this features incisive rhythms drawn from flamenco music in the manner of the earlier solo dance of the miller's wife.

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