When Serge Diaghilev took his Ballets Russes on tour in Spain, he approached Manuel de Falla for a work for his troupe. Diaghilev was introduced to Falla's pantomime El Corregidor y la molinera, which Falla had written between 1915 and 1917. (Pedro de Alarcón's popular story had also been used by Hugo Wolf for an opera in 1895.) Diaghilev asked Falla to expand the work into a one-act ballet, El sombrero de tres picos, which was premiered in London on July 22, 1919, with Ernest Ansermet conducting, choreography by Leonide Massine, and sets designed by Pablo Picasso. Both the pantomime and the ballet were a return to Falla's roots in many respects. He had spent time in Paris, learning to love and use the techniques of Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky, among others, and been criticized for it. This story was based on Spanish folk-ways and Falla's music used Spanish folk idioms and dances. The debut of the ballet by a foreign company, with "modern" choreography, was also criticized, but the work was highly successful overall. Two suites of excerpts have become some of Falla's most well-known works heard in concert halls. A fanfare-like introduction, complete with castanets, clapping, shouts of "Olé," and a mezzo-soprano's warning that the Devil is about, precedes the two-part ballet. The first part opens with an afternoon scene of the miller and his wife at work, a blackbird (the piccolo) singing along. When the tricorne-wearing magistrate comes to romance the miller's wife, it is marked by the bassoon. She dances a fandango and flirts with him, but ultimately she refuses him. That evening, the neighbors dance seguidillas and the miller gives his own driven farruca. Referencing Fate's knock from Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, the miller is arrested and the mezzo-soprano warns the abandoned wife. The bassoon again marks the return of the Corregidor dancing his refined, old-fashioned minuet. This is interrupted by a wild splash of the strings, harp, and woodwinds as he falls into the millrace. The miller, who has escaped, comes back to thwart the magistrate. The neighbors dance a jota, to celebrate the magistrate's humiliation. Although employing many Spanish-flavored rhythms and turns of musical phrase, Falla's music still shows traits of what he learned in Paris: the translucency of harmony and colorful use of orchestral timbres. It is so vivid and eloquent that the action is obvious and delightful even without seeing the ballet dancers.

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