In Europe, the celebrations to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Beethoven’s death included avant-garde productions, such as George Antheil’s Ballet mecánique, and the Oedipus Rex’s production by Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, with music by Strawinsky, and text by Jean Cocteau based on Jean Daniélou’s translation from Latin (1927).

In Spain, Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) had finished his Concerto para clave, written for Wanda Landowska, who performed its premiere in the United States and France. Falla’s 50th birthday was celebrated with events in Granada, Barcelona, Paris, and Madrid during 1926 and 1927. Falla’s works, El retablo de Maese Pedro, and the Concerto para clave would become a reference model for young musicians, such as Gustavo Pittaluga, and Rodolfo and Ernesto Halffter.

The emblem of the new music was Ernesto Halffter’s Sinfonietta. Rodolfo Halffter‘s Suite en cuatro tiempos was first performed in 1928. Óscar Esplá wrote the symphonic poem, Don Quijote velando las armas, in 1927.

Gerardo Diego, a musician as well as a poet, explained the current aesthetic taste: Strauss and Schönberg were not liked, while Ravel, Bártok, Falla, and Strawinsky’s «never heard hubbub, with its sharp, exasperating, sudden and flaming timbres», were loved.