Although studies of modernism have focused largely on European nations, Spain has been conspicuously neglected. As Carol A. Hess argues in this book, such neglect is undeserved. Through the composer Manuel de Falla (1876-1946), Hess explores the advent of modernism in Spain in relation to political and cultural tensions prior to the Spanish Civil War. The result is a view of the the musical life of Spain in an evolving aesthetic climate.