Rodolfo Halffter

Rodolfo Halffter Escriche (30 October 1900 – 14 October 1987) was a Spanish composer, music critic, and professor with Mexican citizenship (from 1939). He wrote in a style always informed by his early engagement with the modernist aesthetics of Madrid's Grupo de los Ocho, finding inspiration in the music of Claude Debussy, Manuel de Falla, and Arnold Schoenberg. Halffter came from a musical family. Though largely self-taught as a composer, he studied Schoenberg's Harmonielehre and was advised by Falla. His music has been compared to Domenico Scarlatti's in its neoclassicism and to Falla's in its mild polytonality. Like others in his milieu, Halffter chose to leave Francoist Spain at the end of the Spanish Civil War. He emigrated to Mexico in 1939 and taught there for more than three decades, enjoying increasing recognition. Several notable composers are among his students. Starting in 1953, he became the first composer to use twelve-tone technique in Mexico. Halffter returned to Spain beginning in the 1960s, where he also taught, and received its Premio Nacional de Música in 1986. He was also honored in Mexico, where he died. He wrote music in many genres and for many films.