Manuel de Falla’s El retablo de maese Pedro (Master Peter’s Puppet Show) is a one-act puppet-opera with prologue and epilogue, set to a Spanish libretto drawn from Cervantes’s Don Quixote. The score is compact—about 27 minutes—and combines theatrical wit with concise musical gesture, telling the story of Master Peter’s puppet play and Don Quixote’s comic intervention.

The work is scored for a deliberately lean, chamber-like orchestra that foregrounds harpsichord: flute (doubling piccolo), two oboes, English horn, clarinet, bassoon; two horns, trumpet; percussion (bell, tenor drum, rattles, tambourine, tam-tam, xylophone), timpani; harpsichord, harp-lute (or harp), and strings. Heraldic or more public-sounding passages are reinforced by horns, trumpet and additional percussion, but Falla generally favours transparent textures and tight instrumental colours. Wanda Landowska’s famous harpsichord at the first Paris performance exemplified the work’s distinctive timbral profile.

Musically, El retablo blends neo-classical clarity and contrapuntal craft with Spanish folkloric elements: dance rhythms (seguidilla, romance-like lyricism), modal inflections, crisp rhythmic punctuations and vivid percussion effects. The score’s dramaturgy is economical—short vocal/choral episodes alternate with sharply characterised instrumental scenes—so that Falla achieves strong theatrical impact with restrained means.