Much of the life of Jesús Bal revolved round Manuel de Falla, to the extent that he eventually married Falla’s student, pianist Rosita García Ascot, who came from an educated, affluent, Republican family with a musical tradition. Bal was a shy, intelligent young man who admired Falla and became a regular visitor to Rosita’s family. The couple's life was intimately linked to de Falla, not only in the great moments of shared success, but also in the deep loneliness of exile or in the unbridgeable distance created by the Civil War.

In Jesús and Rosita’s house, photographs dedicated to the couple by Pedrell, Granados, and Ravel squeezed up on the piano, and de Falla’s annotated scores crowded into the music stand. Much of what Bal wrote dealt with de Falla, from his earliest articles, reviews, and essays to his major study of the composer, a project that, unfortunately, he never finished. Rosita performed de Falla’s works in Spain and in Paris, with Nadia Boulanger and Ravel among the audience. All and only de Falla, as the master would have liked.