Through the 19th century, many European composers—Smetana, Dvorák, and Grieg among them—used folk song and dance to express their patriotism. This kind of musical “nationalism” also found its voice in Spain in the early years of the 20th century, notably in the music of Isaac Albéniz, Manuel de FALLA, and Enrique Granados.
Enrique Granados was born in July 1867, in the Catalan town of Lérida, about 80 miles from Barcelona. Granados studied composition (as did Albéniz and Falla) with Felipe Pedrell (1841–1922), the foremost scholar of old Spanish music, who encouraged all his pupils to write in a Spanish idiom. Granados then went to Paris for two years to complete his piano studies under Charles de Bériot. On his return to Barcelona in 1889, he gave numerous recitals and produced several compositions, including the exquisite dance set Danzas españolas. This, along with Albéniz’s Piezas de salon, marked a new direction in Spanish music.
Granados’s first major success was Maria del Carmen, performed in Madrid in 1898, which won him a decoration from the king of Spain. After this, he devoted himself mainly to teaching at the Academia Granados, which he founded in 1901.
The turning point in Granados’s career came with the brilliant piano suite Goyescas, which he composed in 1911.
Granados was an enthusiastic painter and art-lover, and the seven pieces comprising Goyescas (meaning “Goya-like pieces”) were inspired by the paintings and tapestries of his own favourite Spanish artist, Francisco Goya (1746–1828). Through rhythm, harmony, and the palette of the keyboard, they aim to paint a musical picture that conveys the essence of Goya’s life and work. The best-loved piece is “The Maiden and the Nightingale.” Granados then reworked much of this music into an opera, also called Goyescas. A production of this by the Paris Opéra was prevented by the outbreak of World War I in 1914, and its premiere took place to much acclaim, at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in January 1916.
The composer’s life ended tragically and prematurely. Granados went to New York for the premiere of Goyescas, expecting to sail directly back to Spain, but changing his plans when President Woodrow Wilson invited him to play at the White House. He sailed first for England, then took a second ship, the Sussex, bound for the French port of Dieppe. The Sussex was torpedoed by a German submarine on March 24, 1916. Granados was picked up by a lifeboat but went to the aid of his wife, who was still in the water, and both were drowned. He was 51 years old, and had recently written to a friend: “I have a whole world of ideas … I am only now starting my work.”
As a part of his contribution to Spanish musical “nationalism,” Granados helped to revive an old type of Spanish opera called zarzuela. He wrote several stage works in this style. He also wrote a number of songs, including some in another venerable Spanish style, the tonadilla, best sampled in the Collection of Songs Written in the Antique Style.
However, the heart of Granados’s output was his piano music, which is an attractive blend of the Romantic style of 19th-century composers, such as Schumann and Liszt, but with a warm, evocative Spanish sound.
His reputation as a pianist was sterling, and his technical mastery of the instrument made his piano compositions extremely effective. His work shows the influence of Albéniz, but it is generally less flamboyant. His masterpiece remains Goyescas, and although the opera based on these pieces was a great success at the time, it is the original piano pieces that are most often heard today.
Alan Blackwood
SEE ALSO:
FURTHER READING
Hess, Carol A. Enrique Granados: A Bio-bibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Colección de Tonadillas; Danzas Españolas; Goyescas; Julian Bream Plays Granados and Albéniz; Rapsodia Aragonesa.