Granados: Spanish Dances

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Cat No: 8555956

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Release Date: 04 January 2002

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 747313595624

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: GRANADOS

Description
Enrique Granados (1867-1916)Spanish Dances (orchestrated by Rafael Ferrer)Enrique Granados was born in Lérida on 27th July 1867. During his childhood he spent some years in the Canary Islands, a period that he always fondly remembered as a lost paradise. His leaning towards music became apparent at an early age, but he owed his main academic training to Joan Baptista Pujol. Felipe Pedrell, one of the founding fathers of contemporary Spanish music, took an interest in the boy when he heard him play in a competition. In 1886 Granados had to earn his living as a café pianist, but in 1887 he moved to Paris, where he undertook further study with Bériot. He met the pianist Ricardo Viñes, with whom he gave various duo concerts, and also fell under the conservative influences of the Schola Cantorum. Some, like Collet, maintain that the Danzas españolas (Spanish Dances) date from his stay in Paris. On his return to Spain the Dances were published one by one until 1890 and won their composer international recognition. He made appearances as a pianist in recitals and with orchestra, and spent 1892 and part of 1893 in Madrid, where he introduced two of his major chamber works, the Quintet, Opus 49, and the Trio, Opus 50. On his return to Barcelona, in 1895 he played the piano part in the Rapsodia española (Spanish Rhapsody) of Albéniz, under the composer’s direction. His opera María del Carmen, given in Madrid in 1898, had a modest reception and has now fallen into oblivion. Other stage works of the end of the nineteenth century still await possible attention. A historical event of major importance was the foundation of the Academia Granados, to which Frank Marshall would belong and which now has Alicia de Larrocha as one of its leading figures. In 1903 Granados won a composition prize from Madrid Conservatory with his Allegro de concierto, in competition with Falla himself. One of his most important orchestral compositions, the symphonic poem Dante dates from 1908; in the following years he wrote his indisputable masterpiece, Goyescas, for piano, performed in Barcelona in August 1911. In this composition Granados showed his affinity with the eighteenth-century world represented by Goya in his paintings. In 1912 the North-American pianist Ernest Schelling persuaded him to compose an opera from this piano work. For this purpose he used a libretto by Periquet. The stage version of Goyescas was to be his last great work, although mention should also be made of the songs under the title Tonadillas escritas en estilo antiguo (Tonadillas written in the old style), that share a very similar atmosphere. The opera Goyescas was given at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on 26th January 1916. On the voyage home to Spain Granados and his wife were drowned, on 24th March, when the British ship, the Sussex, was torpedoed by a German submarine.It has not been possible to establish absolutely the date of composit
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