Enrique Granados
The Catalan who turned Goya's paintings and Spanish dances into piano music
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Who he was
Enrique Granados (1867–1916) was born in Lleida and died in the English Channel. He studied piano in Barcelona with Pujol and went to Paris in 1887 to study with Bériot. In 1901 he founded the Granados school in Barcelona, teaching piano and improvisation. In 1916 his opera Goyescas opened in New York; on the return voyage the ship was torpedoed by a German submarine, and he went back into the cabin to save his wife. Both drowned.
His place
He belongs to the second generation of Spanish nationalism, seven years younger than Albéniz but on a different path. Albéniz pursued Andalusian and Arab colour; Granados relied more on lyrical melody and harmony, with Spanish rhythm as a ground rather than a subject. His output is small, mostly piano music, songs and one opera. In his lifetime he was a Barcelona teacher and pianist whose name reached Spain and France. The opera version of Goyescas succeeded in New York, but his death left it without a sequel.
What to hear
Listen first for two kinds of dance. In the Twelve Spanish Dances the second, Oriental, depends on drawn-out melody and semitones, while the fifth, Andaluza, depends on a repeated bass and syncopation; hear one technique serve two kinds of movement. Then the guitar behind the piano. In the Six Pieces on Spanish Folksongs the accompaniment is often repeated chords and quick plucking; hear how the piano imitates the decay of a string. Then the organisation of virtuosity. The technical passages of the Allegro de Concierto Op.46 are never isolated; each is held by a dance rhythm. Finally the touch of satire. El pelele writes a straw dummy tossed in the air with staccato and sudden rests, and the sense of weight comes from silence.
Key works
- Piano: Twelve Spanish Dances, Goyescas, Allegro de Concierto Op.46, Valses poéticos
- Opera: Goyescas, premiered in New York in 1916
- Vocal: the Tonadillas songbook
Influence
His influence lies in piano teaching and repertoire. Goyescas raised Spanish material from dance pieces to a suite, proving that folk material could carry a large structure, the same problem Falla faced in Nights in the Gardens of Spain. His school trained a generation of Barcelona pianists. Because he died early and left few works, his reputation long rested on pleasant Spanish miniatures, and only recently has the music been read as tightly built cycles.
Listen in the library
All tracks from midicn-lib — inline badge is the license tier (C1 commercial / C2 non-commercial / C3 study only).
Sources
- 格拉纳多斯生平、巴塞罗那教学与 1916 年海难，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 的 Granados 条目，本文为原创表述
- 《戈雅之画》与西班牙舞曲的写作背景，参通行西班牙音乐研究，实例说明由本站撰写
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.