| Enrique Granados |
Article Index for Enrique |
Website Links For Enrique |
Information AboutEnrique Granados |
|
Pantaléon Enrique Costanzo Granados y Campiña ( July 27 , 1867 – March 24 , 1916 ) was a Spanish pianist and Composer of Classical Music . His music is in a uniquely Spanish style and, as such, representative of Musical Nationalism . Enrique Granados was also a talented painter in the style of Francisco Goya . LIFE He was born in Lleida (in Spanish ''Lérida''), Catalonia ( Spain ). As a young man he studied piano in Barcelona , where his teachers included Francisco Jurnet and Joan Baptista Pujol . In 1887 he went to Paris to study with De Beriot and, most importantly, Felipe Pedrell . He returned to Barcelona in 1889 . His first successes were at the end of the 1890s, with the Zarzuela ''Maria del Carmen'', which earned the attention of King Alfonso XIII . In 1911 Granados premiered his suite for piano ''Goyescas'', which became his most famous work. It is a set of six pieces based on paintings of Goya. Such was the success of this work that he was encouraged to expand it; he wrote an opera based on the subject in 1914 , but unfortunately the outbreak of World War I forced the European premiere to be canceled. It was performed for the first time in New York City on January 28 , 1916 , and was very well received. Shortly afterward he was invited to perform a piano recital for President Woodrow Wilson . Prior to leaving New York Granados also made live-recording Player Piano music rolls for the New-York-based Aeolian Company's "Duo-Art" system all of which survive today and can be heard - his very last recordings. Unfortunately the delay incurred by accepting the recital invitation caused him to miss his boat back to Spain. Instead, he took a ship to England, where he boarded the passenger ferry ''Sussex'' for Dieppe, France . On the way across the English Channel, the ''Sussex'' was torpedoed by a German U-boat, as part of the German Unrestricted Submarine Warfare policy during World War I . In a failed attempt to save his wife Amparo, whom he saw flailing in the water some distance away, Granados jumped out of his lifeboat, and Drowned . Ironically, he had a morbid fear of water for his entire life, and he was returning from his first-ever series of ocean voyages. MUSIC AND INFLUENCE Granados wrote piano music, Chamber Music (a Piano Quintet , music for Violin and piano), songs, zarzuelas, and an orchestral Tone Poem based on Dante's Divine Comedy . Many of his piano compositions have been transcribed for the classical Guitar and are generally considered as some of the most beautiful music in the guitar repertoire: examples include ''Dedicatoria'', ''Danza No. 5'', ''Goyescas''. Granados was an important influence on at least two other important Spanish composers and musicians, Manuel De Falla and Pablo Casals . WORKS
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
EXTERNAL LINKS |
|
|