1867–1916 · Spain · Romantic
Enrique Granados (1867–1916) was a Spanish and Catalan pianist, composer and teacher. In Barcelona he founded a music academy that later took his name. His Spanish Dances were a great success, and his best-known work is the piano suite Goyescas, written under the impression of Goya's paintings. He died in the English Channel in 1916.
Enrique Granados was born on 27 July 1867 in Lleida (Lérida) into a military family. Soon afterwards the family moved to the Canary Islands, where his father was appointed military governor of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and they stayed there for about three and a half years. In later years Granados remembered this time with great affection, above all the garden of orange and lemon trees outside the window of the house.
In 1874 the family settled in Barcelona. The boy showed an early inclination for music and his parents encouraged it: his first lessons came from an officer who had served with his father, and then a piano teacher, Francisco Jurnet, was found, who taught him from 1878 to 1882. Granados did not attend school because of his delicate health, which left him more time for music.
His next teacher was Joan Pujol, a composer and teacher regarded as the best piano teacher in Barcelona. Isaac Albéniz and Ricardo Viñes were also among his pupils. Granados began working with him in 1882, and on 27 May 1883 he won a prize at a competition for young pianists; the jury included Albéniz and Felipe Pedrell. Granados studied music theory with Pedrell and took an interest in Spanish folk music, which would later noticeably shape his compositions.
In January 1886 Granados began playing five hours a day at the Café de las Delicias in Barcelona. The customers preferred pieces overloaded with effects, which was far from the young man's taste. A family friend, the businessman Eduardo Conde, hired him as music teacher to his children and paid him as much as the café did. On 9 April 1886 Granados appeared together with Ricardo Viñes at a concert in the Ateneu of Barcelona.
Granados realised that he could not complete his musical education in Spain and decided to go to Paris; Eduardo Conde supported the plan. To add to his savings for the journey, he spent two more months playing in another café, the Filipino, improvising on folk melodies. In September 1887 Granados set off for Paris.
Granados spent about two years in Paris and studied with Charles Bériot. Bériot insisted on a refined handling of tone, and this is thought to explain Granados's later interest in touch and in the use of the pedals. Another influence of Bériot was improvisation: Granados already had a gift for it, and under him it grew markedly stronger and was almost always part of his performances.
Paris shaped his view of performance and pushed him towards composition. Here Granados strengthened his friendship with Isaac Albéniz, whom he knew from Barcelona, and met Fauré, Debussy, Ravel and other leading musicians of the day. He watched the Eiffel Tower being built and opened.
There was fun too. Together with Viñes, who lodged in the same hotel, Granados rented an unusual three-wheeled cycle and took long rides around the city. He also grew fond of painting, visiting the home of the painter Francesc Miralles, a neighbour from his Barcelona childhood. In July 1889, after several unsuccessful attempts to interest Paris publishers in his music, Granados returned to Barcelona.
On his return Granados began to perform as a pianist, and in 1890 his first solo concert took place in a local theatre. After a while he made his name as a composer as well: he included his own Spanish Dances in his programmes. They were a great success and were printed, becoming his first published works. The first book was brought out by the publishing house of his former teacher Pujol.
In 1898 Granados's first large work appeared, the opera María del Carmen. After its staging in Madrid it brought the composer fame across the country: the audience, members of the royal family and King Alfonso XIII himself received it with enthusiasm. It was also staged in Valencia and Barcelona, but soon dropped out of the repertoire, because audiences preferred classical European operas.
Around the turn of the century Granados became fascinated by Catalan culture and wrote several works for local theatres that were hardly heard outside Catalonia. In 1900 he founded the Society of Classical Concerts in Barcelona, where he sometimes appeared as a conductor, and a year later, when the society broke up, he opened a music academy that later took his name. He worked there for the rest of his life; its pupils include Frank Marshall and Alicia de Larrocha. Granados also gave a great deal of attention to teaching and wrote a number of pedagogical works.
Granados did not give up his concert career and appeared with Jacques Thibaud, Camille Saint-Saëns and Pablo Casals. A close friendship tied him to Casals, and several of Granados's works are dedicated to him. In the first years of the 20th century Granados recorded several works on the Welte-Mignon.
In 1903 Granados took part in a competition announced by Tomás Bretón at the Royal Conservatory in Madrid: a prize of 500 pesetas was offered for the finest allegro de concierto written for a single pianist. Granados entered his Op. 46, and the jury chose him as winner by an almost unanimous vote. The win drew the attention of the whole country. By 1907 his name was known beyond Spain as well: Gabriel Fauré invited him to sit on the jury of a prestigious composition competition.
At that time Granados began work on his best-known composition, the suite Goyescas. The inspiration came from the paintings of Francisco Goya that he saw in the Prado Museum in Madrid. The composer wrote two books of piano pieces: the first was performed in 1911 in Barcelona and then in Paris, and the whole cycle was played in 1913 in Madrid. The suite was a tremendous success.
The success encouraged Granados to write an opera based on the same musical material. On the suggestion of the American pianist Ernest Schelling he took the plot from a work by Fernando Periquet. Work began in 1913 and the premiere was planned for Paris in 1914, but the First World War prevented it. The opera was first performed on 28 January 1916 in New York. Some critics received it rather coolly, noting a lack of stage drama and weak orchestration.
Granados became the first Spanish composer ever to visit the United States, and President Woodrow Wilson invited him to the White House, where he played as a pianist. Before leaving New York he recorded music rolls for the Duo-Art system of the Aeolian Company: these were his last recordings, and all of them survive.
In New York Granados was delayed by an invitation to give a recital and missed the boat to Spain. He took a ship to England and there changed to the Sussex, bound for France. On 24 March 1916, while the ship was crossing the English Channel, it was attacked by a German submarine with a torpedo. Granados died together with his wife, Amparo.
Granados's honours included the Order of Charles III, as well as the French Legion of Honour. His personal papers are kept at the Library of Catalonia and at the music museum of Barcelona, among them letters from Jules Massenet, Pablo Casals, Enrique Fernández Arbós and others.
Granados's music rests on the European trends of his time but is strongly coloured by Spanish and Catalan folk music. Many of his piano pieces are written in the spirit of folk dances, from the well-known jota to the less familiar vascongada and parranda. In the cycles Romantic Scenes, Tales of Youth, Sketches and Book of Hours the influence of Schumann is noticeable, both in the harmony and in the programmatic character of the pieces.
His output can be divided into three manners. The earliest is romantic, with Escenas Románticas and Escenas Poéticas. Next comes a more distinctly Spanish, nationalist manner: the Spanish Dances and Six Pieces on Spanish Folk Songs. Last is the Goya manner, covering the piano suite Goyescas, the opera named after it, vocal tonadillas with piano and further works.
The suite Goyescas is Granados's best-known work and an attempt to bring together the devices he used in his other compositions. Six pieces make up the suite, divided between two books, and its subtitle is Los majos enamorados. The second book closes with El amor y la muerte and Epílogo (Serenata del espectro), while the first holds Los requiebros, El fandango de candil, Coloquio en la reja and Quejas (La maja y el ruiseñor). El pelele stayed outside the published suite, but performers usually play it at the end as number seven.
An interesting feature of these pieces is the abundant ornamentation in the manner of Domenico Scarlatti. Granados uses both genuine folk tunes and his own imitations of them. Some of the pieces sound like guitar techniques, which is why they became popular in guitar arrangements; many other piano works by Granados have also been arranged for guitar, among them Dedicatoria and Danza No. 5.
Music for the theatre holds an important place in Granados's output: he left eleven stage works, of which four count as true operas, while the rest contain long spoken scenes and are nearer in spirit to zarzuelas or plain theatre pieces. He also wrote chamber works, namely a piano quintet, a piano trio and pieces for violin with piano, songs, and an orchestral symphonic poem inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy. Several works turned up and were performed many years after his death; he did not manage to realise some of his plans, and some manuscripts have been lost.
A convenient way into Granados is the Spanish Dances, Op. 37: twelve pieces in four books. The site has Danzas Españolas No. 2, Oriental (Op. 37), at intermediate level; this piece belongs to the first book of the cycle. Granados influenced Manuel de Falla and Pablo Casals, and among his pupils was the composer Rosa García Ascot.