Enrique Granados

Pantaleón Enrique Joaquín Granados Campiña (27 July 1867 – 24 March 1916), commonly known as Enrique Granados in Spanish or ''Enric Granados'' in Catalan, was a Spanish composer of classical music, and concert pianist from Catalonia, Spain. His most well-known works include '' Goyescas'', the ', and '' María del Carmen''.

Life

Pantaleón Enrique Joaquín Granados Campiña was born in Lleida, Spain, the son of Calixto José de la Trinidad Granados y Armenteros, a Spanish army captain who was born in Havana, Cuba, and Enriqueta Elvira Campiña de Herrera, from Santander, 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. He was unable to become a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but he was able to take private lessons with a conservatoire professor, Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot, whose mother, the soprano Maria Malibran, was of Spanish ancestry. Bériot insisted on extreme refinement in tone production, which strongly influenced Granados's teaching of pedal technique. He also fostered Granados's abilities in improvisation. Just as important were his studies with Felip Pedrell. He returned to Barcelona in 1889. His first successes were at the end of the 1890s, with the opera '' María del Carmen'', which attracted the attention of King Alfonso XIII.

In 1903, Granados participated in a competition organized by Tomás Bretón of the Madrid Royal Conservatory, which awarded a considerable sum of 500 pesetas for the best "concert allegro" for solo piano. Granados submitted his ''Allegro de concierto'', Op. 46, for which the jury declared him the winner with an almost unanimous vote. The win brought Granados to national attention.

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 Francisco 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 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 28 January 1916 and was very well received. Shortly afterwards, he was invited to perform a piano recital for President Woodrow Wilson. Before leaving New York, Granados also made live-recorded 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 last recordings.

Death

A delay in New York, incurred by accepting a recital invitation, caused him to miss his boat back to Spain. Instead, he took a ship to England, where he boarded the passenger ferry SS ''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 World War I policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. According to witness Daniel Sargent, Granados's wife, Amparo, was too heavy to get into a lifeboat. Granados refused to leave her and positioned her on a small life raft on which she knelt and he clung. Both then drowned within sight of other passengers. However, according to a different account from another survivor, "A survivor of the 1916 torpedo attack on a Cross channel ferry, Sussex, recognised Spanish composer Granados in a lifeboat, his wife in the water. Granados dived in to save her and perished." A subsequent account claims that Granados sank to the bottom of the ocean while attempting to save his wife due to a money belt fastened to his waist which was filled with gold from his American performances. Due to the unstable global economy as a result of World War I, Granados insisted on being paid in gold.

The personal papers of Enrique Granados are preserved in, among other institutions, the National Library of Catalonia.

Music and influence

Granados wrote piano music, chamber music (a piano quintet, a piano trio, 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; examples include ''Dedicatoria'', ''Danza No. 5'', and ''Goyescas''.

His music can be divided into three styles or periods:
#A romantic style including such pieces as ''Escenas Románticas'' and ''Escenas Poeticas''.
#A more typically nationalist, Spanish style including such pieces as ''Danzas Españolas'' (Spanish Dances), ''6 Piezas sobre cantos populares españoles'' (Six Pieces based on popular Spanish songs).
#The Goya (Goyesca) period, which includes the piano suite ''Goyescas'', the opera ''Goyescas'', various ''Tonadillas'' for voice and piano, and other works.

Granados was a significant influence on at least two other famous Spanish composers and musicians, Manuel de Falla and Pablo Casals

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