November 21, 2009 - Music Theory and History Reading

I'm reading Kirby, Music for Piano: A Short History at the moment. Thought I'd write down a few notes on Granados that I've learnt.

Granados is part of an Iberian movement in early 20th Century, heralded by himself and Isaac Albeniz, under the instruction of Felipe Pedrell. The Iberian movement was strongly influenced by French Impressionism. They both wrote music centred around Spanish dances, and also depictions of specific places in Spain:

"Indigenous Spanish dances are everywhere in evidence; the most characteristic type is in fast triple time with rapid subdivision of the second beat and incessant repetition of rhythmic patterns interspersed with a lyrical -- originally sung -- refrain, the copla." (p. 331)

Albeniz's major contribution is in his "impressions" called Iberia.

Granados was more of a traditionalist and nationalist than Albeniz, according to Kirby. Valses poeticas is an example of him taking a conventional type, and giving it a Spanish twist. The suite Goyescas is his major work for piano (inspired by etchings by Goya). He makes an interesting (to me) connection to Russian Romanticism:

"Goyescas in fact is one of the few large and important nationalistic pieces of piano music, fully deserving a place beside Mussorgsky's Pictures, both of which owe their inspiration to art."

Following on the reference to Mussorgsky, I looked him up in the index and learnt some very interesting things indeed. He is the most famous member of a group called 'The Five' or "The Mighty Handful', a group of Russian composers in the late 19th Century who abruptly broke from the prevalent French and German schools -- in part influenced by the Napoleonic Wars according to Kirby -- with extremely nationalistic Russian music. Pictures is then analysed in some depth.

Finally, YAY! I just requested this book from Berkeley Public Library: http://books.google.com/books?id=G0uPUIF8JpoC&dq=enrique+granados+history+theory&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s EXCITED!