Review: Recent Recordings of Granados’s Music for Solo and Collaborative Piano

Enrique Granados (1867-1916) has somewhat suffered the fate of several other composers, such as Bizet, Albéniz, and Grieg, who wrote one or two works so overwhelmingly popular that they have effectively eclipsed numerous other compositions in their catalog, works perhaps not of the same caliber but nonetheless with much in the way of pleasure and inspiration to offer us. Whether it be Carmen, Iberia, or the Peer Gynt Suite, a masterpiece can become so closely identified with its composer that we lose sight of the fact that it had a context and did not spring into existence fully formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus. And that context is of as much interest to the aficionado as it is the historian.

As the centenary of Granados’s death and the sesquicentennial of his birth draw near, in 2016 and 2017, respectively, there is a felicitous resurgence of interest in this composer and a plethora of new recordings to enjoy. And although his evergreen favorites Danzas españolas and Goyescas figure prominently here, for the very first time, we now have recordings of every piano work that Granados ever composed, transcribed, or arranged. This is a cornucopia lovers of Spanish music will want to sample.

The leading figure in this resurgimiento is undoubtedly the American pianist and musicologist Douglas Riva. No one has done more in recent history to preserve and promote the musical legacy of Granados than he, and it is safe to say that, next to the late Alicia de Larrocha, no other pianist has had such an impact on our understanding and reception of Granados’s works, especially those for piano but also his orchestral works and operas. Perhaps Riva’s most indispensable contribution has been to make available the complete piano works of Granados in modern editions, ones that provide expert editorial commentary as well as reliable versions of the pieces themselves. This Obra integral was assembled in collaboration with Alicia de Larrocha and published by Editorial Boileau (Barcelona) in 2002; hence, it is generally referred to as DLR, after De Larrocha and Riva. Among other benefits, it has given modern pianists answers to questions that have longed perplexed interpreters of this repertoire. For, a major obstacle in contending with earlier published editions of his music was their inconsistency from one to the other. To make matters worse, those who consulted recordings by Granados himself discovered that these did not always agree with any of the printed sources!

The truth is that it is difficult to separate Granados the pianist from Granados the composer. He frequently altered works in performance, and he often revised them over time. Indeed, had not his untimely death in 1916 intervened, he would have published revised editions of several of his best-known works. However, those “revised editions” existed in an oral tradition passed on to his students, especially Frank Marshall and Marshall’s gifted protégée Alicia de Larrocha. She and Riva worked together on the collected works to make sure that they reflected the composer’s intentions, as they were made known to his successors. But Riva did not stop there. He undertook the Herculean task of recording every single one of the piano works in the edition, an effort made possible by the visionary Naxos label.

The solo-piano music of Granados now fills no fewer than eleven CDs, and each selection is listed with its corresponding DLR number to make the edited score easy to find. This encyclopedic collection includes not only the justly celebrated Danzas españolas (vol. 1, 8.572313), Goyescas (vol. 2, 8.554403), Escenas románticas (vol. 3, 8.554628), Valses poéticos (vol. 4, 8.554629), and Escenas poéticas (vol. 5, 8.555325), but also such arcana as El jardi d’Elisenda (Elisenda’s Garden) (vol. 6, 8.555723), the 6 Estudios expresivos en forma de piezas faciles (vol. 7, 8.557141), an “Álbum de melodías” from 1888 (vol. 8, 8.557142), when Granados was a student of Charles de Beriot in Paris, and rarities like “En la aldea—Poema (In the Village—Poem)” (vol. 10, 8.570325). Granados was an inspired improviser, and his works list now includes a transcription (by Augustín Martínez) of his recorded improvisation on the jota valenciana (vol. 1). Several items are world-premiere recordings, such as the Parranda-Murcia (vol. 6), which is of interest in the context of Granados’s 1898 opera María del Carmen, set in Murcia and employing a local folk song and dance called the parranda; and the Serenata goyesca, a Goya-esque work not formally part of the Goyescas suite but composed in the same spirit. Granados’s grandfather, father, and brother were army officers, and thus his love of military marches is easily understood; those for piano four hands display plenty of martial esprit de corps (vol. 10, with Jordi Masó).

In addition, Granados was a close friend of Isaac Albéniz and deeply admired Iberia. He arranged “Triana” for two pianos, which Riva also recorded with Masó (vol. 10). Moreover, Granados completed Azulejos (Mosaic Tiles), which Albéniz left unfinished at his death in 1909 (vol. 5). Granados was something of a musicologist and took a special interest in Domenico Scarlatti, a manuscript collection of whose keyboard sonatas he transcribed and performed (vol. 9, 8.557939-40, 2-CD set). The influence of Scarlatti on his piano writing in Goyescas is abundantly clear and dovetails with Granados’s fascination with the art, life, and musical times of Goya. Indeed, if these volumes make nothing else clear, they speak to the surprisingly multifaceted character and stylistic range of Granados’s output, from Scarlatti and Goya to Spanish regional folklore to Catalan modernism to the Central European style of Chopin and Schumann.

Riva’s surefooted and deeply insightful interpretations are the product of several decades of research and set a new standard in the performance of this music. One should point out, however, that Larrocha herself did not necessarily approve of performing the lesser-known juvenilia of Granados, precisely because she feared that most of it lacked sufficient musical substance to be presented to the public and that it might harm the composer’s reputation. As a musicologist, I have to say that I find the Pyrenean heights Granados scaled in Goyescas all the more impressive when measured against his sea-level beginnings as a composer in the 1880s. Hearing those youthful essays played with Riva’s sympathetic sensitivity in no way diminishes our admiration for the mature composer. Lovers of Granados’s music will definitely enjoy surveying the varied terrain of offerings on this landmark set of recordings.

Of course, Granados did not confine himself to writing music for solo piano, and in fact he composed a remarkable work for chorus, organ, and piano entitled Cant de les estrelles (Song of the Stars). Naxos and Riva have successfully collaborated on the first-ever recording of this work (8.570533), with Voices of the Ascension, conducted by Dennis Keene; indeed, this landmark CD was nominated for a Grammy in 2009. Cant de les estrelles premiered at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona in 1911, but that was its first and last performance during the composer’s lifetime. Although we have always retained the vocal and organ parts, the crucial piano part disappeared for several decades and prevented a revival of this work. The piano part finally turned up in the possession of Niel Shell, grandson of the person to whom Granados’s son Víctor had sold the part in New York during the late 1930s. The present author discovered the missing music among Shell’s collection of Granados manuscripts, and Riva wasted no time in acquiring it, then reassembling, performing, and recording this enchanting work. Cant de les estrelles commences with a lengthy and quite virtuosic piano solo, which can actually be detached and performed by itself. In fact, Riva gave the world premiere of this solo at the 2004 meeting of the Festival Internacional de Música de Tecla Española, in Mojácar, Spain. Thus, one could rightly consider this yet another addition to the Granados solo-piano oeuvre, though it resurfaced too late to be included in DLR.

Granados was a renowned and sought-after chamber musician as well as a soloist. However, considering his repeated appearances as a collaborative pianist, it is very strange that he did not write more chamber music than he did, and that he did not do more to promote and perform the few works he completed. The Piano Quintet, op. 49, and Piano Trio, op. 50, are the most important chamber works by Granados, both dating from 1895, when he premiered them at the Salón Romero in Madrid. Both are now available on a wonderful Naxos recording (8.572262) featuring pianist Daniel Ligorio with the LOM Piano Trio, consiting of Joan Orpella, violin, and José Mor, cello (Manuel Porta Gallego, violin, and Joaquín Riquelme García, viola, join in on the Quintet). The three-movement Quintet in G Minor is a lovely work but exudes little of the Spanish flavor Grandos’s admirers might expect. Instead, this work lies firmly in one of the other stylistic camps Granados occupied, i.e., the Central European. The main inspiration here seems to be Brahms, and the fugue in the opening allegro movement gives evidence of Granados’s growing skill and confidence as a composer. The sparse, dreamy middle movement suggests nighttime in its subdued lyricism and open-fifth harmonies. The final movement is a lively rondo, alternating a vivacious presto theme with more reflective moods.

By contrast, the four-movement Trio exudes some of the regional flavor of the Danzas españolas and María del Carmen from this same decade, but the folkloric elements are more a matter of surface color and appear overtly only in the second movement. In any case, the Trio features keyboard writing of virtuosic brilliance, and it was an excellent vehicle for displaying Granados’s pianistic ability. The composer was developing a style uniquely his own, one in which he used folkloric elements in a sparing and stylized way in the context of an otherwise conventional Romantic work, though the second movement, a ternary Scherzetto in A minor, is more directly and consistently Spanish in character. After an enchanting duetto, the final movement, in rondo form, is a lively A-minor evocation of Gypsy music. An added bonus on this recording is an arrangement, by Gaspar Cassadó, of the celebrated Intermezzo from the opera Goyescas, which premiered in New York in 1916. Granados wrote this piece in a single evening, in order to provide more music for a lengthy change of scenery. He soon felt he had erred, however, as he realized he had composed a jota aragonesa to accompany scenes in Madrid. However, Pablo Casals was there to console him with this astute observation: Goya was, after all, from Aragón! Granados felt immediate relief, and though the Metropolitan Opera production was not a success, this number has found a permanent place in the repertoire. Alas, the same cannot yet be said of his chamber music. Both the Quintet and Trio display conspicuous potential, and Granados’s decision not to compose more chamber music is all the more regrettable in the light of these youthful yet worthy efforts. One is grateful for this superb recording to give us at least a glimpse of what was, as well as what might have been.

About the same time that Granados was premiering his chamber music in Madrid, he was falling under the spell of Francisco Goya (1746-1828), the sesquicentennial of whose birth was celebrated the following year in the capital (1896). Granados became convinced that Goya was the “representative genius of Spain,” and he would dedicate his mature compositions to evoking the great artist’s paintings, etchings, and epoch. The result of this was an outpouring of Goya-esque works, including the Tonadillas for voice and piano, the two books of Goyescas (as well as the opera derived from them), and several other Goya-esque pieces, especially El Pelele. A captivating recent release from Hyperion (CDA67846) features renowned American pianist Garrick Ohlsson performing both books of Goyescas, in addition to El Pelele, which is customarily included in the suite. Because of their seductive charm and devilish difficulty, these works tend to inspire in pianists the combination of love and terror that Goya so often captured in his images.

Ohlsson’s rapport with this music is evident in the elasticity of his phrasing and his rich coloration. Granados possessed a very supple and suave technique and placed great emphasis on expressive use of pedaling. There is every reason to think he would have been pleased with Ohlsson’s renditions. An added bonus is the Allegro de Concierto, composed in 1903 for a composition contest at the Real Conservatorio in Madrid, which it won the following year. Though not inspired by Goya, its ravishing lyricism and rhythmic propulsion make it one of Granados’s most effective pieces. This recording is among the finest available, but it has some stiff competition.

Sebastian Stanley is one of Britain’s finest young virtuosos, and his interpretations of Granados are especially persuasive. He has just recorded a two-CD set on the EMEC label (E-105/6), which will be released in November 2012. (I am grateful to Sebastian as well as Agustín Maruri at EMEC for sharing these recordings with me in advance of their release.) In addition to a masterful rendition of Goyescas (including El Pelele), one remarkable for the natural elasticity of the phrasing, this recording offers delightfully spirited interpretations of the ever-popular 12 Danzas españolas. These were Granados’s first important and successful compositions, which he premiered just after his return to Barcelona from Paris. The work is divided into four books of three dances each. They were probably begun in 1888, during his Paris tenure. When he finished the set is not clear, but he began to perform them in Barcelona on April 20, 1890, at the Teatre Líric; he presented them to Dotesio for publication in that same year.

Granados’s Danzas exhibit uncomplicated directness and unaffected rhythmic and melodic appeal. They are nearly all in ternary form, the harmonic language is diatonic, and chromaticism appears only as surface color. The composer designated almost all of these dances with a number only, the exceptions being No. 4, “Villanesca,” and No. 7, “Valenciana.” The other titles and subtitles were inserted by publishers to make the pieces more appealing and accessible. These dances are highly stylized renditions and do not quote folk melodies per se. They are not the product of anything like fieldwork or transcription. But they possess a freshness, a youthful insouciance and charm that never fail to please. After the Danzas were published, Granados sent copies to several of the leading musicians in Europe, including Camille Saint-Saëns, Jules Massenet, Edvard Grieg, and César Cui. Cui found them “charming both in melody and harmonization” and outstanding in their “individual originality.” Massenet hailed him as “the Spanish Grieg,” while Saint-Saëns and Bériot added their voices to the chorus of praise. Albéniz always kept a copy of the Danzas españolas on his piano.

Granados’s piano music has not only stood the test of time, but our understanding and appreciation of his distinctive genius seem to be increasing. These recent recordings offer proof positive of the enduring challenges and rewards his music offers performers and listeners alike.