Despite being the son of an army officer, Enrique Granados y Campiña showed signs of an enviable musical talent at an early age. Born in Lleida in 1867, when he was seven the family had to move to Barcelona, where the stubborn father would get a colleague in arms, another officer, to give little Enrique his first piano and music theory lessons. Such was the learning aptitude the boy showed, that soon after his parents decided to provide him with formal musical education. It was the beginning of a road without potholes only interrupted by the hardships he had to face as a result of the economic difficulties that, after his father died, led the young Granados to become the provider of a large family.
A café pianist
Qualified by one of his teachers as the most brilliant student he had ever had, young Enrique, who at the age of ten had given his first public concerts and who in 1883 had won the Academy competition for novice pianists, had to abandon his studies to serve as a pianist in the cafés of Barcelona, playing up to four or five hours a day. But simultaneously he was fortunate to be hired by a wealthy businessman as his children's teacher at a very decent salary. With that money plus the support of the businessman and other additional pesetas obtained at the cost of performing operatic rehashes in cafés, in September 1887 he went to Paris since in Spain it was not guaranteed that he would be able to complete his musical studies.
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| Enrique Granados (1867 - 1916) |
But shortly after arriving, he fell ill with typhoid, and when he was to apply to the Conservatory he was above the age limit for admission. For this reason, he had to take private lessons with a prominent teacher who at that time had among his disciples a short, neatly dressed student named Maurice Ravel.
Apparently, is from that time that a good part of his Twelve Spanish Dances dates, although the author once declared that most of them had been composed in 1883 when he was only sixteen. But in Paris, he did not get publishers. Back in Barcelona in 1889, he got to publish them with a prestigious house.
Spanish Dance N ° 5
The set of the Twelve Dances marks the first international recognition of Granados, receiving praises from established composers as Saint-Saëns, Massenet and Grieg. The series of twelve pieces for piano thus became one of the greatest contributions to the Spanish pianistic repertoire of the 19th century.
In a rendition by the French pianist Guillaume Coppola, the best known of all the dances is presented here, the Spanish Dance No 5, called Playera or, more properly, Andalusian, due to its undisguised flamenco feeling, underlined by the left-hand support aimed to evoke the strumming of a guitar.
