Enrique Granados
     The Composer as Pianist

*  Goyescas (excerpts)
*  Danzas espanolas (excerpts)
*  Valses poeticos
*  Scarlatti: Sonata, No. 9, B Flat Major, "freely transcribed" by Enrique
Granados (Welte-Mignon)
*  Scarlatti: Sonata, No. 9, B Flat Major, "freely transcribed" by Enrique
Granados (acoustic recording)

Enrique Granados (piano)
Pierian 0002 Total time: 54:49

Summary for the Busy Executive: Spanish Biedermeier.

Spain was one of the last European countries to experience musical
nationalism.  It more or less begins with Albeniz (1860-1909) and Granados
(1867-1916), who glued a layer of Spanish melos over a Chopin base.
Beginning at that point, Falla (1876-1946) brought the new language to
its height and then moved beyond to invent Spanish Modernism.

Truth to tell, I greatly prefer Falla to Granados or Albeniz, mainly
because I'm not all that fond of the ethos of what I term salon music.
The idea seems to me to charm without challenge, and there are just so
many marshmallows I can eat.  I do recognize that certain pieces in the
genre are miles better than others.  Chopin, Liszt, Granados, and Albeniz
write more substantially than Badewska or, say, Liadov.  I also prefer
Granados to Albeniz, who in general fails to grab my attention.  Granados
does at least that.  However, Goyescas, I think, epitomizes my problem
with the composer.  This isn't the Goya who satirized the court, painted
his nightmares, or raged against political repression, but the chronicler
of Spanish peasant and middle-class life.  For me, the pieces lack the
fire of the burning Spanish sun.  They sing of the hearth - or, rather,
a slightly sentimentalized hearth.

Nevertheless, my quirks aside and on its own terms, it succeeds in spades.
The length of each piece particularly impresses.  It's not that any
movement runs a marathon, but that given Granados's compositional habits,
he can sustain a piece longer than four minutes.  Granados isn't a musical
architect, but a pure singer.  Mainly, he improvises.  I have to take
exception to the liner notes on the disc, which mention "cyclical form."
Granados doesn't employ cyclical form as much as he has certain riffs
that he returns to, as the mood takes him.  He doesn't concern himself
with building a house, a la Mozart and Beethoven, as much as he does
with sustaining a mood.  Improvisers fall into two traps: meandering
without ever finding a point or stretching a point beyond sustainability.
The Goyescas focus.  I've heard, by the way, Granados chamber music and
tone poems, and they interest me far less than either the piano music
or the operas.  It's awfully hard for a composer who relies mainly on
improvisation to do well in larger instrumental forms.  Opera constitutes
an exception, because words and drama carry a listener along almost as
much as the music does.  Granados, however, in his orchestral and chamber
work falls into both pits.

On the other hand, it turns out that I hadn't heard a pianist who could
persuade me, at least while the music played - not even De Larrocha, one
of my favorite performers.  Granados, however, convinces me in spades
and wins me over completely.  He first made his name as a pianist. On
the basis of this CD, one can easily see why.  From the opening measures
of Goyescas, Granados plunges us into a rich, sensuous world of sound.
There's a "weight" to the playing, like luxuriously heavy drapes, and
an orchestral sense of color.  Furthermore, the pianist follows the
subtly shifting temperament of the composer.  Without question, this is
the finest performance of Goyescas - even though missing three numbers
- I've heard.

In the Danzas espanolas, Granados gets to show off his rubato, arsenal
of touch, and absolutely formidable pedal technique.  In the "Valenciana,"
one hears an essentially staccato articulation in which the line is
neither dropped or blurred by the sustaining pedal.  The pianist's ability
to bring out whatever line he wants also impresses, so that the textural
balance keeps changing.

The Valses poeticos never fail to charm me, miniatures bright with
inspiration.  If I were at all consistent in my likes and dislikes, I
should hate them, of course, since they're salon music.  What can I say?
Perhaps I should mention that I've heard only great performers, including
Julian Bream on guitar.  Granados is simply one of the best I've
encountered.  He plays with a made-up-on-the-spot freshness.

As a nice bit of lagniappe, Pierian provides comparison recordings:
Granados playing his own "free transcription" of a Scarlatti sonata in
a Welte-Mignon roll and an acoustic recording made at roughly the same
time.  However, these aren't, strictly speaking, performances of exactly
the same piece of music.  Granados loved to revise, which of course has
given generations of scholars and editors years of work as they prepare
"definitive" editions.  The roll comes from 1912 and the shellac from
1913.  Nevertheless, the two formats allow us to find out exactly how
much "historical" recording gives us.  The acoustic recording shows us
a clean attack and sprightly rhythms, but little else - a relatively
flat sonic image.  We get from the Welte-Mignon roll the depth of tone,
the variety of color, Granados's subtle command of dynamic, from very
soft to very loud in a seamless arc, and a fuller presentation of his
ability to change textural balance and to bring out inner voices.

The recording should appeal to fans of Granados's music and of fabulous
piano playing.  Pierian has scored another hit.

Steve Schwartz