Christopher Webber writes in response to me:

>>.....this piano suite is about "young men in love" as the title indicates.
>
>I'm baffled by this sentence.....

What I neglected in my Part 1 was to cite the Spanish heading of the
work's title.  The heading that appears on every version I have is "Los
majos enamorados", and this heading is applied to all the movements of
the work.  I'm not claiming it to be accurate, but that's how it's
written.

Christopher commented that Book II is largely about the female perspective.
I just wanted to add that the famous last movement of Book I (The Maiden
and the Nightingale) is also female oriented.  However, I wouldn't make
too much of this distinction.  The 'young men' are in love with young
women and vice versa; it takes two to tango for a real good time.

>Its composite evocation of a particular time and place (Goya's Napoleonic
>Madrid) is just as potent as its value as some sort of erotic chapbook.

Don't discount the eroticism of Goyescas; it is pervasive and clearly a
large part of the popularity of the work.  Put another way, some folks
don't respond much to paintings, and the eroticism in the work greatly
outweighs for me any evocation of particular paintings.

If I were reviewing Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, I would be
constantly bringing up the applicable pictures - there's no way I could
avoid it.  But at heart, I'm just a 'trailer trash' guy when it comes
to pictorial art.  Whenever my wife and I are browsing in an art gallery,
I'm zooming through the building multiple times while my wife is
contemplating each piece.  I'm fast on my feet.

Don Satz
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