Goyescas - Piano Suite

Granados composed the piano suite Goyescas between 1909 and 1911. He was by then well known as an outstanding concert pianist and as a prolific composer of songs, theatre works and short piano pieces. Writing at first in a generalised Romantic style, Granados had become increasingly drawn to a more Spanish national idiom. Both aspects came together in the unique expressive world of Goyescas. Inspiration for this came from paintings by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya, depicting the formal but passionate courtships between the young and elegant majos and majas (Spanish counterparts of beaux and belles) in 18th-century Madrid. In some of the suite’s six component pieces, Granados’ evocation of these romantic situations is both warmly passionate and scrupulously stylised; in others, the tone is darker and more anguished. The collection’s most famous work is “Quejas, ó la maja y el ruiseñor” (Plaints, or The Maiden and the Nightingale), an exquisite portrayal of a girl’s nocturnal yearning for her would-be lover, while a nightingale sings nearby. Other superb creations are “Coloquio en la reja” (Conversation at the Window), with its hints of a serenading guitar, and the technically very demanding dance scene “El fandango de candil” (Fandango by Candlelight). In 1915 Granados expanded the music of his piano suite to create a one-act opera, also called Goyescas; this was staged with great success at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1916.