{"id":38908,"date":"2016-10-03T08:03:38","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T12:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=38908"},"modified":"2016-10-09T11:22:52","modified_gmt":"2016-10-09T15:22:52","slug":"record-keeping-granados-naxos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2016\/10\/03\/record-keeping-granados-naxos\/","title":{"rendered":"RECORD KEEPING | Naxos Marks 100th Anniversary of Granados\u2019 Death"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Granados:
Granados: Orchestral Works: Volume 2. Goyescas: Intermezzo. Dance of the Green Eyes.* Gypsy Dance.* Night of the Dead Man.* Dante \u2013 Symphonic Poem. Barcelona Symphony Orchestra\/Pablo Gonzalez. *World Premiere Recordings. Naxos 8.573264. Total Time: 56:57.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Naxos has put together a vast collection of works by Enrique Granados (1867-1916), one of Spain\u2019s greatest composers, on its house label. As this year (2016) marks the 100th<\/span> anniversary of Granados\u2019 death, it is certainly an appropriate time to honour this Spanish master with a new CD release of world premiere recordings of his works.<\/p>\n

Granados is probably best-known for Goyescas<\/em> (1909),<\/em> a suite of six piano pieces \u00a0inspired by the paintings of Francisco Goya, which he later expanded to create an opera (1913) that premiered in New York in 1916. While in New York for the premiere, Granados made some piano roll recordings, and then went on to Washington to give a recital for President Wilson.<\/p>\n

A few days after the New York premiere of Goyescas,<\/em> Granados quickly wrote a dance piece for flamenco dancer Antonia Merc\u00e9, and it receives its first recording on this new Naxos CD. Danza de los ojos verdes<\/em> (Dance of the Green Eyes) is a charming and effective piece, performed with gusto by Pablo Gonzalez and the Barcelona Symphony. They also do a fine job with the best-known excerpt from the opera Goyescas<\/em>, the \u201cIntermezzo.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Danza Gitana<\/em> (Gypsy Dance) from the year before Danza de los ojos verdes<\/em>, is in a similar Spanish gypsy idiom, and very much in the style of Granados\u2019 popular Danzas Espa\u00f1olas<\/em> (1890).<\/p>\n

La nit del mort<\/em> (Night of the Dead Man), also a world premiere recording (1987), at eleven minutes, is a longer piece. Scored for tenor soloist, chorus and orchestra, it clearly shows the influence of Franck and Debussy, rather than Spanish nationalist or folkloric elements. Subtitled \u201cPoem of Desolation,\u201d the piece, which concerns a young man going into battle for his country, and for whom the outcome appears rather bleak at best, is based on a poem written by the iconic Catalan poet and painter, Apel-les Mestres. The opening music, innocently pastoral, quickly turns dark and threatening.<\/p>\n

The longest piece (35 min) on the CD is Dante <\/em>(1908),<\/em> a symphonic poem based on La Divina Commedia<\/em> (The Divine Comedy). In Granados\u2019 own words: \u201cWhen writing Dante<\/em>, it wasn\u2019t my intention to mirror The Divine Comedy<\/em> line by line, but to give my impression of a life and work; the lives of Dante and Beatrice and the Divine Comedy<\/em> are, for me, one and the same thing.\u201d The musical influence here is clearly Wagner, by way of Liszt. Liszt had written his Dante<\/em> Symphony in 1857 and Granados here makes uses of the same two-movement template.<\/p>\n

The second movement of Granados\u2019 Dante<\/em> concerns the love between Francesca da Rimini and Paolo. In Dante\u2019s Inferno<\/em>, Pt. 1 of La Divina Commedia<\/em>, Dante and Virgil meet Francesca. Granados sets to music some of what she says to them about her history and present predicament, including the lines \u201cLove, which absolves no loved one from loving, filled me with a passion so powerful for this man that, as you can see, it consumes me yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Granados\u2019 music for this scene recalls Wagner\u2019s Tristan und Isolde<\/em> in its romantic longing. Gemma Coma-Alabert, mezzo-soprano, seems very much at home in this idiom.<\/p>\n

Dante <\/em>offers listeners an opportunity to hear a very different side of Enrique Granados, a composer we know so well as a prime exponent of all things musically Spanish. Unfortunately, with this subject matter, he was up against pretty daunting competition. Liszt\u2019s Dante<\/em> Symphony may not be one of his greatest works, but Tchaikovsky\u2019s Francesca da Rimini<\/em> offers a far more memorable musical realization of this legendary love story.<\/p>\n

This is not the first recording of Granados\u2019 Dante<\/em>. I know of at least one other, from Soundmark Records, featuring the Louisville Orchestra conducted by Jorge Mester.<\/p>\n

Naxos has released three volumes of orchestral works by Granados. Volume 1<\/a> (8.573263) includes incidental music to the play Torrijos<\/em> and a Suite sobre cantas Gallegos <\/em>(1899), while Volume 3<\/a> (8.573265) has the Suite Oriental <\/em>(1900-01) and Liliana<\/em> (1911, a lyric poem written together with the afore-mentioned Apel les Mestres.<\/p>\n

Granados, who had a considerable career as both a composer and a concert pianist, made a number of piano roll recordings in Paris and New York, some of which have been masterfully transcribed by Pierian (Pierian 0002<\/a>) on a 2010 CD release.<\/p>\n

In 1916, after his Washington recital for President Wilson, Granados left to go back to Spain. While crossing the English Channel, the SS Sussex ferry on which he and his wife were passengers, was torpedoed by a German U-boat. Granados drowned trying to save his wife, who had fallen out of the lifeboat during their escape from the burning ship. Both perished.<\/p>\n

For more Record Keeping see,\u00a0here<\/a><\/span>.<\/h3>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Want more updates on Toronto-centric classical music news and review\u00a0before anyone else finds out? Get our exclusive newsletter\u00a0here<\/a><\/span>\u00a0and follow us on\u00a0Facebook<\/a><\/span>\u00a0for all the latest.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Naxos releases the second in a series commemorating the centenary of Granados\u2019 death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":38909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5723,77,5739,51,52],"tags":[1163,2352],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/10\/81ppfYGsTvL._SL1429_.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-a7y","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38908"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38908"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39035,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38908\/revisions\/39035"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38908"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=38908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}