PANTALEÓN ENRIQUE JOAQUÍN GRANADOS
CAMPIÑA (LÉRIDA, SPAIN, JULY 27, 1867, — ENGLISH CHANNEL, AT SEA, MARCH 24,
1916)
Pantaleón
Enrique Joaquín Granados Campiña was born in Lleida, Spain, the son of Calixto
José de la Trinidad Granados y Armenteros, a Spanish army captain who was born
in Havana, Cuba, and Enriqueta Elvira Campiña de Herrera, from Santander,
Spain. As a young man he studied piano in Barcelona, where his teachers
included Francisco Jurnet and Joan Baptista Pujol. In 1887 he went to Paris to
study. He was unable to become a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but he was
able to take private lessons with a conservatoire professor, Charles-Wilfrid de
Bériot, whose mother, the soprano Maria Malibran, was of Spanish ancestry.
Bériot insisted on extreme refinement in tone production, which strongly
influenced Granados’s teaching of pedal technique. He also fostered Granados’s
abilities in improvisation. Just as important were his studies with Felip
Pedrell. He returned to Barcelona in 1889. His first successes were at the end
of the 1890s, with the opera María del Carmen, which attracted the attention of
King Alfonso XIII. In 1903, Granados participated in a competition organized by
Tomás Bretón of the Madrid Royal Conservatory, which awarded a considerable sum
of 500 pesetas for the best “concert allegro” for solo piano. Granados
submitted his Allegro de concierto, Op. 46, for which the jury declared him the
winner with an almost unanimous vote. The win brought Granados to national
attention. In 1911 Granados premiered his suite for piano Goyescas, which
became his most famous work. It is a set of six pieces based on paintings of
Francisco Goya. Such was the success of this work that he was encouraged to
expand it. He wrote an opera based on the subject in 1914, but the outbreak of
World War I forced the European premiere to be canceled. It was performed for
the first time in New York City on 28 January 1916 and was very well received.
Shortly afterwards, he was invited to perform a piano recital for President
Woodrow Wilson. Before leaving New York, Granados also made live-recorded
player piano music rolls for the New-York-based Aeolian Company’s “Duo-Art”
system, all of which survive today and can be heard – his last recordings. A
delay in New York, incurred by accepting a recital invitation, caused him to
miss his boat back to Spain. Instead, he took a ship to England, where he
boarded the passenger ferry SS Sussex for Dieppe, France. On the way across the
English Channel, the Sussex was torpedoed by a German U-boat, as part of the
German World War I policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. According to
witness Daniel Sargent, Granados’s wife, Amparo, was too heavy to get into a
lifeboat. Granados refused to leave her and positioned her on a small life raft
on which she knelt and he clung. Both then drowned within sight of other
passengers. However, according to a different account from another survivor, “A
survivor of the 1916 torpedo attack on a Cross channel ferry, Sussex,
recognised Spanish composer Granados in a lifeboat, his wife in the water.
Granados dived in to save her and perished.”[5] The ship broke in two parts,
and only one sank (along with 80 passengers). Ironically, the part of the
vessel that contained his cabin did not sink and was towed to port, with most
of the passengers, except for Granados and his wife, who were on the other side
of the boat when it was hit. Granados and his wife left six children: Eduard (a
musician), Solita, Enrique (a swimming champion), Víctor, Natalia, and
Francisco.
TRACKLIST
Danza Española, Op. 37, No. 2, c “Arabe” (Granados) Duo-Art 5757
Danza Española, Op. 37, No. 5, e “Andaluza” (Playera) (Granados)
Duo-Art 5758
Danza Española, Op. 37, No. 7, G “Valencia” (Granados) Duo-Art 5760
Danza Española, Op. 37, No. l0, G “Danza triste (Granados) Duo-Art 5759
“Valses Poeticos” – No. l Introduction and valse (Granados) Duo-Art
6433
Improvisation Theme of Valenciana Jota (posth) (Granados) Duo-Art 6295
Reverie Improvisation (Granados) Duo-Art 5756
Prelude from the Opera “Maria del Carmen” (Granados) Duo-Art 6429
Danza Española, Op. 37, No. l, g Lenta (Granados) Duo-Art 6133
“Goyescas” – Suite No. 1, No.3 El Fandango de Candil (Granados) Duo-Art
5982
“Goyescas” – Suite #1 – No. 4 Maiden & the Nightingale (Granados)
Duo-Art 5763
