ÍøÆغÚÁÏ

One of the most colorful turn-of-the-20th-century Spanish musicians, composer and pianist Enrique Granados is best remembered for his evocative solo piano works. They are so full of Iberian flavor that they are often heard transcribed for the guitar. His output also includes a great deal of orchestral music and six operas, only the last of which, Goyescas, has gained any lasting fame.

Born in 1867 to an officer in the Spanish army, Granados received his first musical instruction from an army bandmaster. Further studies in Barcelona with Francisco Jurnet (piano) and Felipe Pedrell (composition) prepared the young musician for a brief but highly influential stay in Paris (1887-1889), during which Granados worked under well-known Parisian pianist and teacher Charles de Bériot (son of the famous violinist of the same name). Granados' earliest mature work, the Valses poéticos of 1887, was completed around this time. After returning to Barcelona in 1890, Granados spent the next decade building a dual career as pianist and composer, forming a successful piano trio with Belgian violinist Mathieu Crickboom and the young Pablo Casals. His first opera, Maria del Carmen, was well-received at its premiere in 1898, after which the Order of Carlos III (a Spanish knighthood) was bestowed upon Granados by a supportive government. He was quick to follow up on this success, and two more operas were produced in the next five years. For the 1900 season, he founded the Society of Classical Concerts (Sociedad de Conciertos Clásicos) in Barcelona, which, although short-lived, gave him the confidence to create his own piano school the following year (known as the Academia Granados). The school was a success, and Granados maintained his involvement with it until his death. Granados was one of the great pianists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Virtually all his music relies heavily on the Catalan and Spanish folk idiom (e.g. Twelve Spanish Dances or Six Pieces on Spanish Folksongs), which, along with fellow Spaniard Isaac Albéniz, Granados was instrumental in bringing to the attention of the contemporary European musical establishment. The Goyescas suite, begun in 1902 but not finished until 1911, is perhaps his mightiest achievement. Granados also produced an opera of the same name; both the pianistic and operatic incarnations of the work take the striking visuals of Goya as their inspiration. In March 1916, while returning from the U.S. -- where the opera Goyescas had received a New York premiere on January 26, 1916, and where Granados had performed at the White House for President Wilson -- the liner Sussex was torpedoed by a German U-boat. Among the casualties were Granados and his wife of 24 years. ~ Blair Johnston

During the 1930s, the London-based Serenaders enjoyed immense popularity by cashing in on the vogue for Hawaiian music. The group offered up an appealing blend of traditional Island music, jazz, and popular songs. ~ Leon Jackson

Spanish composer Fernando Sor (originally Sors), despite having composed prolifically for various vocal and instrumental ensembles, is remembered today chiefly as a virtuoso guitarist whose hundred-plus compositions for that instrument constitute a vital part of its concert repertory. While the exact date of Sor's birth remains unknown, he is known to have been born in Barcelona and baptized on Valentine's Day in the year 1778. Of Catalan ancestry, Sor attended the choir school at Montserrat monastery and later enrolled in Barcelona's military academy. After the production of his opera Telemaco nell'isola de Calipso in 1797 he moved to Madrid, where he served in a number of minor administrative positions and continued to compose privately. During the French invasion of 1808 Sor's military background and patriotism roused him to fight against the invaders, though by 1810 he had resigned himself to the presence of the new regime; when the French withdrew three years later Sor opted, along with countless other Spanish artists and intellectuals, to return to Paris with them.

After two years of teaching guitar and performing in various Parisian venues, Sor moved to London and remained there for eight years (1815-1823). Many of his works were published there, and his thirty-three Italian vocal ariettas (published in groups of three) made a particularly strong impact. Sor also gained fame after directing his energies toward the ballet; Cendrillon (1822) achieved the most favorable critical and public response and was successfully transplanted to Paris in 1822. When the Bolshoi theater in Moscow showed an interest in the work for the 1823 season, Sor accompanied the lead dancers to Moscow. He limited his compositional activities to music for the guitar while staying in Russia, and by the time he returned to Paris in 1826 he had several works for the instrument ready for publication and had completed much of the work on a Méthode pour la guitare, eventually published in Paris in 1830. Except for occasional trips abroad, such as a journey to London in 1828 to oversee production of a new ballet, Hassan et le calife, Sor remained in Paris, composing and teaching guitar, until his death in 1839.

Much of Sor's music that has survived (two symphonies, three string quartets and any number of smaller pieces have been lost since his death) has been abandoned by performers, but his music for the guitar lives on. Much of his reputation is based on the continued use of his Méthode by teachers and students of classical guitar. Sor's musical style derives largely from an awareness of the late eighteenth century German masters (in particular Haydn); his guitar music, with its independent voices and occasionally contrapuntal textures, shows a tendency to move away from the largely chordal textures that had been common up to that point.

Francisco Tárrega was an important Spanish composer whose music and style of guitar playing became strongly influential in the twentieth century. He was central to reviving the guitar as a solo instrument in recital and concerts. Among his most popular compositions are Recuerdos de la Alhambra and Danza mora. He wrote nearly 80 original works for the guitar and over 100 transcriptions, mostly of piano pieces by Chopin, Beethoven, and others.

Francisco Tárrega was born on November 21, 1852, in Villareal, Castellon, Spain. In his early childhood, Tárrega fell into an irrigation canal and injured his eyes. He was taught his first lessons on guitar by Eugeni Ruiz, a blind musician. In 1862, concert guitarist Julian Arcas, on tour in Castellon, heard young Francisco play and advised Tárrega's father to allow Francisco to come to Barcelona for study with him. Tárrega's father agreed, but insisted that he take piano lessons as well. His father was well aware that the guitar, as a solo vehicle, was in decline, coming increasingly to be viewed as an instrument to accompany singers, while the piano was all the rage throughout Europe.

By his early teens, Tárrega had become proficient on both instruments. For a time, he played with other musicians at local engagements to earn money, but eventually he returned home. In 1874 he enrolled at the Madrid Conservatory where he would study composition under Arrieta. He had brought along with him a recently purchased guitar, made in Seville by Antonio Torres. Its superior sonic qualities inspired him both in his playing and in his view of the instrument's compositional potential. When Arrieta heard his student Tárrega in a guitar concert, he convinced him to focus on guitar and abandon ideas of a career involving the piano.

In about 1876, Tárrega began teaching and giving regular guitar concerts. He typically received much acclaim for his playing and began traveling to other areas of Spain to perform. By this time he was composing his first works for guitar. In 1880, he met his future wife, Maria Rizo, when he was giving a concert in Novelda. That same year he went on tour to Lyon, Paris, and London, now playing his own works in addition to those of other composers.

In 1881, he and Maria were married in Novelda. He soon began transcribing piano works of Beethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn, and others to enlarge his guitar repertory, and, no doubt, to make use of his considerable knowledge of keyboard music. Tárrega and his wife moved to Madrid, but after the death of an infant daughter, Maria Josefa, they settled permanently in Barcelona in 1885.

On a concert tour in Valencia shortly afterward, Tárrega met a wealthy widow, Conxa Martinez, who became a valuable patron to him. She allowed him and his family use of a house in Barcelona, where he would write the bulk of his most popular works, including Recuerdos de la Alhambra. From the latter 1880s up to 1903, Tárrega continued composing, but limited his concerts to Spain. In about 1902, he cut his fingernails and created a sound that would become typical of those guitarists associated with his school. The following year he launched a tour of Italy, giving highly successful concerts in Rome, Naples, and Milan.

In January 1906, he was afflicted with paralysis on his right side, and though he would eventually return to the concert stage, he never completely recovered. He finished his last work, Oremus, on December 2, 1909. He died 13 days later. ~ Robert Cummings

As a young man, Heitor Villa-Lobos packed his cello on his back and headed into the wilds of Brazil. In the spirit of Bartók and Kodaly in Eastern Europe, he was in search of the native song of his homeland; like those composers, he found it, studied it, and absorbed its essential qualities. Equally important to the young composer was the music of J.S. Bach; in the blending of these two influences, Villa-Lobos created a distinctive, very personal musical vocabulary. His music was further colored by a love for both Puccini and Wagner as well as an interest in the music of certain of his contemporaries, including Stravinsky and Debussy. Incredibly prolific and versatile, Villa-Lobos explored the complete spectrum of musical genres-producing efforts diverse as a Broadway musical and a harmonica concerto--though only a few of his compositions remain well-known to the musical public.

His father fashioned a cello out of a viola for the young Heitor, who often listened to street musicians playing outside his window. At the age of twelve his father died and his mother forbade him to play the piano. The resourceful young man borrowed a guitar from a friend, taught himself to play it, and began a relationship that resulted in a body of music that is a cornerstone of the repertoire for that instrument. Not only have the Studies (1929) and Preludes (1940) become standard fare for guitarists, but the Guitar Concerto (1951) is one of the most successful pieces of its kind.

Villa-Lobos studied for a short time with Francisco Braga and Ernesto Nazareth, though for all intents and purposes he was self-taught. Still, he had enough talent to cultivate a certain arrogance: it is reported that when he went to Paris in 1923-a time when the city was practially overrun with composers-he was asked with whom he wanted to study. His reply was, "Study with...? They are all going to study with me."

In his late teens, Villa-Lobos studied the cello seriously; his love for the instrument manifested itself in a variety of works that afford it a prominent role. The composer's most famous piece, in fact-the Bachianas Brasilieras No.5 (1938/45)-is scored for eight celli and soprano voice. The first movement of this work has attained a popularity such that a number of primarily non-classical artists-including Joan Baez and Branford Marsalis-have essayed it in recorded performances. Singers Bidú Sayão and Victoria de los Angeles both made classic recordings of the work, each under the baton of the composer. (Villa-Lobos, in fact, often conducted his own works and demonstrated much skill on the podium; a number of his recordings as conductor survive.) The popularity of the Bachiananas Brasilieras No. 5 is not hard to understand. Although Villa-Lobos would write beautiful tunes in such works as the Cello Concerto No. 2 (1953) and in several of the String Quartets, this effort distinguishes itself by the sheer magic of the long-lined melody in the first movement that is intoned first by the singer, then reiterated by the cello.

The immense quantity of music that Villa-Lobos produced provides representation for nearly any standard combination of instruments. As in the cases of other similarly prolific composers, unfortunately, productivity and inspiration are not always complementary in the works of Villa-Lobos. His wind music serves as a perfect example: the Bachianas Brasilieras No. 6 (1938) for flute and bassoon arguably takes a place among the best wind duos ever written. The Duo for Oboe and Bassoon (1957), on the other hand, has relatively little to recommend it (except, perhaps, for the paucity of works for this instrumental pairing) and nothing at all to compensate for its stifling dullness. The Quintette en form de Choros for wind quintet (1928) is an exotic exploration of tone colors and description through musical means, while the Quartet for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon of the same year is dry and academic. The sheer volume of Villa-Lobos's output proved difficult to keep track of even for the composer himself. Once, wandering the halls of a music school, he heard a string quartet rehearsing a selection that caught his ear. He entered the studio and inquired what the group had been playing; one of the perplexed players informed Villa-Lobos that it was, in fact, one of the composer's own works.

Villa-Lobos had the ability to compose anywhere, apparently indifferent to all manner of distraction. He was known to sit down and compose in the midst of a party, and during the composition of the Second Cello Concerto wrote as the work's renowned dedicatee, Aldo Parisot, sat nearby, playing from the cello repertoire for hours on end; occassionally the composer would take the instrument from Parisot to demonstrate how he thought a passage should sound. Villa-Lobos composed concertante works not only for the standard solo instruments, but also for their hitherto neglected cousins such as the bassoon (1933), the soprano saxophone (1948), the harp (1953), and the harmonica (1955). His love of unusual sounds led him to write for several native Brazilian percussion instruments as well.

At times the exoticism of the compositional techniques Villa-Lobos employed matched that of the sounds he used. The most striking of such original approaches resulted in one of his most famous works. New York Skyline (1939) took shape, literally, from a tracing of the city's visual profile on a piece of score paper; by designating notes to correspond to the outline, Villa-Lobos created a viable, if not great, orchestral work.

Despite the fertile and singular imagination of their creator, Villa-Lobos's symphonies are almost completely neglected, while his piano concerti, though recorded, are very rarely performed in the United States. His chamber music for strings, similarly worthy, is also available in recorded performances but rarely encountered on concert programs..

Villa-Lobos's influence on music education in his native Brazil was profound.He not only established his own choral music school-Conservatorio Nacional de Canto Orfeonico-in 1942, but also served as superintendent of music education for Rio de Janeiro. His enthusiasm for public music making and choral singing resulted in his conducting some of the largest such ensembles ever assembled. With thirty thousand to forty thousand singers and an orchestra of over a thousand, Villa-Lobos once led this assembly of musicians in a performance of his own choral compositions in the Vasco da Gama Stadium. But rather than use a baton, Villa-Lobos led the musicians with a Brazilian flag.

His death in 1959 ended the career of the most important composer ever to come out of Brazil. Not only did he emerge as one of the most prolific composers of the twentieth century, but his works have also come to represent Brazilian classical music. Villa-Lobos perfectly blended the diverse elements that he loved into a highly personal vocabulary that, even when less than totally inspired, is still attractive, exotic, and unique. ~ Eric Goldberg