Granados. From Paris to Goya

From his study years in Paris to the last compositions inspired in Goya, the life and works of Enric Granados (1867-1916) were a literary and pictorial journey. His music was a poetic perfume, a plastic scent, full of surprising images and lyrical descriptions. The exhibition, produced by Museu de la Música and Museu de Lleida, celebrates the artist, the musician who read, the pianist who painted, on the 150th anniversary of his birth.

At the end of the century, modernity had found the theatre. Painters, writers and musicians wanted to reform society from the stage. They wanted to dislodge the most popular lyrical productions, which they considered vulgar and toxic. They also hoped to find a dignified way of making a living. Children of Wagner, they longed to open the country up to Europe. Businesses didn’t stop working and investors lost faith. Nevertheless, the stage dreams of the turn of the century decades (1890s and 1900s) were a cultural beacon that brought together the creators of a dream of a complete work of art.

One of Granados’ most important works is a symphonic poem dedicated to Dante and his "Divine Comedy". It is based on the original verses and a painting by Rossetti. The composition, originally thought of as a symphony in four parts, was a modernist demonstration of the desire to unite all of the arts into one: poetry, painting and music. The orchestra in Dante sketches the shadows of hell in the same way that the images provide a face for the condemned and the verses represent their lament. In this way, Humanism arrived in the 20th century as an almost cinematographic concert piece.

Apel•les Mestres was a friend of Granados and the writer with whom he most collaborated. The poet’s iconographic universe often accompanied the lyrical imagination of the composer. The two defended the close relationship between poetry and drawing, painting and music, art and creation, based on a defence of nature. Lavishly published in 1907, "Liliana" is an artists’ book in which this preciosista aesthetic reached its peak. Granados turned the poem into a lyrical drama, which debuted 9 July 1911 in the Palau de les Belles Arts in Barcelona in an art exhibition.

To find a peaceful environment, Gustav Mahler had a cabin built in Steinbach, where he worked on his second and third symphonies. Twelve years later, he repeated the exercise in Dobbiaco. Likewise, Edvard Grieg had a cabin built with sea views to compose in Troldhaugen. In the summer of 1915, Granados also had a cabin built in the middle of the countryside. He called it "tartana" or "la tartanita". There he wrote part of the "Goyescas" opera. The composer’s workshop had been converted into a landscape garden— an open window to the fresh and evocative smells of fruit and flowers.

Granados was always a musician who paid attention to technological advances. His curiosity about progress was due to his awareness of the importance of one’s public presentation. In Paris, he learned the value of a good photographic portrait as a gift to producers and sponsors. His inquisitiveness about publishing musical scores followed the same objective of self promotion. The same is true with the player piano music and the gramophone records he recorded. Far from being the image of a romantic and regional musician, Granados was a cosmopolitan citizen who spoke French and rode around Barcelona on a motorbike.

Goya was the ultimate painter for Granados. He discovered Goya in the Museo del Prado in 1894. Nevertheless, the Goyaesque universe didn’t become his favorite subject until the summer of 1909. Albéniz’ death and the Tragic Week deeply affected him. The composer found refuge in the painter, in the luminous tapestry cartoons, in the light and dark criticism he recorded. First was the "Goyescas", a masterful work for piano; later, an opera in three acts, his final expression. From then on, Goya found the melodies of his palette, the perfect companion for cultural history.