Enrique Granados - Piano Music, Vol. 5 (Douglas Riva)

Information

Composer: Enrique Granados

• Albéniz, compl. Granados - Azulejos (Mosaic Tiles)
• Valse de Concert
• A la pradera
• Escenas poéticas
• Fantasia - Cheherezada
• Arabesca
• Canción árabe
• Moresque
• Canción morisca
• Oriental - Theme with Variations, Intermezzo, Finale

Douglas Riva, piano

Date: 2000

Label: Naxos

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Review

Naxos’s traversal of Granados’s piano music has now reached Volume 5 and gives us three World Premiere recordings. It is a valuable undertaking but I’m not sure how much, if anything, is added to our knowledge and understanding of Granados’s compositional techniques and aspirations.

The first piece on the disc is by Albeniz and completed by Granados - 63 bars by the former and left uncompleted on his death in 1909, and 83 bars by Granados. Shavings from the bench. Many of the pieces are from the latter part of Granados’s composing life; the Valse de Concert was published in 1914 though probably written between 1909-1910. Douglas Riva, who seems to have received the imprimatur of the Granados family, as well as being a tireless advocate of his music, brings a real sense of brio to the Valse, albeit I do find his rubato somewhat calculated and impeding to the flux and flow of the music.

The Escenas Poeticas are stylistically intriguing and written at different times. They range from the densely argued to the prismically compelling. El angel de los claustros, the fifth of the cycle, describes an angel’s flight repeatedly interrupted by a chorale – and here I feel Riva is too slow and uninclined to vest the music with a fraction more subtlety. Riva, who has written the notes, cites the fourth of the cycle as Schumann-influenced but I would prefer to cite the finale, the Poet’s Dream (Suenos del poeta) that must be as explicitly Schumannesque a piece as Granados ever wrote.

The final pieces – three premieres – are in "Oriental" style – that is to say, in Granados’s case, countries in which Arabic is the spoken language. They fuse light entertainment with mild pedagogic intent and are of slight, though occasionally entertaining, value.

I found the recorded sound somewhat airless. Notes are good. A qualified welcome.

— Jonathan Woolf

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Enrique Granados (27 July 1867 – 24 March 1916) was a Spanish composer and pianist from Catalonia. A student of Felipe Pedrell, he rose to prominence with his Danzas españolas and soon established himself as one of Spain's foremost pianists. In addition to his celebrated piano works, Granados also composed several operas and founded a piano academy in Barcelona. Deeply influenced by 18th-century and Spanish artistic traditions, he created the renowned Goyescas, inspired by the paintings of Francisco Goya. Granados's life ended tragically when the Sussex was torpedoed during his return voyage from New York.

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Douglas Riva is an American classical pianist renowned for his expertise in Spanish music, particularly of Enrique Granados. He began studying piano and flute at nine and started his professional career as principal flautist with the El Paso Symphony at sixteen before focusing solely on piano. Trained at Juilliard and NYU under Adele Marcus and Eugene List, he later studied in Barcelona at the Academia Marshall. Riva has performed internationally, including at the White House and Carnegie Hall. As a scholar, Riva is the Assistant Director of the 18-volume critical edition of the Complete Works for Piano of Granados.

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