Albeniz – Granada (from Suite Espanola)

Recently I had one of the most enlightening lessons while teaching. I was teaching Bela Bartok’s Round Dance with a grade 5 student, and our discussion topic was on folk tunes and melodies, and a few composers and their music was brought up. I decided to show him how the charming landscape of Spain could be expressed in a piano piece. The first piece that came to mind was actually Granados’ Orientale (no.2) from 12 Spanish Dances, but not having that score with me, I proceeded to play something from the Albeniz scores that I happened to have with me.

Flipping the book open to Suite Espanola, I performed/sight-read the first movement, Granada. The notes were relatively simple, and that gave me freedom to add in embellishments and tempo-changes.

After listening to the whole piece once through, he sat in contemplative silence, as if brought into an altered state of mind, immersed fully into the music. After a while, he said, “The slow part is simply beautiful.” He didn’t say any more than that. Normally he would have asked questions or made statements of what he thought, but that day he didn’t feel the need to say any more. He had felt the music, not just heard it; and it was evident that he was deeply affected by it. And me? Of course I was elated. Overjoyed at the fact that my student had cultivated the sensitivity to music, to feel, at the young age of 12.

Granada opens with bright, tinkling arpeggiated chords in the right-hand part reminiscent of church bells in the distance. The melody, played by the left-hand, is based on the Mixolydian mode. It evokes the picture of the village life, simple yet fascinating. From the key of F major, Albeniz modulates it to the mellow key of A-flat major, and changes it just as quickly back to F. This dissolves with alternating F-major and F augmented chords into the dreamy, ethereal second section (the ‘slow’ section that my student mentioned about). A sunset, a heavy sigh comes into mind. It is as though time stops, and everything is frozen for a single moment. Albeniz describes it:

I live and write a Serenata…sad to the point of despair, among the aroma of the flowers, the shade of the cypresses, and the snow of the Sierra. I will not compose the intoxication of a juerga. I seek now the tradition…the guzla, the lazy dragging of the fingers over the strings. And above all, a heartbreaking lament out of tune…I want the Arabic Granada, that which is art, which is all that seems to me beauty and emotion…[1]

If Albéniz sat down today with a guitar in his hands, and the Alhambra in his mind, what would he play?

The piece ends off with the delightful opening motif, and dies down with an upward arpeggio to a quiet, serene ending. Such beauty in simplicity!

At the end of the lesson, my student asked, “Can I play this piece too?”