Escaping aesthetic control

Abstract

Spanish pianists, educators, and commentators have relished passing down to following generations the performance practices of their own tradition, with the renowned institution L’escola de música de Barcelona claiming to offer specialist training in “Spanish music”. In this context, Granados’s Goyescas have inevitably become the almost-exclusive domain of native musicians, herding artists’ creativities towards sets of performance instructions familiar to them. That we should continue to consider this repertoire as a specifically separate entity, fully knowable only by local artists or those trained within their tradition, is worthy of attention, as it places anyone outside this educational background and performing tradition as ‘other’ in need of acceptance. While the study of Granados’s output has recently been enriched by analytical investigations, recording projects, and new critical editions, it is the still unfamiliar early-recorded legacy by the composer/pianist that will be the catalyst for insights in this article. His Welte-Mignon roll recordings show a dynamic and flexible artistry, unsurprising in pianists of his generation, together with a lack of highly articulated ornamental inflexions and the rhythmical rigour we might expect in performances of such repertoire. The question that I wish to raise is whether at some point during the twentieth century there was a cultural shift that shaped ‘Spanish music’ to sound as distinctively national as possible. Such a shift would have occurred, in the minds of players, in parallel to wider changes in performance styles taking place throughout the continent. Exploring these aesthetic ideals through the lens of the country’s cultural history during the troubled years across the middle of the last century may hint at the subtle but meaningful ways that defined a canon flavoured with local folklore, both within and without the Spanish borders. The aim throughout is to challenge these orthodox approaches controlling the repertoire, resulting in my own renewed performance of El amor y la muerte; the hope will be that of empowering pianists to make different choices, diversifying performance options in the future.