Composers › Enrique Granados › Programme note
La Maja y el ruiseñor
Gerald Larner wrote 2 versions of differing length — choose one below.
The great passion in Granados’s life was the early nineteenth-century Spanish painter Francisco Goya, several of whose pictures he possessed and whose work inspired much of his music. Most inspired of all are the Goyescas piano pieces, written round about 1910, and the Goyescas opera that is based on them. One of the highlights of the piano pieces is La Maja y el Ruiseñor (The Maiden and the Nightingale), which has such a prominent and seductive melodic line that it required little adaptation when Granados recast it as an aria for the soprano heroine of the opera a few years later. The nightingale adds its virtuoso voice to the maiden’s melancholy musings in a series of cadenzas towards the end of the piece.
From Gerald Larner’s files: “La Maja e il ruiseñor”
arranged for orchestra by D. Matthews
The great passion in Granados’s life was the early nineteenth-century Spanish painter Francisco Goya, several of whose pictures he possessed and whose work inspired much of his music. Most inspired of all are the Goyescas piano pieces, written round about 1910, and the Goyescas opera that is based on them. One of the highlights of the piano pieces is La Maja y el Ruiseñor (The Maiden and the Nightingale), which has such a prominent and seductive melodic line that it required little adaptation when Granados recast it as an aria for the soprano heroine of the opera a few years later. The nightingale adds its virtuoso voice to the maiden’s melancholy musings in a series of cadenzas towards the end of the piece.
Gerald Larner ©2004
From Gerald Larner’s files: “Maiden and Nightingale/Matthews”