Los Requiebros from Goyescas

Though no less devoted to developing Spanish music than contemporaries like Albéniz, Falla and Turina, Granados was drawn more to the culture of Castile than to that of Andalusia and did not entirely share their interest in the primitive element in Spanish folksong. Besides, Granados had another great artistic passion in his life. He was fascinated by Francisco Goya, several of whose paintings he possessed and whose work inspired much of his music, including of course the Goyescas piano pieces and the Goyescas opera (set in Goya’s Madrid round 1800 ) that is based on them.

The first of the Goyescas piano pieces, Los Requiebros (The compliments), supplied the material for the third scene in the opera where, reflecting a scene depicted by Goya, the heroine Rosario enters in a sedan chair and is greeted by her companions in the Campo del Florida. Based on two tunes from Blas de Laserna’s popular Tirana del Trípili - the first introduced by the right hand over rolling arpeggios in the left, the second by the left hand under running figuration in the right - it is probably the most attractive piece in the set. Certainly, it is irresistibly spontaneous in its development of those two themes and extraordinarily imaginative in the variety of colour, piano textures and keyboard embellishments so liberally applied to it. The piano writing is not specifically Spanish - no strumming guitars or clicking heels here - but it is lavishly romantic.