Today we feature a new recording by Spanish composer Enrique Granados in which pianist Xiayin Wang explores this composer’s complex musical language full of color and emotional intensity.
Perhaps because the source of their inspiration was so close to the composer’s heart, the Goyescas piano pieces are the most amazing examples of the genius of Granados.
‘I have written’, he said, without exaggeration, ‘a collection of great sweep and difficulty’, which Xiayin Wang addresses with complete mastery. Across the repertoire featured here, this album reveals the exciting sounds of Enrique Granados, a composer whose music deserves to be heard more often.
While the brilliance of Granados as a composer of piano music in a more conventional idiom is convincingly evident in the Allegro de concierto and in Zapateado, inspired by Andalusian flamenco, the Ochos Valses poéticos are unique and uncharacteristic in that they are neither virtuosic in their piano scoring nor Spanish in their style.
Here is Ms. Wang, playing some highlights from this recording:
