Sad Sunday with Enrique Granados

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While I was trying to start this post from three different aspects and possible introductions, I realized that some kind of clumsiness hit me. No nicely formed sentences and thoughts were written... I was constantly erasing and correcting, but you know, if something starts in a wrong way, nothing good can come out from there. And yes, something was wrong with me, not my balanced (take this 'balanced' with a lot of reserve) ideas was leading me. Some nasty blue bug made into my thoughts and messed up everything. Sparkling feelings... where are you? They seemed to sink along with the ship, where one composer travelled and found his eternal peace.

That was Enrique Granados, a Spanish pianist and composer of the late romanticism era. The composer of many piano pieces like Spanish dances wrote also a lot of music for theatre, zarzuelas (operas) chamber music, songs.
He travelled to New York in December of 1915 for the premiere of his opera Goyescas and was received with success (January 1916). Instead of heading back after that, he accepted the invitation from President Wilson to offer a recital of his works at the White House on March 7. This event postponed the return of Enrique and his wife to Europe. They arrived finally in England and from there took another ship to France, but then the unlucky event came. That ship was torpedoed by a German submarine and they finished the American tour, not in the happiest way. Sad enough for the #SadSunday post, I think.

Remains of the Sussex ship in the port of Boulogne, 1916.

The piece I play here is sad too. "Spanish dances" op. 37 is a collection of twelve pieces for piano by Enrique Granados, grouped in series of three pieces in four notebooks. This is dance number 2, called as well "oriental". For me it has so nostalgic and melancholic sound, it could not miss from the series of posts for Sunday...

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