Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909)

Born May 29, 1860 - died May 18, 1909

Albéniz’s eventful early life is one of the most extraordinary of any musician. In fact his whole life was something of an adventure. When he was just one year old he was taught the elements of piano playing by his sister and made his debut at the age of four, improvising at a public concert. His father, a tax inspector with an eye to producing some extra revenue, exploited him as a child prodigy before his mother took him to Paris in 1867 to study privately under the great Jean-François Marmontel, teacher of Bizet and Debussy. 

Albéniz retuned to Spain but soon ran away from home, living rough and supporting himself by playing as a vaudeville stunt: standing with the keyboard behind him, he would play with the backs of his fingers, palms up, dressed as a musketeer with a rapier at his side. After many more incidents, at the age of twelve he stowed away in a ship bound for Buenos Aires. Thereafter he made his way via Cuba to the United States, giving concerts in New York and San Francisco before re-crossing The Pond and performing in Liverpool, London and Leipzig. When he was 15, Albéniz decided to take himself more seriously but he did not have the self-discipline that was necessary for systematic study. At different times he came into contact with Liszt (in Budapest), d’Indy and Dukas (in Paris) and, more importantly, Felipe Pedrell (1841-1922), the Spanish composer and musicologist. 

Pedrell’s passionate belief in Spanish folk music and dance motivated Albéniz to become a composer, turning to Spanish idioms for inspiration. It took him some time to find that the piano suited him best. In 1893, he moved to Paris, writing unsuccessful zarzuelas (a Spanish form of light opera) before meeting the wealthy English banker, Francis Money-Coutts. Albéniz was paid an annual stipend of $5,000 to set to music the appalling librettos that Money-Coutts wrote in his spare time under the pseudonym Mountjoy. This led to an (abandoned) Arthurian trilogy – though Merlin has been recorded and filmed with some success (see below) – and such bizarre productions as his opera Enrico Clifford (1895), a romance set in the time of the Wars of the Roses, sung in Italian and given its first performance in Barcelona in 1895. 

However, it was his piano music, with its Spanish flavour, that made Albéniz famous, and after 1896 he moved between Paris, Barcelona and Nice, composing and teaching. His last years were marred by tragedy: his daughter died, his wife became sick with an incurable illness, and his own health deteriorated as he developed Bright’s disease. 

His Music

Very little classical music emerged from Spain in the 19th century. Many composers from Bizet and Chabrier to Glinka and Rimsky-Korsakov had evoked Spanish rhythms and melodies, but these were impressions. Albéniz was the first to attempt to create an authentic Spanish school, followed by Granados, Falla and Turina. Though Albéniz’s piano idiom is clearly in the debt of Liszt, its inspiration is Spanish: here are the guitars, flamenco dancers, exuberant rhythms, sensuous textures and catchy melodies of the Spanish folk idiom – Andalusia in particular – transmuted into virtuoso keyboard works. 

Essential recordings

Ibéria. Navarra. Suite Española - Alicia de Larrocha Decca 417 887-2DH2 (126’)

Ibéria - Marc-André Hamelin Hyperion CDA67476/7 (126')

Albeniz. Granados. Rodrigo - Julian Bream RCA Navigator 74321 17903-2 (77' • DDD)

Merlin - José De Eusebio BBC/Opus Arte DVD OAOA0888D (184’) Recorded live at the Teatro Real, Madrid, 9 June 2003.

Albéniz in the Archive

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