Alhambrismo!
End Notes: The Life and Music of Isaac Albéniz 1 For the dates and probable chronology of all of Albéniz’s piano works discussed herein, I am indebted to Pola Baytelman-Dobry, Isaac Albéniz: Chronological List and Thematic Catalog of His Piano Works (Warren, Michigan: Harmonie Park Press, 1993) 2 Gilbert Chase, The Music of Spain (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1959) 152.3 Walter Aaron Clark, Isaac Albéniz: Portrait of a Romantic (Oxford; New York: Oxford UP, 1999) 31-33.
4 Walter Aaron Clark, Isaac Albéniz: Portrait of a Romantic (Oxford; New York: Oxford UP, 1999) 34.
5 Walter Aaron Clark, "Albéniz in Leipzig and Brussels: New Data from Conservatory Records," Inter-American Music Review 11 (Fall-Winter 1990): 113-16.
6 Tomas Marco, Spanish Music in the Twentieth Century, Trans. Cola Franzen (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1993) 4.
7 Walter Aaron Clark, Isaac Albéniz: Portrait of a Romantic (Oxford; New York: Oxford UP, 1999) 40-43.
8 Walter Aaron Clark, "Isaac Albéniz’s Faustian Pact: A Study in Patronage," The Musical Quarterly 76 (Winter 1992): 468.
9 David Ewen, Great Composers, 1300-1900: A Biographical and Critical Guide (New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1966) 11.
10 Baytelman-Dobry, 9. 11 Walter Aaron Clark, Isaac Albéniz: Portrait of a Romantic (Oxford; New York: Oxford UP, 1999) 84.12 According to Clark, Albéniz arrived in Britain shortly before this recital with a letter of introduction to the British royal family written by the Infanta Isabel de Bourbon, Queen Regent of Spain. (Isaac Albéniz: Portrait of a Romantic, 75).
13 Daily Telegraph (June 13, 1889). Reprinted as a paid advertisement in The Times (June 17, 1889): 1. 14 The Times (June 19,1889): 15. 15 The Times (November 10, 1890): 7.16 That spring Albéniz performed at Steinway Hall on May 29th and June 7th.
17 There is much confusion regarding Albéniz's catalogue of solo piano works because many of his pieces have been lost (particularly those from his youth) or given altogether inaccurate opus numbers by him and his publishers. Hence, the exact chronology and dates of many of his approximately 200 surviving compositions is not known. (Baytelman-Dobry, 31-32)
18 George Jean-Aubry, "Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909)," Musical Times 58 (December 1917): 536.
19 Baytelman-Dobry, 6.
20 Chase, 154.
21 Chase, 153.
22 César Franck was a Belgian-born organist, composer, and pedagogue. His ideas about chromaticism differed from those of Liszt and Wagner in that they were derived from the music of J.S. Bach.
23 Chase, 155.
24 The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992), s.v. "Albéniz, Isaac (Manuel Francisco)," by Frances Barulich.25 Chase, 159.
26 Chase, 132.
27 Manuel de Falla, On Music and Musicians, Trans. David Urman and J.M. Thomson (London and Boston: Marion Boyers, 1979) 50-1.
28 James Burnett, Manuel de Falla and the Spanish Musical Renaissance (London: Victor Gollancz, Ltd., 1979) 28.
29 Chase, 148.
30 Pedrell, cited by Edgar Istel, "Isaac Albéniz," Trans. Fredrick Marttens. The Musical Quarterly xv, (January 1929): 124-5.
31 Marcos, 4.
32 Chase, 217.
33 Marco, 6.
34 Flashy dames and dandies from the working class sections of late 18th-century Madrid. The majos and majas were part of a social movement that rejected the Parisian-influenced cosmopolitanism adopted by the upper classes of Madrid society. Their detractors stereotyped them as being loud, ostentatious, and arrogant.
35 Cante jondo (literally, deep song) is the characteristic, highly emotional style of singing of Andalusia.
36 Chase, 161.
37 Marco, 7.
38 Baudin, cited Grange Woolley, "Pablo de Sarasate: His Historical Significance." Music & Letters 36 (July 1955): 240.39 Leopold Cardona de Bergerac, "The Andalusian Musical Idiom", The Music Review (August 1972): 158.
40 Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed., s.v. "Moorish Music" by Henry Farmer. Farmer also tells us that there were many Muslims living in Spain (namely the Berbers) who frowned on music as an unworthy practice, and in order to placate these puritans, the court had to conceal its indulgences. (pp. 868-9)
41 Farmer, p. 871.
42 Some musicologists regard these forms as the forerunners of the French virelai and many of the Spanish cantigas dating from the second half of the thirteenth century.
43 Farmer, p. 871.
44 Bertha Quintana and Lois Gray Floyd, ¡Qué Gitano! Gypsies of Southern Spain (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1972) 18-19.
45 Circa late eighteenth or early nineteenth century.
46 Linton E. Powell, A History of Spanish Piano Music (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1980) 77.
47 The reader is reminded that this work, which Albéniz composed circa 1887, is contemporaneous with several of his better known earlier Spanish works.
48 James A. Michener, Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections (New York: Random House, Inc., 1968) 487-8.
49 Paul Buck Mast, 'Style and Structure in "Iberia" by Isaac Albéniz' (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Rochester, 1974) 377.
Part 1. Adventure, Romanticism, and a Good Cigar
Part 2. The Nationalist Movement in Nineteenth-Century Spain \
Part 3. A Synthesis of Styles: The Music of Isaac Albéniz