Asturias d isaac albeniz biography

Spanish composer (1860–1909)

"Albeniz" redirects here. For other uses, see Albeniz (disambiguation).

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Albéniz and the second or maternal family name is Pascual.

Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz y Pascual (Spanish pronunciation:[iˈsakalˈβeniθ]; 29 May 1860 – 18 May 1909) was a Spanish virtuosopianist, composer, and conductor. He is one of the foremost composers of the post-romantic era who also had a significant influence on his contemporaries and younger composers. He is best known for his piano works based on Spanish folk music idioms. Isaac Albéniz was close to the Generation of '98.

Transcriptions of many of his pieces, such as Asturias (Leyenda), Granada, Sevilla, Cadiz, Córdoba, Cataluña, Mallorca, and Tango in D, are important pieces for classical guitar, though he never composed for the guitar. Some of Albéniz's personal papers are held in the Library of Catalonia.

Life

Born in Camprodon, province of Girona, to Ángel Albéniz (a customs official) and his wife, Maria de los Dolores Pascual, Albéniz was a child prodigy who first performed at the age of four. At age seven, after apparently taking lessons from Antoine François Marmontel, he passed the entrance examination for piano at the Conservatoire de Paris, but he was refused admission because he was believed to be too young. By the time he had reached 12, he had made many attempts to run away from home.

His concert career began at the age of nine when his father toured both Isaac and his sister, Clementina, throughout northern Spain. A popular myth is that at the age of twelve Albéniz stowed away in a ship bound for Buenos Aires. He then found himself in Cuba, then in the United States, giving concerts in New York and San Francisco and then travelled to Liverpool, London and Leipzig. By age 15, he had already given concerts worldwide. This story is not entirely

Isaac Albéniz was a Spanish pianist and composer best known for his piano works based on folk music idioms. Many of his pieces such as Asturias (Leyenda), Granada, Sevilla, Cádiz, Córdoba, Cataluí±a, and the Tango in D are among the most important pieces for classical guitar.

Albéniz was a child prodigy who first performed at the age of four. His concert career began at the age of nine when his father toured both Isaac and his sister, Clementina, throughout northern Spain. In 1876, after a short stay at the Leipzig Conservatory, he went to study at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. In 1883 he met the teacher and composer Felip Pedrell, who inspired him to write Spanish music such as the Chants d'Espagne. The first movement (Prelude) of that suite, later retitled after the composer's death as Asturias (Leyenda), is probably most famous today as part of the classical guitar repertoire, even though it was originally composed for piano. (Many of Albéniz's other compositions were also transcribed for guitar, notably by Francisco Tárrega.)

The apex of Albéniz's concert career is considered to be 1889 to 1892 when he had concert tours throughout Europe. During the 1890s Albéniz lived in London and Paris. In 1900 he started to suffer from Bright's disease and returned to writing piano music. Between 1905 and 1908 he composed his final masterpiece, Iberia (1908), a suite of twelve piano "impressions".

Musical work by Isaac Albéniz

"Leyenda" redirects here. For the Anuel AA song, see Leyenda (song).

Asturias (Leyenda), named simply Prelude by its composer, is a musical work by the Spanish composer and pianist Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909).

The piece, which lasts around six minutes in performance, was originally written for the piano and set in the key of G minor. It was first published in Barcelona, by Juan Bta. Pujol & Co., in 1892 as the prelude of a three-movement set entitled Chants d'Espagne.

The name Asturias (Leyenda) was given to it posthumously by the German publisher Hofmeister, who included it in the 1911 "complete version" of the Suite española, although Albéniz never intended the piece for this suite. Despite the new name, this music is not considered suggestive of the folk music of the northern Spanish region of Asturias, but rather of Andalusianflamenco traditions (although the drama of the music is congruent with the landscape of the region of Asturias). The origin of the presumably misattributed name was that in fact Albéniz did compose a piano work actually called (by himself) 'Asturias', which made part of a set of pieces of folk music from all over Spain for the then Queen of Spain, but this piece is lost, and maybe its name was passed on the now so called one.Leyenda, Hofmeister's subtitle, means legend. The piece is noted for the delicate, intricate melody of its middle section and abrupt dynamic changes.

Albéniz's biographer, Walter Aaron Clark, describes the piece as "pure Andalusian flamenco". In the main theme the piano mimics the guitar technique of alternating the thumb and fingers of the right hand, playing a pedal-note open string with the index finger and a melody with the thumb. The theme itself suggests the rhythm of the bulería—a fast flamenco form. The "marcato"/"staccato" markings suggest both guitar sounds a

Article published in Classical Guitar Magazine, v. 18, n. 18, London, 1997. Republished on the Sirs Renaissance Database CD-ROM, Boca Raton, Florida, 1998.

ISAAC ALBÉNIZ – AN ESSAY ON THE MAN, HIS MUSIC, AND HIS RELATIONSHIP TO THE GUITAR

Life

Isaac Albéniz, one of the most important Spanish composers, regarded as the founder of the Modern Spanish School, was born in Camprodon, Spain, in 1860, and died in Cambo-les-Bains, France, in 1909. A precocious piano virtuoso, he had his first lessons with his elder sister Clementine and appeared in public recitals playing duets with her as early as age four.

In 1866, after studies with Narciso Oliveros in Barcelona, his mother took  him to Paris to study with Antoine Francois Marmontel, a teacher at the Paris Conservatoire who also counted Bizet and Debussy among his students. After a few months   under his private guidance Albéniz was accepted as a student at the Conservatoire, but he spoiled the opportunity by breaking one of its large mirrors while playing with a ball (we must not forget that he was only a six year old child). His mother then took him back to Spain and shortly after he went on a concert tour around Catalonia with his father, in which he would use the same kind of tricks as the young Mozart, such as covering the keyboard so that he had to play without looking at the keys.

The Albéniz family then moved to Madrid, and Isaac started attending the conservatory under Mendizabal. By this time he was a prolific reader of Jules Verne's tales, and through them felt the enticements of adventure up to the point when, in 1870, he ran away from home to travel around Spain on his own, playing wherever he could. He went through all sorts of incidents over this time, being once even robbed by highway bandits. Upon reaching Cadiz, the local governor threatened to arrest Albéniz and have him sent back to his parents. Albéniz’s solution was to hide himself on the steamship España, bou