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Born in Camprodon, Catalonia (Spain), Albéniz was a child prodigy who first performed at the age of four. At age seven he passed the entrance examination for piano at the Paris Conservatoire, but he was refused admission because he took out a ball from his pocket and broke a glass window while playing with it. By age fifteen, he had already given concerts worldwide. After a short stay at the Leipzig Conservatory, in 1876 he went to study in Brussels. In 1880, he went to Budapest to study with Franz Liszt, only to find out that Liszt was in Weimar, Germany.
In 1883, he met the teacher and composer Felipe Pedrell, who inspired him to write Spanish music such as the Suite Española, Op. 47.
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The fifth movement of that suite, called Asturias (Leyenda), is probably most famous these days as part of the classical guitar repertoire, even though it was originally composed for piano and only later transcribed to guitar. Many of his other compositions were also transcribed to guitar, notably by Francisco Tárrega — Albéniz once declared that he preferred Tárrega's guitar transcriptions to his original piano works.
During the 1890s Albéniz lived in London and Paris and wrote mainly theatrical works. In 1900 he started to suffer from Bright's disease and returned to writing piano music.
Between 1905 and 1909 he composed his most famous work, Iberia (1908), a suite of twelve piano "impressions".
His orchestral works include Spanish Rhapsody (1887) and Catalonia (1899).
In 1883, the composer married his student Rosina Jordana.
Ana Vidović
They had three children, Blanca (who died in 1886), Laura (a painter), and Alfonso (who played for Real Madrid in the early 1900s before embarking on a career as a diplomat).
Albéniz died on 18th May 1909 at age 48 in Cambo-les-Bains and is buried in the Cementiri del Sudoest, Barcelona.
Cécilia Sarkozy, the former wife of French president Nicolas Sarkozy, is the great-granddaughter of Isaac Albéniz.."
"Early works
His first recorded composition, Marcha Militar, was published in 1868, and he continued composing in the traditional styles ranging from Rameau, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt until the mid-1880s. Albéniz scholars write about his three compositional periods known as “early works”, “middle period” and “mature compositions”. While dates vary depending on the biographer, it is generally agreed that early works were most “salon style” music, inspired by Chopin, Schubert and Brahms. The middle period works were mostly composed in the late 1880s and the mature compositions came after he had almost completely retired from his concert career and moved to France in the early 1890s"
Spanish influence
"During the late 1880s, the middle period, the strong influence of Spanish style is evident in his music. Felipe Pedrell was a major influence on Albéniz’s style at this time. Pedrell, a composer and teacher, was a leading figure in the development of nationalist Spanish music. Gilbert Chase, in his book The Music of Spain, describes Pedrell’s influence on Albéniz: “What Albéniz derived from Pedrell was above all a spiritual orientation, the realization of the wonderful values inherent in Spanish music.”
In addition to the Spanish spirit infused in Albéniz’s music, he incorporated other qualities as well.
In Pola Baytleman’s biography on Albéniz, she describes four characteristics of the music from the middle period. She writes, “1. The dance rhythms of Spain, of which there are a wide variety. 2. The use of cante jondo, which means deep or profound song. It is the most serious and moving variety of flamenco or Spanish gypsy song, often dealing with themes of death, anguish, or religion. 3. The use of exotic scales also associated with flamenco music. The Phrygian mode is the most prominent in Albéniz’s music, although he also used the Aeolian and Mixolydian modes as well as the whole-tone scale. 4. The transfer of guitar idioms into piano writing.
Another Albéniz biographer, Walter A. Clark, explains how the pieces of this period received enthusiastic reception in his many concerts. He goes on to explain how many of the pieces have found a permanent place in the guitar repertoire. Chase describes music from this period, “Taking the guitar as his instrumental model, and drawing his inspiration largely from the peculiar traits of Andalusian folk music — but without using actual folk themes — Albéniz achieves a stylization of Spanish traditional idioms that while thoroughly artistic, gives a captivating impression of spontaneous improvisation... Cordoba is the piece that best represents the style of Albéniz in this period, with its hauntingly beautiful melody, set against the acrid dissonances of the plucked accompaniment imitating the notes of the Moorish guzlas. Here is the heady scent of jasmines amid the swaying palm tress, the dream fantasy of an Andalusian “Arabian Nights” in which Albéniz loved to let his imagination dwell.”
The ‘dream fantasy’ Cordoba, is one of the pieces in Chants d’Espagne, which represents the middle period at it height.
Sara Baras dances to the elements of fire and moon in this flamenco piece based on a composition by Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz.
The suite contains the five pieces: Prelude, Orientale, Sous le Palmier, Cordoba, and Sequidillas. Sources conflict on the date of the compositions — but it is likely pieces 1, 2 and 3 were written between 1891-2 and pieces 4 and 5 were written in 1897. Both Prelude and Sequidillas are also found in the work Suite Española Opus 47. Clark describes the pieces in Chants d’Espagne as “some of the most celebrated and widely performed of his works”.
The pieces “capture the diverse aspects of Spanish life in Andulasia”, according to Daniel Ericourt — a major authority on Spanish piano music.
Perhaps the best source on the works is Albéniz himself. e is quoted as commenting on his earlier period works as, “there are among them a few things that are not completely worthless. The music is a bit infantile, plain, spirited; but in the end, the people, our Spanish people, are something of all that. I believe that the people are right when they continue to be moved by Cordoba, Mallorca, by the copla of the Sevillanas, by the Serenata, and Granada. In all of them I now note that there is less musical science, less of the grand idea, but more color, sunlight, flavor of olives.
That music of youth, with its little sins and absurdities that almost point out the sentimental affectation…appears to me like the carvings in the Alhambra, those peculiar arabesques that sway nothing with their turns and shapes, but which are like the air, like the sun, like the blackbirds or like the nightingales of its gardens. They are more valuable than all else of Moorish Spain, which though we may not like Hit, it the true Spain.”