Rejecting the dictator

: overcoming identity aesthetics through Granados’s sounding legacy

Abstract

Granados’s recordings of his own compositions and, in particular, of the First Book of Goyescas (ca. 1908-1916) offer us a style of performance that is surprisingly different from that which we have become used to in recent decades. As well as being much more flexible, as we would expect from a player of his generation, they lack the highly articulated ornamental inflexions that we have come to expect as authentic features of stylish Spanish pianism. Tracing these shifting performance approaches, emerging in Spanish pianists of the generation following Granados, reveals how a universally accepted folkloric style evolved in parallel with the cultural propaganda of the Civil War and the Franco dictatorship, epitomised in the identity narratives of Hispanidad. That this approach has survived intact and unchallenged to the present day itself raises worrying questions. The main aim of this thesis, alongside the artistic output that accompanies it, is to offer new perspectives on the performance of Spanish scores, drawing upon Granados’s roll performances without copying them slavishly. This will offer an opportunity to demonstrate how these scores may afford less rigid and predictable (and arguably less politically toxic) expressivity at the piano. My practical submissions are presented as video materials, including performances of scores Granados did and did not record himself, masterclass teaching in which some of these ideas are offered to others, and a lecture-demonstration which examines key moments for performance decisions in scores from the same cultural orbit (Albéniz's First Book of Iberia). The project thus challenges orthodox approaches and offers practical and effective alternatives, at all times aiming to widen the options available to musicians in the future.

Date of Award	1 May 2021
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	King's College London
Supervisor	Daniel Leech-Wilkinson (Supervisor)