Enrique Granados: Piano Works – Xiayin Wang

   in Piano International (Mar, 2018)
Following the muddle of Nicholas Zumbro’s ‘complete’ Goyescas (Kritonos Records, reviewed in IP Sept/Oct 2017), it is a relief to have the six movements Granados published complete and in the correct sequence, with no inauthentic interlopers to dilute the clear, satisfying dramatic profile of Books 1 & 2. Granados’ pieces called Escena goyesca, such as ‘El pelele’ (often played as an encore to Book 2), betray common inspiration in Goya’s paintings but little more. Whether Granados would have collated a third book had he not been killed in 1916 (the year Book 2 was published) is anyone’s guess; I rather doubt it.

Like Alicia de Larrocha and many others, Xiayin Wang …