Granados: Goyescas & Escenas Poéticas Joop Celis

• 1 No. 1. Los requiebros 08:31
• 2 No. 2. Coloquio en la reja, duo de amor 10:00
• 3 No. 3. El fandango de candil 06:17
• 4 No. 4. Quejas, o La maja y el ruisenor 06:03
• 5 No. 5. El amor y la muerte 11:43
• 6 No. 6. Epilogo: Serenata del espectro 07:35
• 7 No. 1. Berceuse 03:27
• 8 No. 2. Eva y Walter 02:18
• 9 No. 3. Danza de la rosa 01:24
• 10 No. 1. Recuerdos de paisajes lejanos 01:45
• 11 No. 2. El angel de los claustros 03:12
• 12 No. 3. Cancion de Margarita 01:47
• 13 No. 4. Suenos del poeta 02:56
• 14 Intermezzo de la Opera Goyescas 03:53
• 15 El pelele (Escena goyesca) 04:18
• Total Runtime 01:15:09

Info for Granados: Goyescas & Escenas Poéticas

Enrique Granados is today best remembered for his Goyescas suite for solo piano, inspired by the art and times of Francisco de Goya. Granados first came under the spell of Goya in 1896 while viewing an exhibition of his works. In particular, the bohemian characters of the majo and maja that had captivated Goya came to dominate the highly romanticized image of old Madrid embraced by Granados. Although the inspiration from Goya is readily acknowledged it is only two of the six pieces that make up Goyescas that can be related to specific works by the painter: No.1 Los requiebros (The Flirtations) and No.5 El amor y la muerte (Love and Death) were both inspired by etchings from the celebrated series of Caprichos. Another image by Goya, of four young girls playing with a life-sized puppet made of straw, formed the inspiration for El pelele (The straw man), which Granados composed after the suite and gave the subtitle ‘escena goyesca’. Performing these wonderfully sensuous works is the Dutch pianist Joop Celis, who here makes his first appearance on BIS, but who has earned plaudits for previous recordings, for instance in International Record Reviewer: ‘He dispatches the heroic and virtuosic with ease, yet his playing displays a great sensitivity to the more romantic side…’ On this well-filled disc, Celis also includes Granados’s collection of seven ‘Poetic scenes’ as well as the brief Intermezzo which Granados composed for his opera Goyescas, a work in one act otherwise based on the music from the suite for piano. The opera was premièred in New York in 1916, and it was on his journey home to Spain that Granados died, when the ship he was travelling on was torpedoed in the English Channel.

Joop Celis, piano

Joop Celis
Born in the Netherlands, Joop Celis (1958) received his first piano lessons from his father at the age of nine. Later he studied with Jo Dusseldorp at the Conservatorium Maastricht, graduating with distinction in 1979. At the age of fifteen he won a Dutch competition for young pianists, and four years later the third prize at the famous Busoni Competition in Bolzano, Italy. He continued his studies for two years with Paul Badura-Skoda at the Folkwang Musikhochschule in Essen, Germany. In addition he is a laureate of the Tromp Competition in Eindhoven (The Netherlands) and of the Epinal International Piano Competition (France).

Besides giving solo recitals and concerts of chamber music, Joop Celis has made a number of radio recordings for several international broadcasting companies, as well as recordings for release on CD. His repertoire ranges from the Classical period through the Romantic era up to French impressionism and post-romanticism. He has devoted himself in particular to the relatively un-known British composer York Bowen (1884–1961), giving lecture-recitals, concerts, and making recordings. Until now Joop Celis realized four CD’s with piano works by York Bowen, released by the British Chandos label. All four CD’s received critical acclaim in the international press. His most recent CD, dedicated to piano works of the Spanish composer Enrique Granados – a.o. his famous suite ‘Goyescas’ and the Escenas Poéticas – and being released by the Swedish label BIS – is a kind of centenary tribute to the composer, who died tragically during the First World War, in March 1916.

Joop Celis teaches at the Hogeschool Zuyd Conservatorium in Maastricht and at the Lemmens campus of the LUCA School of Arts in Leuven, Belgium, and regularly gives masterclasses abroad, for example in Belgium, Portugal and Asia.

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