The Music of Isaac Albeniz

Isaac Albéniz was a nationalist composer, and one of the greatest composers Spain has ever produced. Among the many musicologists who have researched and written about the music of Albéniz, and the many pianists who have had occasion to comment on it, there is universal agreement regarding the artistic merit of his magnum opus, Iberia. Its rich harmonic vocabulary, rhythmic complexity, extensive dynamic range, and the ambitiousness of its architectural design are indeed praiseworthy; and in most respects, Iberia is a quantum leap forward from Albéniz's earlier works in the nationalist style. However, if - as the vast majority of the aforementioned commentators have done - we were to focus most of our attention on this one work, we would undoubtedly fail to come to terms with that which is the very essence of Albéniz's music.

Iberia, after all, is a synthesis of several music styles, including the sophisticated compositional techniques that Albéniz learned in Paris, and the virtuosic piano writing he inherited from Liszt. His earlier works, on the other hand, are a relatively simple amalgamation of folk idioms and European salon style which stick closer to the source of Albéniz's inspiration, that being the Andalusian musical idiom.

The Evolution of the Andalusian Musical Idiom

With the Moorish invasion of the Iberian peninsula in 711 A.D. came Arabic cultural influences that would profoundly effect Spanish music and architecture for centuries to come; especially that of Andalusia, the southern-most region of Spain from where Isaac Albéniz drew most of his artistic inspiration. Unlike Christian music of the same time period, whose function was primarily liturgical, the "religious spirit did not apply to Arabian music. According to the teachings of the Koran, wine women and song were forbidden pleasures unworthy of a pure and sincere follower of Allah."39 But the Arabs and Syrians who settled in Spain were not so puritanical. Since the time of Abderrahman I (d. 788), the first caliph of Córdoba, the palaces of the rich were wholly given up to these delights. Large numbers of musicians, singers, poets, and dancers were maintained at court, and the palaces of the wealthy became gathering places for the great profusion of singers and musicians who achieved considerable prominence throughout Arab Spain.40

During the whole of the Moorish period (711-1492 and after) music was primarily monodic, meaning that a single melodic line predominated, as in a folk melody. In melismatic passages, where singers would sing more floridly (several notes to a syllable), the music became heterophonic; that is, the accompanists were permitted to embellish the melodic line by introducing a simultaneous fourth, fifth or octave.