Abstract

All throughout the history of piano repertoire, composers have been inspired by the folk traditions of their home countries (for instance, Chopin’s Polonaises, Grieg’s Lyric Pieces, Bartok’s Mikrokosmos) or other foreign countries they felt attracted to (both Debussy and Ravel were enchanted by the colorful Spanish traditions). As a Spaniard, avid to share the culture and traditions of my country, I would like to focus on the piano music by the composers of the Nationalist period during the transition to the twentieth century in Spain. Felipe Pedrell (1841-1922, distinguished pedagogue and musicologist in the late nineteenth century) was the ‘spiritual father’ of Albéniz, Granados, Falla, and Turina, and encouraged them to create musical works inspired in the rich and varied Spanish tradition. “A work of art,” he used to say, “is engendered by love: love of God, of our country and our fellow men.” This awareness of the surroundings and the circumstances of an art work are equally important to the music pedagogy techniques and the learning process of this music. In this paper, I would like to discuss three different approaches to the exploration of Spanish piano music. The first looks at the original cultural context of the song/dance on which the piano work is based, the second asks how the context and musical style were changed by, collected and/or used in a new medium, and the third considers how the teacher can restore some of the original context/style through his/her teaching.