A leader of the movement to establish a new kind of post-imperial Spanish musical style, Granados was born in 1867 in the Catalonian city of Lleida. After studying the piano in Barcelona, he went to Paris in 1887 for two years to work with Charles de Bériot, whose emphasis on refinement of tone influenced Granados’ own playing and teaching methods. Granados founded the conservatory in Barcelona that now bears the name of his pupil Frank Marshall (who in turn taught Alicia de Larrocha), and the time he could devote to composition was limited. His first work to gain international recognition, the 12 Danzas españolas (1890), contains one of his most famous pieces, “Andaluza”, with its redolence of strumming Spanish guitars. Granados was captivated by the art of Francisco de Goya (1746-1828), and his best-known work, the solo piano suite Goyescas (1911), is an attempt to distil in music the spirit of Goya’s art and epoch. Its success—it remains one of the cornerstones of Spanish piano music—led Granados to compose an opera with the same name, based on melodies from the piano work, in 1914. The outbreak of World War I meant that this was first staged in New York in 1916. Returning from the premiere, Granados was aboard the SS Sussex in the Channel when the boat was torpedoed by a German submarine, and he drowned in a sadly futile attempt to save his wife.