Pequeña Romanza, for strings

• Translation: “little romance”
• Originally written for string quartet, it was first published in 1975.¹
• It is difficult to date many of Granados’s works because he frequently failed to date his manuscripts.² This work, unpublished during Granados’s lifetime, has no composition date identified in his Grove’s article, but the liner notes for this recording date it to 1912, which would make it one of Granados’s late works.³
• This work is unlike many of Granados’s familiar pieces because it is not overtly reflective of Spanish folk music.⁴

“I consider myself as much a Catalan as anyone, but in my music I want to express what I feel … be it Andalusian or Chinese.”

Granados, on national styles ⁵

1. Mark Larrad, “Granados (y Campiña), Enrique,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed October 15, 2019, accessed October 15, 2019, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000011603.
2. Ibid.
3. Walter Aaron Clarck, liner notes to Serebrier conducts Granados, Concerto Málaga String Orchestra, José Serebrier, SOMM 0171, CD, 2017.
4. Ibid.
5. Quoted in Larrad, “Granados (y Campiña), Enrique,” Grove Music Online.