En Iz At The Conservatory example essay topic

Isaac Manuel Francisco Alb " en iz was born on May 29, 1860 in Camp rod " on, the Catalan province of Gerona in northeastern Spain. As a child he was exceptionally gifted at the piano and gave his first public performance in Barcelona at the age of four. Two years later his mother took him to Paris where, for nine months, he studied privately with a renowned professor of piano at the Paris Conservatory. An attempt was made to enroll Alb " en iz at the Conservatory, but the boy was denied admission because he was too young.

Upon returning to Spain he gave several concerts and published his first composition, March a Militar. In 1868 the Alb " en iz family moved to Madrid where Isaac began studying at the Royal Conservatory of Music. The boy's astonishing pianistic ability inspired great praise and he was acclaimed as Spain's greatest prodigy, often being compared to Mozart. Soon, however, Alb " en iz became restless and impatient with his studies and attempted many times to run away from home. Twice he ran away from home and supported his living by playing piano for the public and, sometimes, a job as a potter at the deck.

After returning home and with the companion of his father, Alb " en iz first performed in the New World in the spring of 1875 when he gave a series of concerts in Puerto Rico. From there he traveled to Cuba where, in the fall of 1875, he gave several more concerts before returning to Spain. Upon returning to Spain, the 15 year old Alb " en iz gave concerts in several Spanish cities, including Barcelona, Valencia, and Salamanca. Realizing that his child prodigy days were nearing an end, and that the transition from child prodigy to mature artist is never a simple one, Alb " en iz enrolled at the Leipzig Conservatory where he hoped to gain the measure of credibility that one gets from studying at a world famous institution.

While there he studied piano with students of Liszt. Short of money, ill at ease with the German language, and unhappy with the rigorous discipline imposed on him by his teachers, Alb " en iz returned to Spain after spending less than two months in the Saxon city where Bach, Schumann, and Mendelssohn once lived. Later that same year, Alb " en iz obtained a royal stipend to study at the Brussels Conservatory where, in 1879, he won first prize in piano performance. Following this he made a well-publicized tour of Europe. His greatest ambition at the time, however, was to study with Franz Liszt. Therefore, at age twenty, he left Brussels for Budapest in order to fulfill his dream.

Although many scholars debate on the topic, Alb " en iz, it seems, traveled all the way to the Hungarian capital only to find that Liszt was not in residence there at that time. Upon discovering that Liszt was unavailable, Alb " en iz returned to Madrid where he spent the next couple of years giving concerts and touring the principal towns and cities of Spain. It was around this time that he composed his first works for the musical theater, three zarzuela's, one of which, Cantal ones de Gracia, was well received by the Madrid press. The year 1883 was a major turning point in Alb " en iz's life. After a South American tour, he settled in Barcelona where he made the acquaintance of Felipe Pedrell, who is sometimes described as the father of Spanish music. Pedrell made a deep impression for Alb " en iz that Spanish composers should compose Spanish music, who up to this point, composed almost exclusively in the European salon style of the time, mostly short, simple piano pieces in the style of Schubert, Chopin, and Brahms.

Also in the same year, Alb " en iz's marriage to one of his pupils, Rosita Jordana. In 1885 the couple moved to Madrid where Alb " en iz quickly established himself as a piano teacher and virtuoso performer of the highest rank. His playing was so impressive it was often compared to that of Liszt and Anton Rubinstein, the two most celebrated pianists of the 19th century. His career as a concert pianist reached its peak during the years 1889-92 when he toured Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Belgium, and France.

However, not all of his reviews were this impressive, nor were all his concerts well attended. Unfortunately for Alb " en iz, at the time, there were simply too many truly gifted pianists vying for the attention of the London public and press for him to remain in the spotlight for any length of time. Amid all this activity, Alb " en iz composed a considerable amount of music in a variety of styles, ranging from neo-baroque dances to concert etudes in the style of Liszt and Chopin. But more importantly, it was during this time that he began producing instrumental music that showed the influence of Spanish idioms. Alb " en iz spent the years 1890 to 1893 mostly in London, and in addition to composing piano music and regularly giving concerts in London and other major European cities, he wrote some successful operettas and songs. In 1893, he moved back to Spain and then to Paris in the fall of 1894.

After 1900, Alb " en iz's life took a turn for the worse. He suffered from Bright's disease, a kidney disorder that eventually took his life, his wife had also become seriously ill, and the death of one of their three children caused him great pain. During this time, he failed to complete several lyric works he had begun and was unable to get the one that he did complete performed. Frustrated and in poor health, Alb " en iz turned his back on writing for the lyric stage and returned to the solitary task of composing piano music. Between 1905 and 1909 he produced his masterpiece, Iberia, a suite of twelve piano pieces collected in four books. Works of remarkable sophistication and technical difficulty, these 'twelve new impressions' - as they are called in the subtitle - constitute an imaginative synthesis of Spanish folk idioms, Impressionism and European / Romantic styles influenced by Liszt, Dukas and d'Indy.

In March of 1909, he moved back to C ambo-les-Bains in the French Pyrenees. There he died on May 18, 1909. His body was taken to Barcelona and buried in the Southwest Churchyard. Isaac Alb " en iz is always described as having been a kind and generous man with a keen sense of humor, an extrovert who was loved and respected by all who new him..