Espana

“one day Chabrier came; and he played his Espana for me. It sounded as if a hurricane had been let loose. He pounded and pounded the keyboard. The street was full of people, and they were listening, fascinated. When Chabrier reached the last crashing chords, I swore to myself I would never touch the piano again..Besides, Chabrier had broken several strings and put the piano out of action.” Renoir’s wife (friend of Chabrier)

Chabrier was born in the Auvergne, but, although the young composer had always shown a prodigious talent for the piano, his father hoped that Emmanuel would follow in his own footsteps and take up the Law. In 1856, the family moved to Paris and, in 1891, Chabrier took up a post at the Ministry of the Interior. However, in Paris he began to mix with painters, writers and musicians. He built up a collection of Impressionist works and, in fact, Manet died in his arms. He also became close to Verlaine and set some of that writer’s words to music.

The turning point for Chabrier’s musical career came in 1879 when he absented himself from the Ministry in order to attend a performance of Wagner’s ‘Tristan and Islode’ in Munich. So taken with this was he, that he quit his job the following year in order to pursue composition full time. His first significant work was ‘Dix Pieces Pittoresques’ which, composed in 1881, was a series of piano pieces displaying the blurred tonality and rich harmonies later used by Debussy.

Espana was composed in 1883, following a visit to Spain with his wife. Chabrier enthused: “The Gypsies sing or dance and then the manzanilla is passed around, and everybody has to drink. Those eyes, those flowers in their lovely hair, those shawls around their waists, those feet that go on tapping their ever-changing rhythms..” 

To the conductor Charles Lamoureux he wrote that on his return to Paris he would compose an “extraordinary fantasia” which would incite the audience to a pitch of excitement, and that even Lamoureux would be obliged to hug the orchestral leader in his arms, so voluptuous would be his melodies.”