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Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz, one of the most important Spanish composers of the XIXth century, was born in Camprodon (Girona) on May 29, 1860.
His premature and prodigious talent to the piano led him, at a very early age, to combine his classes in the conservatory of Madrid with tours that took him up to America (he achieved his first public concert at the age of 4). Later, and thanks to a scholarship that the king Alfonso XII awarded, started studying in Belgium, in the Conservatory of Brussels, where he graduated with distinctions in 1879.
On his return to Spain he started, composing and directing and, in 1883, he settled in Barcelona, where he studied composition with
Felip Pedrell. Two years later, he moved to Madrid and his works were published by the principal musical publishers of the epoch.
His prestige was growing and in 1889 it took him to Paris, where his Concert for piano, op. 78 was included in the Colonne Concerts. From there he travelled to England, where he also obtained a round of success. One year later he moved, together with his family to London, to carry out a contract as interpreter and composer for Henry Lowendfeld, of the hand of the one who got in the musical theater, the aspect that he cultivated the most. In this period his work is El ópalo mágico (The Magic Opal.)
In 1894 Fancis Burdett Money-Coutts, heir of an important bank fortune, purchased the contract that Albéniz had with Lowenfeld. This new situation, which supported him between London and Paris, gave as fruit the works Henry Clifford, Pip Jiménez and Merlin, amongst others.
In 1900, his health problems brought him back to Spain, where he started being employed with Enrique Morera at the promotion of lyric Catalan works. Despite his talent, he did not achieve producing his theatrical compositions and he saw himself being forced to return to Paris, where he was really praised. From this moment, he concentrated on the composition of operas and, later he returned to the piano, when he composed, in Nice, which is, probably, his masterpiece: the suite for piano Iberia.
He died in Cambo-les-Bains, in French Pyrenees, May 18, 1909, due to nephritis.