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Enrique Costanzo Granados i Country was born in Lleida on 27 July 1867 and studied piano with Joan Carles Pujol and composition with
Felip Pedrell, in Barcelona, where in 1883 he received his first award of interpretation, with
Sonata en sol menor of
Robert Schumann.
He was a composer and pianist and for the character and scope of his work, he is thought to be one of the biggest Spanish musicians.
He is considered to be a representative of the neo-romanticism by his link of style with the piano of Schuman,
Frédéric Chopin,
Franz Schubert and
Edvard Grieg.
At the age of 20 he travelled to Paris to study with the pianist Charles de Beriot and consolidated his friendship with
Isaac Albéniz, who had been his companion in Barcelona, and also met French musicians as Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Paul Dukas, Vincent d'Indy and
Camille Saint-Saëns.
In 1900 he founded the Society of Classic Concerts in Barcelona, and one year later, the Academia Granados destined to the education of the art of the piano.
Granados was also an outstanding pedagogue and of the academy of music that he founded with his name came some of the best Catalan pianists of last period.
He was also an interpreter of the popular Hispanic music, whom he stylised with his high poetical sense.
The representation of
Goyescas, in the Metropolitan of New York, in January 1916, was a success and Granados was invited by the president of the United States to play in the White House.
After the success of the USA, and on returning to Barcelona en route to London, he drowned along with his wife, when the Lusitania, ship in which he was travelling, which was bombarded by a German submarine in the English Channel, on 24 March 1916.