CONCLUSIONS

In this research on the piano fantasies of Pedro Pérez de Albéniz, the importance of his artistic figure has been synthesized from the different facets of his professional life; they have been classified and described by the characteristics and influences of most of his piano work and the language inherent in them. Finally, the idiosyncrasies of his fantasies for piano have been studied.

 As we have seen through the whole investigation, Pedro Albéniz was one of the key figures for the consolidation of Romanticism in the Spanish piano. He developed a comprehensive professional activity, especially on the pedagogical and compositional sides, that propelled the piano literature and teaching during the first half of the 19th century in Spain.

He was educated, within the 18^th-century Spanish tradition, in the composition of religious and organ music and he even worked several years as organist and chapel master. However, it is clear after analyzing his life and music that his experience in Paris produced a great imprint on him, changing his creative ambitions and his musical perspective. When he came back, he developed a very dynamic professional activity in different areas, especially after 1830, which included performance and, particularly, composition and piano teaching. In addition, his learning process in the French capital brought with it the assimilation of the new pianistic language, full of virtuosity and bravura, that was being developed by some of the most famous pianists of the time (Herz and Kalkbrenner, among others), by the taste for Italian opera (from his relationship with Rossini), and by the cultivation of the genres in fashion.

His performance activity is little-documented. As we have seen, it is possible to affirm that he was immersed in the performers’ circle in the capital, constituted by names linked both to the Royal House and to the Conservatory (e.g. Francesco Piermarini, Pedro Escudero, Baltasar Saldoni). However, we have only been able to find documentation relating to the concerts held in the Santa Catalina hall (Madrid, 1830). In the critiques of these concerts, Albéniz is defined as a master of the mechanism and an artist with a vast knowledge of phrasing and remarkable attention to structure.

His pedagogical labor was long, extensive, and intense. Only by analyzing the official teaching activity we know that he worked for 15 years in the Conservatory and later also in the Royal House. At the Conservatorio de Música y Declamación, Pedro had around 40 students in the class. He was the first piano and accompaniment teacher at the school and was the only one in charge of the class for decades. In addition, he also carried out other administrative functions (member of the Board of Directors) and transverse functions (composition of works, library archivist).

He educated several of the most important pianists of the following years, such as Ángela Albéniz, Josefa Jardín, Manuel de Mendizábal, Juan Mª Guelbenzu, Pedro Tintorer, and Eduardo Compta. Through them, a direct line can be drawn to the National piano school from the end of the 19^th century, represented by names such as Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados, and Manuel de Falla.

After 1840 he expanded his task to the Palace, where he gave piano lessons to Queen Isabel II and the Infanta Maria Luisa Fernanda. The result of this position was, firstly, his method and, secondly, many works for four hands that are dedicated to both disciples, some of them published and others that have remained in the personal books of the queen.

The method has precisely its origin in the appointment of Royal Teacher. Albéniz felt the need to perform a good job and carried out an in-depth research process of the methodologies of the most important fortepiano figures in Europe: Herz, Clementi, Kalkbrenner, Czerny, Cramer, and Fétis. With the last one of them as a clear reference, his result was a method that was adopted by the Conservatory as the textbook for the piano class and remained for decades as a reference book on the didactics of the instrument. The pedagogical compendium is undoubtedly the biggest written at the time in Spain, both in terms of extension and quality, and it is the most detailed method of the century. It establishes, through the knowledge of the instrument's literature and common sense, the foundations of a school that breaks with some of the languages of the past and has a completely different recipient in mind: the professional. Especially the third book, based on the broad mechanical basis proposed by the author, is immersed in a language and ideas totally linked to early Romanticism and the style of virtuosity and exuberance of his two main references: Herz and Kalkbrenner.

Without his teaching task at the Palace, perhaps Albéniz would not have such a vast amount of works since many of them have a clear pedagogical intention and are dedicated either to the queen or her sister: e.g. waltzes, Danzas características españolas or the fantasies for four hands. On the other hand, it seems clear that his exhausting teaching work was an impediment in the development of his own compositional language, which only shows his personality in a few concrete works.

During the first half of the nineteenth century, most musicians in Spain were forced to combine their interpretive work with teaching, music criticism, composition, or musical edition. In the case of Albéniz, teaching and composition are the only fields we have a reference about, and both activities influence each other. He conceived as an essential part of his teaching labor the composition of suitable works for the development of his students. This translated into works written for four hands that he played with his students (he played the secondo part), inspired by the fashionable Spanish folklore, ballroom music, and Italian opera.

Among these works, we find the Danzas características españolas, the fantasies for four hands, the waltzes, and the nocturnes. The dances are a selection of small pieces for four hands written on rhythmic and melodic motifs that have their origin in Spanish folklore. They are simple works, whose elaboration and use of popular tunes are simple and basically suggestive. They have the intention of initiating the student in the knowledge of the elements belonging to the Spanish popular music. Among these elements, we find the fandango, the seguidilla, and the polo.

The waltzes, written for both four and two hands, are organized within the standardized structure of the Viennese waltzes. The thematic material they contain is never further developed, and the harmonic under it quite simple. So, again, we find ourselves in front of works that, with the exception of their concert waltzes, seek nothing more than to introduce the fashion genre to the student. The nocturne analyzed, La Isla de la Cascada de Aranjuez, op. 70, hides its pedagogical intention not so much within its simplicity but on the generator motif, which forces the student to exercise all the time the coordination and sound and rhythmical control of a design distributed between both hands.

Within the repertoire based on Spanish folklore, his masterpiece is the Rondó a la Tirana sobre los temas del Trípoli y la Cachucha, op. 22. Based on a theme from the Tonadilla and another from the Escuela Bolera of Spanish and Latin American tradition, it presents an elaboration of thematic material, harmonic scheme, and form that is unprecedented in a work with this inspiration. In addition, the demands of the music, especially its final coda, puts it on the same level as the most difficult works of his piano catalog

The same happens with the variations. Both those based on opera themes and those on Riego’s anthem are works inspired by aspects belonging to the current cultural and political issues of the county and directed to a professional pianist. Variations on the opera Norma, op. 27 and 33, are built with a thematic element coming, in each case, from different moments of the opera, but that are carried out within the same formal context.

The Variaciones sobre el himno de Riego, op. 28, identified under its own political connotation, is his most outstanding work for the genre, comparable to his most personal and accomplished works, and his most famous work in life. From our analysis, it is the work, together with the Rondo, which shows a more personal development of the thematic elements used and its pianistic language in general. In addition and especially visible in its long and extremely demanding finale, it is one of the most difficult works of the piano catalog and certainly one of the most important works of the genre during the 19th century.

Albéniz's piano fantasies are major works in his piano catalog The composition of fantasies was unusual within the context of the Spanish fortepiano, but it was common among his artistic Parisian circle. If we look at the piano literature of authors like Herz or Kalkbrenner, we find several fantasies and, in particular, fantasies about opera themes, which would be the most developed typology by Albéniz.

All fantasies for piano have in common the multi-sectionality and certain formal freedom not appreciable in other genres, which are both inherent characteristics of fantasies in general. All his fantasies analyzed except for one (Ill Edo Garaitú: Fantasía brillante para piano sobre un motivo vasco antiguo) are inspired by Italian opera from composers as Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Meyerbeer. All of them contain a variable amount of fragments both instrumental and vocal (more the former) from the operas, which are literally quoted (in the same key and even with the same texture) and which can be included in the same order as the opera or not. Moreover, in all cases, the opera excerpts presented in his fantasies are found in moderato or characteristic tempos. They are the most beautiful, cantabile, and easy to remember passages of the piece. They are alternated with the material of his own elaboration that is usually presented at the beginning, in the bridges, and in the finales with fast tempos and tremendously demanding writing.

His fantasies for four hands are written for his students. They are formally and pianistically simpler than the ones written for two hands and present only one or two fragments of the opera. The roles, as in the Danzas características españolas, are clearly differentiated. The prima, which is played usually by the student, performs the melodies, thus serving the work to its purpose: the divulgation of the fashionable opera. The secondo, performed by the teacher, usually has the harmonic part, although occasionally it has moments of importance. From all the fantasies for four hands, the two based on motifs from Nabucco by Verdi, op. 35 and op. 36, are the most accomplished.

His fantasies for two hands have a completely different recipient: the professional. They are on the same level as the Rondó a la Tirana sobre los temas del Trípoli y La Cachucha, op.22, and the variations, and have the same background as the third book of his piano method. They are concert works that are extremely demanding and show all the characteristics of Albéniz's pianistic language: a great variety of piano designs that require a great mastery of the mechanism, an enormous concretion in the dynamic and character indications, the use of the pedal to get a richer sonority, the inspiration in orchestral instruments (especially drums, timpani, and woodwind), the use of the entire register of the instrument, harmonization through close tonal relationships (although in these works it expands a little bit), use of the Italian bel-canto for specific moments (reflected in the way of singing and the cantabile), and the use of the variation as a recurrent compositional method, among others.

To finish, the role of Pedro Albéniz within 19^th-century Spanish musical landscape is absolutely protagonist and transcendent. It was a complete artistic personality whose pedagogical and compositional contribution was essential for the break with the past and consolidated a language already immersed in the early Romanticism.