Enrique Granados was a Spanish classical music composer born in 1867 in Catalonia. After completing his piano studies in Barcelona, he hoped to continue at the Paris Conservatoire but was not admitted, so he studied privately there with a teacher whose mother was of Spanish descent. He won a prestigious piano competition with an original composition in 1903 at the Madrid Royal Conservatory which earned him a considerable sum of money and brought him to national attention.  It is interesting to note that in addition to giving a piano recital for President Woodrow Wilson, he made live-recorded player piano music rolls in New York for the Aeolian Company.  They all survive and can be heard today.

His death is so tragic, it’s worth noting here.  In 1916, after giving a recital in New York, he and his wife, Amparo, missed their boat back to Spain, so they boarded a ship to England.  They then boarded a ferry to Dieppe, France. While crossing the English Channel, the ferry was torpedoed by a German U-boat as part of German WW1 submarine warfare.  Apparently, Amparo was too heavy to get into a lifeboat and Enrique would not leave her so he positioned her on a small life raft on which she knelt and he clung. Ironically, when the ship finally broke in 2, the side with the Granados’s cabin did not sink. That side was towed to port with most of the passengers.  The Granados’s were on the other side of the boat when it was hit.  The couple drowned apparently in sight of other passengers leaving 6 children.