By this time he had already written over 100 compositions, most of which salon music for piano, some songs, and works for the stage such as the opera L'último Abenzeraggio (first version: 1868), which was performed at the Teatro del Liceo in 1874.

[2] In February 1880, he settled in Barcelona as a music teacher and composer, where he made the acquaintance of Isaac Albéniz and Enrique Granados who became his first pupils.

The first result was the opera Els Pirineus (1891), underlining his concept theoretically with the publication Por nuestra música (To Our Music; 1891),[4] which made many composers and guitarists of his time aware of Spanish folklore.

In 1894, the first volume of his Hispaniae schola musica sacra appeared, a series of edited scores of renaissance and baroque church music from Spain.

Among his main direct disciples are Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados, Cristòfor Taltabull, Pedro Blanco, Joaquín Turina and Manuel de Falla.