Goyescas

11, subtitled Los majos enamorados (The Gallants in Love), is a piano suite written in 1911 by Spanish composer Enrique Granados.

The piano writing of Goyescas is highly ornamented and extremely difficult to master, requiring both subtle dexterity and great power.

Some of them have a strong improvisational feel, the clearest example of this being the fifth piece, called El amor y la muerte (Love and Death).

It resembles a nocturne, but is filled with intricate figuration, inner voices and, near the end, glittering bird-like trills and quicksilver arpeggios.

In 1915 Granados wrote a one-act opera, also called Goyescas, to a Spanish libretto by Fernando Periquet y Zuaznaba, using melodies from the piano suite.