Diagonal: An Ibero-American Music Review

Iberia, a collection of twelve piano pieces arranged in four books of three pieces each, is by far Isaac Albéniz’s most famous composition. Responding to a letter from Albéniz to the pianist Joaquín Malats, in which the composer confessed that with the third book of Iberia he carried the “españolismo [Spanishness] to its ultimate extreme,” I will argue that there are subtle stylistic differences between books one and two on the one hand, and books three and four on the other. As Paul Mast has observed, Albéniz’s use of the whole-tone scale decreased in books three and four, “after their ‘French’ aspect had undoubtedly been pointed out to the composer” (Mast, 1974). I will not only unveil Albéniz’s specific use of the whole-tone scale, but also point out an alternative compositional strategy that fulfills the same function in books three and four. Moreover, this renewed “Spanishness” entailed not only an emphasis on folkloristic elements on the foreground level, but also a more sophisticated use of the Phrygian (flamenco) mode in Albéniz’s recapitulations on the dominant. In other words, Albéniz’s conception of “Spanishness” entailed the structural translation of one of the “quintessential” features of flamenco music.