El pelele (Granados)
Movements
Notes
El pelele translates as ‘The straw man’. The influence of Scarlatti is especially marked here, in the sheer delight Granados takes in sensual virtuosity and irrepressible bonhomie. The pelele was a life-size straw man that young women enjoyed tossing up in the air, using a blanket that they held at the corners as a kind of trampoline. Goya portrayed the scene unforgettably in one of his tapestry cartoons, and the giddy exuberance of this music makes El pelele one of Granados’s most memorable compositions (Source Walter Aaron Clark)
