Isaac Albéniz and dissemination of Spanish Culture in Paris through the epistolary genre

Abstract

This article presents a portrait of Isaac Albéniz that underlines his relevance for Spanish-French relationships in fin-de-siècle culture. More specifically, the article focuses on the connections established by Albéniz between Parisian artistic circles and young Spanish artists, and on the aesthetic-sociological contrast of both countries by that time, through the study of a signifi cant corpus of letters which are included in several publications and, above all, in Isaac Albéniz’s correspondence located at the Biblioteca de Catalunya. These sources show the outstanding importance of the Catalan artist not only in connection with the musical sphere, but also in a wider cultural context that includes literature and plastic arts. This research is completed with a brief reference to Albéniz’s reception abroad decades immediately after his death.