Miguel Delibes, Prolific Spanish Writer, Dies at 89

From the NYT:

"The last novel Mr. Delibes wrote before he was operated on for colon cancer in 1998 — “El Hereje” (“The Heretic”) — is “the one he wanted to be remembered by,” Ms. Sili�said.

He explained why in the prologue of an anthology of his work published after the operation. “The writer Miguel Delibes died on the operation table in Madrid on May 21, 1998,” he wrote. “That is, his last literary years were worthless. The surgeons stopped the cancer from killing me, but they couldn’t stop it from affecting me gravely. It didn’t kill me, but it rendered me useless to work for the rest of my life. Who was the victor?”"

Reconnecting with Spanish Modernism -- and The Problem of de Larrocha

From the Unanswered Question at ArtsJournal:

"The defining austerities of Albeniz and Falla were irrelevant to the cushioned readings of Alicia de Larrocha -- one of three reasons we don't know or understand the efflorescence of Spanish modernism in the early 20th century...."

Call me unsophisticated, but I like de Larrocha's interpretation of Albeniz and Falla, to say nothing of her Mozart (I have a Mostly Mozart recording on vinyl) and the piano music of Granados, too. Her death struck me sufficiently--yet another great pianist I will never see in performance--for her to slip into a poem I was writing at the time. I imagined a little pas de deux to one of Grandos's Danzas Espanolas. I've always wanted to write a poem about Granados, specifically, the fact that he died on the Lusitania, but it hasn't come off yet.