Isaac Albéniz Spanish Stamps

This post features a pair of Isaac Albéniz Spanish stamps from 1960. Many countries celebrate their favorite-son (and less often daughter) composers on stamps. Indeed, featuring a composer is almost patriotic, showing off the culture and genius of a country. For example, the very first composers on postage stamps were Viennese masters in a set from 1922. Other national sets include a trio from Germany in 1935 and a mediocre group from the United States in 1940. Then, there are composers that create a particularly nationalist style and become national heroes. Examples include Chopin in his home country of Poland, and Dvorak in Czechoslovakia and The Czech Republic.

Spain is a country with a rich musical history, but not as many of the canonical European composers. The country also has not made as many stamps celebrating their musicians. However, in 1960, the country did feature one of its greatest classical composers, Isaac Albéniz, for his birth centennial. Like Dvorak, Isaac Albéniz became especially known for writing in a nationalist style, championing Spanish classical music.

Isaac Albéniz

Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz y Pascual was born on May 29, 1860, in the town of Camprodon, in the Catalonian region, in Spain. He was a child prodigy, performing in public at the age of four. His father took him on a concert tour through Spain at the age of nine. He went to the Leipzig Conservatory, and then the Royal conservatory of Brussels to receive more formal musical training. By the end of the 1880s, Albéniz was a popular pianist whose tours took him throughout Europe. In the 1890s, he lived in both London and Paris, and focused on compositions.

In 1883, Albéniz met the composer Felip Pedrill, a leading proponent of a Spanish national style. Albéniz began to incorporate traditional Spanish musical styles, dance rhythms and forms, and dramatic dynamic changes into his music. An example is his Suite española (1887) for piano, grouping together short pieces that capture different regional musical styles of Spain.

In his music, Albéniz incorporated elements that he drew from dance, but also from flamenco and Spanish gypsy songs. One element of his music was the use of models associated with these styles, especially the Phrygian mode, which is prominent in flamenco music. Albéniz also copied the types of figures typically heard on guitar in his piano music, an ode to the popularity of the instrument within Spain.

Albéniz’s greatest masterpiece is his work Iberia, a suite for piano made up of twelve individual pieces. It won high praise from composers such as Claude Debussy and Oliver Messiaen. It is known for its evocations of Spain and its drawing upon Spanish folk musical traditions. Shortly after finishing the last of the piece in 1909, Albéniz died of kidney disease at the age of 48.

The Stamps

In 1960, Spain made two postage stamps featuring Isaac Albéniz. They feature the same portrait of the composer, probably from a well-known photograph of the composer in 1901. However, in the photograph, Albéniz is smoking a cigar, an element not present on the stamp. The two stamps were printed using the photogravure technique by the national mint of Spain, which is noted by the initials F.N.M.T at the bottom of each stamp. The lower denomination 25 centimo stamp is gray, while the higher one peseta stamp is in a brownish red.

Here is one of Albeniz’s most famous short piano works, Asturias. Enjoy!