Goyescas: Live Painting to the Music of Granados, inspired by Goya
Part of The Three Palaces Festival, organised by Festivals Malta
Performers:
- Maureen Galea – Piano
- Maryleen Schiltkamp – Visual Art
A Sunday morning recital where painting and music speak to one another. Pianist Maureen Galea and Dutch visual artist Maryleen Schiltkamp collaborate on a live performance inspired by Granados’ Goyescas, the piano suite drawn from Francisco Goya’s vivid and romantic world.
Date: Sunday 2 November 2025
Time: 11am
Venue: Concert Hall, Palazzo de La Salle
A Maltese musician living and working abroad, pianist Maureen Galea returns to Malta to collaborate with Dutch visual artist Maryleen Schiltkamp in a unique performance inspired by Enrique Granados’ Goyescas, a collection of piano works rooted in the art and spirit of Francisco Goya.
This Sunday morning recital offers a dialogue between sound and image, where painting becomes performance art and Granados’ music is brought vividly to life through live visual interpretation.
In orchestral terms, one might recall Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition or Respighi’s Trittico Botticelliano – works where painting and music intertwine. In piano music, Granados’ Goyescas stands as an exceptional example of composition inspired by visual art. The programme invites audiences to experience this connection anew, within the intimate surroundings of Palazzo de La Salle – a restored seventeenth-century palazzo that becomes, for the occasion, a living gallery of sound and colour.
Programme:
Enrique Granados (1867–1916)
Goyescas – Los majos enamorados [The Gallants in Love]
Book I
Los requiebros (The Compliments)
El fandango de candil (Fandango by Candlelight)
Quejas, o La Maja y el ruiseñor (Complaint, or the Girl and the Nightingale)
Book II
El Amor y la muerte – Balada (Love and Death, a Ballad)
Epilogue
El Pelele – Escena Goyesca (The Straw Man – A Goya Scene)
There is a poetic narrative running through Goyescas – from flirtation and passion to loss and transcendence. The suite is a full-bodied Spanish red: rich, dramatic, and unashamedly romantic. It invites both performer and audience to explore the conversation between light and shadow, colour and sound.
Duration: Approx. 75 minutes
Organised by: The Three Palaces Festivals, Festivals Malta
