“All my present happiness is
more for what is to come.”
Spanish
composer Enrique Granados missed the boat. His greatest success forced him to rebook
his passage across the Atlantic, and his shining moment cost him his life and
that of his wife, yet they both died heroes, each trying to save the other's life.
He won fame in his homeland in the
late 1890s with his first opera Maria Del Carmen. His piano compositions were
regarded as among the world’s best. An English critic called them “the finest
piano music of the day.”
International
acclaim came in 1911 with his Goyescas, a suite for piano consisting of six
compositions based on the paintings of fellow Spaniard Francisco Goya. The
Paris Opera then commissioned him to write an opera based on the suite. It was
to have premiered in 1914; however, the rampaging First World War forced the
cancellation of the performances.
There was, nonetheless, good news.
New York’s Metropolitan Opera told Granados it wanted to stage his new opera, fixing it on its calendar for late January 1916. Granados was left with decidedly mixed feelings. He and his wife Amparo were honored that his work would be performed in New York City, and they sailed across the Atlantic to attend the opening. Yet Granados was also apprehensive. He had a morbid fear of dying a watery death and often had nightmares on
that theme.
"I am only now beginning..."
The
financial successes he achieved in America delighted him. The Met handsomely paid
him, and he was well compensated for piano-roll recordings and private recitals in New York. In a review of one of his solo performances, The New York Times' music critic wrote, “Mr. Granados.…played with brilliance and power:
there were also the languor, the smoldering fire, the tenderness and passion
which belong in this music, by which it is marked with Spanish character.”
Until
this time, Granados, 50, had been a struggling artist. Now he was out of debt. His financial future looked promising.
“I am only now beginning my work,” he
wrote a friend from Manhattan. "I am full of confidence and enthusiasm about
working more and more….I am a survivor of fruitless struggle [due] to the ignorance
and indifference [in my] country. All my present happiness is more for what is
to come than for what I have done up
to now.”
New York critics gave his new opera mixed reviews, yet word of its performance reached the White House. Out of the blue, Granados received an invitation to perform a private recital for President Wilson who had said that music was “a national need” in time of
war. His daughter was a semi-professional singer and may have arranged the
invitation.
The resulting delay meant that
Enrique and Amparo missed the embarkation of a Spanish ocean liner bound for Spain. Instead, they
booked passage to England on the Dutch liner Rotterdam. They night before
they embarked, terror gripped Granados. “Never again will I see my children,”
he wept to a friend on the telephone. “This is the end.”
Yet
a week later the Rotterdam arrived safely in England. From there they boarded
the French ferry S.S. Sussex which also served as a mail boat. At one p.m. on March 24, 1916, the Sussex left Dover for the four-hour trip across the English Channel
to Calais. Onboard were 378 passengers and crew. German U-Boats had orders to conduct “unrestricted
submarine warfare” on any target. The ferry had no military escort.
No U-Boat had ever attacked a cross-Channel ferry.
A lovely day
It was a lovely
day. The sky was clear, the sea calm. Two hours into the voyage,
Granados was seen playing the piano in the ferry’s smoking room, according to an eyewitness. It's said he may have even been improvising something.
At least one passenger saw a periscope jutting out of the waves. The
captain of the Sussex spotted a torpedo, and he ordered his ship hard
to starboard. Had he seen it a few seconds earlier, his ship's evasive action
would have caused the torpedo to whiz by harmlessly. Instead, it hit near the bow, exploding
with devastating force.
“A
moment of silence, then Hell let loose,” wrote an American survivor.
Terrified
passengers leapt into the water, whether or not they were wearing life jackets.
Because the U-Boat threat was not taken seriously, the ferry did not have
enough vests onboard. Many it did have were so old they were
rotten and fell apart
“The
scenes around us were harrowing,” the survivor wrote. “The water was full of
men and women, swimming, sinking, drowning, clinging to spars, boards, and
other bits of wreckage, crying out in the agony of the last hold on life.”
In
the panic and confusion, the Sussex’s radio operator sent out the wrong
location for his ship, causing French destroyers to search 20 miles away. The first
rescue vessel did not reach the Sussex until midnight, nine hours after the
attack.
In
a bizarre twist, the Sussex broke in half. The forward part of the ship sank,
while the stern remained afloat and was later towed to shore. As a result, somewhere between only 50 and 100 passengers and crew died. The Granados’ cabin was in the stern. Had they been there at the time of the attack, they might have survived.
The
captain begged passengers not to abandon ship. A friend of Enrique and Amparo
also implored them not to go into the water. Both husband and wife considered
their chances and leapt into the sea.
Passengers
still onboard the Sussex watched in horror as Enrique became separated from
Amparo, who was a better swimmer. Accounts differ. Some eyewitnesses saw Amparo
struggling to keep Enrique afloat. Other saw both floating on a raft in the
frigid water. Amparo slipped over the side. Seeing her fighting to keep her head above the water,
Enrique jumped in to rescue her, and both went under the waves, leaving their six children orphans
In
Europe and America, musical organizations held fund-raising concerts to benefit
the children. In May 1916 at a benefit at the Met, pianist Ignace Paderewski
performed Chopin’s ‘Funeral March.’ The audience stood in silence. All lights in the theatre were extinguished, except a
lone candle on his piano.
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