Enrique Granados made his reputation as a composer of piano music, but also composed six operas, of which Goyescas was the last. Fittingly, Goyescas began life in 1911 as a series of piano pieces, inspired by the paintings of Francisco Goya. Five years later, the piano suites were expanded into an opera, and the famous Intermezzo was added, like so much instrumental music in opera, to cover a scene change. Because the onset of World War I made a planned Paris Opera premiere impossible, Goyescas debuted in January 1916 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the first time a work in Spanish, or by a Spanish composer, had ever been performed there. Granados sailed to New York to attend the premiere, even though he had a lifelong fear of sea travel: he once told a friend that he would never go to America for that reason. He should not have changed his mind: he was killed on the return trip when a German submarine torpedoed his ship.

Lawyer and lutenist Howard Posner has also annotated programs for the Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra and for the Coleman Chamber Concerts.