Biography
Francisco Asenjo Barbieri was born on 3 August 1823 in Madrid and died there on 19 February 1894. From 1837 he studied at the Madrid Conservatory, taking piano with Pedro Albéniz, voice with Baltasar Saldoni, and clarinet and composition. After years as a choir singer, clarinettist, music copyist and café pianist, he achieved fame in 1851 with the three-act zarzuela 'Jugar con fuego', which established the format of the 'zarzuela grande'. He went on to compose around 77 zarzuelas, including his best-known work, 'El barberillo de Lavapiés' (1874). From 1868 he taught as professor of harmony and music history at the Madrid Conservatory, and his 'Cancionero de Palacio' — a major collection of around 550 Spanish Renaissance court songs — became an influential source for Spanish musical nationalism. In 1892 he was elected to the Real Academia Española.
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