Granada on my soul
Francisco Alonso, standing to the right, with a group of friends in the Alhambra
Francisco Alonso as a child with his parents and brothers
Francisco Alonso López was born in Granada, on May 9, 1887.
He learned his first words in the Escolapios school and, at the wish of his father, he started to study Medicine, but abandoned the University because he could not stand the dissection classes.
As a child, he became interested in music and began to study with Professor Antonio Segura and, later, with Celestino Villa, chapel master of the cathedral.
He started to compose. His first compositions were written for the Ave Maria schools. Then he did little works as polkas, mazurkas, waltzes…, even some lyrical work such as La niña de los cantares, which premiered at the Teatro Cervantes in 1905.
When he was 16 years old, he put himself at the head of the band of the workers of a gunpowder factory, shortly afterwards he created a choir in the Philharmonic Society of Granada and offered concerts in the theaters and squares of Granada.
In 1905 his mother dies and, in 1908, his father. Paco Alonso began to think that to succeed in the world of lyrics he had to move to Madrid.
On March 12, 1911, his friends said goodbye to the composer with a warm tribute and the traditional banquet.