Granados is best known for two big sets of evocative Spanish works, Goyescas and the Spanish Dances. His set of "Romantic Scenes," though, presents quite a different side of the composer—one influenced by the music of Schumann and, to a lesser extent, Chopin.

The Polish composer makes himself most strongly felt in the first of the six movements. This opening piece, Mazurka, is a slowish, melancholy dance that could initially pass for Chopin, but Granados insinuates a few Spanish turns of phrase, and the passages marked con abandono are rapturous outbursts reminiscent of Goyescas.

The second item, Berceuse, is a quiet, gentle meditation inspired more by Schumann, with a slight nod to Fauré in its outer sections. The middle part is a soft recitative with sparse, chordal accompaniment.

The third movement is headed with three mysterious asterisks, but its actual tempo designation is Lento con extasis. Granados sometimes called this piece "The Poet and the Nightingale," the sort of title one is more likely to find in Goyescas. As in that more famous collection, the music here tends to consist of a spare, slow melody adorned with an extremely intricate accompaniment, making the music sound faster than it truly is. This rhapsodic movement again pays tribute to Schumann, but it has a dreamy nostalgia that is Granados' own.

The tiny Allegretto that follows, barely a minute long, again calls Chopin to mind, especially the more delicate preludes, but the ardor of Schumann returns in the fifth movement, Allegro appassionato. Again, Granados employs a fairly simple but long and wandering melody—sometimes interrupting itself with a great trill—singing over more turbulent material.

The Epilogo, subtitled "with poetic exaltation," carries the marking Andantino spianato. Its mood is identical to the first section of Chopin's Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise, giving the suite a poetic conclusion.

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