COMPOSERS: Mompou
LABELS: Collins
WORKS: Cançons i dansas No. 1; Cançons i dansas No. 2; Cançons i dansas No. 3; Cançons i dansas No. 4; Cançons i dansas No. 5; Cançons i dansas No. 6; Cançons i dansas No. 7; Cançons i dansas No. 8; Cançons i dansas No. 9; Cançons i dansas No. 10; Cançons i dans
PERFORMER: Artur Pizarro (piano)
CATALOGUE NO: 15152
Federico Mompou was born in Catalonia in 1893 and lived until 1987, but his special loves were the Frenchmen Fauré and Poulenc, and he worked almost exclusively within the medium of the miniature, writing mostly piano pieces and songs, and displaying a strong vein of nostalgia. His music is restful, suffused with Catalan nationalism, imaginative, colourful, sometimes in the salon style. All the main trends of 20th-century music completely passed him by.
The 13 Cançons i dansas recorded here (the missing one, No. 13, is for solo guitar) range from the melancholy ‘blues’ idiom of the first and eighth to the irregular rhythms and dissonances of the sixth, and the early Impresiones intimas, completed when Mompou was 21, are equally varied and delightful.
Pizarro is, as ever, a sensitive advocate, strong on atmosphere, light and shade and the natural shaping of a phrase. The booklet notes are informative, though the names of Rubinstein and Wilfrid Mellers are mis-spelt. Wadham Sutton