I have to admit that
Mompou’s own piano discs have escaped
me until now. I knew he’d recorded a
large swathe of his music in old age
but had never grasped the full implications
of exactly how much, though I was aware
of the Ensayo re-releases (until recently
available in the USA but not in Britain).
Brilliant have collated those 1974 sessions
in one formidably important box set
of 4 CDs. The results will mightily
please admirers of the subtle art of
this composer and adherents generally
of composer-performer interpretations
... or both.
Mompou was eighty-one
when he recorded these discs. His technique
was strong but no longer consistently
impeccable and there is some evidence
of slightly splashy chording and other
signs of digital compromise. These are,
however, well nigh negligible when set
beside so much strength of purpose,
so much colour and subtlety of phrasing.
This defines the required flexibility
within prescribed Mompou limits, the
famous self-advocated "freedom"
that lesser players interpret as metrical
indulgence.
The arc of Mompou’s
development went from immersion in impressionism
to a Satie-esque hypnotism, through
a relatively late discovery of counterpoint
to a spiritual realm that embraced stillness
and the mystical. The four CDs range
back and forth over his long compositional
life. The first features the four Cuaderno
(1959-67). These are essentially wistful
and melancholic and benefit greatly
from Mompou’s reluctance to sentimentalise
them. He brings out the Antique air
at the heart of No.III from the first
book as he does the powerful dialogue
that transfers between the hands in
No.7. He is ineffably witty in No.XI
(Book Two) and controls the relatively
eruptive material of No.XIII with power.
The hypnotic bell peals of No.XXI vie
for attention with the yearning romance
and harmonic sophistication of No XXII,
a kind of contemporary lied. The influence
of serialism on Mompou can be felt in
No.XXV (Book Four) written in1967 and
the Lento molto (No.XXVII), the penultimate
study, shows a sophisticated but quietly
affecting simplicity (deceptive, and
always achieved through the most harmonically
dextrous of means).
The second disc gives
us the Cancons i danses, Canción
de cuna, Cants màgics and the
Paisajes. There are twelve Cancons i
danses written in a huge span between
1921 and 1962. This is the more externalised
Mompou, more pressingly extrovert. The
first dance of 1921 is one of his most
famous works, a lilting and insistent
one with a pressing B section and even
some hints of Schumann. The warmth and
generosity of spirit engendered by these
pieces, and not always evident from
his more still and contemplative later
works, is palpable in these generous
but not flawless performances. No VII
is full of pert dancing rhythm and No
X courses with a courtly profile (when
Mompou looked back it was invariably
not as a pastiche but with a sense of
a living current – there’s no spirit
of irony in these affectionate historical
retrievals, they take their place in
the compositional palette open to him).
The Canción de cuna fuses nostalgia
with ineffable rhythmic charm – those
who write off Mompou’s charms as vaporous
or vapid are invited to lend an ear.
In El lage from 1947, part of Paisajes
we can hear another of the influences
on Mompou, namely Debussy who even at
this relatively late stage, was still
exerting his old allure on the already
fifty-year-old Mompou.
Disc Three has the
Préludes, written between 1927
and 1960. The first is somewhat redolent
of Chopin, the second full of Spanishry
with Mompou heeding his own direction
(très clair). The vigour and
brief flirtation with fugato that seethe
through No.VII are excitingly conveyed,
as is the strictly lyric quality of
No.VIII. There’s a problem on some of
these Preludes, Nos 7 and IX especially,
and that’s there’s what sounds like
tape distortion or degradation; first
of all the piano sounded grossly out
of tune but something has gone badly
awry with the tapes on a few of these
pieces and it makes for temporarily
uncomfortable listening. The Chopin
Variations are quite witty, an emulation
rather than a harmonic exploration of
any great depth and the Satie side of
Mompou emerges very clearly in the Dialogues
– unlike the extrovert Souvenirs de
l’Exposition, a picturesque rompy piece.
Some of his very earliest pieces turn
up on the final volume. The Impresiones
intimas date from just before the first
war and are changeable, French influenced
and alluring. One of the most famous
of the 1915-18 Scènes d’enfants
is Jeunes filles au jardin, which
receives a richly evocative reading
here. These early genre pieces lack
the harmonic sophistication of the later,
more concentrated works but certainly
show quite clearly the versatility within
constrained form of which Mompou was
an adept.
The booklet is one
of the best such I have seen from Brilliant.
It has a number of essays from authoritative
writers, biographical notes and well-produced,
sharply detailed photographs of the
composer. Excepting the tape distortion
this is a notably fine set of four important
CDs. Mompou’s (at the time) unissued
1950 London recordings have now been
issued on EMI. And of course for those
who seek more of a pianist-poet there
is always Alicia de Larrocha, friend
and dedicatee of a number of Mompou
works and whose authority could hardly
be bettered, or maybe Stephen Hough
or the multi-volume Naxos series from
Jordi Maso. Still, there’s now no excuse
not to seek out these valuable examples
of the composer-pianist in his maturity
and to admire playing that gets to the
heart of the matter.
JonathanWoolf
BRILLIANT CLASSICS
6515 [4 CDs: 69:50 + 73:20 + 69:50 + 67:50]