Volodos Plays Mompou

The music of Catalonian composer Federico Mompou (1893 – 1987) is almost completely unknown today. Unjustly so, in the opinion of Russian star pianist Arcadi Volodos, who has devoted his new solo CD to this remarkable musical personality. Carrying on the tradition established by his Spanish colleagues Enrique Granados and Isaac Albéniz, Mompou's works are subtle and delicate, mysterious and intimate, with a shimmering Impressionist palette. Mompou's role models are always in evidence in his many piano pieces: Chopin and Scriabin, Satie and Debussy. Yet in quiet, unobtrusive fashion, Mompou evolves a musical cosmos entirely his own from these models: his music is a true discovery.

Volodos has chosen for this CD pieces from the Mompou cycles Scènes d´Enfants (1915-18), Charmes (1920/21) and Música Callada (1959-67), which were among the composer's own favourites. In the last few years, Arcadi Volodos has regularly played works by the Catalonian composer in his recitals, prompting the Süddeutsche Zeitung to refer to his "deep sensitivity for inspired nuance".

  Mompou, who was born in Barcelona, was particularly influenced by his visits to Paris, where as a student of composition from 1911 on he got to know the music of Satie and Debussy. Between 1921 and 1941 he also came into contact on the Seine with the famous group of composers known as "Les Six" and its leading lights Darius Milhaud and Francis Poulenc. In 1941 Mompou moved back to his native Barcelona, where he died on 30. June 1987 at the grand old age of 94. Thus he wrote the Prelude no. 7, for example, for the grande dame of Spanish piano playing, Alicia de Larrocha. And his cycle Les Scènes d’Enfants was orchestrated in 1936 by his friend and fellow composer Alexandre Tansman. Mompou's most important piano work is his Música Callada, which consists of 28 enchantingly simple pieces. The title goes back to a poem of the same name by the Spanish mystic San Juan de la Cruz (1542-91), and translates as "music of silence".