Description
Actually Mompou’s timeless music doesn’t need a jubilee year to be performed. Mompou’s oeuvre does mainly consist of music for piano and this music is absolutely unique. The works are simple and have a transparent structure, clearly intuitive, not composed according to a system and full of severe Spanish mysticism.
Mompou’s ‘Musica Callada’ is composed between 1959 and 1967. This cycle is a work of about 1 hour lenght and is made up of 28 miniatures. In this ‘Music of Silence’ sound and silence are elements of equal importance, which complement each other in a perfect way. The music is mainly meditative, introvert and austere but at the same time warm and intimate. Mompou is like a diamond cutter, polishing his whole life the same diamant to make it more beautiful all the time. He can be compared for that with the Italian painter Giorgio Morandi who painted the same objects over and over again during his lifetime, trying to express the essence more exactly every time.
The ‘Musica Callada’ with its strong religious aspect could be considered as a Spanish version of Messiaen’s ‘Vingt Regards’. The main reason of the fact that this magnificent works is performed so seldom may be the fact that it is absolutely no virtuoso music. What counts is bringing out all the colours, the details, the timing and the building up of tension.
