Thinking About Mompou

Good morning!

Today I am thinking about Frederic Mompou.  He's my favorite composer of the moment, but, then, he has been for years.

Mompou's music (you can get some of it on youtube.com) has the fascination of seeming perfectly accessible, but if you start trying to play "at" it, (as my Mama used to say) you find that playing it, really playing it, is almost impossible to do well.  And Mompou has to be done well, or it's garbled. Sorry.

Take the Cancion y Danze Number Once, which I am now struggling with.  Only it can't really be called a struggle because that implies a negativity that simply is not there.  It is a joyous struggle!  One doesn't get tired of trying!  One lies in bed and the tunes keep coming up and sorting themselves out in one's head. 

What's it like? Well, try on youtube....I should have done that before I sat down to write this to see, but I am pretty sure that there is enough on youtube of Mompou (including himself playing some of his works) to let you know better than mere words could say. 

In the Cancion Once, it starts off with a very funereal theme.  Life is sad...but even before we leave the cancion, there is a second theme that changes our thinking from pure gloom to a quickening of--remembrance?  perception?--of a time of childhood, perhaps.  Then back to the theme of mourning but in a higher octave; perhaps some suffering has been relieved.

Then on to the Danza, which in this piece is very short.  A child's dance, at once courtly and naive.  Very, very precious. The tune develops with all the complete workings of a very old folk tune, which Mompou did use sometimes to start his themes. With heart-rending harmonies and precise meters, Mompou leads us to a reconciliation of our pain and suffering.  YAZZYBEL