Mompou: Musica Callada (Voice Of Silence) – Giancarlo Simonacci

With his customary self-effacement, Pablo Picasso once affirmed: “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child”. While it is a matter of debate for art critics whether Picasso could really paint like Raphael, it is a deep truth that the absolute simplicity of childhood is but rarely reached by adults, and only at the price of a long itinerary of asceticism and purification.
There are some masterpieces in the keyboard literature which achieve this unearthly whiteness; not by chance, these pieces are frequently perceived as transcendent, as deeply spiritual, as heavenly. The Christian tradition maintains that God is absolutely simple; thus, to strive for simplicity is to be in quest of a divine quality. One thinks, for example, of Bach’s Aria from the Goldberg Variations (especially in its da capo reappearance after the cycle’s itinerary); of Beethoven’s Arietta from Sonata op. 111; of Debussy’s Des pas sur la neige. When a composer manages to realize a masterpiece by using very few notes, this is a clear sign that he or she knows which notes really matter, and how to fill them with meaning. In their very different styles, Bach, Beethoven and Debussy knew perfectly well how to handle oceans of notes; yet, some of their most perfect works are realized with an impressive economy of means. This ideal seems to inspire the aesthetics and creativity of Federico Mompou’s entire itinerary as a musician, throughout his long and productive life.
Indeed, he was not alone, among the composers of the twentieth century, in seeking perfection in small-scale works and in the rejection of redundance and opulence. Yet, his aesthetical choices were also very different from those of the musicians who seemingly adopted a similar outlook. Different from Webern, for example, who also favoured the aphoristic style, Mompou did not embrace strict serialism, and preferred to maintain a clear, though free, connection with the tonal world. Different from pointillists such as Erik Satie, Mompou chose to renounce magniloquence without ridiculing or satirizing it. Different from the mainstream minimalists, his quest for a “minimal” style did not express a nihilistic attitude, nor did it mirror almost hallucinatory patterns.
Mompou’s world, by way of contrast, seems to be constantly inhabited by this childlike (but never childish or puerile) attitude; one is tempted to say that this composer did not have to strive for it in the same fashion as Picasso did.
Federico Mompou was born in Barcelona, Catalunya, on April 16th, 1893, in a family rich in artistic talent. His mother was French-born, and her parents were famous bell-makers; thus, Federico’s education took place in an environment marked by both religious piety and music. This tradition was deeply rooted in the family; the Dencausse bells had been famous for no less than five centuries, and some of their best “instruments” could be heard from the Notre Dame and Montmartre cathedrals of Paris.
While one of Mompou’s siblings became a famous painter (indeed, one of his drawings was reproduced on all of Mompou’s compositions published in France), Federico demonstrated his gifts as a musician, and received his education at the Conservatory of Barcelona. He gave his first public performance at the age of 15, but soon it became clear that his quiet and shy personality was not ideally suited for a virtuoso career as a pianist.