Federico Mompou

Frederic Mompou Dencausse (; 16 April 1893 – 30 June 1987), or Federico Mompou, was a Catalan composer and pianist. Life

Early years

Mompou was born in Barcelona to the lawyer Frederic Mompou and his wife, Josefina Dencausse, who was of French origin. His brother Josep Mompou (1888–1968) became a painter. His sketch of a simple farmhouse appeared on the covers of all of Frederic's published music.

Mompou studied piano under Pedro Serra at the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu before going to Paris to study at the Conservatoire de Paris, which was headed by Gabriel Fauré. Mompou had heard Fauré perform in Barcelona when he was nine years old, and his personal financial situation was often dire enough to lead him away from music and into various business ventures, including an attempt to revive the traditional family bell foundry.

In 1957, aged 64, Mompou married the pianist Carme Bravo, who was 30 years his junior. It was the first marriage for both of them, and they had no children.

Later years

In 1975 and 1976, Mompou was a jury member for the first Paloma O'Shea Santander International Piano Competition. In Barcelona, he became a member of the Royal Academy of Sant Jordi; he lived there until his death in 1987 at the age of 94 from respiratory failure. He is buried at the Montjuïc Cemetery in Barcelona.

Discoveries After the death of his widow in 2007, about 80 unpublished and hitherto unknown works were discovered in Mompou’s files at his home and also in the files of the National Library of Catalonia. Some of them were given performances in Barcelona in 2008 by Jordi Masó and Mac McClure. Many others were given their premiere performances in 2009 by Marcel Worms.

Awards During his career Mompou received numerous awards, including: Chevalier des arts et lettres (France), Premio Nacional de Música (Spain), Doctor honoris causa, Universitat de Barcelona (1979) and Medalla d'Or de la Generalitat de Catalunya (1980).

Style Mompou was primarily a miniaturist, writing short, relatively improvisatory music, described by the pianist Stephen Hough as "the music of evaporation." According to Hough, Mompou's influences include Chopin, Debussy, Ravel, and Scriabin as well as "plainsong, folk music, and jazz (its harmonies rather than its rhythms)." Hough adds, "But his principal and fundamental stylistic ancestor ... was the eccentric, iconoclastic Erik Satie." In Mompou's music, development is minimized and expression is concentrated into very small forms. He was fond of ostinato figures, bell imitations (his mother's family owned the Dencausse bell foundry and his grandfather was a bell maker),

He was also influenced by the sounds and smells of the maritime quarter of Barcelona, the cry of seagulls, the sound of children playing, and popular Catalan culture. He often dispensed with bar lines and key signatures. His music is rooted in the chord G–C–E–A–D, which he named Barri de platja (the Beach Quarter). "Cançó i dansa No. 13" (Cançó: El cant dels ocells; Dansa (El bon caçador)) for guitar (1972)

Recordings Mompou himself recorded a few of his piano pieces for EMI in 1950 and then a much larger portion of his piano output, including the Música callada, for Ensayo in 1974. The later recordings have been reissued in a boxed set of 4 CDs by Brilliant Classics.

Other early recordings of Mompou's piano music include a handful of miniatures recorded by notable pianists such as Artur Rubinstein, Guiomar Novaes, Magda Tagliaferro, and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. In the late 1950s, Mompou's wife, Carmen Bravo, recorded some of his works for Hispavox, which were released on CD by EMI with additional Mompou recordings by Spanish pianist Gonzalo Soriano.

Alicia de Larrocha recorded larger selections of Mompou's works for various labels between 1955 and 2003, including the Prelude No. 11, which Mompou had dedicated to her.

In addition to the piano recordings, the Spanish soprano Victoria de los Ángeles recorded Mompou's song cycle El combat del somni; a film of her singing one of these songs in her living room with the composer as her accompanist was recorded in 1971. And guitarist Andrés Segovia recorded Mompou's Suite Compostelana, which was dedicated to him.

After Mompou's death in 1987, his works have received greater attention. The following is a selected list of piano recordings made since then (excluding some de Larrocha recordings mentioned above):

Contemporary Mompou piano recordings Year of releasePianistNotesLabel 1995 Herbert Henck Música callada (complete) ECM Records 1997 Stephen Hough Collection of miniatures Hyperion Records 1998-2011 Jordi Masó 6 volumes of piano music Naxos 2004 Martin Jones 4-CD set Nimbus Records 2006 Leif Ove Andsnes 2 miniatures on Horizons: A Personal Collection of Piano Encores EMI 2006 Javier Perianes Música callada (complete) Harmonia Mundi 2008 Alexandre Tharaud 3 miniatures (with Chopin's Preludes & Trois Nouvelles Études) Harmonia Mundi 2009 Marcel Worms Unpublished Works for Piano Zefir Records 2011 Jenny Lin Música callada (complete) Steinway & Sons 2012 Adolf Pla 4-CD set La mà de Guido 2012 Martin Jones Discoveries, 3-CD set of previously unknown piano works found when Mompou's apartment was cleared out in 2008 Nimbus Records 2012 & 2015 Clélia Iruzun Selected works, 2 volumes Somm 2013 Arcadi Volodos Various miniatures with 2 song transcriptions by Volodos & 11 selections from the Música callada Sony 2016 Aaron Krister Johnson Música callada (complete) digital album 2017 Luis Fernando Pérez Collection of miniatures Mirare 2017 Daniil Trifonov Variations on a Theme by Chopin (on the 2-CD set Chopin Evocations) Deutsche Grammophon

In 2001, pianist Richie Beirach recorded an album of jazz versions of Mompou, titled Round About Mompou, including various selections from the Música callada. Likewise, in 2009, jazz pianist Frank Kimbrough, who admired Mompou, recorded an improvisation based on Mompou's piece "Six" from the Música callada, Book I, on his trio album Rumors. Jazz pianist Gerald Clayton also took inspiration from Mompou, featuring his compositions "Elegia" and "Damunt de tu Només les Flors" on the 2022 album Bells On Sand.