Herewith, the first journal entry.

     My next recording, which I  have been working on since November of 1999, will feature  works of the Spanish composer Federico Mompou. It will include the Suite Compostelana as well as my transcriptions of the 14 Canciones y Danzas, which were originally written for piano. The actual sessions are scheduled for April of 2001, and the release date will be sometime after that, hopefully the fall of 2001.

    Mompou (PRONOUNCED MOM-POH IN CATALAN) was born in Barcelona, Spain. His lineage reflects both Catalonian and French roots, and his childhood centered around singing and dancing - no doubt salubrious to his development as an artist. He eventually studied at the Conservatori del Liceo and later in Paris with F. Motte-Lacrooix and M. Samuel Rousseau. He lived in Paris for about 20 years, until he moved back to Spain where he was to stay until his death in 1987. For more biographical information, I would suggest a search for Federico Mompou in any of the major search engines, or check out the liner notes from such recordings as MOMPOU, Spanish Songs & Dances, Alicia De Larocha - RCA Victor Red Seal 09026-62554 or MOMPOU plays MOMPOU - Discos Ensayo. Barcelona.  Herbert Henck has written some lovely liner notes about Mompou's music on his EMC NEW SERIES recording of the Musica Callada. 

    His music is not easy to label. The vast majority of his compostions are miniature pieces isolated from any noncore elements - you could say he was a master of grosse Kleinkunst (great art in small forms)  Erik Satie was his good friend, and he admired the works of Debussy and Faure. 

Herbert Henck once wrote this:
            ...A first glance showed note patterns that looked familiar and effortlessly 
        playable from a technical point of view. There was practically nothing of virtuoso, 
        ornamental or difficult nature, none of modern music's usual features like complex 
        rhythmic balance, frequent time changes, extreme registers, excessive dynamics, 
        bewildering accumulations of sharps and flats or huge interval leaps. 
            Study at the piano showed from the outset that the work was close to French  
        Impressionism, but this closeness did not sap its energy. The harmonies were often 
        spiked with dissonances but never became aggressive. Overall the sound was harder, 
        more astringent,without any decoration or brilliance, more reminiscent of Satie's 
        language than Debussy's or Ravel's. The subtle harmonic frictions sometimes   
        broadened into atonality but were always moderated, producing a pure major and 
        minor chord system in a number of  passages. In the same way the predominant bald 
        three- to five- part composition approach was sometimes pared down to a solo, but 
        elsewhere swelled into orchestral polyphony. 
            There were repetitions on several planes: some as declamatory insistence on 
        individual notes of melody, others in the form of phrases structured in rhythmic 
        parallels. But often longer passages consisting of several bars were used twice: the 
        beginning of a piece appeared again at the end, creating formal balance. More rapid
        time values did not lead to development; the repetition of certain patterns produced
        a more two-dimensional effect.   

    He was greatly influenced by Catalonian folk music, which is evident in several of the Canciones y Danzas. However, "In using 'real' folk melodies, or in inventing tunes that might be mistaken for such, Mompou does not claim that he is a folk musician. He is an art composer of refinement, who finds in the folk songs and dances of his race an aspect of his own identity" (Le Jardon retrouvé: The Music of Frederic Mompou. By Wilfred Mellers).
    He was able to absorb the music of his country and take it to another more universal level.