Federico Mompou - Música callada (Stephen Hough)

Information

Composer: Federico Mompou

1. Música callada I - 1: Angelico 
2. Música callada I - 2: Lent 
3. Música callada I - 3: Placide 
4. Música callada I - 4: Afflitto e penoso 
5. Música callada I - 5: [crotchet = 54] 
6. Música callada I - 6: Lento 
7. Música callada I - 7: Lento 
8. Música callada I - 8: Semplice 
9. Música callada I - 9: Lento 
10. Música callada II - 1: Lento: Cantabile 
11. Música callada II - 2: Allegretto 
12. Música callada II - 3: Lento 
13. Música callada II - 4: Tranquillo: Très calme 
14. Música callada II - 5: Severo: Sérieux 
15. Música callada II - 6: Lento: Plaintif 
16. Música callada II - 7: Calme 
17. Música callada III - 1: Lento 
18. Música callada III - 2: Luminoso 
19. Música callada III - 3: Tranquillo 
20. Música callada III - 4: Calme 
21. Música callada III - 5: Lento 
22. Música callada IV - 1: Molto lento e tranquillo 
23. Música callada IV - 2: Calme, avec clarté 
24. Música callada IV - 3: Moderato 
25. Música callada IV - 4: [crotchet = 100] 
26. Música callada IV - 5: Lento 
27. Música callada IV - 6: Lento molto 
28. Música callada IV - 7: Lento 

Stephen Hough, piano

Date: 2023

Label: Hyperion

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Review

Stephen Hough’s interest in Federico Mompou is longstanding, as evidenced by a 1998 album devoted to the Catalan composer’s music (Hyperion, 9/97). He returned to Mompou with Impresiones íntimas on his ‘Spanish Album’ (Hyperion, 12/06). His latest release consists of all four books of Mompou’s Música callada (‘Silent Music’), 28 tiny pieces – the longest is 3'41", the shortest 44" – that the composer assembled between 1959 and 1967. The title comes from a poem by St John of the Cross, who, with St Teresa of Ávila, is one of the great mystics of the Spanish Counter-Reformation. The relevant stanza from St John’s ‘Spiritual Song’ reads: ‘The tranquil night / at the time of the rising dawn, / the silent music, / the resonant solitude, / the repast that refreshes, and deepens love.’

As Mompou wrote of Música callada, his last works for piano: ‘This music is silent because it is heard in one’s inner self … It is my desire that this music should bring us closer to the warmth of life, and the expression of the human heart, that is always the same and yet constantly changing.’ Far from constituting a cycle, with any unifying or evolving rhythmic, harmonic or textural elements, each of these gnomic utterances seems but a fleeting moment’s concentration. It may be these pieces’ economy of means and sheer evanescence that make them a challenge to both interpreter and listener. There are perhaps two dozen recordings of all or part of the Música callada currently in the catalogue by pianists as diverse as Jenny Lin, Arcadi Volodos, Javier Perianes, Alicia de Larrocha and Mompou himself. Yet listening to these pieces, one must ask whether they’re heard to their best advantage when played as a set, much less the four sets in their entirety.

— Patrick Rucker

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Federico Mompou (16 April 1893 – 30 June 1987) was a Catalan Spanish composer and pianist. Trained in Barcelona and later at the Paris Conservatory under Isidor Philipp, he absorbed influences from Satie and Debussy while developing a distinct style rooted in Catalan musical idioms. After gaining recognition in Paris, he returned to Barcelona in 1941 during World War II. Mompou's recordings of his works for the Spanish label Ensayo are noted for their sensitivity and elegance. His music is widely performed and recorded by such pianists as Arthur Rubinstein, Alicia de Larrocha, Stephen Hough and many others.

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Stephen Hough (born 22 November 1961) is a British-born classical pianist, composer and writer. He studied at Chetham's School of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music, and also holds a master's degree from the Juilliard School. A prominent soloist, he is also a composer and transcriber, and often includes his own works in his recitals. Hough has recorded more than 60 albums, and is known for championing lesser-known composers. As a teacher, he is a visiting professor of piano at the Royal Academy of Music, and the International Chair of Piano Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music.

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