The Music A Call Ada of Federico Mom Pou

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Copyright
by
Eric MacDonald Daub
1997
THE M (JSICA CALLADA OF
FEDERICO MOMPOU
Approved by
Snpervisoiy Committee:
THE MUSICA CALLADA OF
FEDERICO MOMPOU
by
Eric MacDonald Daub, B.M., M.M.
Treatise
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of

the University of Texas at Austin
in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements
for the Degree of
Doctor of Musical Arts
The University of Texas at Austin

May, 1997
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to my wife, Dr. Dale Koike, for her loving
support, help in editing the treatise, and assistance in learning to read and translate the
Spanish language. I thank my treatise supervisor, Dr. Hanns-Bertold Dietz, for
introducing me to texts on aesthetics and phenomenology and giving me invaluable
advice in matters of scholarship and writing. I am grateful to Dr. William Race for
teaching me the great and formidable art of playing the piano throughout my graduate
career, and to Dr. Seth Wolitz for his friendship and for introducing me to the
wonderful music and person o f Federico Mompou. I must also thank the members of
my treatise committee, Prof. Danielle Martin, Dr. Roger Graybill, and Prof. Greg
Allen, for taking time to read and comment on this work.
I thank my parents, Dr. Edward Daub and Elizabeth Daub, for their constant
support, encouragement, and love. I would like to dedicate this treatise to them, for
they have instilled in me my love for music and inspired me to explore it in many
dimensions. I must also mention my daughter Tatiana for her wonderful enthusiasm
for life and her budding interest in music, which have served as another source of
inspiration to me.
Permission was granted to include excerpts from the Musica Callada and other
works by the composer in this treatise as follows: the Musica Callada, V' Cahier,
iv
copyright 1959, T d Cahier, copyright 1962, 3rd Cahier, copyright 1966, 4,h Cahier.
copyright 1974; Preludes V and VI, copyright 1952; Suburbis, copyright 1922; Fetes
Lointaines, copyright 1924 by Editions Salabert are used by permission of G.
Schirmer, Inc. Impressiones Intimas, copyright 1930 and 1959; Pessebres, copyright
1940; Cants Magics, copyright 1920; Charmes, copyright 1921 by Union Musical
Espanola are used by permission o f Union Musical Ediciones. Canciony Danza VI.
copyright 1950 is used by permission o f Edward B. Marks Music Corporation.
THE MUSICA CALLADA OF
FEDERICO MOMPOU
Publication N o .____________
Eric MacDonald Daub, D.M.A.
The University o f Texas at Austin, 1997
Supervisor: Hanns-Bertold Dietz
Co-Supervisor: William Race
This treatise presents an in-depth study of the twenty-eight miniatures for
piano by Federico Mompou (1893-1987) that comprise the four notebooks collectively
entitled the Musica callada (‘Silent Music’). This composer’s life reveals certain
philosophical and psychological constants that shaped and defined his art. While the
pieces in the Musica callada are undefined by descriptive titles, they contain the same
basic elements that are found in all o f his works for the piano, whether they have titles
or not. Musical figures, harmonies, and rhythms acquire a symbolic significance that
lead one into a rich world of musical imagery. In analyzing these pieces emphasis has
been placed on a phenomenological approach, on the act of listening, o f experiencing
the music, especially as performed by the composer himself.
vi
PREFACE
The Catalan pianist and composer Federico Mompou (1893-1987), though
well-known and respected in his native country of Spain, remains relatively unknown
in the United States to this day. He was one of the leading figures in the great Catalan
renaissance that featured the poets Jacint Verdaguer and Joan Maragall, the architects
Lluis Domenech i Montaner and Antonio Gaudi, and the artists Pablo Ruiz Picasso
and Salvador Dali. In a quiet and unassuming manner he created a unique body of
repertoire for the piano that by virtue of its consistent beauty and quality will
withstand the test of time.
This treatise presents an in-depth study of the twenty-eight miniatures for
piano by Federico Mompou that comprise the four notebooks collectively entitled the
Musica callada (‘Silent Music’). Though the individual pieces have no descriptive
titles, they lead one into a rich world of musical imagery where musical figures,
harmonies, and rhythms acquire symbolic significance that reflect the spiritual and
aesthetic beliefs of the composer as known through his writings and personal
comments.
In analyzing these pieces emphasis has been placed on a phenomenological
approach, on the act of listening, of experiencing the music, especially as performed by
the composer himself. Webster defines the word ‘phenomenon’ as “...any feet,
circumstance, or experience that is apparent to the senses and that can be scientifically
vii
described or appraised...” and the term ‘phenomenology’ as “...the branch of a science
that classifies and describes its phenomena without any attempt at explanation”
(Webster, 1098). Music as Heard. A Study in Applied Phenomenology by Thomas
Clifton provides the musician with perhaps the best introduction of any text written on
the subject. The book initiates one into the formidable and esoteric world of
phenomenology in a way that makes it understandable for the layman. It is a system
that is devoted to the act o f studying and describing the experience of music as a
means of uncovering the meaning and significance behind the music.
In addition, this author has consulted the following books on musical
aesthetics: Music and Meaning: A Theoretical Introduction to Musical Aesthetics by
Wilson Coker; The Corded Shell: Reflections on Musical Expression by Peter Kivy;
and Emotion and Meaning in Music by Leonard Meyer. Music and Meaning by
Wilson Coker is a highly complex book on aesthetic analysis that contains an extensive
system of vocabulary and methodology. It is a book that convincingly attempts to
discuss music as a linguist would discuss language by using the study of semiosis
(study of signs) and discussing how the linguistic dimensions of semantics, syntax, and
pragmatics can by applied to music. Kivy’s basic approach in The Corded Shell is to
liken human gestures and speech patterns to musical passages and to elucidate how
certain tonalities, harmonies, intervals, and rhythms have been conventionally used in
the Western musical tradition to express specific emotions and ideas. Leonard Meyer
in Emotion and Meaning in Music categorizes the debate of the question as being
viii
represented by two groups: the “absolutists” and the “referentialists”. The former
believe that music communicates through purely musical processes while the latter,
such as Kivy, argue that, in addition to the more abstract and intellectual meanings,
music also communicates other referential concepts such as emotions, actions, and
natural phenomena.
This treatise opens with a review of Mompou's life and works. Its purpose is
to provide the reader with the necessary background for the analyses of the Musica
callada that follow. The analyses begin with an in-depth discussion of the l a cahier
and continue with a more general discussion o f the remaining pieces, focusing less on
specifics within each piece and more on comparisons based on the total experiential
picture.
All descriptive and analytical comments are based upon the listening
experiences of Mompou’s recordings of the Musica callada (Musical Heritage Society
3462/3466) because it is this author’s opinion that the composer’s mind is most clearly
revealed in the composer’s own performances. The reader is therefore advised to not
only read the analyses, but also to listen to the recordings since the two were meant to
accompany each other. During the course of these analyses frequent mention is made
of Antonio Iglesias’ book Federico Mompou (su obra para p ia n o because it includes a
general overview of all the pieces in the set and a great deal of valuable information.
be
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements......................................................................................................iv
Abstract.......................................................................................................................vi
Preface......................................................................................................................... vii
List o f Musical Examples............................................................................................ xii
I. Federico Mompou (1893-1987)............................................................................... 1
1. Cultural Background......................................................................................1
2. Family Background and Early Years........................................................... 6
3. The “Descriptive Period” (1910-1917)........................................................9
4. '‘‘R ecom enzaf (1917-1923)........................................................................ 30
5. The Paris Years (1923-1941)...................................................................... 41
6. The Final Years (1941-1987)...................................................................... 46
II. The M usica Callada'. An Analysis....................................................................... 53
1. Introduction..................................................................................................53
2. The 1st Cahier................................................................................................59
3. The 2nd Cahier............................................................................................... 100
4. The 3rd Cahier............................................................................................... 124
5. The 4th Cahier...............................................................................................143
6. Conclusion.................................................................................................... 162
Bibliography............................................................................................................... 165
Listing of Compositions for Piano by Federico Mompou...............................171
Vita.............................................................................................................................. 176
xi
List of Musical Examples
Example 1A-Pajaro fmte-Opening............................................................................ 13
Example 1B-La 6arca-Opening...................................................................................13
Example 2-Planys /-Opening.......................................................................................16
Example 3-G/rano-Opening.........................................................................................17
Example 4-L ’er/w/'ra-Opening..................................................................................... 20
Example 5-El carrer, el guitarrista i el veil ccrva//-Musical Characterizations..........28
Example 6-Energic from Cants magics-Section A’....................................................33
Example 1-Fetes lointaines F-Measures 42-44.......................................................... 35
Example 8-pour appeller layo/e-Opening.................................................................. 37
Example 9-Prelude VI-Opening.................................................................................. 44
Example 10-Musica callada /-Phrase A......................................................................60
Example 11-Musica callada /-Phrase B......................................................................62
Example 12-Musica callada //-Phrase A1.................................................................. 65
Example 13-Musica callada //-Phrase B.....................................................................66
Example 14A-Prelude ^-Measures 12-16.................................................................. 68
Example 14B-Cancion from Cancion y danza P7-Measures 14-16............................68
Example \4C-Musica callada //-Measures 14-17...................................................... 68
Example \5-Musica callada ///-Phrase A...................................................................71
Example \6-Musica callada /F-Opening....................................................................73
Example 17-Musica callada 7F-Measures 15-19.........................................................74
Example 1%-Musica callada 7F-Measures 44-47.........................................................76
Example 19-Musica callada F-Measures 32-34..........................................................78
Example 20-Musica callada FT-Opening......................................................................80
Example 21 -Musica callada FT-Measures 5-8............................................................. 81
Example 22:1 -Musica callada VI-Left Hand-Measures 9-10......................................82
Example 22:2-Musica callada VI-Left Hand-Measures 11-12.....................................82
Example 22:3-Musica callada VI-Right Hand-Measures 13-14...................................83
Example 22:4-Musica callada F/-Right Hand-Measure 15......................................... 83
Example 22-Musica callada 177-Opening....................................................................85
Example 24-Musica callada 177-Measures 4-7..........................................................86
Example 25-Musica callada 177-Measures 11-14......................................................87
Example 28-Musica callada 1777-Opening..................................................................92
Example 29-Musica callada F77-Measures 11-15.....................................................94
Example 20-Musica callada ZK-Opening....................................................................95
Example 31 -Musica callada ZX'-Measures 5-8........................................................... 97
Example 22-Musica callada ZAf-Measures 12-15.......................................................98
Example 22-Musica callada ZJT-Measures 23-25.......................................................98
Example 34-Musica callada A'-Opening.................................................................... 101
Example 35-Musica callada A7-0pening................................................................... 103
Example 36A-Musica callada A7-Measures 14-17.................................................... 104
Example 36B-Musica callada A7-Measures 26-29.................................................... 104
Example 31-Musica callada A7/-Opening.................................................................. 105
Example 38-Musica callada A7/-Measures 5-8..........................................................106
Example 39-Musica callada A7/-Measures 33-34..................................................... 107
Example 40-Musica callada A77-Measures 41-42..................................................... 108
Example 41 -Musica callada A7Z/-Opening................................................................ 109
Example 42-Musica callada A7//-Measures 17-19................................................... 109
Example 43-Musica callada A7//-Measures 27-30................................................... 110
Example 44-Musica callada A7F-Measures 7-9........................................................112
Example 45-Musica callada ATF-Measures 20-23................................................... 113
Example 46-Musica callada A7F-Ending.................................................................. 113
Example 47-Musical Figures from Musica callada XV.............................................115
Example 4SA-Musica callada Ay-Opening.............................................................. 115
Example 48B-Chopin Prelude #4-Opening............................................................... 116
Example 49-Musica callada Ay-Measures 10-12..................................................... 117
Example 50-Musica callada Ay-Measures 24-25..................................................... 118
Example 51 -Musica callada ATT-Measures 3-5.........................................................121
xiv
Example 52-Musica callada ATT-Measures 27-31..................................................... 123
Example 53-Musica callada AT^-Measures 32-37.....................................................124
Example 54-Musica callada ATTT-Opening................................................................125
Example 55-Musica callada AT7/-Measures 10-12....................................................126
Example 56-Musica callada AT7/-Coda..................................................................... 126
Example 51-Musica callada AT7//-Opening...............................................................128
Example 58-Musica callada AfFZ/7-Measures 22-25..................................................129
Example 59-Musica callada AZY-Opening.................................................................130
Example 60-Musica callada AZY-Melodic Contours from Section A....................... 131
Example 61 -Musica callada AZY-Melodic contours from Section B........................ 134
Example 62-Musica callada AZY-Measures 27-30.....................................................135
Example 63-Musica callada AZY-Ending.................................................................... 137
Example 64-Musica callada AY-Opening................................................................... 138
Example 65-Musica callada AY-Measures 15-19......................................................139
Example 66-Musica callada AAf-Measures 34-38......................................................140
Example 67-Musica callada AA7-Opening.................................................................141
Example 68-Musica callada AA7-Measures 23-25....................................................143
Example 69-Musica callada AA7/-Opening................................................................145
Example 10-Musica callada AA7/-Measures 19-22...................................................146
Example 1\-Musica callada AA7//-Opening...............................................................147
xv
Example 12-Musica callada XXIII-Msaswzs 25-28.................................................148
Example 73-Musica callada XXTV-Opemag............................................................. 149
Example lA-Musica callada A37F-Measures 11-14................................................. 150
Example 75-Four Sections from Musica callada XXV............................................. 152
Example 76-Musica callada XXVI-Opexmg............................................................. 155
Example 11-Musica callada XYFTT-Opening............................................................ 157
Example 1%-Musica callada XXVII-B Section..........................................................157
Example 79-Musica callada XXVI1-C Section..........................................................158
Example 80-Musica callada XYF7//-Opening...........................................................159
Example 81 -Musica callada XXVTII-Measures 34-35...............................................160
Example 82-Musica callada XXVIII-Endxag............................................................. 161
xvi
I. FEDERICO MOMPOU (1893-1987)
1. Cultural Background
When discussing the music of a Spanish composer, one must be cognizant
of the fact that the country we call Spain is actually made up of fifteen separate
and distinct cultural regions that include Galicia, Asturias, Leon, Extremadura,
Old and New Castile, Andalusia, Murcia, Valencia, Aragon, Navarre, the Basque
Provinces, Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and the Canary Islands (see map, New
Grove Dictionary o f Music and Musicians. 791). This regional diversity was the
result of the topographical characteristics found in the Iberian Peninsula where
mountains and rivers formed natural borders that gave rise to the formation of
separate and distinct cultures, each with their own language, cultural identity, and
unique folk music traditions (Chase, 222).

Even though all o f these cultures have preserved their own unique identity
into the twentieth century, it is, perhaps, Catalonia that has fought most
vociferously to set itself apart from the rest of Spain as a separate nation. In the
opening section of Catalonia 92: A European Nation, a book that was written just
prior to the 1992 Olympic Games for the expressed purpose of acquainting the
world’s nations with the history and culture of Catalonia, one reads the following:
“Barcelona is the capital of a one thousand year old nation
and has all the elements which conventionally go to make up a
nation: territory, language, history, customs, law...But there is
more. It is a national community united by a distinctive collective
consciousness. Frequently it is not enough for a country to have a
historic and material patrimony which make it different. It also
needs an element o f mental and spiritual order: the sense of
belonging, the willingness to exist. Catalonia has this national
consciousness just like any other country.” (Auladell et aL, 7).
The country, or nation, that we call Catalonia was originally a region

found “between the Frank’s Gaul and Muslim Spain” (Sole, 67); an area that runs
north and south from the Pyrenees into both Spain and France (a geographical
factor that distinguishes Catalonia from most o f the other regions of Spain).
Although the Catalan language and culture originated before the eighth century, it
is generally agreed that the Catalan national identity began to coalesce around the
end of the tenth century (Sole, 67). In its infancy, Catalonia was allied with
Aragon, the region due east of Catalonia, and its early history was marked by
prosperity and expansion as its trading activity in the Mediterranean increased.

By the fourteenth century Catalonia’s influence extended over Aragon, Mallorca,
Valencia, Sicily, Sardinia, Malta, Corsica, and the Tunisian islands of Djerba and
Kerkenna (Sole, 70).
Unfortunately, for the Catalonians, this prosperity did not last. As the
centuries went by, Castile became the dominant force in the Iberian Peninsula and
the Castilian vision was to bring all the kingdoms under their central control. The
political situation in eighteenth-century Europe brought on an alliance between

Castile and France. The result was the fell of Catalonian autonomy (1714) and
the rise of Castilian domination, which in turn led to the repression of Catalonian
culture.
After the Napoleonic invasion of 1808, many of these cultural restrictions

were lifted because Napoleon wanted to appear as the liberator o f Catalonia
(Sole, 79). This, however, was short lived as Napoleon was soon defeated, the
French were forced to retreat from the occupied countries, and the reign o f King
Fernando VII brought some of the most violent repression in Spain’s history.
The years following Fernando’s death in 1833 saw the conflicts between the
“absolutist” and “liberal” forces in Spain intensify (Sole, 79-80), making the
political situation highly unstable. Nevertheless, the rise o f Catalonian economic
power in the second half of the nineteenth century, the emerging democratization
o f Europe, and the rising trends of nationalism felt throughout the continent fed
the Catalan’s own emerging sense o f national identity and coalesced into the great
Catalan renaissance (Renaixenga in Catalan) at the end o f the nineteenth century.

Richard Paine describes this period of rebirth in the Catalan culture as follows:
“In the second half o f the last century Barcelona began to

emerge as an important industrial centre. The city’s new-found
wealth allowed the foundations of artistic life to be established,
and the emergence of the bourgeoisie, and of a new intellectual
class, led to a new cultural awareness. The Catalan cultural
renaixenga (renaissance) which ensued was a phenomenon
affecting all the arts, and it had a two-sided character. Firstly, the
Catalans’ new economic strength led to a renewed awareness of
their regional identity, which led to a revival of the Catalan
language as a literary medium and to a new awareness o f their
folklore. Secondly, social and economic advances led the Catalans
to reject the acute isolation of the rest o f the peninsula and to
identify with modem Europe” (Paine, 18-19).
The Catalan renaissance was essentially a “populist movement”, rooted in
the Catalonians’ desire to preserve their language, culture, and traditions through
“popular music-making” (Paine, 19-20). These simple folk-based traditions and

practices gave rise to a far greater movement that produced some of the greatest
artists o f the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The musical beginnings
of this rebirth lay in the founding o f the Catalan choral society ‘La Fratem itat'
by Josep Anselm Clave (1824-1874) in 1850, the efforts o f Josep Ventura (1817-
1875) who, after collecting traditional folk melodies from the rural areas of
Catalonia, created the sardana llarga (the national dance o f Catalonia), and Lluis
Millet (1867-1941), who created the Orfed Catala with composer Amadeo
Vives, a choral society that “became the heart and soul of the renaixenga..."
(Paine, 19-20).
Although the most renowned names among Catalan composers continue
to be Issac Albeniz (1860-1909) and Enrique Granados (1867-1916), Albeniz’
music reflects more the Andalusian influence and Granados favored the music of
Madrid and Castile. Their primary contributions, therefore, were not to the
further development of the Catalan musical tradition but to the Spanish musical
tradition as a whole, for their piano pieces became standard fere for pianists (both
professional and amateur) around the world. It was perhaps their teacher, Felipe
Pedrell (1841-1922), who most influenced and inspired the Catalan nationalists.
Pedrell, as is commonly said, was to Spanish opera what Wagner was to
German Opera (Chase, 147). Pedrell’s music never achieved the stature of
Wagner’s but his theories o f how to create a truly Spanish style greatly influenced
his contemporaries. His book, Por nuestra musica (Barcelona, 1891), became a
sort o f manifesto for subsequent Spanish composers. While his music and
influence crossed cultural lines in Spain, since his four volumes of the Cancionero
musical p o p u la r espafiol include examples o f folk music from every region of
Spain, he was principally a Catalan composer, using Catalan texts and folk tunes
in his compositions (see Paine, 16-17). He influenced such Catalan composers as
Antoni Nicolau (1858-1933), Francisco Alio (1862-1908), Jaime Pahissa (1880-
1969), and Enric Morera (1865-1942). These composers, in the words of Paine,
“developed a more focused nationalism, based on their own regional culture”

(Paine, 18).
This concentration upon and faithfulness to Catalan music, poetry, and
literature, combined with the Catalan preoccupation with northern influences

(primarily France and Germany), brought about a national musical style that is
unique to the region known as Catalonia. In many respects it “represents a bridge
between Spain and Europe” (Paine, 29), geographically, politically, culturally,
intellectually, and artistically. The composer Federico Mompou played a unique
role in this history because of his complete individuality. He was not concerned
with having followers or creating a school o f composition. His desire was simply
to create beautiful music that satisfied his own need for self expression, and in
this he was successful. The marvelous body of piano music that he composed is a
personal chronicle of his life and a reflection o f his own particular aesthetic
philosophies.
2. Family Background and Early Years
Federico was bom into a family of Catalan and French lineage, a heritage
that influenced the composer’s life and music (Bendell, 7). His mother, Josefina
Dencausse, came from a family that originated from Tarbes, in the south of
France, where it owned a bell-making factory. Her father Jean Dencausse and his
brother Pierre had moved to Barcelona in the middle of the nineteenth century
where they opened a new hell-making factory at the foot o f Montjuich, the
mountain in the heart of the city. Jean then married Ignacia Modesta who in
1870 gave birth to Josefina. Mompou’s father Federico Mompou Montmany, on
the other hand, came from an area called Tarragona, just south o f Barcelona.
Due to disagreements over his choice of careers, he separated himself from his
family there and moved to Barcelona where he met and married Josefina
Dencausse and accepted a job with Catalana del Gas, the first gas factory in the
city of Barcelona, run by Josefina’s grandfather Jose Cominal (Janes, 5).

Federico Mompou, the third son o f Federico Mompou Montmany and his wife
Josefina Dencausse, was bom on April 16, 1893.
As a young boy Federico Mompou was a quiet and sensitive child who
was always able to amuse himself. He loved to spend time observing all the
activities going on in the streets o f the city. His first exposure to music was in
listening to his brother Jose taking piano lessons in their home, hearing Chabrier’s
Espaha played on a small organ that the family had in their possession, and
watching small theatrical groups perform zarzuelas in the local cafe-theaters
(Jands, 12-13).
Federico enjoyed visiting the Dencausse foundry where he became
interested in the sights and sounds o f bell making. The factory was the only one
that would guarantee that a bell would match the exact pitch specified, be it for a
carillon or for a bell that had been broken (Janes, 19). Endless hours were spent
listening and matching the tone o f the bells, and through his fascination with this
process, Federico began to develop the habit o f listening inside the sound to the
overtones produced by a resonating body, be it a bell or piano strings.
Federico began piano lessons in 1907 with Pedro Serra, a professor at the
Conservatorio de Liceo located in the Barcelona opera house. In his first recital,
May 4, 1908, Mompou played works by Mozart, Grieg, Schubert, and
Mendelssohn (see Kastner, 22, for program). In the fall of 1908 Mompou and
some friends created a group they would call “La ermita” (‘The Hermitage’)
where they would gather and discuss art, literature, and religion (Janes, 42). He
decided to become a composer after hearing the music of Gabriel Faure in a
concert with Marguerite Long in 1910. The composer related the following to
Kastner:
“The music o f Faure...moved me deeply. I decided then and there

to devote [my] time to composition and go to Paris to pursue the
exquisite harmonic novelties that sparkled in the aristocratic art o f
the French master” (Bendell, 9).
His first compositional efforts consisted o f simply experimenting at the

piano. As Janes put it, ‘Tor him, writing music was limited to encountering it”
(Janes, 47); that is, he did not sit down to compose but began to experiment at
the piano, searching for sounds that pleased him. Janes goes on to say the
following:
“At first his efforts produced minimal results, having found only
‘themes that did not convey any direction, nor did they resolve
themselves. The chance encounter with the harmonic element
dominated, with little preoccupation with the melodic line. It was
the search for an atmosphere and a harmony- and in all cases the
theme was bom from this harmony’” (Janes, 47; containing a
quote from a conversation with Mompou in August of 1971).
These first creative efforts produced a series of short musical ideas
(ranging from two to nine measures) called “papelitos” (literally; ‘little pieces of
paper’) in which, according to Paine, “he attempted to evoke the sound of bells
on the piano...and to evoke specific moods (Paine, 64). Mompou gave such
names as “Camino de montafia ” or “Jardin " to each individual idea (Janes, 48),
which indicates that, from the very beginning, Mompou attached personal and
impressionistic significance to his musical creations.
The first of these was nothing but a sonority called the “acorde metalico”
(Janes, 48) or ‘metallic harmony’, spelled from bottom to top F#-C-Eb-Ab-D (see
Kastner, 62). Mompou named this sonority “Barri de platja " (Catalan for ‘beach
neighborhood’) and Jands informs us that it is the “synthesis of the playa de la
barriada de Pekin (‘the beach of the neighborhood of Pekin’) and the sounds of
the casting o f the bells” (Jands, 48). The composer himse lf has stated that “This
harmony is all o f my music” (Janes, 48). These papelitos, though never
published, are significant in that (1) elements found their way into future
compositions (see Janes, 48, for examples), and (2) they represent the beginnings
o f Mompou’s compositional process and musical style.
3. The “Descriptive” Period (1910-1917)
His only published composition from this early period was the lento
cantabile (September, 1911), originally entitled Adeu. The title has

autobiographical significance because it was written just prior to his departure for
Paris. Later, this same piece became the first of the Planys (‘laments’) that opens
his first piano suite, Impresiones intimas (1911-1914). Iglesias unequivocally
calls Planys I Mompou’s “Op. 1” (Iglesias, 27), and Kastner makes the following
statements about it:
“In the first piece o f [the] Planys...v/e encounter the triple

exposition of a single theme, or be it of the principle musical idea,
though very slightly modified the second and third time, in order
to produce, in the manner o f a melodic climax, an augmentation of
expressive intensity...The harmonic scheme, though efficacious, is
surprising for its simplicity free from modulations, the only
harmonic modifications proceeding from the introduction to one
or another fundamental bass note, extracted from the dominant or
from another scale degree closely related to the fundamental
tonality. The slight alterations in the melody can be interpreted
harmonically as appogiaturas, passing notes or sevenths. Every
step marks the preeminence o f the tonic that dominates the entire
harmonic existence...” (Kastner, 64; translation to English by E.
Daub).
It was in October o f 1911 that Mompou arrived in Paris. He had in his
possession a letter of recommendation from Enrique Granados (see Janes, 52, for
copy o f the letter) and it was his intention to present the letter to Faure.
Mompou, however, never got to see him because o f his overly timid and sensitive
nature. The atmosphere at the conservatory seemed so aggressive and
competitive that he left before ever meeting the man whose music had inspired
him to devote his life to composing.
After abandoning his original idea, Mompou entered the piano class of
Louis Diemer and began studying harmony with Emile Pessard. Pessard, a
staunch traditionalist, had very little respect for Mompou’s innate abilities
because he had no formal training in theory and composition. In fret, he insulted
Mompou one day when he used him as an example of the horrible state o f musical
training that existed in Spain at that time (Kastner, 25).
In December o f 1911 Mompou played for the famous French pedagogue

Isidore Philipp. While Philipp did not have room in his studio for Mompou, he
did recommend him to one of his former students, Ferdinand Motte-Lacroix.
Motte-Lacroix was very impressed with Mompou's pedaling and the sound he
produced at the piano. He immediately decided to accept him as his student and
recommended that he attend the harmony classes of Samuel Rousseau. Soon

after their first meeting, Mompou and Motte-Lacroix developed a warm
friendship. The association became a classic mentorship that would lead Motte-
Lacroix to be the first interpreter of his piano pieces and the person most
responsible for introducing Mompou to the Parisian public.
10
In regard to Mompou’s relationship with Rousseau, on the other hand,
one finds a classic example of rigid traditionalism in conflict with an individual’s
freedom of expression. Kastner relates the following:
“He [Mompou] was confused and complicated with so much

scholastic science...it was especially confusing to him who loved
consecutive fifths and octaves which he had to avoid, those
exquisite sonorities, the enchantment of which he so
prized...Mompou never believed that such rigid rules were
necessary to compose” (Holland, 5: from an unpublished
translation by Dean Elder).
In this regard one can see a relationship between Mompou and such French
composers as Satie, Debussy, and LeGuemey, all of whom rejected traditional

compositional techniques in favor o f their own personal style.
The summer of 1912 was spent back in Barcelona and Mompou enjoyed
passing time with his friends from La ermita and composing at the piano. While
most of the compositions that he worked on that summer were never published
(see Janes, 67, for titles), he did compose Planys II and III, Secreto, Pdjaro
triste (‘sad bird’), and La barca (‘the boat’) from Impresiones intimas.
In the fell of 1912 Mompou returned to Paris. This period, stretching
from his arrival in Paris to January o f 1913, was a particularly frustrating time for
the young composer because he lacked the focus and concentration that he felt
was necessary to accomplish the many goals he had set for himself. This fruitless
period of distraction came to a head at the beginning of January when he almost
decided to abandon his studies in Paris and return home (Janes, 71). Motte-
Lacroix, however, was able to make some changes in his young student’s course
11
of study (dropping his harmony classes and adding some new and challenging
repertoire for the piano), which led to some renewed interest and progress.
During the winter of 1913 to 1914 Mompou had to remain in Barcelona
to complete a year o f “required military service” (Kastner, 29) and the outbreak
of World War I forced him to remain there until 1920. During this period the
composer’s emerging battle with depression worsened. In feet, it got so bad that
he was forced to see a doctor about the condition and actually underwent electric
shock therapy and took injections o f anti-depressive drugs (Janes, 81). This
intensive treatment helped to free him from his creative lull and allowed him to
compose the remaining pieces o f Impressiones mtimas—Planys IV , Cuna

(‘Cradle’), and Gitano (‘Gypsy’)—as well as, L 'ermita (‘The Hermitage’) from
Pessebres (‘Creches’).
Mompou himself classified his early period (1910-1917) as his
“descriptive period” (Prevel, 93). From the tiny descriptive seeds called papelitos
his early piano pieces began to take shape. His foundation was built upon the
musical depiction o f a specific mood, atmosphere, emotion, place, object, cultural
phenomenon, or event. Hence, his musical creations all had a highly personal
referential m ea n in g attached to them.
Categorically one must say that Mompou’s early piano works are
essentially ‘character pieces’ in that (1) they are short piano pieces with non
generic titles that utilize simple formal designs, (2) they are based upon a single
melodic idea or figuration, and (3) they evoke an essential mood or atmosphere
(see Harvard Dictionary of Music for definition o f ‘character piece’).
12
In addition, one finds an essentially impressionistic approach to writing
music in that, outside of the Planys that are differentiated by roman numerals,
each piece has a descriptive title and the music itself actually reflects the images
suggested by each title. This is evidenced by the feet that the opening three-note
motive o f Pajaro triste was a musical stylization of the song o f his father’s
“jilguero ” (‘linnet’; Iglesias, 34) and the “undulating” (Iglesias, 36) motions that
one hears in the rhythm and motion of the accompaniment in La barca that
suggests the image of a boat being rocked by the waves (see Example la and 1b).
Example 1A: Pajaro frafe-Opening

Lento
espress__
Example IB: La Aarca-Opening

Lento
Precedents in French impressionist music include Ravel’s use o f the image

of sad birds in his piece Oiseaux tristes (‘Sad Birds’) from Miroirs (Prevel, 75)
and Une barque sur I ’ocean (‘A Boat on the Ocean’) from the same set of pieces
13
(Paine, 84). Both Prevel and Paine have noted that Mompou was unaware of
Ravel’s pieces at the time he composed Pajaro triste and La barca, so it is

interesting that, even though the musical realizations of the two composers are
completely different, the images that inspired the music are identical.
While the images are the same, Mompou’s music is on a much smaller
scale than the aforementioned pieces by Ravel for he was the quintessential
miniaturist. Therefore, one finds a closer relationship to the music o f Satie’s early
period with his simple forms, close adherence to the mode or key of the piece,
and lack of modulations and developmental procedures; all aspects that Kastner
points out in his discussion o f Planys /. In feet, Elliott Antokoletz’s statement

that “Satie’s textures are clarified by their reduction to the barest essentials of
harmonic and melodic construction” applies equally well to the music of Mompou
(Antokoletz, 245).
Mompou asserts his Catalan heritage in these early compositions by

writing all titles, dedications, and expressive indications in Catalan in the original
edition of Impressiones intimas. It will be remembered from the introduction that

one of the primary foundations o f the renaixenqa was the Catalan desire to
preserve and promote their language. Hence, in the first edition from 1920,
Pajaro triste was entitled Ocell trist and in the score o f Planys II one reads “Dins
la sombra d'una preocnpacio ”; translated ‘In the shadow o f a worry’ (see
Iglesias, 23-26 for comparative comments about the two editions).
Outside of the use o f the Catalan language in the scores, it is difficult to
define these early works as Catalan because Mompou did not use authentic folk
music sources in their composition; a feet that testifies to his uniqueness even
14
among the Catalan nationalist composers of the early twentieth century.
Therefore, Iglesias’ statement that the music “breathes...Catalan inspiration in
some of its moments” (Iglesias, 24), though undoubtedly true, is difficult to

verify. It is possible, however, to find some common characteristics that would
enable one to make objective relationships between Mompou’s music and the
Catalan musical tradition, a tradition that has come to be defined over the years
through its folk music.

Paine notes that much o f Catalan folk music, as well as the folk music of
other regions in the northern parts of Spain, display similarities to plainsong, in

that their melodic contours “seem to move in almost random rising and falling
motions”, and furthermore that, “most of these tunes move in regular, unvarying
rhythmic patterns o f equal note-values” (Paine, 57). In Planys /, one finds

evidence o f this feature in Mompou’s omission of any metric indication, his
unique use of bar-lines to delineate the phrase and period structure, and the
almost constant use o f a strict quarter-note motion in a melody that outlines rising
and falling contours (see Example 2).
In addition, even though the ionian mode is most prevalent in Catalan folk
melodies, the aeolian, phrygian, dorian, and mixolydian modes are also used. Out
of the six pieces composed in 1912 from Impresiones Intimas, one finds four in
the aeolian mode (the three Planys and Pajaro triste), one in the mixolydian
mode (Secreto), and one in the ionian mode (La barca). The phrygian mode, the
mode that is most associated with the music of Spain, though not used
extensively, can be found in the melody of Planys I (see measures 3-4), the
opening o f Pajaro triste with the presence of a D natural in the key o f C# minor,
15
and in the cadences in Secreto (see measures 18-19), a piece that is presented in a
guitar-like texture. Also, as in all Spanish folk music, one finds melodies that
generally encompass a small range and are built from the incessant repetition of
small musical figures.
Example 2: Planys /-Opening

Lento cantabile espressivo
Planys IV, originally entitled “£/ miedo ” (‘Fear’), is marked Agitato

(.Agitat-murmurant in the first edition), and opens in a mixture o f phrygian and
dorian modes. One finds for the first time in Mompou’s music a piece that
incorporates a high degree o f chromaticism. This chromaticism results in what

Paine would call “imprecise modality”, a constant juxtaposition o f major and
minor that is common to Catalan folk music (Paine, 52). Cuna (originally
“Breqol ” in Catalan), is a lilting cradle song in 12/8 that displays a relationship to

folk music through its title, since the Cancion de cuna is one of the primary
classifications of Spanish folk song (see Pedrell-Vol. I, 24).

In Gitano, on the other hand, we find a piece that is the “single allusion
that Mompou makes in his Impressiones intimas to Andalusia” (Prevel, 76). As
in all the other pieces from Impressiones intimas, Gitano is based upon a real life
experience. The composer has stated that the “Gypsy” in this piece is not a
16
"dancer” or "singer” o f cante hondo (flamenco music) but an elderly gentleman
“whose face reflected kindness and resignation” (Prevel, 71). The story as related
by Prevel is as follows:
“Our car had hit him and with more shock than hurt we carried
him to the nearest clinic. There were moments of anguish, but
what has remained entrenched in my memory is the remembrance
o f the courage of that blessed man who did not complain about his
bruises, but rather was consumed with excuses for the trouble he
had caused us and prayed to God that he would protect us in the
future” (Prevel, 76-77; translated by E. Daub)
The rhythmic pattern used throughout the piece is reminiscent of the off-beat
rhythms common to flamenco hand clapping, called “palm adas” (see Paine, 112
for an example of typical palmadas rhythmic pattern), and one can find a similar
procedure in the Albeniz piece Evocacion from his suite Iberia (see Example 3).
Example 3: Gitano-Opening
Inquieio- rttma&o.
In the summer of 1914 Mompou met Manuel Blancafort and the two
began what would result in a close and lasting friendship. Over the course of that
summer, Mompou, Blancafort, and other friends from the group La ermita would
go on nightly excursions to the cabarets and theaters throughout Barcelona.
17
Also, the composer began to spend time reading about the history o f various
religions, the writings of Buddha, and the lives of the early Christians. Through
these readings Mompou came to the conclusion that he needed isolation and quiet
for true introspection and self-realization. According to Janes, through this

period o f reading and reflection he developed an appreciation for the virtues of
“obedience, humility, patience, fidelity and constancy” (Janes, 92); virtues that
would serve him well throughout the course o f a life filled with inner turmoil and
struggle.
In addition to his continuing experiments in music, his nocturnal
wanderings with his friends, and his study o f religion and philosophy, Mompou
began to spend time formulating and writing about his aesthetic concepts in
regard to music and piano playing. The original title of this so-called “treatise”
(Janes, 77) was “Estudi del sentiment" (Catalan for ‘Study of Feeling’), and later
this was changed to, quite simply, "L ’expressid" (‘Expression’). The study is
divided into twenty-one short essays, varying from a few sentences to five pages
in length. They deal with the composer’s thoughts on musical interpretation,

sonority, dynamics, phrasing, touch, sentiment in music, and rhythmic motion
(accelerandos, retardations, and delays), as well as sections that endeavor to
explain his own unique system of expressive notation (see Janes, 275-320 for the
original copy in Catalan). The importance o f this study lies in the feet that it
gives the key to interpreting Mompou’s music and defining his aesthetics.
According to Janes, the “...‘Study o f Feeling’ was perfected and defined

over the course o f [several] years, improving in synthesis and forms o f expression
without varying the intuitions and discoveries that had been his point of
18
departure...” (Janes, 78). It opens with a section entitled “Per a I 'interpretacio
alpiano ” (‘For Interpretation at the Piano’) and Mompou begins with the
following: ‘T o express is to displace each sensitive note from its own
metronomic placement: movement floating over the rigidity o f the measure and
obeying our sensitivity” (Janes, 275). Immediately, Mompou asserts that motion,
and most especially freedom and flexibility of motion, is the basis for expression.
He then goes on to say that it is the sonority itself that necessitates this
flexibility in the motion o f the music. The reason for this, in Mompou’s
philosophy o f expression, is that “the depth of emotion” is found within the

sonority, and furthermore, that sonority is something that is found “between one
note and another”, not within the notes themselves (Janes, 277). Hence, one
must focus one’s attention on the space between the notes, and the action of
delaying and elongating the motion of the music gives one time to listen inside the
body of sound to the aggregate of vibrations that creates the sonority. In order to
facilitate this, Mompou suggests concentrating upon the small details; i.e., the
music’s motion from “note to note”, rather than what is more typical o f pianists in
general, “phrase by phrase” (Janes, 277). To temper these statements, the
composer warns the reader that “pure feeling needs simplicity” and to beware of
“artificial effects” (Janes, 278).
In concluding the opening section of the study, Mompou relates
something that is important to remember later on when studying and listening to
the Musica callada. Most notably, “in interpreting a moment o f feeling in music,
it should not be a present suffering, [but]...a memory o f suffering”—a statement
that helps to define the emotional basis and phenomenal quality behind much of
19
his music (Janes, 278). Furthermore, his statement that “the fingers are the only
intermediaries between the soul and the keyboard” (Janes, 278-279) testifies to
the composer’s emerging sense of mysticism that will find its full flower in the
Musica callada.
In the following section, entitled “Sonoritat ”, Mompou continues his
discussion of sonority by stating that the sonorities must always be “connected”,
rather than “detached”, and attempts to describe sonority as a delayed effect that
is only perceptible after the hammers have struck the strings. The composer
likens this to what happens when one sees and hears a hammer striking metal at a
distance, when the sound is experienced after one actually sees the hammer strike.
He includes some notational examples where a note is followed by a small phrase
mark, a frequent indication in Mompou’s music that he wants the notes to be

sustained in the pedal (see Example 4). One will find these markings throughout
L 'ermita; a piece that evokes the sounds of bells through its constant reiteration
o f static harmonies ringing in the pedal.
Example 4: L 'ermita from Pessebres-O^exang

Lent. ,
4£ ^ r.
S O . O - 1• n -
r i t j ~"1b r -
3 P
f
20
In the next two sections, “De/ fo rt i fluix ” (‘Of the Strong and Weak’)
and “Creixent - Disminuent ” CCrescendo-Diminuendo ’), Mompou discusses his
opinions behind touch and dynamics. In regard to the former, whether the
dynamic is soft or loud, he advises the pianist always to play to the bottom of the
key in order to create a vibrant sound, an “intense sonority” (Janes, 282). When
playing forte the pianist must never force the sound, and when playing softly the
sound should be delicate but not weak or feeble. In regard to the latter, he
expresses an extreme distaste for sudden and precipitous crescendos and
diminuendos. Hence, though one is to focus upon the motion of the music from
“note to note”, that motion should be heard within an overall architecture based
upon extended dynamic contours (see Janes, 282-286).
The next four sections of the study all deal with what Mompou calls “£/
sentiment ”, which can be translated either as feeling or sentiment. He classifies
feeling into two basic categories; the “Feeling of Passion” (also called the “feeling
of pain”), and the “Feeling o f Purity” (also called the “feeling of sadness”) (Janes,
287). The composer himself describes the “feeling of purity” as “a soft lament, a
sad story, a long moment of sadness”, while saying that the “feeling o f passion is
not a story, it is a cry, a cry o f pain, a lived suffering, a short moment of intense
pain.” (Janes, 287). The “feeling of purity” will always be”...presented in the
form of [a] recitation...”, and Mompou delineates the phrase structure by means
o f what he calls “points o f emotion” (climax points within the phrase), and these
“points of emotion” in turn, are divided up between “notes” and “sensitive notes”
(Janes, 288).
21
The “point o f emotion” was marked in the score by a horizontal bracket
above the staff and the “sensitive notes” were marked with either a tenuto (-) or a
cross (+) above the individual notes (Janes, 290-291). The “phrase o f passion”,
on the other hand, was marked with an obtuse angle over the staff that delineated
“the course of the phrase” and its three points o f architecture; what Mompou
called the “initial point”, “limit point”, and “point [of] repose” (Janes, 292-294).
From his discussion of phrase structure Mompou goes on to discuss the
various types of expressive motion that can be used to delineate the “sensitive
notes” within the phrases. These movements are (1) “acelerament ”
(‘acceleration’), (2) “retras” (‘delay’), marked with a (-) over the note, (3)
“retencio ” (‘retention’), marked with a (+) over the note, and (4) “retras i
retencid ” (‘delay and retention’), marked with a combination o f the two (- +)
(Janes, 296). Mompou did not attach a great deal of importance to
“acceleration” (see Janes, 297-298); reserving it only for the beginning, that is to
say, the “initial point” of the “phrase of passion”. He attached more importance
to varying levels of retardation and the expressive effects that could be achieved
through the related techniques of delay and retention.
In Mompou’s system of notation, the tenuto mark (-), in addition to its

use as an indication for a delay, can be used to indicate what the composer called
a “retardation of the second order” (Janes, 299-300). In this retardation, a
marking will appear above either a single note or the phrase mark that lies over a
small group of pitches, and one is to interpret this as a subtle retard through the
course of those notes. “Retardations o f the first order” (Janes, 299), on the other
hand, will extend over larger phrases and be marked with either R. , or
22
R.G. ; the former used for the “expresio d'abatiment" (‘expression of
depression’) and the latter for the “retardant magestuos" (‘majestic retard’) that
indicates the greatest level of retardation (Janes, 300-301).
After the section entitled “Order o f the Signs o f Delay” (see Janes, 302),
where Mompou lists the varying levels o f retardation discussed in the previous
sections in order of importance, he goes on to discuss “£ / lligat" (‘Legato’).
Since his general principle is such that all sonorities and melody notes should be
connected, he suggests here that certain points within the music need “...some
small detachments that come to represent the breath, the respiration” and he calls
this the “true intention o f the legato sign” (Janes, 304).
Then, after reiterating much o f what had been said about delayed notes,
retained notes, retardation, and furthermore, introducing his concept of
“Sobrecanf’ (a melody that projects and detaches itself above the figuration of
which it is apart) and “Dialec ” (where the “point o f emotion” is marked by a
melody that is suggestive o f a question and answer), the composer ends the
treatise with a section entitled “Indications escrites” (‘Written Indications’). In
this section the composer asserts both his Catalan and French heritage by stating
his desire to abandon the common Italian expression m arkings, which in his
opinion, had lost their original meaning and usefulness. He states that “Every
author should express himself with the lan g u ag e of his country...”; something that
can clearly be seen in the original edition o f Impressiones intimas, as well as the
other works that will follow it in the subsequent years (Janes, 319).
Although Mompou subsequently abandons some of the expression
markings that were outlined in his treatise (the small cross (+) and angular
23
bracket that indicated the “phrase o f passion” for instance) and uses a mixture of
Catalan, Spanish, French, and even Italian words in his titles, tempo markings,
and expressive indications, this treatise represents his original point o f departure,
and as such, offers us valuable insight into how his music should be played and
interpreted. Mompou, like Chopin, was wed to the piano, working out all his
compositional experiments and ideas at the instrument. Therefore, this treatise
extends beyond piano playing into the realm of the composer’s compositional
procedures and personal musical aesthetics. In addition, his writings offer us

some valuable clues about the primary emotional component behind his music
(sadness, pain, and nostalgia) and where the depth of nuance behind this emotion
is to be found (within the resonation of the piano sonority and the motion of the
music).
In 1915 Mompou composed his first song, L 'hora grisa (‘The Gray
Hour’), based upon a Catalan text written by Blancafort, Jeux I, II, and III from
Scenes d'enfcmts, El pastor (‘The Shepherd’) from Pessebres, as well as several
other piano pieces that, though intended to be included in Pessebres, were never
published (see Janes, 92-93 for list o f unpublished works).
In relation to his first song, L ’hora grisa, Janes states the following: “All
the nostalgia of his youth pulsated in it...and he expressed a hope that was
appearing after a period of anguish and uncertainty, in that counterpoint of gray
and gold” (Janes, 93). The poem by Blancafort paints an image o f the grayness
o f dusk, where “...later still when the sky darkens, a tiny gold star will shine”
(Holland, 54). The text and the music are just another example of the highly
personal idiom that Mompou is creating, where every piece finds its creative
24
foundation in the composer’s own reality, his state of mind, his perceptions in
relation to actual or imagined experiences.
In Jeux I, II, and III, Mompou began what was to be a series o f pieces,
distributed through three different sets, in which “the number of its images lived
in the periphery of his native city, close to the mountain, or next to the sea or in
the silence of the luxuriant Park of Montfuich, where the air carries the urban
rumor...” (Kastner, 71). These three pieces were later incorporated into a set,
dedicated to Manuel Blancafort, entitled Scenes d ’enfcmts (‘Children’s Scenes’).
Together with Schumann’s Scenes from Childhood, Op. 15, Debussy’s
Children's Comer, Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite, and Kabalevsky’s Children's
Pieces, Op. 27, it stands as one o f the many sets of character pieces written for
the piano that deal with images associated with childhood. This time, all titles
and expression markings are in French. In all three pieces the left hand is
generally left open, without bar-lines, while the melody is measured. The formal
structures are simple ternary designs (ABA) with short introductory passages
marked “Cri ” (‘Cry’), denoting the cries o f the children at play, returning again at
the end as codas.
In the following years Mompou began to carry around a small notebook
on his solitary walks through the streets o f Barcelona in which he would record
his thoughts and impressions. He converted some of these into short poems that
resembled Haiku, while others were incorporated into his music (see Janes, 100-
104 for quotations). In 1916, following this current of inspiration that began with
Jeux I, II, and III, Mompou composed La cegueta (‘The Blind Girl’), L ’home de
I 'aristo (‘The Barrel-Organ Man’), and Gitanes I; three of the five pieces from
25
Suburbis (‘Suburbs’)- All titles are in Catalan with French translations provided
in parentheses.
La cegueta begins with a simple melody in Gb major, played in unison,
with the two hands two octaves apart. The melody is written without bar-lines
and seems to meander here and there like a blind girl feeling her way through the
streets with her walking stick. Iglesias says it is a good example of Mompou's
desire to remove all unnecessary complications “at the altar of maximum
expressive simplicity” (Iglesias, 88).
Overall, the piece stands as a perfect example of one of the primary
distinctions Kastner makes between the music of Debussy and the music of
Mompou. Although the music is without bar-lines, the melodic construction is
absolutely clear and regular, forming four measure phrases and eight measure
periods in 2/4 time. For Mompou, this penchant for writing music without bar
lines stemmed not from a desire to free himself from regular and symmetrical
phrase and period structures, but instead, from a desire to free the music from
“the sensation of placing a wall between each measure” (Iglesias, 48); a sensation
that, in the composer’s mind, would disturb his freedom of expression within the
linear flow o f the music. The composer himself credited Impressionism with the
discovery o f “a universe o f marvelous sonorities, as sensitive as the most
penetrating perfumes”, while at the same time stating his desire for a “return to
clarity” because, “for a Mediterranean musician like myself nothing could be

easier or more natural” (Prevel, 90).
L'home de I ’aristo is a piece that endeavors to capture the essence o f a
street musician playing the ariston (a portable organ with a hand crank that
26
passed air through its languettes to create a tone). In addition to such
“Satiesque” (Paine, 64) performance indications as "faineant ” (‘lazy’ or

‘sluggish’) or “burlesque e tg a f “mais un peu lovrd’ (‘burlesque and gay, but a
bit clumsy’), one finds Mompou’s sole use of the Habanera rhythm, marked “Plus
calme-Habanera ” in the score.

In the years 1917-1918 we see the completion o f these three sets
(Pessebres, Suburbis, and Scenes d ’enfants), as well as the beginnings of a new
project (Cants magics) that represents a new point o f departure for Mompou.
With the piece entitled “Dansa ”, the composer essentially completes the trio of
pieces from Pessebres . Both Iglesias and Prevel liken this piece to the popular
dances that one might hear in Catalonia. Kastner writes that “the three pieces
that make-up Pessebres...show a Mompou inspired by the rustic Catalan
countryside” (Kastner, 70). In Dansa one hears a lilting 6/8 dance in G minor,
that is filled with colorful chromatic inflections that “accentuate the ambiguity of
major and minor”; a trait that, according to Kastner, relates this music to the
popular music of Languedoc and Rose lion in France, as well as Catalan folk
music and the music of another Catalan composer from the other side of the
border between France and Spain, Deodat de Severac (Kastner, 70).
In El carrer, el guitarrista i el veil cavall (‘The Street, the Guitarist and
the Old Horse’) Mompou writes a piece that is by far the most extensive
composition in length and technical demand that the composer produced thus far.
Although he did not mark the various images in the score, a factor that has
caused some disagreement among writers about the relationship between the
music and the characters, it is generally agreed that the street is represented by
27
the opening sixteenth-note figuration, the guitarist by the 3/8 material marked
“tranquillement rythme”, and the old horse by the material marked “ Valse avec
hesisation” (see Example 5). While the lines of demarcation between the material
Example 5: Musical Characterizations from El carrer, el guitarrista i el

veil cavall
A. (The Street)
B. (The Guitarist)
siffla n t avec indifference
C. (The Old Horse)
Valse avec h esisation
presented are clear throughout the piece, the juxtaposition o f materials, the
constant changes in tempo, and the sudden interruptions affected by the runs,
28
evoke a quality o f randomness that one would associate with the activities found
on the busy streets o f a metropolitan city like Barcelona.
In C m dans la rue (‘Cries in the Street’), written in 1918, one finds for
the first time the use o f an actual folk melody in a piece by Mompou. The theme
is taken from a traditional Catalan ballad 'La filla del marxant ’ (‘The Merchant's
daughter’; see Paine, 93-94, for a copy of the original folk melody and the
melodies from Cris dans la rue that were adapted from it). The form of the piece
is A-B-C-A and the A sections utilize, once again, the off-beat rhythms that are
so reminiscent o f flamenco hand clapping (Paine, 112).

The image o f a garden in the final piece from Scenes d 'enfants, Jeunes
filles au jardin from 1918, is not an actual garden but one that Mompou created
in his mind during his solitary walks along an old riverbed near Montjuich. The
composer states that “...it was a romantic garden of the nineteenth century, sad
and abandoned, with some walkways covered with dead leaves, bordered by tall
trees and with a small plaza that was adorned in the middle with a fountain typical
of that era” (Prevel, 98-99). The harmonic language is as rich as any that
Mompou had produced, containing clusters, quartal and whole-tone harmonies,
and dominant chords with added 9ths, 1lths, and 13ths. The theme from ‘La
filla del marxant' returns again in the section marked “Lentement ” and “Chantez
avec la fraicheur de I 'herbe humide ” (‘Sing with the freshness o f moist grass’), a
section that Mompou repeats on his recording even though no repeat is indicated.
It is, perhaps, the most impressionistic piece that the composer wrote.
29
4. “Recomenzar” (1917-1923)
With the next set o f pieces entitled Cants magics (translated ‘Magical
Chants’), written between 1917-1919, Mompou enters a new compositional
phase that will lead away from the ‘descriptive’ music that represents his original
point o f departure, toward a simpler, more basic style o f writing. The composer
himself described this style as “primitivismo aparente” (literally, ‘feigned

primitivism’), the aesthetic foundation of which can be summed up in the word
“recomenzar”, which literally means “to begin again” (Huot, 60). This
primitivism, in the words of Richard Paine, was not related to the “...ritualistic
structures such as one finds in Stravinsky, but with the magical potential of the
most simple and basic musical materials” (Paine, 80).
This desire to return to the foundations o f music, to simplicity, was partly
a result of Mompou’s own natural aesthetic constitution, and partly his interest in
the music of Satie. This interest was stimulated by a performance in Barcelona of

the ballet Parade, with music by Satie, action by Cocteau, and stage design by
Picasso (Janes, 96). Satie’s ideas emphasized a return to simplicity and a
rejection of the “...abstraction popular in the German schools of composition at
the time” (Bendell, 12). Cants magics represents the realization o f his desire for
“maximum expression with a minimum o f means” (quote from the composer;
Janes, 107). This statement by the composer reflects a compositional philosophy
that enables us to add Mompou’s name to that o f Satie and Schoenberg as the
composers whose music established the origins o f the minimalist style (see
Antokoletz, 498 for statements in regard to the foundations of m inim alism )
30
In Cants magics this return to basics can be seen in the simple forms,
close adherence to a single tonal center or mode, the absence of modulations, and
the constant repetition of basic melodic fragments, rhythms, and sonorities.
While all o f these traits can be found in Mompou’s earlier compositions, one will
notice when studying the music o f his ‘descriptive period’ that his style leading up
to El carrer, el guitarrista i el veil cava.ll, was slowly becoming more complex.
Here, he is returning to his original point o f departure, where the sonority is the
primary vehicle for the evocation of color and expression o f emotion. The
element o f repetition, so prevalent throughout these pieces, gives this music the
quality o f an incantation, a quality that Paine relates to the Gypsies and their
approach to music (Paine, 80). In Cants magics the repetitive elements become a
static background o f activity against which subtle changes in harmony and voicing
become remarkably effective.
The set is dedicated to Mompou’s teacher Ferdinand Motte-Lacroix and

the five miniatures are differentiated by a simple expression marking; Energic,
Obscur, Profond-lent, Misterids, and Calma. While there is truth to Paine’s

assertion that “Each [piece] is concerned with the evocative power o f a single
harmonic sonority: a minor triad with added major 6th” (Paine, 81), one would
perhaps be more accurate in saying that the minor triad with added major 6th acts
as the primary harmonic color. Throughout the course of these pieces the music
moves in and out of other secondary sonorities—the minor triad with added
minor 6th, the diminished 7th, altered dominants, and other intervalic
combinations like quartal harmonies that lie outside tertian definition—and the
31
reiteration and juxtaposition of the basic harmonic color with these secondary
harmonic colors adds variety to the atmosphere and feeling of the music.
A perfect example of this is the first piece, Energic. The formal design is
A -B -A and the opening A section is composed o f n o thing but an E minor chord
with added major 6th, repeated in a basic rhythmic pattern with changes in
register, voicing, and dynamics. The B section is contrasted through a simple

change in tempo (Lent) and dynamic, parallelisms between an E minor #6 and an
F# minor #6, the addition of some short melodic fragments in the top register,
and a subtle harmonic shift in and out o f some minor 9th and 11th chords. In the
return o f the A section then, at the expression m arking “lluny ” (Catalan for
‘distant’), the harmonic color is changed ever so slig h tly to an E minor with
added minor 6th (see Example 6). With the continual reiteration o f the primary
sonority throughout the course of the piece, comes a saturation of the harmonic
atmosphere o f the piece with the color o f that sonority. The simple change of a
single pitch within the sonority (C# to C natural) heard within this context, has a
remarkably evocative power.
Shortly after finishing Cants magics Mompou met Agustin Quintas, a
piano professor in Barcelona, and while discussing his theories with him he used
passages from the work to illustrate certain points. Quintas was so impressed
with this music that he went to the publishing house Union Musical Espahola to
try and get the work published. Mompou’s unique system of metric notation and
the absence o f bar-lines, however, almost caused the publishers to turn the piece
down because, as Kastner relates it, “...there had never been published in Spain
music in such contradiction to the correct musical calligraphy” (Kastner, 33).
32
Example 6: Energic from Cants magics- Section A'
I. t em p s
llu n y
Through the persistent efforts of Quintas, the editors eventually capitulated, and
when Mompou returned to Paris with his brother Jose in April, 1920, with the
intention o f re-establishing contact with Motte-Lacroix and the hope of joining
the group o f French composers known as “Les Six ”, he was armed with his first
published composition and a stack o f manuscripts.
Motte-Lacroix, o f course, was very impressed with the fact that his
student had become a published composer, and when he heard Mompou’s music
he immediately decided to put him in contact with the esteemed French music
critic and musicologist Emile Vuillermoz. It was both Motte-Lacroix and
Vuillermoz who convinced the young composer not to get involved with “Les
Six” because they felt that Mompou’s style was too unique and personal and that
33
his aesthetic was too far removed from that o f Georges Auric, Louis Durey,
Arthur Honegger, Germaine Tailleferre, Darius Milhaud, and Francis Poulenc
(Janes, 112). Oddly enough, it was just at this moment, when he had made the
crucial contact that he needed to launch his career, that Mompou, attacked by a
wave of shyness and timidity, abandoned any thought he might have had for
remaining in Paris and retreated back to Barcelona.

In Barcelona during the year of 1920-1921 Mompou worked on two
other sets that can be seen as a continuation of his primitivist endeavors; Fetes
lointaines (‘Distant Festivals’) and Charmes (‘Charms’, or ‘Enchantments’). In
addition, he wrote the Trois Variations (the work that employs the most French
mannerisms o f any o f his piano pieces) and the first of his Condones y danzas
(pieces that stand out as his most authentic excursions into the realm of folk
music).
Janes describes Fetes lointaines and Charmes as “Naked works, of

archaic simplicity, where sometimes accompaniments are founded upon forms
that repeat themselves obstinately” (Janes, 114); an observation that can be seen
as a further confirmation o f Mompou’s relationship to minimalist or, as
Antokoletz describes it, “repetitive” music (Antokoletz, 497). In Fete lointaines
one finds a set o f pieces that seems to be a bridge between the ‘descriptive’
works Suburbis and Scenes d 'enfants, and the primitivist work Cants magics.
There are six short pieces in the set and each piece is marked with a simple roman
numeral rather than a descriptive title. The imagery of a festival, however, is
evoked through musical passages o f a dance-like character in 3/8, 6/8, or duple
meter (marked “G af\ ttRhythm e'\ or “Fir/” in the score), melodies that evoke a
34
“childlike fragrance” (Iglesias, 114) similar to ones heard in Scenes d'enfants, and
rumbling passages o f alternating sixteenth notes (for instance Vif in the second
piece or Tr'es gai in the fifth piece) that seem to suggest the hustle and bustle of
the streets.
Contrasted with these elements are sad melodies in the minor mode and
the presence of poignant dissonances in the sonorities; musical elements that one
would certainly not associate with the joyous sounds of a festival but, instead,
would seem to reflect the composer’s distant and nostalgic view of the im aginary
proceedings. In this light, Prevel writes that within these pieces one finds “Joy
that separation has mortified, evocation loaded with nostalgia linked to the happy
times that only memory can succeed in reviving” (Prevel, 107). This emotional
distance is further enhanced by the illusion of physical distance that is suggested
by such notational devices as the use of smaller notes in the repeat of the A
section in the fifth piece (see Example 7) and the marking '"tres loin, comme un
echo” at the end of the sixth piece. Mompou, in his recording of the piece, also
produces these effects of distance through changes in dynamics, touch, and
voicing, where no such indications are given in the score.
Example 7: Fetes lointaines ^-Measures 42-44

Lentement- chantez au milieu
35
In relation to the set entitled Charmes, the composer makes it clear that
these pieces have nothing whatsoever to do with Valery’s poems o f the same
title, and that they are some o f his most “preferred” works in his entire musical
output (Iglesias, 129). The inspiration behind these miniatures comes from his
study o f Indian spiritual philosophy and, more precisely, the belief in the divine
law o f “Karma”, or the law o f cause and effect. The six pieces are once again
headed with roman numerals. Below and to the right o f the roman numeral,
however, one reads the following French subtitles: (I) ...poor endormir la
souffrance (‘to lull suffering to sleep’), (II) ...pourpenetrer les ames (‘to
penetrate souls’), (ID) ...pour inspirer I 'amour (‘to inspire love’), (TV) ...pour les
guerisons (‘for healings’), (V) ...pour evoquer I 'image du passe (‘to evoke the
image of the past’), and (VI) ...pour appeler la joie (‘to invoke joy’). They are
subtitles that are certainly descriptive, but allude to soul-states rather than
physical objects or events.
In the first piece, ...pour endormir la souffrance, one hears a tender
melodic line repeated over and over like a lullaby, with gently rocking
accompaniment in the left hand. The French word ames, in the title o f the second
piece ...pourpenetrer les ames, can be translated ‘soul’, ‘spirit’, ‘sentiment’, or
‘heart’. The piece gradually builds in intensity as more notes are added to the
sonorous texture and the simple melodic line, reiterated incessantly, keeps shifting
from the top of the texture to the middle; literally a musical representation of
penetration.
In ...pour evoquer I 'image du passe the fleeting arpeggios in the left hand
seem to suggest the fleeting quality o f time. The final piece, ...pour appeler la
36
joie, is essentially a lively dance in a major mode framed by two sections that
employ a musical figure that one can hear as an obvious allusion to a bird call (see
Example 8). In the opening, the bird call is heard by itself, as one would hear it in
Example 8: ...pour appeller la jo ie-Opening
Gai
ihi, ft j - p .-j r n - .u
the quiet of the early morning. After the following sections, the same material is
presented with a dance-like accompaniment, combining musical materials that
reflect the two primary sources of happiness for Mompou; nature, as suggested
by the former, and the happiness and joy experienced at festivals and parties, as
suggested by the latter.
Trois Variations was dedicated to Mompou's father, and the piece opens
with a theme that is the picture of simplicity; a bare melodic line in the F phrygian
mode lacking any metric indication, bar-lines, dynamics, phrase markings, and
harmony. Three short variations follow in which the theme is kept almost exactly
as it is in the opening (same pitch level and pitch content) and at the close of each
variation one reads “repetez, je vous prie” (‘repeat, if you please’).
The first variation, entitled Les soldats (‘The Soldiers’), clothes the
melody in a static Eb minor harmonization with a beautiful chromatic inner voice
lending color to the constant reiteration o f the Eb/Bb pedal point; a chromatic
37
harmonization that is similar to what one hears in Ravel’s Pavane de la belle au
bois dormant from Ma mere I 'oye. At the m arking lointain (‘distant’) Mompou
closes the variation with a short coda that suggests the call of a distant trumpet.
This short coda reflects the composer's recollection of soldiers playing trumpets
at masses he attended with his father (Iglesias, 121).
In the original edition o f the third variation, entitled Nocturne, one reads
“Dans le silence de la nuit" (In the silence o f the night'; Iglesias, 125). The
primary sonority here is made o f an altered dominant, Bb 7th with added flat 9th
and flat 13th, heard over an Eb pedal point. While the h arm on iz a tion rarely
moves away from this opening sonority (touching briefly upon Cb 7th and Ab 7th
over Db), the simultaneous combination o f the theme, the pedal points, the
altered dominants, and the chromatic inner voice that enters when the music
expands to three staves, creates an exquisite layering effect where consonances
and dissonances are blended into one sonority. It is a sonorous atmosphere of
light and dark, floating linearly across an aural canvas devoid o f the regimentation
o f bar-lines.
Janes, in her chapter on the Condones y danzas, makes the following
statement about how the composer categorized these works within the context of
his compositions:
“Federico Mompou himself has considered that his work

can be divided into three groups, first entering into those pieces
where the essence and atmosphere o f the rural Catalan countryside
is described in a subjective manner, in contrast with the agitated
life o f the city: Suburbis, Scenes d ’enfants, Fetes lointaines;
second, those inspired by the occult mystery of nature: Charmes,
38
Cants magics, Musica callada; and in the third those directly
linked to Catalan folklore; the Canciones y danzas...n (Janes,
186).
Therefore, with the first Cancion y danza composed in 1921, Mompou

gave birth to a new category of piano compositions; a category that was a direct
reflection of his Catalan heritage. The melody from the popular folk song ‘La
filla del Carmesi' was used for the cancion and the danza was based upon the
‘Danza de CastelltersoV, a melody that can be found in the Canconer Musical de

Catalunya compiled by the musicologist Francisco Pujol (Iglesias, 232).
Though a reflection o f his heritage, one must also be cognizant o f the feet
that Mompou himself deplored both the label “folkloric”, which many writers
ascribed to his music, and the label “nationalist”. He preferred to be called a
“regionalist”, since in his opinion, his music evoked the regional atmosphere o f
Catalonia within a highly personal context (Janes, 188).
In reality, the first Cancion y danza was not his first piece written around
authentic sources, since in November, 1918, he wrote the Cuatro canciones
catalanas, a work that was never published. He also began on what would
become the second Cancion y danza, a work that utilizes the melody ‘La
senyoria Isabel’ in the Cancion and 'Galop de Cortesia' in the Danza (Janes,
198). It was the Cuatro canciones catalanas, along with Scenes d ’enfants and
Cants magics, that received their first public hearing in a recital performed by his
teacher Motte-Lacroix in the Sala Erard, April 15, 1921. This recital, along with
the glowing review that Emile Vuillermoz wrote for the periodical Le Temps,
marked the turning point for Mompou’s career as a composer (see Janes, 364-
39
365 for Vuillermoz article). In this article Mompou was hailed as “a poet o f the
piano” (Janes, 364) and Janes states that the primary features held up in praise by
Vuillermoz were “...the simplicity, purity, ingenuity, and essentialness; the
mystery and power of evocation, the prolongation of the work in the interior of
our receptive spirit once it is finished, the lack o f compositional
pretentiousness...” (Janes, 121).
Following this review, Ricardo Vifies expressed a desire to include several
of Mompou’s compositions in concerts for his subsequent North American tour,

and played Scenes d ’enfants in a concert attended by many of the elite members
of Parisian high society. This exposure, in turn, led to many dinner and party
invitations from some of the most distinguished families in Paris, invitations that
brought Mompou into contact with such famous musicians as Stravinsky, Ravel,
Bartok. Prokoviev, Milhaud, Villa-Lobos, Rubinstein, and de Falla. Furthermore,
the eminent composers Adolfo Salazar and Robert Gerhard sought out the
composer to propose that they form the “Grupo de los cuatro” (a title given to
them by Henri Collet) with Oscar Espla (Paine, 170).
Mompou, though undoubtedly thrilled to meet many of Europe’s

foremost musicians and artisans, seemed to experience most of the high society
parties he attended with an air of “great indifference” (Janes, 132). Among all the
contacts he made during the decade o f 1920-1930, the two most significant to the
composer were Manuel de Falla and Maurice Ravel. Upon meeting Ravel it
immediately became apparent that the two shared little in their respective
approach to composition. For Ravel, it was “...necessary above all to be a good
workman”, since, “...without that art would be nothing but fortunate chance”
40
(Bendell, 13). For Mompou, however, subconscious intuition and chance
discoveries at the piano were the fruit of his creative endeavors, and in his
opinion such chance discoveries did not preclude the more workman-like process
of the selection o f materials to be used and their placement within the work
(Janes, 133).
5. The Paris Years (1923-1941)
Though many writers consider the March-1923 recital by Motte-Lacroix
as the event that ultimately brought Mompou back to Paris to stay until his
departure in 1941, Janes points out that the true reason was the feet that he fell in
love again (Janes, 135-136). Janes refers to her simply as Maria S., but her frill
name appears in the dedication to Mompou’s Dialogues', Maria Suelves de
Jacoby.
Despite this new love and all the accolades he was receiving from the
public, Mompou still battled with depression and the frequent illnesses that it
seemed to bring on. In a letter to his dear friend Blancafort, dated February 21,
1927, he writes, “Close to the woman that adores me, I have endured the greatest
suffering, I have felt the greatest contradictions, I have fallen beneath the weight
o f uneasiness...” (Janes, 141). Then, in September, 1928, he writes “...I live
without contact with anyone. Nor do I write a single postcard. I pass months,
the entire year, without going to any other place, neither theaters nor concerts. I
41
always remain at home, a home that is not mine..., not as an active man rather as
a grandfather of the family, of a family that is not mine either” (Janes, 156).
Because of these continuing attacks o f depression Mompou developed an
interest in books on psychology, hoping they would assist him with his struggle to
attain an equilibrium between his “reason” and “passion” (Janes, 170). He lived
in isolation, working on his music, in the role o f the family man for Marfa and her
children, reading and practicing meditation and other concentration exercises.

Although primarily in Paris, he spent sum m ers in Barcelona and enjoyed
vacations with his family in the Swiss Alps. He loved nature (the mountains,
lakes, and woods) and was particularly fond o f Dinard, a coastal village in the
south of France.
During this period (1923-1931) he composed Dialogues /- // (1923),
finished the Cancion y danza 7/(1924), Cancion y danza 77/(1926), and Cancion
y danza 7F’(1928), wrote the Piano Preludes 7-7^(1927-1928) and the Piano
Preludes V-Vll (1930-1931), as well as, the Quatre melodies (1925), Canqoneta
incerta (1926), Comptines 7-777(1926), and Le nuage (1928) for voice and piano.
O f special note from the pianist’s perspective are the Preludes, for they represent
some o f the richest and most romantic pieces in all of Mompou’s repertoire.
Mompou’s first four Preludes were published in 1930 as a set. Prevel
writes, “...if in Suburbis or Scenes d'enfcmts there are signs o f impressionism, in a

great many of his Preludes there appears a type o f romanticism, due not so much
to harmonic modifications as, overall, to a change of atmosphere” (Prevel, 133); a
statement that is echoed by both Kastner (p.81) and Janes (p. 160). Prelude 7,
marked “Dans le style romance ”, contains the same essential harmonic structures
42
as his previous compositions—minor 6th chords, whole-tone harmonies, quartal
harmonies, and chromaticism—but here, they are all contained within a single
page o f music. The melody, heard in a lilting 12/8 meter, is filled with passing
tones, appogiaturas, and suspensions, and the lush harmonies are enriched with
beautiful chromatic inner voices. Mompou, in his recording, plays the piece with
a great deal o f rubato and even further heightens the feeling o f romanticism by
continually breaking the two hands in a more exaggerated manner than usual. He
is, perhaps, imitating a Romancero (Spanish for ‘Troubadour’) playing the guitar
and singing his sentimental song to “a lighted window in the night” (Iglesias,
156); an image that Iglesias relates from his conversations with the composer.
Prelude II was first written as part o f a new set o f Suburbis called

“Vendedores callejeros” (‘Street Venders’), a project that never came to fruition
(Prevel, 134). Because of its original conception it is by far the most multi
faceted piece in the collection, with five different themes being heard throughout
eleven distinct sections. The themes range from the opening thirty-second-note
figures suggestive of the ornamental vocal inflections heard in cante Hondo, to the
modal children’s song marked Tres simple in the score. Though one hears
elements o f Mompou's descriptive music, they are freed o f any specific context,
evoking images without a programmatic title.
In Prelude ///th e composer seems to be experimenting with sonorities
that evoke a polychordal atmosphere layering, for instance in measure 1, a C7

over an Eb7 or, in measure 12, an E half-diminished 7 over an Ab minor 7 with a
Db in the bass. Mompou had no desire to c o nfine this piece to a specific mold of
expressive detail, telling Iglesias that he is unable to indicate in the score the
43
proper manner of execution because the piece should be played "...so
delicately...,so freely...” (Iglesias, 161). In Mompou's recording of the piece
there is a constant give and take, as the triplets surge forward and the melody
pulls back.
Prelude IV evokes a medieval atmosphere through the use of the Dorian
mode, parallel fourths, and minor dominants. This is contrasted with a darker B
section, marked Lent, that is filled with yearning two-note slurs and chromatic
voice leading. It is as if one is hearing two contrasting sides of the composer's

nature; one modal and dance-like, the other sad and brooding.
The three Preludes written in 1930-1931 became part of the second book
of Piano Preludes, published in 1952. The first, Prelude V, is a. clear
reminiscence of the composer's beloved Catalonia (Iglesias, 169). Prelude VI is
written “pour la main gauche ” (‘for the left hand’), all bar-lines have been
omitted and the piece is based almost entirely upon the opening motive (see
Example 9). This Prelude is probably the best example of what Janes refers to as
Example 9: Prelude 17-Opening
Moderalo . Cantabile espressivo
ir e s librement ,77
(«)
T J -V
pH
--p--
t------- L ^
r
IsJ
kr
"I
^
“horizontal harmony” (Janes, 161), where the sonorous texture is created from
the resonance of the linear elements in the pedal. One hears in the melodic
44
contours and harmonic colors an undeniable similarity to some of Scriabin’s
compositions for the piano. As the sonorities weave in and out of major, minor,
and altered dominant colorations, the music evokes a mystical atmosphere that is
both light and dark, ecstasy and melancholy.
Finally, in Prelude VII, one comes upon the most virtuosic of all the
preludes. It’s subtitle, “Palmier d etoiles ” (‘Palmtree o f Stars’), refers to a type
of fireworks that one sees at the climax of popular festivals throughout Catalonia
(Iglesias, 174). It is the first example of Mompou’s use o f the Octatonic Scale, a
scale that Scriabin used in his Piano Prelude Op. 74, #5. The opening and
closing sections o f the piece are based entirely upon the Octatonic set C-Db-Eb-
Fb-Gb-G-A-Bb-C (some notes are spelled with their enharmonic equivalents).
After Prelude VII, Mompou entered a compositional void that lasted from
1932 to 1942. Outside o f beginning work on his Variations sur un theme de
Chopin, the only piece the composer completed was Souvenirs de I ’Exposition, a
set o f four pieces published in a collection of piano pieces entitled “Parc
D ’A ttractions Expo-1937". This collection, dedicated to the pianist Marguerite
Long, was compiled to commemorate the Paris Exposition o f 1937 and included
works by Martinu, Tcherepnine, Tansman, Honegger, Halflter, Harsanyi,

Mihalovici, and Rieti.
45
6. The Final Years (1941-1987)
In 1941 Mompou returned to his native city, Barcelona, and the change
seemed to stimulate his composing. In the years from 1942 to 1945 Mompou
wrote La fuente y la campana (‘The Fountain and the Bell’) from Paisajes
(‘Landscapes’) for piano (1942), completed the song cycle Comptines (1943),
started Combat del somrti (‘Struggle in the Dream’) for voice and piano, wrote
the songs Llueve sobre el rio (‘It Rains Over the River’) and Pastoral (1945), the
Piano Preludes VIII (1943) and IX (1944), and the Canciones y danzas F(1942),
VI (1942) and VII (1944). Then, between 1946 and 1951, he wrote Canciones y
danzas VIII (1946) and IX (1948), El lago (‘The Lake’) from Paisajes (1947),
the enchanting Chanson de berceau (‘Cradle Song’, 1951), and various songs for
voice and piano.
During this period, two important publications were released that helped
to consolidate his reputation as a composer. In 1945, the magazine Musica

dedicated its October edition to Mompou. This edition featured Mompou’s
picture on the cover, published an unedited prelude, republished two famous
articles from the 1920s by Vuillermoz (Le Temps. April, 1920) and Adolfo
Salazar (El SoL June, 1921), a new article by Gerardo Diego, and an article by
the composer entitled “£ / Momento A ctual' where Mompou discussed his ideas
on the current state o f music (Janes, 221). In addition, Kastner’s fam ous book on
the composer’s life and music, simply entitled Federico M o m p o u . was published
by the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientfficas, Madrid, in 1946.
46
Between the years 1944 and 1949 Mompou’s works were frequently
heard in concerts in Barcelona. The composer himself rarely played the piano at
these concerts, feeling most comfortable when playing in a salon setting for
family, friends, and acquaintances. The main interpreter of his works in most of
these conceits was his future wife, Carmen Bravo, whom he first heard play in a
piano competition in 1941. Later, as the public began to accept and appreciate
his music more, Mompou became more sure o f himself playing a concert given in
his honor at the Instituto Britanico de Madrid and accepting invitations to play in
England at the Spanish Institute and the Edinburg Festival (Janes, 217-218).
The decade o f the 1950s was a period of triumph and tragedy for
Mompou. When Carmen went to Paris to study the piano for a few months in
1950, the composer accompanied her. It was a trip marked by nostalgic visits to
places that were filled with memories of struggle and anguish, memories that had
now been transformed into feelings of victory over his past (Janes, 219). In 1955
his ballet La casa de los pajaros (‘House o f Birds’) received great public acclaim
after its first performance at the Sadler Wells Theater in London, and in 1957 he
married Carmen Bravo. On the side of tragedy, however, was the death o f his
mother in February o f 1953, and the death o f his old love, Maria, in April of
1958.
From a compositional perspective this decade was not as prolific as the

previous one, working primarily on the l a cahier of the Musica callada. The Is
cahier began as an attempt by the composer to write music that underscored
poems from Paul Valery’s collection entitled Charmes (Iglesias, 307). Eventually
two different sets were spawned, the Musica callada and the Cinq melodies for
47
voice and piano setting five of Valery’s twenty-one poems. The Musica callada,
according to the composer, contains “the total essence of my music and all that is
essential to my aesthetic conception” (Prevel, 156). Later, when discussing the
Musica callada with Janes, Mompou says, “My notebook of Musica callada,
together with Fetes lointaines and Charmes, constitute in the whole o f my music,
the maximum and most authentic expression of this ‘recomenzar...” (Janes, 267).
Janes entitled her chapter on Mompou’s life, beginning in the year 1958,
“Vita Nouva” (‘New Life’; Janes, 244-260). His marriage to Carmen Bravo, an
idyllic life of friends, music, and quiet reflection, his newly found sense o f
confidence, inner peace, and the recognition he was receiving from his colleagues
and the public, had brought him to a state o f being that would best be described
as a rebirth. In September of that year Mompou, with Andres Segovia (guitar),
Conchita Badia (soprano), and Alicia de Larrocha (piano), became a faculty
member of a new music school in Santiago de Compostela called “Musica en
Compostela” (Janes, 248). Santiago de Compostela is a beautiful old city in
Galicia in the northwest region of Spain, with a long, colorful history and a great
deal of medieval architecture. He taught a course dedicated to his music, his
theories of piano playing, and his ideas on musical interpretation.
In regard to interpretation, the composer stated, “at first I had an

excessive preoccupation with finding a new system of more precise expressive
indications, but later an almost complete absence o f indications came about,

convinced...that the interpreter should feel free from all suggestion and that only
the music should speak to them” (Janes, 250). In his class he would ask the
students to simply listen to the music and ask themselves what the musical phrase
48
itself suggested; “...in what way do you feel it?”, the composer would ask (Janes,
250).
It was said that whenever Mompou played in the class the students would
listen with reverent attention, enchanted by the sounds he created at the piano.
Ramon Borras related to Janes a memory he had o f Mompou, playing the piano
one evening for about thirty people at the Inn where the faculty stayed, stating
that everyone one was literally “magnetized” by the music they were hearing, and
that “...there has never existed an artist that had such power, never.” (Janes, 252).
Altogether, Mompou taught at Musica en Compostela for fourteen years.
In this period of ‘new life’, surrounded by so many great artists in the medieval
city of Santiago de Compostela, his music became “more cerebral and contained”
(Janes, 253). This is reflected in the third o f his Paisajes, Carros de galicia
(‘Cars o f Galicia’) for piano (1960), the Suite compostelcma for guitar (1962), his
oratorio Improperios for baritone, choir and orchestra ( 1963), his choral piece
Vida interior, and most especially, his four notebooks of Musica callada (1959-
1967).
The Musica callada stand as the quiet pinnacle o f Mompou’s

compositional career. This statement is evidenced by the feet that, after the
completion o f the Musica callada, the composer wrote only the cantata L ’ocell
daurat (1970), the Bequerianas for voice and piano (1971), the Cancion y danza
X III for guitar (1972), the Cinq melodies de Paul Valery for voice and orchestra
(1973), the choral work Propis del temps d ’advent (1973), the Pastoral for organ
(1973), the Cancion y danza X IV for piano (1978), and then nothing more for the
rem ainde r o f his life.
49
Mompou’s final composition, the Cancion y danza XIV. was published in
Spain in 1978 and the magazine P iano Q uarterly published it in their Winter
1991 -1992 edition together with an article written by Christine Bendell. In this
article, Bendell points out one o f the remarkable features o f Mompou’s
compositional output, which is the feet that it does not display any changes in the
composer’s compositional style:
“In spite of the many years separating the first of the “Canciones y
danzas " from the last, their remarkable consistency in style
indicates the congruous qualities o f Mompou’s composing.
Furthermore, there is little basis for speaking o f evolution in
Mompou’s total output for piano. Although his music varies
considerably, it does not noticeably evolve or develop from one
period to the next” (Bendell; 1991, 39).
Hence, from beginning to end, the composer was faithful to his original
point o f departure; the basic aesthetic principles that he laid down in the first
decade o f his compositional career. He was not adverse to trying out new ideas—
such as the use of the octatonic scale, for instance—but such materials were not
used as mere experiments in composition but as raw material in the creation of
sonority, an unmistakably personal sonority that created a distinct atmosphere

that is distinguishable from that o f any other composer.
Mompou spent the remainder of his life in relative quiet in Barcelona with
many honors received both at home and abroad (see Janes, 470-477, for
chronology and list of honors received). In 1975, the five volume set Mompou
Interprets Mompou was released by the Musical Heritage Society (MHS
50
3462/3466). Federico Mompou (su obra para piano') by Antonio Iglesias and La
Musique et Frederic Mompou by Roger Prevel were published in 1976, and the
composer received the Gold Medal o f Cultural Merit from the city o f Barcelona.
In March, 1978, Mompou gave a concert in commemoration of his eighty fifth
birthday at Alice Tully Hall in New York City with Alicia de Larrocha and Jose
Carreras, and five years later he was honored again at a ninetieth birthday
celebration which featured a performance o f his oratorio “Improperios ”. The

composer died on June 30th, 1987 at the age of ninety four. The obituary written
by John Rockwell of the New York Times reads as follows:
‘Tederico Mompou, whose miniature, atmospheric songs

and piano pieces were championed by such notable performers as
Arthur Rubinstein and Montserrat Caballe, died early yesterday
morning at his home in Barcelona, Spain, his wife reported. He
was 94 years old.
Mr. Mompou’s music was colored by the two major
influences in his life—his Catalan folk heritage and the influence of
the French modernists o f his youth, principally Debussy and Satie.
A shy man, he never aggressively propagated his music or sought
ambitiously to write in the grand, large-scale forms that invite
worldly success. He also worked in a highly personalized, simple,
folklike idiom that ran counter to the main trends o f rationalist
modernism. But there were those, performers and audiences alike,
who loved his music, and kept it alive.
After a concert in Alice Tully Hall in February 1983 in
honor o f his 90th birthday, Allen Hughes, writing in The New
York Times, called him “one o f Spain's most cherished musical
figures.”
Bom in Barcelona on April 16, 1893, Mr. Mompou
studied piano at the Conservatorio del Liceo and gave his first
public recital at the age o f 15. Inspired to study in France after
hearing Marguerite Long play the music o f Faure, he arrived in
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Paris in 1911 armed with a letter of recommendation from
Granados.
His shyness discouraged him from a performing career,
however, and pointed him toward composition. Satie’s music in
particular encouraged him to develop a deliberately simple, neo
primitive style. An early M inim alist, he sought to achieve deep
emotional effects through the sparest o f musical means. That
meant not just a predilection for folk and popular sources and for
repetitive ostinato effects, but a disinclination to modulate or
otherwise develop his musical materials.
Mr. Mompou returned to his native Barcelona when World
War I broke out in 1914, but went back to Paris in 1921; in 1941
he moved back to Barcelona for good. In subsequent years he
was honored by both Spain and France, but he remained a retiring
man, mostly playing his compositions in private for friends.
Nearly all of Mr. Mompous more than 200 works are
moody piano pieces or songs in a slow tempo. But despite their
lack o f trendiness, his scores won warm admirers, who found in
them an evocativeness and a religious intensity missing in much
other 20th-century music. Some o f those admirers took it upon
themselves to orchestrate selected pieces and employ them for
ballets and other public spectacles of a sort he rarely addressed
himself—as with “House o f Birds” for the Royal Ballet and “Don
Perlimplin” for the Cuevas Ballet.
His survivors include his wife, Carmen Bravo Mompou.”
(Rockwell; The New York Times. July 1, 1987)
52
n. THE MUSICA CALLADA: AN ANALYSIS
1. In tro d u ctio n
In 1945, Mompou began writing Carttar del alma (‘Song o f the Soul’)
for voice and piano based on a text by the mystic Spanish poet San Juan de la
Cruz (1542-1591). San Juan was a Carmelite monk and reformer in the Catholic
church o f sixteenth-century Spain, whose desire was to return the priesthood to a
mission of pure service to mankind. He wrote the poem Cantor del alma in a
prison cell in Toledo (Holland, 113). Frieda Holland makes the following
observations about Mompou’s setting o f this poem:
“Cantar del alma is a very distinctive and unusual piece

among Mompou’s other songs. The piano begins the song with a
ten-measure solo that is more homophonic than most of
Mompou’s accompaniments. This is followed by an a cappella
section for the voice...The composer has clearly marked that the
vocal line should be sung as a Gregorian chant. This chant-like
section is followed by a repetition of the piano solo that began the
song, a repetition of the a cappella vocal section, and a final
repetition of the piano solo” (Holland, 116-117).
While studying the texts o f San Juan, Mompou came upon the following
verse from the Cantico espiritual entre el Alma y Cristo, su esposo (‘Spiritual
Canticle between the Soul and Christ, her husband’) in which he suddenly found
“the exact and defining expression o f his music” (Janes, 261). The lines read:
53
“La noche sosegada
en par de los levantes de la aurora
la musica callada
la soledad sonora
la cena que recreay enamora ”
‘The peaceful night

coupled with the first rays o f the dawn
the silent (quiet) music
the sonorous solitude
the supper that recreates and loves’
For San Juan, the image of “La noche sosegada en par de los levantes de
la aurora...” was an image of the soul “...rising from the darkness of natural
knowledge, to the morning light of supernatural knowledge...” (Janes, 261). The
image is one of duality; it is neither night nor day and even though one does not
see with clarity all that the divine light has to reveal, one does partake o f that
light (Janes, 261). The poet explained it as follows:
“And in that tranquillity and silence of the night..., and in

the tidings o f the divine light, one perceives the souL.the very
highest harmony of music. And this music is called callada
(‘silent’, ‘quiet’), because...h is peaceful and quiet intelligence,
without the clamor o f voices...and not just this, rather it is also: la
soledad sonora (‘the sonorous solitude’) which is almost the same
as: la musica callada (‘the silent music’). Because, even though
that music is callada with regard to the natural senses and mental
powers, it is a very sonorous solitude to the spiritual powers.
Because, being only that and void of all form and natural
apprehensions, one can well receive the spiritual sound,
sonorously in the spirit” (Jands, 266-267).
54
In this image o f a divine musical realm, where one can find enlightenment
from resonating sonorously with the harmony of the higher spheres o f existence,
Mompou found the m eaning o f his life and the purpose behind his work. The
term ‘mysticism’ has a variety of connotations associated with it, but in its most
basic meaning it refers to any doctrine that believes “it is possible to achieve
communion with God through contemplation and love without the medium o f
human reason” (Webster, 972). Within these texts by San Juan, Mompou found a
mysticism that was unique to the country and culture he came from, and hence, a
mysticism that seemed to parallel his own feelings, philosophy, and life
experiences. These were words that reflected a quiet and faithful perseverance
that endeavors to perceive reality directly by being receptive to the quiet
intimations of the soul.
Struck by San Juan’s concept o f a “musica callada”, Mompou adopted it
as the title for a collection of twenty-eight short piano pieces presented in four
Volumes which he called cahier. In 1952, when Mompou was made a member
of the Real academia de bellas artes de San Jorge, he presented a talk to that
prestigious organization in which he introduced his Musica callada for the first
time, and outlined the aesthetic principles that gave birth to this music. The
content of this speech is o f such importance that a translation o f those portions

that delineate his aesthetics is included here:
“This music has neither air nor light. It is a feint throb o f

the heart. One does not ask it to take us any farther than a few
millimeters in space, but it does have the mission o f penetrating
the greatest profundities of our soul and the most secretive
regions o f our spirit.
55
This music is callada because its hearing is internal.
Contention and reserve. Its emotion is secret and only takes
sonorous form in its resonances beneath the great cold cavern of
our solitude.
‘La musica callada, la soledad sonora ’ foreseen by San
Juan de la Cruz, will find in these pages a desire for reality.
This music, true to my aesthetic creed, is a symbol of
renunciation. Renunciation against the continuity o f the ascending
line o f progress and perfection in Art, because it is necessary
sometimes to rest from this scaling of rugged peaks, to change the
route, to grasp the impulse if we want to continue forward.
Apparent primitivism (feigned primitivism). The new
point of departure is ideal and situated in our epoch... My musica
callada is only one more sign among the many that have marked
our epoch, coinciding with the dominant tendency of ‘the
returning’.
We are beginning again; the road is long. Let us not
forget that the creation o f the perfect work, the highest style o f an
epoch, is not the privilege of a single artist. When in a specific
epoch there appears something we designate ‘genius’, this is the
product of several generations. There are many musicians since
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries who took their stone to the
cathedral of J.S. Bach.
My contribution in this case does not reach the category of
placing the cornerstone, this stone is the union of the solemn and
the humble; I only aspire that my work figure among the many in
the construction of the future cathedral
My notebook o f Musica callada, together with Fetes
lointaines and Charmes, constitute, in the whole o f my music, the
principle and most authentic expression of this ‘re-beginning’
(recomenzar), a sentiment that marks my work and that was
reinforced by the coincidence o f various other external signs and
that marked our epoch in an identical sense.
Among my own signs I will affirm, in the first place, the
curious case that, since my first harmonic attempts, primitive
organum appears in my music, a form of accom panim en t that was
the point of departure for polyphony in the ninth century. It
revalidated in this way the intervals o f a fifth and a fourth along
with their series of consecutives so scorned and unused for several
centuries. I believe that the use o f organum has its origin in
56
epochs a great deal more distant than those previously cited and
possibly in the origins of music itself. What would confirm this is
the feet that the interval o f a fifth is that which appears with the
greatest frequency in the inflection of the voice in language.
On the other hand, the description that figures in a writing
by Martianus Capella around the year 430 is significant and very
curious that says: ‘In the sacred wood o f Apollo, the trees sing the
melodies of god; the high branches and the low branches sing at
the octave, and those in the center...divide the octave into a fifth
and a fourth.’
I was ignorant then that my first harmonic conceptions
coincided so exactly with the music of that mythical wood. A
forest bom region that I promptly left, carried logically by the
desire for new landscapes and lands for better cultivation.
Nevertheless, there lived in my spirit such procedures that have
marked various works of mine.
It accents the strength o f my primitive instinct, my
inclination toward a simple line, toward a concrete form...
While this current of primitivism was initiated at the
beginning of the present century and while a music was awaited as
one waits for bread and wine each day, the invasion of the
cerebral man takes place with his perfected laboratories and the
dehumanization of art, a river that overflows and comes to
inundate those wheat fields and vineyards.
They were right, since I must recognize that this period
has left us appreciable products and interesting formulas, but I
believe that the present moment will mark the end of the reign of
abstraction.
I want my Musica callada, this recently bom child, to
bring us to a new warmth of life and expression of the human
heart, always the same and always renewed” (Janes 322-324,
translation to English by E. Daub).
It is interesting to compare the composer’s speech from 1952 to the

following words he spoke to Janes in 1972 after the Musica callada was
completed:
57
“This music more than an expression gives an expressive
atmosphere, but in the background there is the outline o f the state
o f being. In that moment that sadness dominates, that nostalgia,
certainly the preoccupation with death. The Musica callada is a
more abstract music, in one of the meanings o f abstraction,
because they also label abstract that which does not have any
expression, and mine does have expression, and it is within the
melodic line. And what is extraordinary is to be able to survive
with this. Now there are no more than two roads: the tonal and
the other. Whoever wishes to survive with the former, will have
to do something new and very difficult” (Janes, 269).
To begin with, he never mentions sadness, nostalgia, or death in the
former speech but makes it clear that such feelings are contained within the
Musica callada. In addition, he denigrates abstraction in art in the former speech
but acknowledges the abstract quality of the Musica callada in the latter. The
abstract art Mompou denigrates in his 1952 speech is that which is severed from
its link with humanity, where the goal is experimentation for experimentation’s
sake. These pieces o f the Musica callada are abstract in the sense that they are
undefined emotionally and are not overtly descriptive. Each piece is designated
simply by a Roman numeral, there is no use o f actual folk music sources, there
are few expression markings, only five pieces make use of key signatures, the
harmonic language generally lies outside of the tertian vocabulary, and the tonal
sense has, in most cases, been reduced to a mere scaffolding. Though abstract in
this sense, the Musica callada reflects the composer’s feelings and emotions, his
preoccupation with mortality, his religious faith, and his mystical approach to life
58
and music. They are not pieces that are severed from their link with humanity,
for they reflect humanity through the person of Federico Mompou.
2. The 1“ Cahier
M usica Callada I
The 1st cahier of the Musica callada was published in 1959. Musica
callada I is dedicated to the Spanish musicologist and critic Federico Sopena
(Iglesias, 307) who wrote the well-known History of Contemporary S panish
Music (New Grove, vol. 17:529). With the exception of a few phrases from
Musica callada XXVII this is the only piece without bar-lines and meter
indication (see Example 10). The formal scheme of Musica callada I is as

follows, with each letter corresponding to one phrase o f the music:
A - A - B - A’ - B’
In attempting a descriptive analysis o f this kind, it is necessary to begin

with what Husserl called a “doxic intention” (Clifton, 273) with actions based on
the belief that: (1) the true significance of the Musica callada lies in its
experience; (2) the experience o f this music, especially as heard from the
composer’s own hands, can be described in an objective fashion; and (3)
59
descriptions of these experiences can lead to a richer and deeper understanding
and appreciation of the music.
The opening of this piece is significant because it functions simultaneously

as the beginning of Musica callada /, the beginning of the 1st cahier, and also
the beginning of the entire collection. The expression mark “Angelico ”, sheds
some light upon the mood or atmosphere into which we, as performers and
listeners, are entering.
The first sound heard might best be described with Kastner's term, 'lone
formation” (Kastner, 100). The four notes A4, b 4, D5, and E5 form a
symmetrical sound surface (two whole steps separated by a minor third) out of
which the melody emerges. At first the melody hovers around E5 like a reciting
tone, briefly touching upon its upper and lower neighbors. In the second Half of
the opening phrase the melody briefly stands out from the surface in a “higher
relief’ (Clifton, 172), hovers around a secondary tone (E>5), and falls down to A4
(see Example 10).
Example 10: Musica callada 1-Phrase A
Anpclicol J =50) _____
t j- j j
The opening sonority and the melodic line establish a floating quality that
persists even after the melody arrives on a 4. The music reflects simplicity,
60
clarity, and balance. The rhythm produces a sense o f stasis-motion-stasis. The
continual pauses in the motion of the music allow us to listen to the inner
vibrations formed by the “interpenetration” (Zuckerkandl, 299) of the tones
resonating in the fluid medium of overtones produced by the pedal. Although the
melody itself is not based on a medieval plainsong, the piece clearly evokes the
mood o f chant (Paine, 100). Modality, the absence of bar-Iines and meter, the
constant repetition of a rhythmic pattern, the prevalence of 4ths and 5ths, and the
suggestion o f a reciting tone and finalis in the structure of the melody leads one
to recognize an “iconic signification” in this music. According to Coker, the
iconic sign “has a property or properties in common with whatever it denotes;
hence, an iconic sign in some respects resembles the object it denotes” (Coker,
30). Here, the resemblance is not a matter of subjective reaction or projection.

It is, instead, the essence of this music.
The first two phrases can be heard as an aural image of San Juan de la
Cruz’ “the sonorous solitude”: a lone voice, heard above bell-like sounds. Then
a subtle contrast is introduced by way o f increased activity. C hanges of melodic
shape and sonorous color and an expanded use of musical space are found in a
musical texture where the voices are differentiated, phrases overlap, and points of
intersection produce a harmonic tension that lead to a cadential resolution on the
dominant (see Example 11). It is at these points that we find a three-voice
texture with the outer voices moving in contrary motion toward the cadence tone
while the inner voice parallels the melody. This type of cadence fits Lloyd
Ultan’s description of early polyphony in which “...the outer voices generally
move by contrary motion while the inner voice parallels one of the others to its
61
respective final tone. These penultimate tones are...normally approached by step
and rarely by a skip more than a third” (Ultan, 98).
The pitches C and F (the thirds of an A minor and a D minor triad),

avoided in the first two phrases, now occur prominently and together with
simultaneities produced by the intersection of the linear elements, yield sonorous

depth and richness. The tertian quality in this phrase reveals the warmer, human
feeling underlying the monastic spirit. In contrast, the opening phrase, in which
the interval of the third is submerged and lacks tertian definition, sounds hollow
and austere.
Example 11: Musica callada /-Phrase B
With the following phrase the opening idea returns. As in most of the
Musica callada, however, the return is not literal but varied. While the opening
formed what Coker calls an “implicative connective’'’ (Coker, 124), an
antecedent-consequent structure in which the first phrase is suspensory and the
second resolvent, in the varied return the consequent gesture does not resolve the
antecedent gesture but becomes itself a suspensory one. Its arrival on a D m inor
triad suspends the melodic flow and prepares the listener for the final cadence;
just as the pitch D had led in every A phrase to a cadence point. The D m inor
chord thus acts as a “signal” (Coker, 6) that subtly informs the listener that the
62
piece is coming to an end. This sonorous information is confirmed by the
beginning o f Phrase B’ that now outlines the subdominant triad, breaks the
rhythmic equilibrium of the preceding four phrases, and brings the piece to a
close (see score).
Musica Callada II
Musica callada II was originally intended to be a prelude to Valery’s
poem Les pas (‘The Footsteps’), which later became the last of the Cinq
melodies for voice and piano. The final two lines o f the poem, Car j ’ai vecu de
vous attendre, Et mon coeur n 'etait que vos pas (‘For I have lived on waiting for
you, And my heart was only your footsteps’; Holland, 164) precede the score.
The complete poem reads:
“Tes pas, enfants de mon silence,

Saintement, lentement places,
Vers le lit de ma vigliance
Procedent muets et glaces.
Personne pure, ombre divine,

Qu ’ils sont doux, tes pas retenus!
Dieux!...tous les dons que je devine
Viennent a moi sur ces pieds nusl
Si, de tes levres avancees,

Tue prepares pour I ’apaiser,
A I ’habitant de mes pensees
La nourritxtre d ’un baiser,
63
Ne hate pas cet acte tendre,
Douceur d ’etre et de n 'etre pas,
Carj ’ai vecu de vous attendre,
Et mon coeur n ’etait que vos pas. ”
‘Your footsteps, children of my silence,

With gradual and saintly pace
Towards the bed o f my watchfulness,
Muted and frozen, approach.
Pure one, divine shadow,

How gentle are your cautious steps!
GodsL.all the gifts that I can guess
Come to me on those naked feet!
I f with your lips advancing,

You are preparing to appease
The inhabitant o f my thoughts
With the sustenance of a kiss,
Do not hasten the tender act,

Bliss of being and non-being,
For I have lived on waiting for you,
And my heart was only your footsteps.’
(Translation, Holland 164)
Musica callada II is in a triple meter and the formal framework is as

follows:
A l - B1 - A2 - B2 - A l’
1-5 6-9 10-13 14-17 18-21
64
The opening phrase consists o f a neighbor tone gesture followed by that
of a yearning appogiatura. Their sonorities are vertical combinations of major
and minor sixths with the exception o f the left hand anacrusis that is spelled as a
dimininshed seventh. This spelling (A#-G) creates a C Augmented 6th chord on

the anacrusis of each gesture and also suggests a leading tone relationship
between A# and B (see Example 12). In this way Mompou is subtly alluding to
the tonal center of E.
Example 12: Musica callada //-Phrase Al

Lent
{yrir.
a m
ii
The rhythmic and dynamic shape of these one-measure “block structures”
(Paine 276) exhibit, in a microcosm, what Coker calls the three phases of
rhythmic motion: “arsis” (accumulation), “thesis” (discharge), and “stasis”
(relaxation). These gestures swell and subside like a wave o f sonorous motion.
The tonal ambiguity and static quality of the opening reflect a rather impersonal
expression; not an emotion but a mood and a color that, (using Mompou’s own
words), convey an “expressive atmosphere” (Janes, 269). In the poem this mood
is characterized by the words “Muted and frozen”. The anacruses, the obsessive
65
repetition, the block structures, and the feminine rhythmic endings found in each
gesture bespeak the music’s relationship to C a talan folk music (Paine 275).
In phrase A l, the folk music influence is purely structural; one does not
hear the opening as resembling or alluding to folk music but certain structural
similarities do exist. In phrase B 1, however, one hears an obvious relationship
through a more personal and tuneful melodic statement in the phrygian mode.
This phrase preserves the essential identity o f the piece by incorporating the basic
rhythmic gesture from phrase Al while transforming the figure through inversion
and incorporating it as a basic component o f this contrasting phrase and its folk-
song-like expression (see Example 13).
Example 13: Musica callada //-Phrase B
All the sonorities in phrase B1 are theoretically based upon minor seventh
chords and hence, one can see a relationship form with the previous piece where
contrasting phrases use contrasting sonorities (static sonority versus tertian
sonority). In measure 7, however, one hears the atmosphere of the first phrase
intrude upon the sonorous color of the second phrase. What many theorists
might call a polychord (D7 over F#7) is essentially a verticalization of the pitches
from the opening gesture. The A# is the bass note from the opening anacrusis,
the E and the F# are a simultaneity from the lower notes of the opening right
66
hand gesture, the dotted figure from the melody (notes D and C) is now heard an
octave lower, and the note A from the left hand sixth of measure 2 is now in the
melody (see Examples 12 and 13). Of particular interest to the experiential point
o f view is the feet that this author heard this sonority as an intrusion o f the
opening harmonic color first, and confirmed it with the score later.
With the return of the material from phrase A in measure 9 the intensity
o f the expression is heightened. This is effected by a rise in pitch level and a
compacting o f musical space. The right hand is now a whole step higher than in
phrase Al and the distance between the two hands (an octave plus a fourth in the
first phrase) has been narrowed to that of a ninth, concentrating the piano
sonority. In addition, Mompou has added sforzandos and elongated the
gesture’s dynamic swell to two measures rather than the one measure swells
found in phrase A l.
Phrase A2 leads to phrase B2 a fifth higher than the original statement

with an augmented dynamic offorte. This phrase can be called the “thesis”
phrase, for it is the point at which the music reaches its highest register,
maximum dynamic, and greatest energy. Here, at the climax o f Musica callada
II, the harmonies are enriched to five notes and the diminuendo, which begins at
the mid-point o f the phrase, is heard with a phrygian melodic figure rarely used in
Mompou’s music. One can find this melodic motive in two other piano pieces;
the 5th Prelude and the cancion from his Cancion y danza VI. It uses the first,
second, fourth, and fifth degrees o f the phrygian scale (in this case the notes E-F-
A-B) and is heard in each instance as a descending melodic gesture at the
emotional climax of each piece (see Example 14). The figure is used in all three
67
Example 14A: Prelude F-Measures 12-16
rit.
Example 14B: Cancion from Cancion y danza F7-Measures 14-16
molto espress.
Example 14C: Musica callada //-Measures 14-17
J *
? i-\
-+ ----- ! 1 T' ' —
/ dim.
m n
--- — f --- r y i
p ----------
examples to discharge the emotional intensity of the climax phrase. The sheer
rarity o f this figure bespeaks the fact that Mompou reserves it for special
moments in his music.
68
The darker mood o f the opening intrudes once again upon the B phrase in
measure 17; this time at the point o f resolution. The energy o f the climax phrase
has been released, and the melodic line has M en from its high point on B5 down
to E5 where the dotted figure closes the phrase. Beneath the closing dotted
figure the sixths from the A phrase return and parallel the melody. The first
impression is that the two phrases are overlapping each other. This impression,
however, is dispelled in the following measure when the A phrase begins and is
heard in its entirety.
The phenomenon experienced in measure 17 is an anticipation of what is

to come and an “interruption” o f a linear process heard at the end o f phrase B2
(Clifton, 106). While the melodic gesture is completed in the top voice, the
phrygian cadence, begun in measure 16 with the bass notes G and F, is
interrupted by the C bass note in measure 17. If one were to play this cadence
and substitute an E it would sound like a natural closure for the phrase, even with
the sixths added under the melody. So in actuality, the sixths, though they
suggest phrase A, have not really changed the color as much as the sonority that
results from the combination of the C bass note and the upper structures
outlining the E and D major triads. The expected bass note E then enters the
picture on the third beat of measure 17 in the lowest register o f the piano, heard
like “somber bell sounds” (Iglesias, 309) tolling beneath a hushed statement of
phrase A.
In Musica callada II the ‘medieval’ quality of the first piece is replaced
by a folkloric atmosphere o f a darker mood. There is the poetic subtext provided
by Valery’s poem, static sonorities in swelling rhythmic gestures, nostalgic folk-
69
like phrases, recurrent intrusions o f the dark mood of the opening,
intensifications built from increases in dynamics and rising registers, and the deep
resonances o f a tolling bell heard beneath a whispered restatement o f the
opening. These elements are the essence of the piece.
Musica Callada UI
Musica callada III has a melody unlike any other in the 1st cahier, a
simple diatonic time in the key of Bb major. It displays several characteristics of
Spanish folk music such as limited melodic range, constant repetition o f short
melodic figures, use of the major scale (a typical feature o f Catalan folk music),
and triple meter (typical of dance tunes). The overall structure is formed by an
alternation o f simple tonic and d o m inant melodic statements with clearly
contrasting melodic contours:
A - B - A - B - A
1-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 21-25
Paine, furthermore, considers the alternation of feminine and masculine rhythmic

endings a “truly distinctive characteristic of Catalan folk melody” (Paine, 57) and
Mompou adheres to this in every phrase. Taken by itself the melody has a
dance-like quality similar to those found in some of Mompou’s Condones y
danzas (see Example 15).
70
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited w ithout permission.
Example 15: Musica callada ///-Phrase A
Plucide
poc u r t f
a.
While the melody is clearly diatonic, the harmonization is based primarily

upon two five-note segments of the whole-tone scale: Gb-Ab-Bb-C-D in the A
phrases from one whole-tone set, and A-B-C#-D#-E# in the B phrases from the
other whole-tone set. Hence, one finds the fusion and opposition of an
essentially asymmetrical pitch set (the major scale) and an essentially symmetrical
pitch set (the whole-tone scale) within the same composition (see Example 15).
The opposition is based upon the contrast between symmetry and asymmetry
while the fusion is a result of the common tones found between the major and the
whole-tone scales (Bb-C-D in the A phrases and F-G-A in the B phrases) and the
“axis of symmetry” (Antokoletz 88) established between the tonic (Bb) and the
opening whole-tone set in phrase A (Gb-Ab-Bb-C-D). These whole-tone
elements only give way at the end of each phrase with the clear V-I punctuations
in Bb (phrase A) and F (phrase B).
The tuneful dance-like melodic line can be seen as the element of
nostalgia that pervades, by the composer’s own admission, the Musica callada
(Janes 269). While the melody is not an actual folk melody it indeed reflects the
mood, spirit, and energetic rhythms of Catalan dance music; subdued only by
71
Mompou’s expression marking “Placide” and by harmonizing the melody with
the whole-tone elements. Debussy had used the whole-tone scale in his second
prelude for piano, Voiles (‘Veils’) to give the music an atmosphere of vagueness
(Antokoletz 88). Here, the whole-tone set darkens the brightness of the major
mode by incorporating dissonant elements into the harmonic fabric (major
sevenths and tritones), and pitches from the m in o r mode (Gb and Ab). The
resulting harmonic atmosphere can be seen as the shadow of Mompou’s
preoccupation with death cast over the essentially lighthearted and nostalgic
spirit conveyed by the melody.
Musica Callada IV
While the presence of contrasts within the individual pieces is usually
rather subtle, the contrasts encountered between pieces of the Musica callada
can be quite pronounced. The expression marking for Musica callada IV is
“Afflitto e penoso”. The form of the miniature is as follows:
Al - A2 - A l’
1-14 15-32 33-47
Although the piece has no key signature, one finds an underlying

framework with cadences to E minor-i (measures 12-14), F# minor-v/v
(measures 21-23), B minor-v (measures 30-32), and at the end of the piece, E
minor-i (measures 43-47). While the primary feature of Musica callada III was
72
diatonic and whole-tone motion, here one finds chromatic motion predominating.
The entire fabric of the piece is built, in the words of Iglesias,”...from the
elemental generating proposition o f only two notes” (Iglesias, 310). This basic
chromatic gesture is the classic ‘weeping’ or ‘sighing’ figure; a descending two-
note slur that constantly reiterates either the iambic rhythmic pattern (quarter
note followed by a half note) or its opposite, the trochaic rhythmic pattern (see
Example 16).
Example 16: Musica callada /T-Opening

-A.fm.tto e pen oso
||;i i .fi... = j ^ = ;■!— 3 -

sf :::■ -■ -
— T r
P
In the A section the right hand states the sighing gesture in thirds,
following a pattern o f chromatic descent from G4-B4 down an octave to G3-B3-
In measure 11 the continuity is broken as the right hand enters the diatonic
sphere of E minor. The left hand, meanwhile, states an ascending two-note

gesture in a different rhythmic position (beat three to beat one) stressing the
anacrusis, and uses pitches from the melodic and natural forms of the E minor
scale. The contrast between the chromatic and minor pitch sets, the conflict
between ascending and descending motion, combined with the rhythmic

juxtaposition o f the gestures, presents one with a sense of what Clifton calls
73
“time strata”, where the elements o f a musical texture seem to unfold in distinct
times and spatial fields (Clifton, 125). In addition, there is a constant sense of
harmonic tension that is due to the conflicting motion and the feet that the
sonorities are constantly moving in and out o f tertian structures. Hence, this
sense o f tension and relaxation is experienced on different levels simultaneously,
all o f which heightens the arrival to E minor in measures 12-14 where the two
hands finally blend their rhythmic gestures and pitch sets.
In the B section, this rhythmic blending is continued as the two hands
reiterate the iambic gesture together in parallel motion. The primary contrast
with the A section is found in the predominant use of fourths and fifths, an
overall pattern of ascending motion, and a heightened sense of dynamic contrasts
(see Example 17). One can see a symbolic significance here in the shift from
tertian structures to quartal structures; harmonies that reflect the influence of

organum in this music.
Example 17: Musica callada /F-Measures 15-19
ll - - = i— >i ^I— f ~ # = ■
---- d-- -----------
—J
& = P 1 -3
*s
v>:— ■— ffgr----- --- 0 --------
- - - - p—
------ f --------
l-f- r ~t^~~ i
In the A section the music seems to be expressive of grieving resignation

that is effected by the ‘weeping’ figure, the falling chromatic motion, the
conflicting tendencies of different levels o f tension and resolution, and the minor
74
tonality. Here, in the B section, one hears the two-note gestures in rhythmic
unison, moving in parallel motion, outlining an ascending pattern, supported by a
long crescendo. The phrases reflect a higher energy level, and one experiences a
sense o f concerted effort instead of passive resignation.
The first rise is followed by a collapse; a sudden drop in register and
dynamic (measures 21-23) where the music settles harmonically, via a phrygian
cadence, on F# minor. This pattern is followed by an even greater intensification
in measures 24-29 that leads, once again, to a sudden drop to piano and a
cadence to B minor. The music seems to suggest a desire to rise above the
prevailing mood of the piece. Although the voices move in unison, supported by
quartal harmonies, the essential gesture based upon a falling second remains
constant and unmovable, and every rise in energy leads to an inevitable fell with a
temporary resolution to a minor sonority.
In the end, the mood rem ain s, and with the return of the A section one
finds a few elements transformed. The bass line is now phrased in a trochaic
pattern (half note followed by a quarter note) in chromatic motion, while skeletal
elements o f the former bass line can be found in the middle register. From
measure 3 5 to the end Mompou essentially restates the final seven measures of
the A section with the exception o f the ending where the original cadence to E
minor from measures 12-13 is emphasized through repetition, augmentation, and
a three-measure ritard that conveys a sense o f dilation to the final statement of

this piece (see Example 18).
75
Example 18: Musica callada /F-Measures 44-47
rif.
* =
TP TPP
J - = * 1 --------------- --- u ------------

— ^ • - W -— = --- -------------------
— = - —
\ ____ #
Musica Callada V
Musica callada V takes the listener into a musical world that, like Cants
magics, is “...concerned with the evocative power o f a single sonority” (Paine,
98). Iglesias writes that the piece was once a preamble to one of Valery's poems
and he provides us with an image: a small village in the early evening, where off
in the distance one can hear the sounds of forged iron being beaten and shaped
with a hammer (Iglesias, 311). This image is reflected in the score with
Mompou’s indications “legato metallico” and “w lontananza” (‘in the distance’).

The primary sonority is that which Mompou used in his first papelito, the Barri
de platja or “acorde metalico” (Janes, 48). The piece can be divided into five
basic sections that are delineated by a scheme o f repetition and change found in
the sonorities:
Al - A l’ - A2 - A2’ - Codetta
1-9 10-17 18-24 25-31 32-34
76
The thematic elements o f Musica callada V never really coalesce into
melodic phrases. Instead, one finds insistent and obsessive repetition, sonorous
motion, static sonorities (Iglesias uses the word “amortiguada”, ‘mortified’) that
occupy and project different spatial levels, the constant use o f a grace-note
gesture punctuating those sonorities rhythmically, a sense o f modulating distance,

and intense harmonic colors with a metallic edge.
While all twelve tones are used in Musica callada V, three pitches stand
out as being of primary importance; Bb, Eb, and Cb. The most important
structural pitch is Bb; it initiates the piece, functions as the primary axis around
which the sonorities gravitate, acts as a connecting link between the A sections
and the B sections, and can be found in every measure but measure 23, where it
is B double flat. Eb provides the music with its tonal foundation. This pitch is
not as prominent as Bb, but one does find the Eb bass note at important
structural points throughout the piece (measures 16-18, 25, and 31) and as the
foundation of the final sonority. Together they form a V-I tonal foundation that
gives cohesion to a piece that is based upon whole-tone pitch sets, and non
functional dominant and quartal harmonies. The pitch Cb establishes its
importance by virtue o f being the primary dissonance to the Bb axis; the two
pitches form ing either the interval of a major seventh (Cb to Bb) or a minor ninth
(Bb to Cb).
The importance o f these intervals (sevenths and ninths), lies in the feet
that almost every sonority throughout the piece contains one or both o f them,
and that the dissonant edge that they lend to the sonorities can be directly related
to this metallic quality present in the music. The defining characteristic o f the
77
metallic sonority seems to be the presence of these dissonant intervals and the
wide spacing that subtly difiiises the intensity o f their vibration. Nowhere is this
more evident than in the codetta where one encounters a widely spaced Eb7
chord with an added Cb that incorporates a minor seventh, a major seventh, a
minor ninth, and a major ninth, and sounds so clearly like a tolling bell as it rocks
back and forth from right hand to left hand (see Example 19).
Example 19: Musica callada ^-Measures 32-34
The philosopher Vladimir Jankelevitch, who is quoted by Janes in her
chapter on the Musica callada, calls the repeated eighth-note figure “the
obstinate note”; a monotonous chiming that persists until the codetta (Janes,
270). This repetitive figure, played very freely and unmetronomically by
Mompou, is responsible for the element of impulsion in this music. The spatial
levels then are reflected by a clearly defined top register that is always projected
above the middle-ground element (the repeated figure) and the foundation
provided by the bass notes. The pianists’ m anip u latio n of these spatial levels
creates this phenomenon o f depth and distance that one experiences through the
music. The sense o f nearness and famess is amplified by one’s ability to project
varying levels of touch and dynamics. This phenomenon of distance is
78
furthermore amplified by the grace notes, for they can be related to the sound-
image o f metal being pounded in the distance and the echo that would reflect and
reverberate off other structures in the surrounding area (a phenomenon that
Mompou talked about in his aesthetic writings on sonority).
Musica Callada VI
In Musica callada VI one finds a formal structure that is derived from the
continual unfolding o f a single melodic phrase. The piece as a whole illustrates
just how little meaning is derived from formal designations, for there is an
astonishing variety of color and mood found within a seemingly repetitive
framework. The form is as follows:
Al - A2 - A3 - A3’ - A l’ - A2’
1-4 5-8 9-12 13-16 17-20 21-26
The opening phrase (see Example 20) is interesting in that it seemsto
reflect both the “Phrase of Passion” and the “Sentiment of Purity” that Mompou
outlined in his own aesthetic writings. In its structure the phrase resembles the
“Phrase o f Passion”; a long arching phrase that consists of an “initial point”, a
“limit point”, and a “resting point” (Janes 292-293). The emotional quality
conveyed by the melody, however, is more like Mompou’s description of the
“Sentiment o f Purity”; “...a soft lament, a sad story, a long moment o f sadness”
79
(Janes 287). Hence, one finds here a sad recitation with an underlying sense of
pain.
Example 20: Musica callada 17-Opening

Lento (J =66) molio canlabiic poco r i l .
■ h fti J}
legato
The first two four-measure phrases (Al and A2) establish E minor as the
tonal center. It is important to note the correction Iglesias provides in his
discussion of Musica callada VI (Iglesias, 313). The bass note in measure 4 is

not G l, but Bl, and hence, one finds a harmonic motion from E minor (i) to B
minor (v). The second phrase, through a slight modification in measure 5 (B5
instead of F#5), essentially restates the same material a fourth higher, answering
phrase Al and cadencing on E minor with a modified cadential figure in the
melody. This motion from v to i is further amplified by the fact that all the
pitches in the first phrase are taken from the B harmonic and melodic minor
scales, while the notes of the second phrase are all taken from the E harmonic
minor scale (see Example 21).
The harmonic minor modes give this opening eight-measure period an

atmosphere that echoes the Moorish influence so prevalent in much of the folk
music of Spain. One does not find the characteristic feminine endings in this
melody (all are masculine), but the modal quality and the continual repetition o f a
80
single rhythmic unit (dotted quarter-eighth-half note) relate it to the folk music
idiom. Interwoven into the harmonic fabric of these opening eight measures are
two o f the three segments from the melody that reiterate the basic rhythmic
gesture o f the piece; E-F#-A# (an ascending whole step followed by an ascending
major third) and C#-B-E (a descending whole step followed by a descending
perfect fifth). The first fragment can be found as an inner voice in measures 2-3
and measures 6-7 while the second can be found verticalized in measures 2, 4,
and 6 (see Examples 20 and 21).
Example 21: Musica callada 17-Measures 5-8
$ J— ■■ - = ^
t t
= f f = f ^
pp
m
f
What happens in the next two phrases (A3 and A3’) might be quite
surprising to anyone who knows Mompou’s music and how fervently he
eschewed developmental procedures. These phrases present the melody in
inversion, a compositional technique rarely found in the primitivist music of this

composer (Iglesias, 313). The use o f inversion here, however, is more expressive
than it is developmental, for the delicately sad quality of the opening melody is
completely transformed into a phrygian melodic phrase with an essentially
descending contour. The inverted contour in phrase A3 presents the melody in
the B phrygian mode, in a mezzo-forte dynamic, and takes it down into the lower
81
register of the piano from the original starting point B4. Phrase A3’ then
presents the melody as a bass line in D phrygian, in a forte dynamic, with a slight
modification at the end of the phrase that allows it to cadence on B minor (v).
Interwoven into the accompanying harmonic fabric o f these phrases one

finds, once again, fragments o f the melody that take the form of counter
melodies. In phrase A3, measures 9-10, one finds a voice mirroring the first four
notes o f the melody an eleventh below, and in measure 10, one finds the
continuing pitches of that mirror image-slightly altered with D to C instead of

C# to B--being used to create the supporting harmonic background composed of
the notes G-E-F#-D-C (see Example 22). Then, in measures 11-12, one finds a
hint of canonic imitation with the first four pitches o f the inverted melody (B-F#-
E-C) reiterating itself in the bass, and in measures 13-14 (upper voice), one can
find the three-note motive from phrase A (E5-F#5-A#5) in retrograde inversion
(A-C-D) and retrograde (D-B-A). Finally, the inversion of another three-note

motive from the end of the opening phrase (F#5-B4-C#5) can be found in the
upper voice o f measure 15 (see Example 22).
Example 22: Four Melodic Fragments From Phrases A3 and A3’
1: Left Hand-Measures 9-10 2: Left Hand-Measures 11-12
ii.
82
3: Right Hand-Measures 13-14 4: Right Hand-Measure 15
jc tii. j ij \ r J " n
Phrase A1 presents a modified return that places the melodic line in the
middle o f the sonorous texture, an octave lower than the opening phrase, while
phrase A2’ essentially restates the consequent phrase with a small extension
added for closure. Outside of the change of register in phrase A1 ’, the primary
difference lies in the complete absence of the pitch C# (the “limit point” and “rest
point” of the opening phrase), the prominent use of C natural, and the cadence to
E minor rather than B minor. While one can relate this change theoretically to
the establishment of E minor at the end of the phrase (C and C# being the
distinguishing difference between E minor and B minor), this feet pales in
significance to the change in harmonic color that results from the sonorous
texture created by the intermingling of the pitches C-F#-Bb-E-A-D (notes that

characterize Scriabin’s so-called “mystic chord”; Antokoletz, 101) with the
pitches G, B, and D#.
In the end the presence of such compositional devices as inversion,
retrograde, retrograde inversion, fragmentation, augmentation, canonic imitation,

and sonata principle, in a piece by the primitivist Mompou, needs to be
addressed. The feet that he rejected such learned procedures suggests the
possibility that they might have been conceived for expressive purposes. For
83
instance, when the inversion of the melody was used in phrase A3, Mompou
possibly heard (or felt in his fingers) an opposite melodic contour with a
contrasting sense of expression, rather than an inverted form of the melody.

Also, the presence of melodic fragments in the harmonic texture can be seen as
the echo and reflection o f the sentiment o f the melody within the body of the
sonority, rather than as fragmentation and imitation. And finally, the suggestion
o f sonata principle (the opening antecedent/consequent statement returns without
the initial cadence to the dominant), may reflect more its suitability as a natural
“signal” (Coker, 6) for closure rather than Mompou’s conscious use of 18th-
century harmonic practices.
Musica Callada VII
Musica callada VII is one of only five pieces with a key signature, F
minor. It is one o f the most melodically diverse pieces in the set, for within its
structure one finds four distinct thematic sections that yield the following form
(Iglesias, 313):
A - B - C - A’ - D - B - A
1-3 3-10 11-18 19-23 24-29 29-36 37-39
84
Each formal section, in addition to the thematic diversity, displays its own
metric identity; A in quadruple meter, B alternating triple and duple meter, C in
duple meter, and D alternating quadruple and quintuple meter. Furthermore.

Mompou delineates these divisions in the score (with the exception of the A and
B sections) by separating them with double bars or ferm ati and contrasting them
with tempo changes. The A section and the B section, on the other hand, frame
the miniature in a mirror image o f each other (A to B in the opening then B to A
at the end), are unseparated by double bars, ferm ati, or tempo changes, and share
a common tempo {Lento) and sense of expression.
The piece opens in a piano dynamic in the lower register, accompanied by
the indication 'kprofond\ with a chant-like evocation in F phrygian that gravitates

around the tonic (see Example 23). Iglesias refers to this melody as a “type of
psalmody” (Iglesias, 313) and Paine echoes this statement when he uses it to
exemplify the influence of plainsong in Mompou’s music (Paine, 100).
Example 23: Musica callada F7/-Opening

Lento
p p r o fo n d
= * = 3=
In the beginning, phrase A appears to be a simple introductory statement

that opens Musica callada VII and leads into the three-note motive
characterizing phrase B. As the piece progresses, however, one begins to
85
recognize just how significant this material is to the piece as a whole. While the
opening two phrases display a high degree of thematic diversity, there is at the
same time an organic unity between them, for within phrase A one can find the
same basic melodic shape (a rising whole step followed by a descending leap in
the pitches Eb-F-C from measure 1) as found in the three-note motive from
phrase B (see Examples 23 and 24).
Example 24: Musica callada F77-Measures 4-7
Iglesias likens this new motive to a “complaint” or “supplication" for it
stresses the up beat, rises a whole step, and then relaxes on the downbeat with a
falling third (Iglesias 314). The melody is accompanied in the right hand with
second-inversion triads that outline the classic Phrygian harmonic progression,
utilizing the C phrygian mode with an altered third degree, and yields the
descending series o f chords F minor-Eb major-Db major-C major (New Grove,
792). At first the gesture is simple, only stating the final two chords o f the
progressioa Then, after two statements, the phrase rises up to the F minor triad
and presents the progression in its entirety.
These opening two phrases bring the listener and performer back to that
sense o f religious expression that is reflected in Musica callada I. In phrase A,
86
however, the presentation reflects a darker preoccupation than heard in the first
piece and there is a stronger sense of regional identity projected by the use of the
F phrygian mode. Phrase B, on the other hand, though utilizing a melodic

contour found in phrase A and preserving the chant-like quality of the opening
recitation, displays a greater sense of contrast and diversity than is heard in
Musica callada I. It integrates such a distinctive element from Spanish folk
music as the phrygian harmonic progression that passionately projects a unique

expressive quality associated with the music of that region.
After a rest, a ferm ata, and a double bar, one hears phrase C. The tempo
is now slightly accelerated (Poco piu mosso) and one finds another contrasting
melody based, this time, upon a descending whole-tone figure in duple meter that
alternates with an intervalically expanded version of the three-note motive from
phrase B (see Example 25). The significance of the opening phrase becomes
Example 25: Musica callada P7/-Measures 11-14
Poco piu mosso (J r 60)

JTrj Ti r~], /T", n
i
£
r -
even more apparent now as one recognizes that this new descending figure, like
the three-note motive, can be traced back to phrase A with the descending
pitches Ab-Gb-F-Eb (fourth beat o f measure 1 to the first beat of measure 2). In
addition, the melodic shape of the inner voice (measures 11-12 and 15-16)
87
resembles the shape found in beats three and four of measure 1 and the
alternating minor sixth in the bass uses the pitches C and Ab (the lowest and
highest pitches horn the opening phrase).
In listening to Mompou play phrase C, one immediately notices a sense of
distance being projected by the differing dynamic levels and the slight separation
of the voices, which creates a subtle echo effect. The increased tempo, the
descending melodic gestures, and the descending modal sequence give this phrase
a greater sense of motion, a motion that is propelled by gravity and that leads the
music back to the opening theme in measure 19.
The next section, phrase A’, can be characterized as the heart of Musica
callada VII. Mompou verifies the musical identity of the opening melody by
presenting it in parallel fifths, two octaves higher than the original statement, in
an obvious imitation of medieval organum (see Example 26; Paine, 100). The
melody is heard two times in phrase A’, an intense mezzo forte for the first
statement and a subdued pianissimo for the second, that leads to a close on Bb
in measure 23. The left hand, meanwhile, mirrors this organum-like imitation
below in the bass, with an accompaniment that is based upon parallel fourths.
While the right hand intervals remain almost completely pure (i.e. perfect), the
left hand uses a mixture of augmented and perfect intervals, creating dissonances
in the lower register of the piano. This penchant for placing the dissonant notes
in the lower part of the harmonic structure is one of the distinguishing properties
of the Mompou sonority (Paine, 98).
88
Example 26: Musica callada ^//-Measures 19-20
In phrase D, Mompou presents the listener with a melody that projects a
very different sense of expression. Once again, one finds a resemblance to the
opening melody with the exception that here, as in phrase B, the opening
neighbor-tone figure is ascending rather than descending (see Examples 23 and
27). As the phrase begins, with both hands now in the upper register of the
piano, one can recognize an “iconic” significance, in that, the melody sounds so
clearly like a children’s song as it rises and falls in a sing-song manner, mimicking
Example 27: Musica callada ^/-Measures 24-26

P oco p iu mu!>su( J ; 6 0 )
I "1 I
J
T O
O '
t f
m
f f f t
the intonation o f a child’s voice at play. The phrase is composed of four simple
one-measure statements, paired in groups of two, where the first statement in
quarter notes is echoed by a second statement that doubles the quarter notes in
beats one and two into eighth notes. The minor mode and the haunting sound o f
89
the augmented chord on the fourth beat o f each measure lend a bittersweet
quality to this moment of child-like simplicity. The phrase is rich with nostalgia,
a nostalgia that echoes the feelings that the composer expressed in such works as
Scenes d'enfants and Fetes lointaines.

With the return of the final two phrases, presented in a mirror image of
the opening, the piece reflects a sense of circularity. The music ends as it begins.
Though passing through a multitude o f moods and changes, everything relates to
the beginning and the ending. There is an organic unity present that connects all
the melodic shapes to the opening phrase, a unity that seems to suggest that all
expressions have their root in the one expression. The fundamental expression is
the chant, and all other musical material stems from it. What is fascinating about
this observation is that it seems to mirror the composer’s own view o f music.
Chant and organum lie at the beginning o f our entire musical tradition, and
according to Mompou, this early musical tradition lies at the very heart o f his
own compositional processes. Hence, for the composer, chant is the beginning
o f his tradition, lies at the heart of his compositional processes, and represents
one o f his defining aesthetic principles; a “re-beginning” that circles back to the
past in order to once again make progress toward the future.
Musica Callada VIII
Musica callada VIII is by far the shortest miniature in the set, lasting a
total o f thirty eight seconds in Mompou’s recording of the piece. It was
90
originally intended to be used as an introduction to Valery’s poem L 'indifferent
(‘The Indifferent One’) and is, according to Iglesias, “distant, for certain, from
the mystic character that presides over the collection of four notebooks”
(Iglesias, 315). The piece is in triple meter with an expression marking of
“Semplice”. There is one sharp in the key signature, suggesting either E minor or
A dorian, and the form is based upon the following phrase structure:
A - A - A’
1-5 6-10 11-15
As the piece opens, with a dynamic o f mezzo forte, one is cognizant o f the
feet that there is a complete change of mood between this piece and the previous
pieces. The melody, heard above an immovable E pedal point, outlines a D
major triad in second inversion, rises up to a 5 , and eventually settles on E5 with
a feminine rhythmic ending (see Example 28). The rhythm o f the theme is lively
and the mood reflects a “light and amiable” quality that is completely out of
character with what had preceded it (Iglesias, 315). An interesting phenomenon
of the opening phrase is that, even though the E pedal point and key signature
strongly suggest E minor as the tonal center, the experience of the opening
phrase is not minor at all. The reason for this sensation is the feet that one’s
attention is drawn to the predominantly D major melody that is being projected in
such “high relief’ (Clifton, 172) above the pedal point and, furthermore, that the
aggregate o f pitches in phrase A forms a D dominant 9 chord with the ninth (E)
in the bass.
91
Example 28: Musica callada {^//-Opening
In measure 6, after the close o f the first phrase, a seemingly new element
enters the tonal picture. The dynamic changes to pianississimo and one hears an
open fifth on A1-E2 enter quietly in the lower register. What is so amazing
about this moment is how Mompou can take an element that is essentially the
same and use it to create an effect that is experientially so different. On the one
hand these pitches are nothing new, for A and E were present as the outer pitches
of the first phrase and, in a sense, they have simply been inverted and placed
below the repetition of the phrase. The experience of this moment, on the other
hand, is a very different matter, for the harmonic atmosphere has been changed as
the new pedal point draws one’s attention to the presence of the A minor sixth
chord, produced by the conjunction of the pedal point and the left hand voicing,
that was present but not apparent in the first phrase. Though the pitch content
remains exactly the same, the phenomenal quality is remarkably different. In
addition, the echo-like repetition o f the D major melody produces a layering

effect that lends a hazy and ethereal quality to the repetition o f phrase A that was
absent from the original statement of the phrase.
92
As one studies the music of Mompou one comes to expect certain things
to happen as a piece unfolds. Leonard Meyer, in feet, bases his theory of musical
affect upon the frustration and fulfillment of expectation saying that “...affect or
emotion-felt is aroused when an expectation—a tendency to respond—activated by

the musical stimulus situation, is temporarily inhibited or permanently blocked”
(Meyer, 31). While one can justifiably argue with Meyer about the
overwhelming importance he places upon expectation, one cannot deny the feet
that expectation arouses emotions and responses in the listener.

When Musica callada VIII opens with two repeated phrases, one’s
expectation is that there will be some element of contrast—possibly a contrasting
melody or further expansion of the given melody—followed by a modified return
of the opening material. These expectations seem to be confirmed in measures

11-13 as the melody and harmony rise a step, the melodic contour changes, and
one hears the beginnings of a sequential progression taking the music up into a
higher register. Just as this process begins, however, the piece comes to an
abrupt end on a layered sonority composed o f the A1-E2 fifth in the bass, an E
dominant 9 voicing in the middle register, and the final melodic gesture from
phrase A reiterating itself in B minor (see Example 29).
For the listener and performer, Musica callada VIII is like a brief glimpse
into another world, one fer removed from mortal cares and concerns. Vladimir
Janketevitch says that “here angelic bells are heard that gently palpitate between
heaven and earth” (Janes, 270). The piece speaks with a voice untouched by fear
and sadness, and within its expression, one finds what might be characterized as
an air of indifference.
93
Example 29: Musica callada ^//-Measures 11-15
r it.
JL
Musica Callada DC
Musica callada IX is the final piece in the 1st cahier. Here, in these thirty
measures o f music, one encounters a piece that embodies serenity and beauty. It
is, perhaps, the most amazing example of Mompou’s ability to create a maximum
amount o f musical experience from a minimum amount of musical material. The
piece brings us to that “...new warmth of life and expression of the human heart,
always the same and always renewed”, of which the composer spoke at the end
o f his speech to the Real academia de bellas artes de San Jorge (Janes, 324).
The tempo marking is Lento, the key signature has four sharps (E major), and the
overall structure is based upon the following rounded-binary form:
A1 - B - A2 - Coda
1-11 11-18 19-26 27-30
94
The first four notes o f the melody are a melodic cell that will be used to
create virtually all the material of the piece. What is fascinating about this cell is
that if one plays these four notes as a simultaneity, one finds that it is the same
“tone formation” (Kastner, 100) that opens Musica callada I. The former piece
opens with the pitches A-B-D-E and the melodic cell here, spelled from bottom
to top, is B-C#-E-F# (see Example 30). On the one hand, the notes of this
melodic or harmonic cell can be reordered into a stack o f fourths (B-E-A-D),
fifths (D-A-E-B), or any number of voicings for that matter, and hence, one finds
many harmonic structures in Mompou’s music that are related to it. At the same
Example 30: Musica callada ZY’-Opening
L en to 4 - 48
* nr—
p
-z:= = d ^ -- _J—a--—
time, this particular arrangement of notes—an open minor third (a symbol of
sadness), flanked by two whole steps (a symbol o f symmetry and equilibrium), all
resonating within the limited range o f a perfect fifth ( a symbol of spirituality)—is
unique to the Musica callada. It is a more concentrated arrangement than the
open quartal structures that are so prevalent in all of Mompou’s piano pieces and
its return here, as well as its subsequent returns throughout the Musica callada,
cause one to recognize it and attach a level o f importance to it.
95
While Musica callada I utilizes this cell as a static sonority, here, one
hears it activated as a melody. The melody, presented in the opening four-
measure phrase, begins by outlining the whole steps and fourths from this cell
(both ascending and descending) in a gentle rocking motion; first rising, then
felling. It pauses temporarily on C#, continues its rhythmic and intervalic motion,
and then diverges from the pattern with a leap of a sixth up to C#5 (the inversion
of the third from the cell) and settles on B4 a whole step lower. The remaining
musical texture is interwoven with the melody to create a sonorous texture based
upon an E major chord with the A# lending a distinct lydian coloration to the
phrase.
As the music moves smoothly into the next phrase with a common tone in
the melody and a step-wise motion in the bass, one hears some obvious
relationships to the opening: a continuation of the basic rhythmic gesture and the
prominent use of the descending whole step gestures in the melody and
accompaniment. Not so obvious, however, is the feet that the pitch content of
measures 5 and 6 is derived from a combination of two transpositions of the
original cell (E-F#-A-B and C#-D#-F#-G#) and that the subsequent sequential
repetition down a whole step (E major ninth to D major ninth reflecting the
descending whole step in the melody) contains a new transposition (D-E-G-A).
While it is true that all character pieces make continual use o f small
melodic and harmonic figures, these elements usually remain quite recognizable
to the ear. Such an example is Warum from Phantasiestucke by Schumann,
where one finds a dotted-eighth-sixteenth-note motive used throughout the piece,

which stands out as an obvious melodic signal. Mompou, however, in his
96
constant reorganization and recombination of basic elements, creates essentially
new material out of the old. One really has to look closely to find the various
relationships that are present between the opening phrase and the subsequent
passages, because many times these relationships are not as obvious to the ear as
the rhythmic motive and the characteristic falling whole step. Relationships are
formed through a single pitch, an interval, a hidden melodic figure, or a group of

pitches arranged into patterns similar to, or exactly like, the original (see
Example 31).
Example 31: Musica callada ZA'-Measures 5-8
i <
pi- -JiJL. JLj_-j._- .- i ■. .—---«
j% —
$ 11 f - -Ti---^ ^
i i i i i j JJ i J •* i -*■ d
kr : r :
mclCo le g a to
After a phrygian cadence to E major in measures 9-11 the piece arrives at

a Poco piu mosso and a new melodic idea that characterizes the contrasting B
section. As the new section opens one hears, high in the upper register of the
piano, thirty-second notes quickly dart back and forth in ascending and
descending patterns; an effervescent melodic motive that sounds remarkably
similar to a musical stylization of a bird song. While on the one hand the material
sounds so new and different, on the other hand the rhythmic gesture (a dotted
eighth followed by two thirty seconds) and the basic melodic shape (principle
97
note, ascending whole step, descending third, descending whole step) display
obvious similarities to the opening melody (see Example 32).
Example 32: Musica callada £Y-Measures 12-15

r*oco piu m o s s o ( J = 66 )
m
f acctf/ . riL
T f T= ¥
Following the close of the B section one hears the return o f the opening
phrase a fifth higher. At the end of this restatement one hears yet another c hange
that is announced by a new permutation of the original melody in the left hand; a
melodic figure that expands the cell into the whole-tone sphere and presents the
first four notes of the original melody in retrograde (see E x am p le 33). The
Example 33: Musica callada ZT-Measures 23-25

r t (. . . .
_
Jjrr ., Jyjr.
Jr h
m ¥ r ' r T
molto esp rcss .
O fT=T
m £§ %
musical material in measures 23-26 are in effect a combination o f the original
notes o f the melody (B-E-F# in measure 23 and F#-C#-B in measure 25) and
98
fourths and fifths moving along descending phrygian tetrachords in the right
hand, over a left hand that repeats the motive from Example 33 sequentially
along two whole-tone sets. The first is the set that incorporates B natural (G-A-
B-C#-D#-F) and the second is the one that incorporates E natural (F#-G#-A#-C-
D-E).
The use o f the whole-tone scale, which represents a natural expansion of
the whole tone from the opening melody, and its fusion with the phrygian fourths
in the right hand, are similar to what is found in Musica callada III where
Mompou fuses the whole-tone elements in the left hand with a purely diatonic
melody in the right. Whereas the whole-tone element darkens the bright and
tuneful quality reflected by the otherwise major melody in the former piece, here,
the affective power of the whole-tone harmony lends a mystical atmosphere akin
to the floating quality one observes in a piece like Voiles.
When Mompou plays this passage, one hears these tones resonating
through a haze o f pedal and there is a great deal o f separation between the two
hands. The first two measures are played with more force and at a louder
dynamic than the subsequent repetition a fourth lower in measures 25-26 that is
played more like a hushed echo of the first two measures. The descent of the
phrygian fourths in these last two measures is interrupted by the E major 9
sonority from measure 10, and out of this sonority the original melody emerges,
stated in its original transposition.
99
3. The 2nd C a h ier
M u sic a C a lla d a X
The 2nd cahier was published in 1962, three years after the 1st cahier.
Iglesias notes that it seems to reflect a change in Mompou’s compositional style
because he seems to adhere to stricter compositional laws (“mayor vigencia
compositiva,'>
) and writes pieces that allude more “to the world of serialism”
(Iglesias, 319).
Musica callada X, which opens the 2nd cahier, is (1) the first piece in the
tonal center o f C minor, (2) the first piece in duple meter, and (3) the first piece
in which a texture results from an interweaving of short linear fragments that

expand progressively outward from the smallest possible space (a half step) to
encompass four different spatial levels across the piano keyboard. The piece is
almost entirely linear and the simultaneities never use more than two notes.
A new melodic figure surfaces here that is characterized by a large
ascending leap of a sixth or seventh (an intervalic gesture that might suggest
effort or desire), followed by a smaller descending interval of a second or third
(an intervalic gesture that resembles the “sigh” figure found in Musica callada
IV). The miniature utilizes an A1-A2-A1 form that features an exact repetition of
the first section [note: compare measures 2 and 18, and phrasing in measures 4-5
and 20-21 for subtle notational differences],
100
While Iglesias contends that the contemporary sound o f this music is a
result o f its “...intervalic and harmonic conformation...” such a statement is
difficult to verify because the interval content and harmonic structures are all
similar to those found in the 1st cahier (see Example 34). The difference noted is
more likely the result of the quasi-pointillistic texture made up of individual

pitches that are separated rhythmically and spatially—a characteristic that will be
observed in other pieces later in the Musica callada.
Example 34: Musica callada ^-Opening

L en to - ca.nta.bile
In the performance of this piece by the composer one is struck by the feet
that he plays the opening pitches o f each section as a dactyl (quarter-two
eighths) rather than as straight eighth notes, giving C4 (in section A l) and G4 (in
section A2) a special expressive emphasis, and then begins the eighth note motion
with the anacrusis of the second measure (albeit with the constant use of
expressive elongations). In addition, Mompou is very meticulous about how he
plays the simultaneities. He breaks most of them from bottom to top in the first
two sections (four intervals are played together in measures 7-9 and two in
measures 16 and 17) and in the final section plays all of the harmonic intervals
together (with one exception in measure 20). The composer seems to be
101
deliberately emphasizing the linear nature o f the first two sections, and makes a
point to direct the listener’s attention to the harmonic outlines in the final section:
a kind of harmonic solidification or concretion.

What is important about these observations is the feet that if one were to
play this piece with a generally even rhythmic flow, enhanced by some subtle
rubato, one might very possibly be missing what is essential to the music’s
expression. Distorting rhythm through expressive emphasis and elongation is one

of the musical techniques that Mompou discusses in detail in his own writings.
Therefore, the breaking of the simultaneities and the addition of expressive
changes to the repeat of the opening section (Al) are all qualities that must be
realized in performing this music.
M u sic a C a lla d a X I
In the composer's recording o f his Musica callada he moves from the

end of number X right into number X I, the only time that he segues directly into a
following piece. Perhaps this is an indication that, for Mompou, these two pieces
were connected in the same way as a Cancion y danza. While Musica callada X I
is not in triple meter (3/4 and 6/8 being the typical meters for a dance), the tempo
is lively and the change from a sad recitation in the minor mode to this energetic
and dance-like piece in Bb major gives one an impression that is similar to what is
heard in the Cancion y danza VIII.
Iglesias notes in his discussion that this opening melody (Theme A) seems
to bear a certain resemblance to those found in Suburbis (Iglesias, 321). The
102
opening phrase is in Bb major~a key used in another piece that presents a folk
song-like melody, Musica callada III--and one finds the melodic line
accompanied by parallel fourths and fifths (see Example 35).
Example 35: Musica callada ^7-Opening

A llegretto
ki.
r, --
- f — : - h - i
p r
The contrasting section that opens in measure 14 with the melody in the
bass (Theme B) maintains the playful quality of the opening, despite the m ino r
mode and the heavy presentation in the lower register. This section introduces a
new harmonic voicing to the Musica callada that places a half step on top of the
chord, lending a rather biting quality to the sonority [note: Iglesias provides us
with some very important corrections in his discussion. The top two notes of the
right hand voicing in measures 19, 21, and 25 should be F# and G natural—not F
natural and G#—and hence the same type o f voicing is used from measure 18-25].
Here, it is experienced as a rather humorous dissonance, but one will find this
type o f sonority, which projects the dissonance to the listener rather than subtly
concealing it within the texture, in a decidedly more ominous presentation in the
following piece. In addition, this B section contains some of the most
pronounced echo effects in the Musica callada and a wonderful contrast between
the initial presentation o f Theme B and its subsequent dolce presentation in G
103
minor (measures 26-33) with some very beautiful and tender modal
harmonizations (see Example 36).
Example 36: Musica callada ^/-Contrasting presentations of Theme B
Theme B-Measures 14-17
Theme B-Measures 26-29
a. Tempo
i i t it) i fJ JTJ: t ■ST] n

d o lc c
f '
\,f
L------------------------------- J
Finally, the return in Musica callada X I is rather unique, in that it
presents the listener with a condensed presentation of the entire piece. From
measures 43 to 50 one hears Theme A stated twice, then Theme B is briefly
echoed one last time as a consequent gesture of Theme A, and the final sonority
can be heard as a vertical layering o f the opening pitches.
104
M usica Callada X II
Musica callada X II brings the listener back to the world o f evocative

sonorities that was encountered in Musica callada V. Like the former, one finds
in its structure incessant repetition, colorfully dissonant metallic sonorities
punctuated by grace notes, and short melodic fragments that never coalesce into
melodic phrases. Iglesias opens his discussion o f this piece with the following
statement: “Once again, we return to submerge ourselves in a state of depression
or sadness, still augmented here by the monothematic insistence over this initial
motive, displayed in the lower register o f the piano...” (Iglesias, 322).
The opening of this piece (see Example 37) is a dirge that establishes the
rhythmic motion and tonal foundation (F) for the entire piece, and throughout
Example 37: Musica callada A7/-Opening
TC TC
PP
Musica callada X II one hears the music return to these F octaves in the lower
register o f the piano. Mompou uses a vertical structure here that is similar to
those heard in Musica callada X I in that he places the dissonant interval (minor
2nd) on top of the sonority. After the initial four-measure phrase, the music
diverges from pure repetition and states another four measure phrase (see
105
Example 38). The rhythmic pattern and the opening pitches F, C, and Db remain,
but the change in register, the grace notes, the richness of the interval content,
the heightened dynamic level, the opposing motion of the two hands (right hand
descending and left hand ascending), and the hint of a melodic motive heard in
this second phrase cause one to make an immediate differentiation between the
material presented in the two phrases. Throughout the course o f the opening
twenty two measures of this piece one hears these grace note sonorities, always
reiterated in four measure units, slowly rise in register. The single reiteration of
the opening dirge in measures 13 and 14, always heard in two measure units now,
further reinforces the listener’s awareness o f contrasting material within a
seemingly static and unchanging rhythmic presentation.
Example 38: Musica callada XU—Measures 5-8
" T i f t 7" l , d ~~
'C T T ---- -F td -- f P
mf
*-■ » ...... ■ y ■
r " ~ P " r r
In measure 23 the music expands into three spatial levels with the
entrance of Bbl in the bass (an occurrence that temporarily shifts the tonal
foundation), the parallel chords in the top register, and the appearance of a new
thirty-second-note-sextuplet figure in the middle register that utilizes, for the first
time in the Musica callada, the octatonic scale. In the composer’s recording of
this passage one hears Mompou sustain all these elements in a single pedal,
106
producing a layering effect that Iglesias describes as “...enveloping us in a certain
watery atmosphere...” (Igleasias, 322). It creates an atmosphere that is most
certainly enhanced by the mystical quality evoked by the octatonic elements here
in this piece.
The use of the octatonic scale to produce magical and mystical effects has
precedents in twentieth-century music; most notably in Scriabin’s Piano Prelude
Opus 74 #3 and in the music of Stravinsky. Elliott Antokoletz, in a lecture on
Stravinsky’s music at the University o f Texas at Austin (September 30, 1988),
stated that Stravinsky used this scale for musical references to Magic, God, and
the abstract wonder of nature. The only other time that Mompou utilized it, as
previously stated, was in his 7th Piano Prelude. Its aesthetic effect is most
notable here in the pianississimo sixteenth note cascades that one hears in
measures 33-38 (see Example 39).
Example 39: Octatonic Cascade-Measures 33-34
PPP
In measures 31 and 32 the opening repeated note figure returns as a

single F reiterating the first two measures o f the rhythmic pattern. From this
point on, one will hear the music alternate in two-measure segments between the
repeated F bass notes and the sixteenth-note-octatonic cascades (measures 31-

107
40) and, at the very end, between the low bass notes with the added minor
second on top and some very dense and concentrated mirror image chord
voicings in measures 41-42 and 45-46 (see Example 40). The change from four
measure phrases to two measure phrases has the effect of propelling the music
forward toward its conclusion, a final reiteration o f the opening dirge.
Example 40: Mirror Image Chords-Measures 41-42
Musica Callada XIII
Musica callada X III opens in duple meter with a tuneful melody in Eb

major. Iglesias says that this piece “...undoubtedly, casts its gaze toward the
popular [music] o f Catalonia” (Iglesias, 323). The expression marking is
“Tranquilo-tres calm ” and the A section (measures 1-15) opens with a simple
melodic gesture that outlines an ascending fifth (see Example 41). Mompou
lends a touch o f sweet melancholy to the opening o f this melodious cancion by
adding an F# bass note underneath the Eb major harmonization. For the
performer the balance between F#3 and the Eb major chord is crucial if one is to
create the right effect. The composer himself plays this dissonant element so
gently that it seems to blend into the sonority, adding a dissonant edge to the
108
sound that is ever so subtly pronounced. If the F# is too strong the affective
quality is lost. The folk-song-like melody in a major mode, the subtle
dissonances, the rhythmic gestures, and the simple modal part writing are all
reminiscent o f Musica callada III.
Example 41: Musica callada A7//-Opening

T ra n q u ilo - t r e s calm e
While the A section clearly conveys the element of nostalgia the B

section, on the other hand, points to a violent contrast within the composer’s
nature (see Example 42). Suddenly, after the quiet close of the A section in
measure 16, the music erupts in a sudden forte with a half-step trill on Bb3 and
Example 42: Musica callada A7//-Measures 17-19
E n e r g lc o (J= 9 6 )
----------------------n----------------
------- i T T
4 ^ — j i "z r - r r
A A
[>r r r r U d }
/ ----
109
Cb heard against repeated eighth notes on A^. This half-step cluster crescendos
toward a fourth-beat accentuation on a very dense whole-tone sonority over F 1
and the music proceeds, in two-measure units, with this pattern of activity.
This violent outburst suddenly subsides in measure 21, with a pianissimo
echo-efifect and a more dolce presentation o f the half-step trills and repeated
notes. This is followed by a crescendo in measure 23. that leads to another forte
accentuation on a densely packed chord in measure 27 (marked secco in the
score). The B section comes to a close in measures 28-30 as one hears the
opening melodic gesture, like a distant hom call on Bb3 and F4, quietly ring out
o f the sonorous haze left by the soft reiteration of the repeated notes and the
chord from measure 27 (a clear ‘signal’ of the return o f the cancion). Then, in
measures 29 to 30, one hears the echo of a tolling bell (see Example 43) and the
A section returns.
Example 43: Musica callada A7//-Measures 27-30

F tlt.
sec
u tftrr trtrtrr
The return of the A section is exactly the same except that Mompou adds
some low resonances to the sonority with some pedal points on Eb2 and Bb2; a
procedure that is similar to Musica callada II. The contrast between the A and B
110
sections here in Musica callada X III is by far the most pronounced o f the entire
set and, as stated in the beginning o f the discussion, undoubtedly points to some
intense emotional feelings within the composer. Whether or not these feelings
could be categorized as anger or frustration is a matter o f conjecture. What is

not a matter o f conjecture, however, is the feet that one hears an eruption of
energy in this miniature that can clearly be characterized as an emotional
outburst, and that this outburst is framed by a nostalgic song that echoes a hint of
sadness and melancholy in its harmonization.
Musica Callada XIV
Iglesias opens his discussion o f Musica callada X IV with the following
statement: “Clearly there is not any strict serialism; not even in that coda that
seems to outline almost completely a twelve-tone series... But we recognize, in
this Musica callada XIV\ an evident hint—voluntary or not—of some
compositional manners that must be situated among the antipodes o f the
mompouian world” (Iglesias, 324-325). This observation by Iglesias and the
music itself, testify to the fact that Mompou was influenced by and attracted to
many of the sounds presented by twentieth-century composers, and that the
“appreciable products and interesting formulas” (Janes,324) that the composer
mentioned in his speech on the Musica callada have certainly found their way
into this music.
ill
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited w ithout permission.
The expression marking is “Severo-serieux”, and the piece opens with a
dotted-eighth-sixteenth-note rhythm o u tlining a melodic line that is based on an
ascending natural minor scale. This gesture is only heard two times in the entire
piece; first in C minor (measures 1-3) and then in F minor doubled in octaves
(measures 10-11). This rhythm drives the opening eight measures forward to a
habanera-like exclamation on a fortissim o octave on F 1 and some harshly
dissonant rolled chords (see Example 44). With the exception o f the softer
restatement of the opening melody and the tender pianississimo echo of the
dotted rhythm that follows (measures 10-13), the first nineteen measures take the
listener through some o f the loudest dynamics, harshest dissonances, and most
angular melodic gestures in the entire M usica callada.
Example 44: Musica callada ATF-Measures 7-9
As the music arrives on a fortissimo Bb octave in measure 16 (the lowest
point in the Musica callada) and the subsequent restatement of the habanera-like
gesture, the opening drive and energy seem to exhaust themselves and give way
to a contrasting figure (marked dolce) that combines both the rhythmic gesture
and repeated notes from Musica callada X II with a sadly drooping chromatic
112
inner voice (see Example 45). From measures 20-33 there are two statements of
this contrasting material interspersed with some short forte exclamations of the
Example 45: Musica callada -ATF-Measures 20-23
dolce
PP
dotted-eighth-sixteenth-note rhythm. In the end, one hears only the final echoes
o f the opening drive and energy leading into what Iglesias called the coda. Here,
at the end of the piece, everything slowly dissipates into the final pianississimo
sonority, that extends from Cl all the way up to B6, and outlines a pointillistic
texture of whole-tone pitches above the suggested tonic (C). It leaves Musica
callada X IV without a return for the first time in the entire set (see Example 46).
Example 46: Musica callada ^7F-Ending
PPP p oco r lt .
113
Musica Callada X V
Iglesias calls Musica callada X V “...an evocation of one o f the most
beautiful preludes o f Chopin...” and goes on to say that “...the sum of this
fragment gives us a Chopin seen through the restlessness o f Mompou...”
(Iglesias, 326). The piece that he is referring to is the 4th Prelude in E minor
and Mompou himself acknowledges Chopin’s influence in this miniature (Iglesias,

326).
Iglesias identifies “three formative elements” in Musica callada X V that
consist of a syncopated rhythmic ostinato - [A], a syncopated-two-note motive in
the right hand with its characteristic felling minor 2nd - [B], and a three-note
counter-motive that enters in measure 6 with a calmer rhythmic nature - [C]

(Iglesias, 326). In addition, we can identify another element; that of a rising
minor 2nd formed from the inversion and “decapitation” (Coker, 84) of Figure C
- [D] (see Example 47).
Mompou establishes the mood with a tempo marking hyphenated with an

expression marking: “Lento-plaintif". Using Kivy’s theory of “contour” and
“convention” (see Kivy, 77-87 and 90-91) one finds three conventions of
Western music being used that help to establish this mood: (1) the minor mode;
(2) the use of chromaticism; and (3) the use o f Baroque-suspension counterpoint
(such as is found in the Lament from Bach's Capriccio upon the departure o f a
beloved brother). These same conventions can also be found in Chopin’s E
minor Prelude (see Example 48). The main difference is the constant use o f
syncopation in Musica callada XV.
114
Example 47: Musical Figures from Musica callada X V
Figure A Figure B
Figure C Figure D
^ J -ftj
p r
Figure A initiates the listener into the piece. Iglesias characterizes it with
the word “anhelante” (‘desirous’) because of its syncopated character. This
pattern remains constant from beginning to end and provides the music with an
uneven pulse that is combined with a continual sense of tension and release
(major 2nd to minor 3rd) and an overall chromatic fell to measure 9. Through
metaphoric extension, one might characterize it as being the heartbeat of the
music. Against this pattern one hears Figure B enter on a sharper syncopation,
Example 48A: Musica callada AT-Opening
L ento - p laln ttr
* w * ST
i sP
T O T O f
115
Example 48B: Chopin's Prelude #4-0pening
L a r g o _____________________________
'espressivo
i £ £
Hi
V
Vi
tenuto sem pre
falling a half step and resolving a beat later than the resolution o f Figure A.
Figure B, resembling a sort o f painful and insistent exclamation, remains static for
three repetitions while the ostinato drops slowly away from it. In measure 6
Figure C enters, still chromatic, but with a more placating and consoling rhythmic
gesture. Figure C seems to have an influence on Figure B because it is at this

point that the latter gives up its obstinacy and follows the other elements in their
pattern o f chromatic descent.
Measures 10-12 break the pattern of continuity heard in the opening and
lead into the ascending gestures that characterize the following section. The
continuity is interrupted on the down beat of measure 10 when C#4 disappears,
leaving Bb3 (termination point o f the descending chromatic pattern in the left
hand) by itself. At this point, the note G #3 is brought underneath Bb3, causing
one whole step in measure 9 to be followed by another in measure 10. Figure B

then is widened to a whole step, and in measure 11 Bb3 disappears when G #3
fells a half-step to G natural, once again disrupting the pattern o f whole step to
minor third. This move from G# to G natural is the last echo o f chromaticism in
a three-measure passage which opens up into a widely spaced sonority made of
4ths and 5ths in measures 11 and 12 (see Example 49).
116
Example 49: Musica callada AT-Measures 10-12
The arrival o f the music into the realm o f the 4ths and 5ths brings a moment of
relief from the conflicting tendencies of the three figures, but this symbol of
spirituality immediately gives way to Figure D (the rising motive).
The affect expressed by the opening is one of sadness and resignation,
gravity pulls the music down and there is very little effort expended. In the
following section, however, everything changes. Figures B and D are in conflict,
one falling, one rising, one resisting change, and one striving for change. These
gestures are combined with a rise in register and dynamic level that impart to the
listener an increase in tension, energy, and hence, effort. Kivy states the
following: “The ‘rise’ in pitch, like the raising of a physical body against gravity,
requires, at least in a great many of the most familiar cases, increased energy.
And the rise o f pitch, both in natural organisms and machines, betokens a rise in
energy level” (Kivy, 55). It is as if the music were resisting the sadness,
attempting to rise above it or escape from it. This effort then leads to a collapse,
or implosion, that is accomplished by a sudden drop in register and dynamic in
measure 17. The mood and emotion, it seems, remains inescapable as Figure D
pulls against the insistent reiterations o f Figure B, but is unsuccessful at escaping
its influence. After the climax in measures 21 to 23-the high point in register
117
and dynamic—and the subsequent collapse in measures 24 and 25, the music
inevitably returns to the opening material.
When listening to the piece one’s first impression would most likely be
that the return happens in measure 27. Upon closer inspection, however, one
finds a very different process occurring. What is heard at measure 27 is the

return of Figure A to its original register and intervalic pattern. The music is
suspended over a pedal point on Al and Figure B returns an octave lower in the
following measure. The pitches used in Figure A, however, are D4 and E4 (the
whole step from measure 3 of the opening rather than the original pitches Eb4
and F4). Did Mompou omit the first whole step to minor third pattern, or are
those pitches found before measure 27?
Looking at the score, one finds the original pitches in an inverted form at
measure 24, between F5 in the right hand and the top note of the ostinato D#4
(see Example 50). In the next measure, D#4 drops a half step to D4, and this
Example 50: Musica callada XF-Measures 24-25
X —
p sn b ito
m
pattern begins the sequence one finds in measure 1. In measure 25, at the point
Mompou brings back the inverted minor third from measure 2, one also find*; the
inverted form of the whole step from measure 3 in the pitches E3 and D4 in the
118
outer pitches of the ostinato. These pitches are prolonged for two measures, and
then inverted at measure 27, where they are sustained for two more measures.
Finally, at measure 29, D4 drops to C#4, and the pattern is continued.
Clifton discusses this spatial phenomenon and refers to it as “spatial
overlap” (Clifton, 196). The result, in this return, is the absence of any clear lines
of demarcation. In fact, one finds several levels of spatial overlap that actually
extend back to measures 17-19, when Figure B actually states the first of its three
interjections on Bb3 and [note: Iglesias provides an important correction
when he notes that the Bb from measure 17 is supposed to be tied over into
measure 18]. In addition, the original pitches of the ostinato return in inverted
form in measure 24 and these pitches, in turn, overlap with the return of the
pitches from measure 3 of the ostinato.

In the final section of Musica callada XV, one will notice that the
consoling gesture (Figure C) has disappeared, some bass notes have added a new
registerial dimension to the music, and Figure B has been moved an octave
lower. The return of Figure B in a lower register with the accompanying bass
resonances, indicates a deeper level o f absorption in the feeling being projected

by it (“Its emotion is secret and only takes sonorous form in its resonances
beneath the great cold cavern o f our solitude.”), while the disappearance of
Figure C (the placating gesture), can be seen as a resignation to the dominance o f
Figure B’s influence. One by one, the various elements reach their final points o f
resolution, still suggesting a certain level o f conflict and disagreement, until
Figure B finally resolves from G3 (measure 35) down a whole step to F3
(measure 36) and D minor is established. All the motions, conflicts, and tensions
119
have dissolved into the prevailing mood painted by the minor tonality and a 4th,
pulsating with the syncopated rhythm o f the ostinato, is the last gesture heard.
Without any reservation one can say that this piece is “expressive o f’
(Kivy, 12) the composer’s emotions o f sadness connected with death. One
cannot pinpoint this sadness to any specific event in the composer’s life, but the
composer’s comments in the section on the Musica callada and the expression
marking testify to the truthfulness o f this assertion. Sadness and grief are
complex processes within the human psyche and these processes are reflected in
the interplay o f the musical figures, the blurring of the lines of demarcation, and
the overlapping o f elements.
Musica Callada X V I
The 2nd cahier closes with Musica callada XVI. The expression marking
is “Cn/me” but beneath this “tranquil spirit” (Iglesias, 327) one hears an
undercurrent o f unrest. The form of the piece is as follows:
A - B - A’
1-20 21-48 49-58
The A section opens with a sixteenth-note-sextuplet figure and Mompou
indicates in the score that it should be played “enveloppe avec un peu de pedalen\
a suggestion that should be interpreted by the performer as a shallow pedal. The
120
only other time that the composer used sextuplets was in Musica callada X II and
here, as in the former piece, it is used in conjunction with the octatonic scale.
Iglesias uses water as a metaphor, in both instances, to convey the aesthetic

quality that this figuration evokes. In the former piece he characterized the
sextuplets as “enveloping us in a certain watery atmosphere” (Iglesias, 322) while
in the latter he states that it “gives us a sensation of calm water” (Iglesias, 327).
While this characterization is certainly fitting (the figuration enveloped by the
pedal does have the quality of an undulating surface), one could also use such
adjectives as fleeting, evanescent, or ephemeral to describe it.
After five repetitions o f this pattern one hears a very angular theme enter
in the lower register that rises up to Bb3 and settles upon D3 (see Example 51).
Example 51: Musica callada A’T'7-Measures 3-5
* <SUa__________ _______________ _______________---------------------
While rarely indicating any pedal markings in the Musica callada, (in pieces I-
XV the long pedal marked underneath the final measure o f Musica callada X IV
is the only pedal indication found), here Mompou notates separate pedals for
each note o f this theme, a pedaling that further enhances the disjointed quality
presented by its widely spaced and angular construction. In measures 7 and 8 the
contour o f the sextuplet pattern changes and the motion comes to a temporary
121
4
halt on a quarter note on A and from measures 9-16 one hears an exact
repetition o f the first eight measures a tritone higher. The fleeting motion of the
octatonic sextuplets, the prominent use of the tritone in the figuration, melody,
and sequential scheme of repetition, and the disjointed theme all contribute to the
quality of unrest underlying the calm atmosphere o f this opening section.

In measures 17-18 the figuration is changed to a rising pattern, in a mezzo
forte dynamic, supported by a pronounced dynamic swell, and in measures 19-20
still another pattern leads into the B section with a diminuendo. With the
exception o f (left hand measure 6) and Ab3 (left hand measure 14) the pitch
content of the entire A section is derived from the octatonic scale spelled either
C#-D#-E-F#-G-A-Bb-C, or, Db-Eb-Fb-Gb-G-A-Bb-C. With the arrival into the

B section the music slows to a basic eighth note motion and a Molto cantabile
poco piu lento. The first six measures of the B section are heard as transitional
measures, smoothed out by the feet that, with the exception of a single pitch (B4
in measure 25), all the pitches are members of the same octatonic scale.
In measure 27, something very significant happens as a new theme is

announced (see Example 52). While this theme is heard back in measure 21,
Mompou disguises it in that passage by giving greater prominence to the lower
notes of the texture. Here, on the other hand, he clearly draws the listener’s
attention to it by stating it all by itself in a fortissimo dynamic. By so doing, the
composer is using this theme as a “signal” (Coker, 5-6), evoking a response of

recognition in the listener. Even though this theme uses only three of the four
pitches it is, nonetheless, recognizable as the same theme that opens Musica
callada IX, the miniature that closes the l 9 cahier.
122
Example 52: Musica callada AT7-Measures 27-31
This theme, the origins of which have been shown to emanate from the opening
sonority of Musica callada I, is not a leitmotif in the Wagnerian sense because it
does Dot have a narrative meaning; i.e., it does not relate to a person, object, or
idea. It is, instead, a purely musical symbol that acquires significance as one
hears it resurface through the course of these pieces. In Musica callada IX one
hears the melody circling around the same four pitches until the melodic leap at
the end o f the phrase (see Example 30). Here, after its initial pronouncement,
Mompou unfolds an eight-measure phrase where the motive is stated, varied
rhythmically, and extended through a phrase segment that incorporates two other
transpositions o f the same melodic figure, the first o f which (C#-E-F#) is stated
strictly as an ascending figure (see Example 53). Within the intensely beautiful
intervalic combinations that harmonize this melody one can also hear the
alternating whole-step accompaniment that was used in Musica callada IX.
Following the almost exact sequential repetition of these eight measures

the opening figuration returns, heard this time over an open fifth on Bl and F#2.
The opening melody, now heard in diminution in measures 51-52 (eighth notes
rather than quarter notes), is immediately repeated in measures 53-54 as the
music hastens forward toward its almost immediate conclusion. After three
123
Example 53: Musica callada ATT-Measures 32-37
d olce
repetitions o f the material from measures 7 and 8, this time with a wooden
sounding half step placed on top o f the texture, the piece closes ominously with
“Diabolus in musica ” in the bass (a tritone stated melodically from Gb2 to C2).
While this tritone should not be literally interpreted as being representative of
*Diabolus" it does, nonetheless, leave the 2nd cahier, in contrast to the 1st cahier.
with a very unsettled and restless sensation.
4. The 3rd C a h ie r
Musica Callada XVII
The 3rd cahier of the Musica callada, completed in 1965 and published
in 1966, contains the next five pieces in the series (XVII-XXI). They are
contemporary with Mompou’s outstanding oratorio, Improperios (1963), for
Baritone, Choir, and Orchestra: a work that Roger Prevel called “the most
beautiful oratorio written in Spain during the second half o f the twentieth
124
century” (PreveL, 154). The opening piece. Musica callada XVII, is in E minor
and the phrase structure is as follows:
A1 - A l’ - B1 - B l ’ - C - Coda(A l” )
1-4 5-8 9-12 13-17 18-21 22-25
The piece opens with bell-like G octaves in the right hand reiterating the
rhythmic gesture heard in Musica callada X II and, as in so many of the Musica

callada, the entire piece is permeated by the incessant repetition of that rhythmic
incantation (see Examples 37 and 54). In the opening phrase the sadly-drooping
melodic figures in the left hand add poignant dissonances to the essentially E
minor sonority. In the following phrase, Mompou simply transposes the material
up a diminished 4th (Ab minor) and thereby heightens the emotional intensity o f
the music. This shifting o f entire blocks o f music to different tonal levels is
characteristic o f many o f the remaining pieces in the Musica callada.
Example 54: Musica callada AT7/-Opening
L e n to
. '" f
The B phrases continue to reiterate the rhythmic gesture with a new
melodic figure characterized by a rising half step, a large upward leap of a
125
seventh, and a falling half step; a gesture that is filled with a sense o f yearning
(see Example 55). Mompou, once again, heightens the emotional intensity by
transposing the second phrase up a fourth from E minor to A minor. This time,
however, the transposition is not as exact. The melody is doubled in octaves, the
sonority is enriched with the addition of more voices, and the phrase closes on
the dominant (an open 5th on B) with a short extension.
Example 55: Musica callada ATTZ-Measures 10-12
-j." -' _ J r'
J--- ---* - -fjs

-- — —)--—
- >
-—
-
»—*- 1
►
r r r I
■e-
33 m
After the music returns to E minor with yet another contrasting melodic
shape that utilizes an opposite melodic contour than that of the preceding phrase,
the piece ends with a coda (see Example 56) that presents a shortened and
Example 56: Musica callada ATTZ-Coda

rit.
126
denuded return of the opening. Here, the opening octaves have been reduced to
a single pitch in the middle of the sonority and the piece closes on a harmony
built from the pitches found in measures 3 and 4; a combination of E minor with
a widely spaced whole-tone cluster.
Musica Callada XVIII
Musica callada XVIII contains an expression marking that is unique to

this single piece; Luminoso. A possible key to understanding this marking can be
found in the annotations provided by San Juan de la Cruz in reference to the
verses from the Cantico espiritual that first inspired Mompou to write the
Musica callada. In these annotations San Juan describes “l a noche sosegada ’’
(‘the peaceful night’) as a night that is “ew par de los levantes de la aurora ”
(‘coupled with the first rays of the dawn’), and he uses this image as a metaphor
to describe the souls awakening from “the darkness of natural knowledge, to the
morning light of supernatural knowledge” (Janes, 261).

Mompou further evokes this image with a musical figure that conveys the
image of a bird singing with the first light of the dawn (see Example 57). This
triplet figure is stated once mezzo forte, then two more times as a pianissimo
echo; suggesting a call and a distant answer. The opening sonority, based upon
the notes o f an extended half-diminished seventh chord (E-G-Bb-D-F#-A), brings
back the ‘tone formation’ noted in the discussions o f Musica callada I, IX, and
XVI. The A section of the piece is built upon the juxtaposition of this voicing and
127
melodic figure to three different tonal levels (1)4, G3, C4), and the section closes
on a clear D7 in measure 13.
Example 57: Musica callada XVIII-Opening
Lumlnoso ( J z 1 2 6 )
^ ff\ s
pp
In the B section (measures 14-21) Mompou changes the expression with
a dance-like section in 6/8 that is built from two four-measure phrases, the
second o f which is an exact transposition a whole step lower. It is interesting to

note that the counter melody marked with tenutos by the composer (see score;
left hand measures 15 and 19) outlines, once again, the opening ‘tone formation’.
This echo of musical elements from earlier pieces in the Musica callada
continues in the following phrase; a four-measure phrase (section C-measures 22-
25) that stands out as a short parenthetical statement in Musica callada XVIII
(see Example 58). Looking at the score one might not recognize the connection,
because the melody is a simple A major triad outlined in quarter notes. In

listening to the composer play this passage, however, one can hear the echo of
the melody from Musica callada III as Mompou plays the three quarter notes as
a dactyl (long-short-short). It is as if the composer were casting a brief glance
back in time toward that nostalgic melody from the 1st cahier, a brief moment
128
that soon gives way to a shortened repeat o f the opening and a short two-
measure coda that states the opening melody one last time in augmentation.
Example 58: Musica callada XVIII-Measuies 22-25
PP do Ice
Musica Callada XIX
Mompou, after playing Musica callada X IX for Antonio Iglesias, stated

that it was one of his “preferred” compositions and then added: “I am very
content and also I am not sure that this music is mine; the music does not come
from us..., when it is good;... I prefer an idea that arrives, that captivates us in
our interior...: I listen to my music and I ask myself how is it possible that you
have made this?” (Iglesias, 332-333).
This miniattire is filled with a wealth o f melodic invention in a simple A-
B-A’ structure delineated by the piu mosso in measure 17 (marking the beginning
of the B section), and the fermata and Tempo I marking at measures 30 and 31
(A’). The expression marking is Tranquillo but Iglesias contends that “...there is
a great deal of exalted lyricism in the entire fragment, a contained passion,
derived from its melodic contours and, moreover, from the ample existence of so
129
many expressive indications” (Iglesias, 332). The melodic contours of the piece
are based on combinations of major and minor seconds and wide leaps of a sixth
or, more frequently, a seventh (see Example 59). There is no key signature in
Musica callada X IX but the framework clearly suggests Bb minor (the A sections
both begin with Bb minor and end with a V7 to i cadence in that key).
Example 59: Musica callada AZT-Opening
poco rft.
J := 66
T'ra.nquillo (•
i g i
X T TT fW
The music opens in a four-voiced texture consisting of a melody, two
middle voices moving in parallel motion at the interval o f a sixth, and an off-beat
bass line. The melodic line forms two-measure phrases that combine into four-
measure groups delineated by ritards, and into eight-measure phrases punctuated
by cadences. The cadential punctuations are strengthened by an increase to a six-

voice texture in measures 8 and 16, and the use o f added ninths and sharp
elevenths to the F minor and Bb minor harmonies leaves them suspended and
unresolved. The two-and four-measure melodic lines of the A section reveal nine
distinct contours with subtle intervalic changes within groups that share sim ilar
contours (see Chart 1 and Example 60). This melodic variety is unified by a one-
measure rhythmic pattern, (the long- short o f the trochaic rhythmic mode of
130
medieval music), and the off-beat bass line, which lends the music a rocking
motion.
Chart 1: Musica callada XIX- Section A
Measure: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Melodv I: a a c c' e e e a(snlit)

Accomp I: b c” c” ? c* f c’ h
Accomn II:b c” d c' f c’ i
Bass: Chaneine Intervals-No repeated patterns
Example 60: Nine melodic contours from Section A
(a)
0>)
(c) (d)
i .il/g/ 3C
■— »- —!J— —i!—i _
° W—i—r
J J i
131
This A section can be said to represent constancy and change, in that,
within an unchanging rhythmic pattern one experiences constant changes in
melody, harmony, and motion. The flow of ever changing linear elements
forming vertical structures with varying degrees o f harmonic tension gives the
music what could be called a kaleidoscopic quality o f changing harmonic colors.
The colors are generally dark, due to the minor sonorities and chromaticism, but
the effect is very unlike Musica callada XV, in which these features were also
prominent. In the former piece, the musical gestures were highly syncopated and
the vertical structures were compacted into a much narrower space. Musica
callada XIX, on the other hand, is closer to a slow and stately dance through a
132
magical world o f moving sonorities; constantly changing, never exactly the same,
lingering here and there to enjoy the “-.intermingling vibrations in between the
intervals...” (Iglesias, 18). There is tranquillity (tranquillo) and passion (melodic
contours), constancy and change, motion and stasis. The musical colors are dark
but still lucid because of their wide spacing.
Iglesias contends that the contrast between the A section and the B
section is primarily one of tempo, and secondarily one o f motivic structure
(Iglesias, 332). A closer examination o f the score, however, reveals differences

in all aspects of the music. There are seven different melodic patterns in the B
section (see Chart 2 and Example 61), the rhythmic elements are diversified, the
harmonic structures are generally based upon seventh chords, the bass part is
changed, there is an increase in dynamic activity, and the 4+4 phrase pattern of
the A section is extended by two measures. Here, as the motion of the music
increases, one is not as inclined to focus upon the simultaneities as much as the
longer melodic lines.
Chart 2: Musica callada XIX- Section B
Measure: 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Melodv I: i j’ p
Accomp I: k m k m’(split) i (fragments)
Accomp II: k n k n o p
Bass: 1 n 1 n’ bass-line
133
Example 61: Melodic contours from Section B
(j)
ip « L . J is :
00 (1)
(m) (n)
I
(o)
if2 £ - 4 * *2j
§
(p)
f I: r ii- *r It- m. ~ZE
134
In the penultimate phrase (the molto cantabile in measures 27-30). the
miniature reaches a quiet emotional apex. For the first time the quarter-note
pulse is interrupted with an eighth-note anacrusis in the bass (measure 26), and
the melody line, doubled two octaves lower in the left hand, evokes a passionate
statement that echoes the rare phrygian melodic figure that was noted in the
analysis o f Musica callada II (see Example 14 and 62). For a brief moment, the
music breathes the atmosphere o f the rural Catalan countryside o f which

Mompou was so fond. The melodic doubling in measures 27-30 reinforces the
emotional impact of this moment o f hushed intensity that is presented in a piano

dynamic, and the music pauses on a C l chord (the dominant of the dominant
minor) and a fermata.
Example 62: Musica callada AZJf-Measures 27-30

m o lt o c a n t a b il e rit.
At Tempo I (measure 31), the music returns to the opening material in Bb
minor. The sudden shift from a C7 is smoothed over by a leading tone motion
from E4 in measure 30 to F4 in measure 31. Throughout the piece one finds
similar connective procedures adding cohesion and continuity to the clearly

defined two- and four-measure phrases, as well as the larger formal units. These
connective elements take the form o f common tones, repeated motives, and linear
135
elements moving in step-wise motion (sometimes displaced by an octave), and
are found in one voice or passing from one part of the texture to another.
In the first four-measure phrase, the only difference is an intensification of

the dynamic level (mezzo forte instead of piano). At measure 35, however,
Mompou diverges from the material presented in the A section by restating the
first cadential figure from measures 7 and 8, sequencing these two measures a
whole step lower, inserting measures 11-12 transposed a whole step lower, and
finally, restating the cadential gesture one more time. Here, the composer is
doing more than simply replacing one piece of the puzzle with another. He is
looking back at what had transpired and choosing to dwell upon a certain feature.
By selecting this particular passage, and unfolding it in sequence,
Mompou is revealing a preference for it and leading the listener to do the same.
It is what Coker refers to as an “incitive sign”, where a musical passage is used
“to guide the interpreter to some specific response pattern” (Coker, 5). This
passage causes one to look back, to invoke one's memory; a process that gives
this return the phenomenal quality of a memory, where the remembrance does
not repeat the experience exactly as it happened but is selective about the
elements brought back to consciousness.
The piece ends then with an eight-measure phrase that is uninterrupted by
any changes o f tempo. With the final cadence on Bb minor the music is brought
back to the tonic, but there is no sense of resolution. The final sonority combines
the sharp eleventh found in the cadence to F minor in measure 8, with the major
seventh found in the cadence to Bb minor in measure 16, leaving the piece
suspended in an open-interval structure resonating in the pedal (see Example 63).
136
Example 63: Musica callada XEX-Ending
r i i .
= * = = £ = — = t- h — ■!
i p p ^
t i 4 - ------- J — -&-S>--------
* r I ■
I E
T
* ^ -
This sense of irresolution, in effect, permeates the entire piece. Stable

harmonic structures are only found at the beginning o f each A section. When the
simultaneities form recognizable harmonic structures they are found in the form
of dominant sevenths, minor sevenths, half-diminished sevenths or altered chords.

From beginning to end the music seems to be searching; it pauses and lingers but
never reaches a state of rest or resolve.
Musica Callada XX
Musica callada XX, like Musica callada XIX, was one of the composer’s
favorite compositions (Iglesias, 334). Iglesias attempts to fit the piece into an A-
B-A-B formal structure because of the presence of two contrasting melodic
figures. In reality, however, the piece can not be fit into such a neat, formal mold
since, as shall be seen, Mompou interweaves the two themes within Iglesias' B
section and states the A theme in a clearly contrasting section before the actual
return of A in measure 39.
137
The opening phrase (measures 1-10) is in an unusual 5+5 phrase structure
(like Musica callada III) and Mompou sets up two rhythmic patterns; one for the
right hand, which carries the main theme, and one for the accompanying left hand
(see Example 64). One should immediately recognize the rhythmic pattern of the
Example 64: Musica callada XT-Opening

C alm e (J r 56) rtt.
0 a ,' — * jH -
■
tr
.-------------------- -—
t
H----------------------* ----- '

..
“8
»V - Vi---- i f K ■ 0 ------------- ? ■
r ------------
/ ■
& 7 -f
‘— --------------
7 i ' ~ l -------------
# __________
melody (dotted quarter-eighth note) as the primary rhythmic gesture in Musica

callada IX, as well as the opening gesture of Musica callada I, VI, XII, and XVII.
As in Musica callada X, Mompou intentionally distorts the rhythm in his
recording of the piece by elongating the eighth notes in the melody. The basic
sonority is that of an A dominant seventh but the melodic line suggests both
major and minor with the presence o f C# and C natural; one o f the common
features of Catalan folk music. Furthermore, the phrase is filled with the
opposition of two-note slurs in rising and falling motions; a feature noted in the
discussion of Musica callada IV. After a cadence punctuated by a V-I motion in

the bass from G2 to C2 (measure 10-11), the opening five measure phrase is
simply repeated a whole step lower which, in turn, leads to the contrasting
melody (Iglesias’ B section).
138
The rhythmic gesture that characterizes this new melodic figure is an
amphibrach pattern (short-long-short) that has been heard only one other time in
the Musica callada; the syncopated left-hand accompaniment of Musica callada
X V (see Example 47). While it is a clearly contrasting figure, its two-measure
descending pattern leads into the basic gesture that characterizes the main theme.
Hence, one does not hear this as the beginning o f a B section as much as an
intensification of feeling, issuing forth like a subtle wave of emotion that soon
ebbs with the quiet reiterations of the opening melody (see Example 65).
The repeat of this phrase, a whole step lower, leads to the climactic
phrase where the amphibrach pattern is repeated over and over against a highly
chromatic accompaniment. After the intensity of this phrase has subsided another
motive from earlier in the Musica callada—the bell-like motive from Musica
callada AT7/—reappears, quietly repeating a single G natural in measures 33-34,
and from out of this motive comes a contrasting presentation of the main theme
Example 65: Musica callada XX-Measuies 15-19
h --- 1----1---------
— i-------------- *—
1— --------:— Y-—
ifT r
7 ~t
^ P T 1
r— [i
(piii lento; measures 34-38) that presages the primary return at the Tempo I
(measure 39). The melody, heard in the bass, is harmonized by some altered
139
dominant voicings in the right hand that lend what could be described as a
ghostly quality to the main theme (see Example 66).
Example 66: Musica callada XT-Measures 34-38
plu len to
sk
p p cant. w
0
With the return of the opening one hears Mompou transform the
representation of materials through the simplest and most basic means; excision
(measures 11-15 are omitted), insertion (addition of the Scriabinesque material
heard in measures 57-59), and transposition (the material from the piii lento is
heard a minor third lower with the theme in its original transposition in measures
61-65). After the second piit lento section comes to a close (measure 64-65),
Mompou concludes the piece with a short codetta that quietly echoes the
amphibrach rhythm one last time. The opening sonority based upon an A7, it
seems, was pointing toward the conclusion from the very beginning, for the piece
ends on a D minor 9 chord. This ending, together with the amphibrach rhythmic
gesture, points to a relationship between Musica callada X X and Musica callada

XV, the only other piece thus far to utilize that particular rhythmic gesture and
the tonal center of D minor.
140
Musica Callada XXI
The final piece in the 3rd cahier, Musica callada XXI, contains the most
concentrated and austere sonorities heard thus far. The miniature opens with two
basic gestures; one characterized by its steep, angular two-note slurs and sharp
dotted rhythms, and the other, a simple repeated bass note on B 1 (see Example
67). In measure 5, the score divides into three staves, creating four distinct
layers of activity: (1) sustained chords in the bass register; (2) fourths and fifths
utilizing the dotted rhythm in the middle register; (3) a short, lyrical theme played
in the upper register of the piano that leads into (4) the quiet echoes o f a grace-
note figure in the highest register. One hears, within the texture formed from
these multiple levels of activity, some seven to eight different pitches resonating
in the pedal, creating a very intense sonority with dissonant overtones.
Example 67: Musica callada XXI-Opemng
_____ * ^ ta
in measure 10 Mompou changes from quadruple meter to triple, the
dotted rhythm disappears, and a new theme played in thirds enters in the top
register. The contour of this theme (repeated note, descending step, ascending
141
leap of a seventh or ninth, descending step) is similar to the expressively yearning
motives heard in Musica callada X, XVII, and XIX. From the very beginning the
music has reiterated one-measure units; repeated blocks in pairs followed by

contrasting blocks in pairs. From measure 10-18, however, one-measure units
take on the sensation o f longer lines, directionality, and eventual climax as the
lyrical theme carries the music forward in two- and four-measure units.
Throughout this section, Mompou continues to layer chord upon chord, interval
upon interval, maintaining a high density o f pitches within the overall sonority.
The frequent use of major sevenths, and other dissonant intervals, adds great
emotional intensity to the vibrations heard resonating in the piano.
With the return at measure 19, Mompou resumes the scheme of paired
repetitions he set up in the opening and maintains it until the end. As in Cants
magics the listener can experience some remarkable effects through a minimum
of means. For instance, the color change heard at the marking plus clair in
measure 23, when the music momentarily passes through a voicing based upon a
transposition o f the notes from the opening ‘tone formation’ (B-C#-E-F#),

actually seems to evoke the sensation o f clarity even though the harmony remains
unclear (see Example 68). Furthermore, the change from a B pedal point to an E
pedal point in measure 25 (the only hint o f a V-I tonal foundation that underlies
every piece in the Musica callada), conveys a clear sense of finality to Musica
callada XXI, even though a clear key center had never been established.
142
Example 68: Musica callada X£7-Measures 23-25
5. The 4th Cahier
Musica Callada X X II
The 4th cahier, completed in 1967 and edited and published in 1974,
contains the last seven pieces in the set (XXH-XXVHl). It was written in
response to a musical fellowship bestowed upon Mompou by the “Fundacion
March” (Iglesias, 338) and stands out as the only notebook with a dedication. It
is dedicated to the esteemed pianist and fellow faculty member at Musica en
Compostela, Alicia de Larrocha, who gave the first public performance of these
pieces at the International Festival of Cadaques in 1972 (Iglesias, 338).
Musica callada X XII is built from seven blocks of music. Each

succeeding block is an exact transposition, with or without extension, of the
preceding four-measure phrase that yields the following form:
143
A - A - B1 - B1 - B2 - B2 - A’
1-4 5-8 9-12 13-18 19-22 23-27 28-31
The piece opens with a tonal motion that will soon be seen as a reflection
of the Musica callada as a whole; a motion from minor to major. We heard this
briefly in the 1st cahier that opened with Musica callada I in A minor and closed
with Musica callada IX in E major. In that particular case, however, one might
not experience the change unless one is cognizant o f the framework of the 1st
cahier. Here, the change is quite pronounced because the opening phrase moves
directly from D minor to D major, juxtaposing the two basic tonal colors that
have shaped and defined much of Western music through the centuries.
In listening to this phrase one experiences an undeniable sensation of
release and relaxation of tension. The tension, it seems, is the result of the minor
mode, the chromaticism in the left hand, and the return o f the amphibrach
rhythm that is heard reiterated between the left hand and the syncopated bell-like
repeated notes in the right hand (see Example 69). This amphibrach rhythmic
gesture, as will be remembered, was described by Iglesias as ‘desirous’ in his
discussion o f Musica callada XV; that sad and plaintive recitation in D minor
from the 2nd cahier (Iglesias, 326). The sense of relaxation, on the other hand,
comes solely from the arrival upon D major and the cessation of motion effected
by the fermata at the end of the phrase.
144
Mompou is, once again, using the simplest o f means to achieve a
profound effect. The composer's desire to return to the beginning (‘recomenzar)
has been clearly achieved here, because one can experience this tonal motion
Example 69: Musica callada XY7/-Opening

Motto tento e tranquilo
much as Kivy suggests the early baroque musicians did. with the minor sounding
active and restless and the major sounding like the point of rest and repose (see
Kivy, pg. 82, for discussion of minor triad). Thus far in the Musica callada, the
minor mode has predominated, with fourteen of the twenty one pieces having
clearly established a minor tonality, made prominent use of the minor mode, or
subtly alluded to a minor tonal center. In addition, several of the pieces in a

major mode have been colored by elements of the minor mode. This pattern has
led to what one could describe as a saturation of the minor mode through the
course of these pieces, a saturation that makes this simple change to a clear major
chord so effective.
After the opening phrase has been restated a fourth higher, a new melody
enters in the phrygian mode (Bl) that Iglesias characterizes as a “sad song for a
violoncello” (Iglesias, 339). The two statements of this new theme end with
unsettling sonorities built of primarily minor thirds; the second of which brings
145
back the allusion of tolling bells in its two measure extension. In the following
two phrases the character of this melody is changed (B2). It is heard in a higher
register with a sad minor harmonization that is replete with descending two-note
slurs and lingering suspensions that utilize the descending phrygian motive (A-G-
F# in measures 21-22 and E-D-C# in measures 25-26), characteristic of
Mompou's cadences in such sad recitatives as Planys I and Musica callada I (see
Example 11 and 70).
Example 70: Musica callada XXII-Measures 19-22
m olto can labile
molto rtf
i f i
m ¥
f T f
Finally, the piece comes to an end with the return o f the opening phrase
and the clear pianississimo D major chord in the final two measures. A calm and
restful close that seems to presage what is about to happen as the entire body of
the Musica callada comes to an end.
Musica Callada XXIII
The opening o f Musica callada XXIII is similar to Musica callada III and
XIII. The expression marking reads “Calme, avec clarte". All three pieces
utilize the major mode (Bb major, Eb major, and B major), all three opening
146
themes clearly outline a perfect fifth, and elements o f the parallel minor mode are
utilized in the harmonization of each theme (see Examples 15,41, and 71).
Example 71: Musica callada X¥7//-Opening
,
Cahne ave'c clarte r it
The A section o f #XXIII (measures 1-17) consists o f two periods built
from antecedent-consequent phrases, the second o f which is an exact repetition a
whole step lower (from B major to A major). The theme, a simple alternation
between F#5 and B4 in the first period and E^ and A4 in the second, remains
unchanged in the consequent phrase, with the exception o f the final pitch (C#5 in
measure 8 and B4 in measure 16). The contrast between antecedent and
consequent, therefore, is not so much the result o f the theme as it is the
harmonization. The antecedent phrase is built o f a clear three-note texture where

all but four pitches are notes of the tonic triad (B-D#-F#), while the consequent
phrase is harmonized by dense altered dominant voicings, containing five to
seven notes, that obscure an otherwise clear tonic-subdominant-dominant

harmonic structure within the harmonic texture (see score, measures 5-8). The
contrast from the clear folk-like presentation with a touch of melancholy, to the
dense and rather austere harmonization that follows, seems to mirror a process o f
increasing density and abstraction in the Musica callada as a whole.
147
As in the previous piece, the middle section (beginning at the Poco piu
mosso in measure 17) features two contrasting thematic periods (measures 17-25
and 25-35) with longer, more lyrical lines, and more varied melodic contours.
There is an atmosphere of exoticism present in the second period, due to the
alternating phrygian figure in the right hand that is new to the Musica callada
(see Example 72). At the Tempo I marking in measure 36, the main theme
returns to close the piece. The consequent phrase, however, is changed as
Mompou condenses important elements in the piece within the final phrase. The
right hand alternates two second inversion triads, B major and A major
(representing the two key centers from the opening period), while the final
sonority completely obscures any sense of key as the B major triad is layered
over the notes C#2, G#2, and A3; a sonority that combines the tonic B with the
notes from measure 26 (as seen in Example 72).
Example 72: Musica callada AX///-Measures 25-28
us
T
m a r c a t o il c a n to \
sFz
148
M usica Callada XXIV
In Musica callada XXIV Mompou uses the familiar three-note phrygian
motive (C-Db-Eb) as the basis for the opening theme. The motive usually
appears as a descending inner voice within a cadence (see Musica callada I and
XXII) but is heard here as an ascending melodic figure (see Example 73). In
addition, the opening 'tone formation' resurfaces, heard between the left hand
Example 73: Musica callada XXIV-Opening

Moderato nt
mf
accompaniment and the melody (F3-G3-Bb3-C4 in the opening measure). The
opening period is created from two five-measure phrases, the second o f which
restates the theme a fifth higher and leads to a poignant half cadence on a
sonority that layers notes from the whole-tone scale (C-D-E-F#-G#-A#) over a G
bass. One can view the cadence at measure 9 as a half-cadence because, in the
following measure, the music settles on a clear C major chord.
While Mompou touched the key o f C minor briefly in Musica callada X
and X IV and ended the 2nd cahier with an ominous tritone on C in Musica
callada XVI, this moment is significant because it is the first time he has used C
major (the relative minor o f the opening piece) in any of the pieces in the Musica
149
callada. This arrival on C major, though brief (F and Bb immediately enter in the
following measure in the left hand), gives the listener a wonderful sensation o f
calm and stands as another example of the emerging preeminence of the major
mode (see Example 74).
Example 74: Musica callada XXW-M&asuies 11-14
mf
The theme in this section outlines the C major triad in measures 10 and 11
and the A minor triad in measure 12. In measure 14, A minor gives way to A
major and the music opens into an extended section o f incomparable beauty (see
measures 15-30) that breathes an atmosphere o f romanticism similar to some of

the most tender moments in the music o f Rachmanino ff (a pianist that Mompou
heard play in concert). Mompou achieves a marvelous effect in the transitional

measures that begin this section (measures 15-17) by layering black notes over
the remaining white notes from measure 14, and then clearing the dissonance
away by entering a pure black-note sonority in measure 17.
The first ten measures of the return (measures 37-46) are exact. The
arrival on C major, however, brings forth a coda that reiterates C major until the
end of the piece. Elements of the minor mode enter into the picture (Bb in
150
measure 48, Bb and Ab in measure 50, Ab and Fb in measure 52), but in the end
nothing remains but a clear and calm C major chord.
Musica Callada XXV
Antonio Iglesias, in his discussion of the following piece, expresses great
admiration for Musica callada X XV and states his personal belief that the piece
“reunites the finest essences” o f Federico Mompou (Iglesias, 343). Though the
piece is not twelve-tone, in a strict theoretical sense, the atmosphere o f serialism
can clearly be heard throughout (the opening A section uses every pitch but C).
'‘Everything is a series of questions and answers, of propositions and resolutions,

of returning to the serial design...”, or, “...serial perfume,” says Iglesias (Iglesias,
345). It is Mompou expressing the most austere and abstract side o f his nature.
11 is a side that touches upon an aesthetic essence that one could compare to the
music o f Anton Webem, the one twelve-tone composer that Mompou truly
admired, an essence that conveys an “atmosphere of intimacy and mystery”
(Janes, 268-269). Iglesias outlines the formal structure as follows (Iglesias, 345):
A - B - C - B - D - A - B - C
1-10 11-15 16-26 27-31 32-42 43-44 45-49 50-54
The A and C sections o f Musica callada XXV utilize the same
‘pointillistic’ texture that was mentioned in the discussion of Musica callada X,
where the sonority is the result of distinct and spatially separate musical tones
151
resonating in the pedal. One can note that, though Mompou clearly indicates a
long pedal below the antecedent in measures 1-3, he distinctly pedals most o f the
individual notes in his recording. Both o f these sections (A and C) utilize, as
Iglesias has noted, a question and answer structure where question statements are
always heard forte or fortissimo and answer statements are heard pianissimo (see
Example 75). These forte statements and piano answers, heard either as sound
and echo or question and answer, are a primary trait of Mompou's music as a
whole and can be heard throughout the Musica callada (see Musica callada V
measures 18-25; Musica callada VIII, measures 1-10; Musica callada XVIII,
measures 1-9; and Musica callada XXI, measures 1-7, for other examples).
The B sections are relatively short and quiet interjections of parallel
fourths, the element o f organum resurfacing in a more contemporary atmosphere.

The single D section, on the other hand, seems to breathe the air of an expressive
folk song momentarily (see Example 75). Mompou marks this section dolce and
the mixture of major (melody) and minor (harmonization) is, once again, quite
evident.
Example 75: Four Sections from Musica callada XXV

Section A-Measures 1-5 lento molto
8 -
( • = 100)
pp-
Molto n t
152
Section B-Measures 11-15
lento
pp
Section C-Measures 15-20

motto n t ___
r pp
jJ -
s /i Ped. * P*d. * Ped.

lento
- *
Section D-Measures 32-35
do! ci
As in previous pieces, Mompou builds Musica callada XXV from blocks
o f material that are repeated and transposed throughout the course of the piece.
153
While this technique is used throughout the Musica callada, this time Mompou
constructs the entire piece in this manner. The end o f the piece, for instance, is
composed of the question from measures 6-8, the transposition of B heard in
measures 27-31, and the two answers from the C section (measures 18-20 and
24-26). This technique o f formal construction could be compared to the abstract
style o f painting known as “cubism”, as exemplified in the work of the Catalan
artist Pablo Ruiz Picasso.

The use of non-tonal and non-tertian material, the sharply angular
melodic lines, and the constant use of these block structures, lend an atmosphere
of mystery and austerity to Musica callada XXV. The bold and fortissimo
questions and the quiet and intimate answers seem to suggest the plight o f a
mystic such as San Juan de la Cruz. The mystic wants to perceive reality
directly, so the human soul cries out for enlightenment and illumination; to
awaken, in the words o f San Juan de la Cruz, “from the darkness of natural
knowledge, to the morning light of supernatural knowledge” (Janes, 261). The

answer, however—at least from the mystic's perspective—is not a grand and
startling realization but a quiet and mysterious intimation from the soul.
The twentieth-century musical language evolved from the desire to find a

new mode of musical expression, to explore different ways of expressing human
thought and emotion. Likewise, the mystics have endeavored to explore

existence in much the same manner, attempting to find new ways of experiencing
the self by going beyond traditional religious thought, ritual, and experience. The
serial atmosphere of Musica callada X XV can be seen as suggesting this spirit of
exploration because it goes beyond Mompou's traditional language that is so

154
closely tied to his region and culture. There is dialogue (question and answer),
diversity (A, B, C, and D), intimacy (as suggested by the sparse texture), mystery
(as suggested by the sounds created by the musical language), and the expression
o f the human heart (as exemplified by the material from section D).
Musica Callada XXVI
In Musica callada XXVI the spirit of dialogue continues as melodic

statements are handed from one part o f the opening three-voice texture to
another (see Example 76). The primary rhythm is the syncopated amphibrach
Example 76: Musica callada AXT7-Opening

Le nt o (J=46 )
§ i f^c f- r 'Ej=|
p
=
cir r -cr
f-k t—
,M-r— - - - - -
— m m
rhythm, but one hears a great diversity of rhythmic characters enter into the
musical narration as Mompou makes use of all five metric feet; amphibrachic
(short-long-short), iambic (short-long), dactylic (long-short-short), trochaic
(long-short), and anapestic (short-short-long). The primary sonority is the minor
chord with the added major 6 (the primary sonority of Cants magics) and the
pitch C stands out as being the point o f departure and return.
155
While there are clearly contrasting figures, there are no clearly contrasting
sections that would merit being classified as B. The piece can be divided into
two halves (measures 1-26 and 27-49), featuring identical opening phrases
leading into contrasting directions and distinctive climax points (measures 15-16
and 39-44), with a short coda that layers an F7 over an open fifth on C2
(measures 50-55). Though lacking formal diversity one hears constant changes
in rhythm, motion, contour, shape, interval content, texture, density, emotional
intensity, sonority, and dynamic. Hence, the piece stands out in the Musica
callada as being the most diverse in content.
Musica Callada XXVII
In Musica callada XXVII Mompou returns to his penchant for writing
music without bar-lines. The piece is fashioned from blocks of music that create
the following formal structure:
A - B - A - B - C - A - Coda (C)
The A sections evoke the same mood o f intimacy and mystery that was
noted in connection with Musica callada XXV. These sections are characterized
by the simple reiteration of a rather dense harmony built from a second inversion
major chord and a minor sixth a whole step below (F major overlayed with Bb3
and Gb4 in the opening transposition) followed by a pointillistic layering of soft
pianissimo notes (see Example 77). The opening ‘tone formation’ can be found
156
Example 77: Musica callada XY77/-Opening
Lento m otto
Ped * Ped. * * /*
in the four lowest notes of the entire conglomeration of pitches (B b 3 -C 4 -E b 4 -
F4); the final appearance of this voicing in the Musica callada. The A material
always appears without bar-Iines.
The B sections, on the other hand, feature a duet between two voices in
the treble clef and one hears, once again, a dialogue take shape. The upper voice
states the melody while the lower voice states a counter melody in close
proximity to that voice. The melody then is handed to the lower voice and the
upper voice states the counter melody in a slightly modified form (see Example
78). In these sections Mompou measures the treble clef but leaves the bass clef
Example 78: Musica callada XXVII-B Section
ptir 1f t *1
open and unmeasured. It is as if the composer were indicating to the performer
that he wants the mood of the opening section to linger and resonate in this open
space beneath the poignant and melancholy duet (“Its emotion is secret and only
157
takes sonorous form in its resonances beneath the great cold cavern of our
solitude”).
The bass clef remains unmeasured until the B material opens into a four
voiced texture in the fourth score of the printed page. Though measured, this
expansion of musical space relieves the sense o f spatial constriction that pervades
the previous material, which is presented primarily in the treble clef. This sense
of openness and expansion is carried even further when a new theme in Bb minor
(see Example 79) blossoms forth in the fifth stave and carries the music forward
Example 79: Musica callada XXVII-C Section

dolce e tranquilo n f ____
for ten measures. The key of Bb minor was used in only one other piece; Musica
callada XIX. Here, in Musica callada XXVII, this moment of clear modality,
featuring a folk-like melody with long lines, stands in striking contrast to the
mysteriously evocative blocks of non-tonal material that preceded it. After one
158
final return of A, the piece closes with an echo of this C section and a clear Bb
minor harmony.
Musica Callada XXVin
Musica callada XXVIII is the final piece in the 4th cahier and the final
piece in the entire collection. The piece opens like a hymn, in a four-voice
texture that suggests soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, on a clear C major chord in
1st inversion (see Example 80). The primary rhythm throughout the piece is the
syncopated amphibrach pattern (short-long-short), but here it is transformed into

a slow and triumphal march with all the voices moving in unison. After the
Example 80: Musica callada XXVUI-Opeoing

Lento ( J =5 6 ) r,y
amphibrach pattern is stated twice, straight quarter notes lead forward toward a
strong cadence on E minor in the first four-measure phrase, and D major in the
second. In Mompou’s recording, he disregards the diminuendo written in
measure 7 and crescendos into measure 8, making the arrival on D major the
strongest point of the phrase.
In measure 9, at the molto cantabile, the amphibrach pattern becomes an

ostinato in the left hand and a more lyrical theme is heard. Through the next ten
159
measures the music will pass from B minor, to G major, to A minor, and back to
B minor; points of harmonic arrival that seem to be unexpected and transient,

with the most poignant moment coming at the Chopinesque Fr+6 chord in
measure 11 leading into the G major chord in measure 13. In measure 19, at the
piii lento, a sharply contoured and pointillistic melodic line resurfaces. The
Tempo I marking at measure 23 leads into a climax passage of dense and
dissonant voicings built from the free layering o f fourths, fifths, triads, and
seventh chords. The gently yearning section marked “tranquilo ” (measures 29-
35), ends upon a clear voicing o f stacked fifths—a revoicing of the C
transposition of the opening 'tone formation' (C,D,F,G)—and the off-beat bell-like
octaves that have surfaced many times in the course o f the Musica callada (see
Example 81).
Example 81: Musica callada XXVIII-Measwes 34-35
fW
m il I
The return o f the opening phrase, with an open fifth on C2-G2 added in
the bass, follows the sound o f the bells. A transposed block o f material from the
molto cantobile (measures 9-12), with that poignant Fr+6 chord, leads into a
clear C major chord at the end o f the piece. The 4th cahier, as well as the entire
Musica callada, comes to a close with the final echo o f the bells and the peaceful
160
resonation of a clear C major harmony (see Example 82); a closure that can be
seen as representative of the symbolic triumph o f the major mode over the minor
mode in the Musica callada.
Donald Grout, in his discussion of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony>, states

that “...the Fifth has always been interpreted as the musical projection of
Beethoven’s resolution ‘I will grapple with Fate; it shall not overcome me.’
Example 82: Musica callada XXVlII-Endmg
m otto rit
The progress through struggle to victory, as symbolized in this symphony by the

succession C minor to C major, has been an implicit subject of many symphonies
since Beethoven’s...” (Grout, 537). While such precedents in the symphonic

literature all seem to deal with parallel relationships, here in the Musica callada,
one finds a relative relationship framing the entire collection ( Musica callada I
161
opening in A minor and Musica callada XXVIII closing in C major). In addition,
one can clearly see a progression through the course of the Musica callada. The
minor mode, clearly predominating in the first three cahier, gives way to the
major mode as the 4th cahier opens with a piece that is predicated upon the
harmonic motion from minor to parallel major. The key of C major emerges for
the first time in Musica callada XXTV, juxtaposed with its relative (A minor), and
the final piece clearly opens and closes in C major with a main theme that is
presented in a march-like rhythmic motion.
In Haydn's great oratorio The Creation, he uses the key of C major at the
words ‘Let there be light’. Such a choice by Haydn makes sense when one
considers the fact that the key o f C major represents a type of purity in music.
To a pianist, such as Mompou, this key would most likely represent the purity of
white keys. Hence, it is fitting that such a key would close a set of pieces
founded upon the words o f the mystic San Juan de la Cruz, words that relate to
the dawning of man’s spiritual consciousness.
6. Conclusion
The following is a story that Janes relates from the early years of
Federico Mompou’s life that seems to illustrate just what the analyses of the
Musica callada have revealed:
162
At times, during the summer, walking through the
mountain of Putxet, a great nostalgia invaded him. He saw
himself years later, covering again that walk and desiring the days
o f his infancy. How sad to lose the childhood that never could be
recovered! He walked slowly fixing on each stone, on each tree,
on each grassy field, to fix with his memory that instant in his
memory, so that the present could not but remain in his thought.
One time he wanted to conserve something more and making a
hole in the ground he buried some toy with the idea of finding it
again years later (Janes 24, translation to English by Dale April
Koike).
In this author’s opinion this is precisely what the composer has done,
consciously or unconsciously, in the Musica callada', he has left buried in this

music bits and pieces o f himself. Within the twenty-eight pieces one can hear the
influence of chant and organum reflecting the religious side of the composer’s
nature, one can hear bits and pieces of melodic material resembling children’s
song and folk song that lend the music an atmosphere of nostalgia, one can hear a
myriad o f bell-like sounds and sonorities that add different expressive colors to
the music, and one can find passages that bear a resemblance to other passages in
other works by the composer of a more determined descriptive and emotional
nature. In addition, one can hear musical gestures that resemble specific
emotions such as sadness and grief, and experience the transformation from the
predominance of the minor mode to the ultimate preeminence o f the major at the
end o f the set.
A pianist would be ill-advised to attempt a performance of the Musica
callada as a whole, for they are not pieces that any audience would find
immediately accessible. They demand study and intimate fam iliarity before their
163
richness and variety become apparent. Any pianist wishing to program some of
these pieces is advised to play a single cahier or to fashion a group from several
of the notebooks. Though not difficult technically the pieces are a tremendous
challenge to a pianist’s artistry, to one’s ability to create mood, atmosphere, and
color, to play with different touches and project differing levels o f distance, to
listen inside the piano sonority and open that depth of sound to an audience.
164
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Listing of Compositions for Piano by Federico Mompou
Title Date Editor
Impresiones Intimas Union Musical

Espanola, Madrid
Planys I,II,III,IV 1911-1914
Pajaro Triste 1912
La Barca 1912
Cuna 1914
Secreto 1912
Gitano 1914
Scenes d'Enfants F. Salabert, Paris
Cris dans la Rue 1918

Jeux I, II, III 1915
Jeunes Filles au Jardin 1918
Pessebres Union Musical

Espafiola, Madrid
171
Dansa 1917
L 'Ermita 1914
El Pastor 1915
Suburbis F. Salabert, Paris
El Carrer, El Guitarrista, i 1917
El Veil Cavall
Gitana I, II 1917
La Cegueta 1916
L 'Home de I 'Aristo 1916
Cants Magics 1917-1919 Union Musical

Espanola, Madrid,
and F. Salabert
Paris
Fetes Lointaines 1920 F. Salabert, Paris
Trois Variations 1921 E. Max Eschig,

Paris
Theme
Les Soldate
Courtoisie
Nocturne
172
Charmes 1920-1921 E. Max Eschig,
Paris
Pour Endormir la Souffrance
Pour Penetrer les Ames
Pour Inspirer I 'Amour
Pour les Guerisons

Pour Evoquer I 'Image du Passe
Pour Appeler la Joie
Dialogues I, II 1923 E. Max Eschig.

Paris
Preludes Editions HeugeL,

Paris
IIIIIL W 1927-1928
V 1930
VI 1930
VII 1951
VIII 1943
DC 1944
X 1944
XI N.D.
Souvenirs de I 'Exposition 193 7 E. Max Eschig,

Paris
173
Entree
Tableau de Statistiques
Planetaire
Pavilion de I 'Elegance
Variations sur un Theme de Chopin 1938-1957 F. Salabert, Paris
Condones y Danzas
I 1921 Union Musical

Espanola, Madrid
II 1918-1924 U.M.E.
III 1926 F. Salabert, Paris
IV 1928 F. Salabert, Paris
V 1942 F. Salabert, Paris
VI 1942 F. Salabert, Paris
VII 1944 Ed. B. Marks,

New York
VIII 1946 Ed. B. Marks,

NewYork
IX 1948 F. Salabert, Paris
X 1953 F. Salabert, Paris

XI 1961 F. Salabert, Paris
X II 1962 F. Salabert, Paris
174
XIV 1962 EMEC
Paisajes F. Salabert, Paris
La Fuente y la Campana 1942

ElLago 1947
Carros de Galicia 1960
Dos Preludios 1949-1960 Unedited
Cancion de Cuna 1951 Edit. Pierre Noel,

Comptoir Musical
Berger, Paris
Musica Callada F. Salabert, Paris
ler Cahier 1959

2me Cahier 1962
3me Cahier 1965
4me Cahier 1967
175
VITA
Eric MacDonald Daub was bom in Kyoto, Japan on July 6, 1958, the son
of Elizabeth Sullivan Daub and Edward Eugene Daub. After completing his
work at West High School, Madison, Wisconsin, in 1976, he entered the
University of Wisconsin in Madison. He received the degree of Bachelor of
Music from that institution in December, 1982. In September of 1985 he entered

the Graduate School o f the University of Texas at Austin and received the degree
of Master of Music in May, 1987. He currently heads the piano department at

the Austin School o f Music, serves as the pianist at Grace Covenant Church in
Austin, and is a member o f the music faculty at Texas Lutheran University in

Seguin, Texas.
Permanent Address: 10410 Charette Cove, Austin, Texas, 78759-6178
This treatise was typed by the author.
176
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Spanish language. I thank my treatise supervisor, Dr. Hanns-Bertold Dietz, for

introducing me to texts on aesthetics and phenomenology and giving me invaluable

Allen, for taking time to read and comment on this work.

Lointaines, copyright 1924 by Editions Salabert are used by permission of G.

copyright 1950 is used by permission o f Edward B. Marks Music Corporation.

Eric MacDonald Daub, D.M.A.

The University o f Texas at Austin, 1997

Supervisor: Hanns-Bertold Dietz

Co-Supervisor: William Race

This treatise presents an in-depth study of the twenty-eight miniatures for

been placed on a phenomenological approach, on the act of listening, o f experiencing

the music, especially as performed by the composer himself.

The Catalan pianist and composer Federico Mompou (1893-1987), though

withstand the test of time.

This treatise presents an in-depth study of the twenty-eight miniatures for

In analyzing these pieces emphasis has been placed on a phenomenological

approach, on the act of listening, of experiencing the music, especially as performed by

(Webster, 1098). Music as Heard. A Study in Applied Phenomenology by Thomas

phenomenology in a way that makes it understandable for the layman. It is a system

means of uncovering the meaning and significance behind the music.

In addition, this author has consulted the following books on musical

aesthetics: Music and Meaning: A Theoretical Introduction to Musical Aesthetics by

system of vocabulary and methodology. It is a book that convincingly attempts to

experiences of Mompou’s recordings of the Musica callada (Musical Heritage Society

List o f Musical Examples............................................................................................ xii

I. Federico Mompou (1893-1987)............................................................................... 1

2. Family Background and Early Years........................................................... 6

3. The “Descriptive Period” (1910-1917)........................................................9

4. '‘‘R ecom enzaf (1917-1923)........................................................................ 30

5. The Paris Years (1923-1941)...................................................................... 41

6. The Final Years (1941-1987)...................................................................... 46

II. The M usica Callada'. An Analysis....................................................................... 53

2. The 1st Cahier................................................................................................59

3. The 2nd Cahier............................................................................................... 100

4. The 3rd Cahier............................................................................................... 124

5. The 4th Cahier...............................................................................................143

Listing of Compositions for Piano by Federico Mompou...............................171

Example 1A-Pajaro fmte-Opening............................................................................ 13

Example 1B-La 6arca-Opening...................................................................................13

Example 2-Planys /-Opening.......................................................................................16

Example 4-L ’er/w/'ra-Opening..................................................................................... 20

Example 5-El carrer, el guitarrista i el veil ccrva//-Musical Characterizations..........28

Example 6-Energic from Cants magics-Section A’....................................................33

Example 1-Fetes lointaines F-Measures 42-44.......................................................... 35

Example 8-pour appeller layo/e-Opening.................................................................. 37

Example 9-Prelude VI-Opening.................................................................................. 44

Example 10-Musica callada /-Phrase A......................................................................60

Example 11-Musica callada /-Phrase B......................................................................62

Example 12-Musica callada //-Phrase A1.................................................................. 65

Example 13-Musica callada //-Phrase B.....................................................................66

Example 14A-Prelude ^-Measures 12-16.................................................................. 68