Piano Music by Federico Mompou

Listen on Presto Music. Free thirty day trial. Find out more.

The music of Federico Mompou may appear at first to consist of little more than charming, delicately scented but dilettantish salon near-improvisations with marked overtones of Erik Satie; but... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Catalogue No: CDA66963
Label: Hyperion
Length: 76 minutes

Gramophone Awards

1998

Winner - Instrumental
Penguin Guide

Rosette

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

Mompou: Canción y Danza 7

Work length2:38

$1.10

$1.50

Stephen Hough (piano)

Mompou: Prélude 1

Work length1:35

$1.10

$1.50

Stephen Hough (piano)

Mompou: Cants Mágics

Work length9:35

$5.50

$7.50

Stephen Hough (piano)

I. Energic

Track length1:31

$1.10

$1.50

II. Obscur

Track length1:50

$1.10

$1.50

III. Profond: Lent

Track length2:01

$1.10

$1.50

IV. Misteriós

Track length1:42

$1.10

$1.50

V. Calma

Track length2:31

$1.10

$1.50

Mompou: Canción y Danza 5

Work length3:25

$1.10

$1.50

Stephen Hough (piano)

Mompou: Prélude 5

Work length1:29

$1.10

$1.50

Stephen Hough (piano)

Mompou: Charmes

Work length8:50

$6.60

$9.00

Stephen Hough (piano)

I. …pour endormir la souffrance

Track length1:31

$1.10

$1.50

II. …pour pénétrer les âmes

Track length1:28

$1.10

$1.50

III. …pour inspirer l'amour

Track length2:15

$1.10

$1.50

IV. … pour les guérisons

Track length1:25

$1.10

$1.50

V. … pour évoquer l'image du passé

Track length1:15

$1.10

$1.50

VI. … pour appeler la joie

Track length0:56

$1.10

$1.50

Mompou: Canción y Danza 8

Work length3:23

$1.10

$1.50

Stephen Hough (piano)

Mompou: Prélude 7 'Palmier d'étoiles'

Work length2:36

$1.10

$1.50

Stephen Hough (piano)

Mompou: Trois Variations

Work length3:58

$4.40

$6.00

Stephen Hough (piano)

Theme. [untitled]

Track length0:21

$1.10

$1.50

Variation 1. Les soldats

Track length0:45

$1.10

$1.50

Variation 2. Courtoisie

Track length0:49

$1.10

$1.50

Variation 3. Nocturne

Track length2:03

$1.10

$1.50

Mompou: Canción y Danza 3

Work length3:28

$1.10

$1.50

Stephen Hough (piano)

Mompou: Prélude 9

Work length2:06

$1.10

$1.50

Stephen Hough (piano)

Mompou: Dialogues I, II

Work length5:05

$2.20

$3.00

Stephen Hough (piano)

I. Plaintif

Track length2:27

$1.10

$1.50

II. Modéré

Track length2:38

$1.10

$1.50

Mompou: Canción y Danza 1

Work length4:10

$1.10

$1.50

Stephen Hough (piano)

Mompou: Prélude 10

Work length1:39

$1.10

$1.50

Stephen Hough (piano)

Mompou: Paisajes

Work length12:24

$3.30

$4.50

Stephen Hough (piano)

I. La fuente y la campana

Track length3:23

$1.10

$1.50

II. El Lago

Track length5:29

$1.10

$1.50

III. Carros de Galicia

Track length3:32

$1.10

$1.50

Mompou: Canción y Danza 9

Work length4:34

$1.10

$1.50

Stephen Hough (piano)

Mompou: Prélude 6

Work length5:27

$1.10

$1.50

Stephen Hough (piano)

About
Reviews
Explore

About

Without a spirit of childhood in the listener, the music of the Catalan Federico Mompou can seem almost infantile. The style the composer himself calls 'primitivista' involves no bar lines, key signatures or other such paraphernalia of 'organized' composition, and at first sight owes much to Satie. However the latter's cynicism here finds expression in genuine innocence and wonder. The titles of the four complete sets recorded here give some impression of what is to be expected: Cants Magics, Charmes but these titles can also be unhelpful, implying order when none is meant; the Cancions y Danzas are not part of a set as such, and the six examples here span some three decades. All of these miniatures (the longest is under six minutes) capture a world that is at once very real (Mompou describes his 'favourite place' as being the 'solitude of all large towns') and yet somehow set at a distance from the mundane through piano writing of plain and unpretentious vision.

Reviews

2010

The music of Federico Mompou may appear at first to consist of little more than charming, delicately scented but dilettantish salon near-improvisations with marked overtones of Erik Satie; but it's significant that his earliest works (in the 1920s) are imbued with a sense of mystery and wonder.
Later he was to progress from an ingenuous lyricism (in the Songs and dances) to a profounder contemplation and mysticism, to greater harmonic and keyboard complexity ( Dialogues) and finally, in the 1946-60 Paisajes ('Landscapes'), to a more experimental, less tonal idiom. In the hands of an imaginative pianist like Stephen Hough this other-worldly quality becomes revelatory.
Hough's command of tonal nuance throughout is ultra-sensitive, he catches Mompou's wistful moods to perfection, and on the rare occasions when the music lashes out, as in Prelude No 7, he's scintillating. In the more familiar Songs and dances he's tender in the songs and crisp rhythmically in the dances. He treats the 'Testament d'Amelia' in No 8 with a good deal of flexibility, and because Mompou declared (and demonstrated in his own recordings) that 'it's all so free', he takes the fullest advantage of the marking senza rigore in No 5, which reflects Mompou's lifelong fascination with bell sounds.

In the hands of an imaginative pianist like Stephen Hough this other-worldly, almost eremitic [music] becomes revelatory. He catches Mompou's wistful moods to perfection

2011 edition

[Hough] is completely inside Mompou's fastidious, Satie-esque sound-world and understands the absorbed influences which make this music as much French as Spanish...Not even Mompou himself equalled, let alone surpassed, Hough in this repertoire.

Piano Music by Federico Mompou

CD

Downloads

Contents

Download queue