Guillaume Coppola – Musiques du Silence

Música Callada – The Music of Silence. Is this a provocation? A challenge? Or perhaps a stylistic exercise? For Mompou, none of all that was the case. He was simply reacting against his time, taking refuge from it, and he considered this solo piano cycle to be his most accomplished work. His universe is based on the mystical framework he constructs around one of the verses of the Spiritual Canticle of St John of the Cross: ‘Night stilled at the awakening of dawn, hushed music, echoing solitude…’ ‘With this fascinating world as the starting point,’ explains Guillaume Coppola, ‘I wanted to reflect it in the mirror of more “music of silence”: partly by choosing works by composers whose influence Mompou had personally acknowledged, partly by freely associating other pieces that seem to share this world and to respond to each other.’