Mompou Guitar

This album is dedicated to the compositions of Federico Mompou i Dencausse (1893-1987), a composer and pianist of profound sensitivity. Born in Barcelona, Mompou exhibited an early inclination for the piano. However, inspired after a concert of Gabriel Fauré, he decided to dedicate himself to composition. Like many of his generation, he went to Paris to further his studies. Upon returning to his homeland, he continued his profoundly personal approach to the piano, exploring its most poetic facets as a composer and interpreter. Despite his innate introversion, the unique voice of his music soon gained recognition. His contemplative and poetic music mirrors his life, one of introspection, in which music was used as a medium to connect to his spiritual world.

Camino is guitarist Sean Shibe’s first PENTATONE album, an introspective programme exploring French-Spanish musical borders, a pilgrimage leading from Ravel’s Pavane pour une Infante défunte, Satie’s Gymnopédie No.1 and Gnossiennes 1 and 3, Poulenc’s Sarabande, De Falla’s Miller’s Dance and Homaje, pour le Tombeau de Debussy and José’s Pavana triste all the way to Mompou’s Cançons i dansas 6 and 10, as well as his Suite compostelana. Shibe has deliberately granted Mompou a central role on this album, as his music demonstrates that melancholy, aimlessness and a whole host of other feelings are not things to be avoided or fixed or solved, but experiences to be felt deeply: not with sad nostalgia, but with genuine wonder and excitement at what this means for the future. In that respect, Camino also documents Shibe’s personal quest to overcome the challenges of a time dominated by Covid-19, and to ultimately see the world anew.

This album presents the complete solo works for guitar by two Catalan contemporaries, the cellist Gaspar Cassadó and the pianist Federico Mompou. Cassadó wrote six guitar works connected to his friendship with Andrés Segovia, mostly based on folk elements such as the sardana, a traditional Catalan circle dance. In Mompou’s works for guitar, the influence of his mysticism and attachment to Catalan folklore are undeniable. He composed primarily for piano but he also wrote three pieces for guitar, notably Suite compostelana for Segovia. The hypnotic, austere and lyrical elements in this work distil Mompou’s compositional genius.

The Catalan composer Frederic Mompou (1893-1987) is hardly a household word (though Segovia performed his guitar pieces), probably because, unlike other Spanish composers of folkloric bent like de Falla, Albeniz and Granados he never wrote for the stage, which can be the ticket to immortality. But working in small forms doesn't make him a lightweight; miniatures don't lack drama or emotional interest – just look at what Chopin, Faurè and Schubert did. This new CD of Mompou's solo piano music joins a relatively select few by Europeans like Laurent Martin, Gustavo Romero, Stephen Hough, Alicia de Laroccha, and there's even one by the composer himself. This outing, by young Spanish pianist Jordi Masó, certainly seems to have captured Mompou's very special poetry.

In many ways Jordi Masó’s excellent Naxos collection is not upstaged by the competition. Moreover this is to be the first of a continuing series. He gives us the complete Canciónes y danzas (except for No. 13, which is for guitar), plus the engagingly diverse, but at times almost mystical Charmes, and his playing is imbued with gentle poetic feeling. Masó’s pianistic sensibility is never self-aware, always at the service of the composer, and the music’s soft-hued colours are perceptively graduated. The unostentatious innocence of the Scènes d’enfants is beautifully caught. Excellent recording makes this a disc to recommend even if it cost far more than it does.

Born in Torino in 1967, Alfredo Franco was involved in non-classical music in his youth before taking up the classical guitar. He then undertook advanced studies in the historical and critical fields in the Department for Art, Music and Theatre of the University of Turin. He would later abandon concert activity as a performer and focus instead on composition. His now prolific classical guitar output has been well received by important interpreters such as Cristiano Porqueddu and increasingly programmed on the stage and in the studio.

Born in Torino in 1967, Alfredo Franco was involved in non-classical music in his youth before taking up the classical guitar. He then undertook advanced studies in the historical and critical fields in the Department for Art, Music and Theatre of the University of Turin. He would later abandon concert activity as a performer and focus instead on composition. His now prolific classical guitar output has been well received by important interpreters such as Cristiano Porqueddu and increasingly programmed on the stage and in the studio.