FEDERICO MOMPOU (1893 - 1987)

Musica Callada

1. Musica Callada 1

2. Variation 1

3. Impresiones intimas 1

4. Musica callada X

5. Variation 2

6. Variation 3

7. Variation 4

8. Cancion y danza III

9. Palmier d'étoiles

10. Cancion y danza VII

11. Lamentation

12. Jardin secret

13. Musica callada XXV

14. Cancion y danza IX

15. Jeux

16. Septième prélude

17. Musica callada XXVIII

François Couturier, piano

François Laizeau, drums

François Méchali, Bass

Where Mompou’s poetry and freedom meet the imaginary of three jazzmen.

The composer Federico Mompou (1893 - 1987), a Catalan like Miró, friend of Prokofiev, de Falla, Villa-Lobos, Milhaud, Poulenc and Arthur Rubinstein. He also frequented Paul Valéry and kept up a lengthy correspondence with Vladimir Jankélevitch,... his works extends over seven decades. But who still listens to Federico Mompou?

Constantly on the look-out for Mompou’s fundamental idea - that ‘search for sonorous solitude’ mentioned by Jankélevitch, when ‘music has become the very voice of silence, when silence itself is made music’ – they explore the phenomena of resonance; going beyond minimalism and purely aesthetic effects, they interrogate this form of allusive, playful musical innocence, cultivating the sidestep. In a subtle interplay of elegant concentration, sometimes deceptively lightweight, the three improvisers distil radiant gems in sound, the result of their preferences (and, above all, not of their premises), which in their restrained emotion defined by avoidances, foreshortenings, ellipses, match the intimate inner monologue of the Catalan composer, that aesthetic of the ineffable with which they have very serious fun.

Zig Zag Territoires ZZT100803