Frederic Mompou: El eterno recomenzar by Adolf Pla i Garrigós (review)

About ten years ago I visited the Trappist monastery of Gethsemani, near Bardstown, Kentucky, where Thomas Merton, the prolific spiritual writer, lived as a monk from 1941 until his untimely death in 1968. While in the reception area, I heard a man tell the monk at the desk that his uncle was a monk there for many years. When the monk heard the name, his eyes widened and a smile blossomed on his face. “Your uncle was a very holy man,” he said, adding that he was quiet and seldom spoke, but was always available with a healing presence and a generous heart when someone needed help. Then he added, “You know, most people who come want to know about Merton, but many holy men have lived here, and your uncle was one of them. He was a very holy man.”

This encounter came to mind as I read Adolf Pla’s revealing book on the introverted and humble Spanish Catalan composer Federico Mompou. Frederic Mompou: El eterno recomenzar (hereinafter El eterno recomenzar, which I render as “The Eternal Fresh Start,” in place of the more literal “re-beginning”; translations throughout this review are my own). The book is Pla’s invitation to listen to the music of this quiet man, which is overshadowed by that of his more well-known Spanish and French contemporaries. Pla informs us that Mompou was a very pious and deeply spiritual composer.

Mompou was born in Barcelona in 1893 and died there in 1987, although he spent two long, formative periods in Paris, returning to Barcelona for good in 1941. He wrote almost exclusively short pieces for piano and songs for voice and piano, with his music showing the influence of, or kinship to, Chopin, Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, and Satie, as well as the folk music of Spain. Yet Mompou found his own distinctive artistic voice early on, and spent the rest of his life refining and consolidating it as he gained more confidence, conviction, and skill.

Pla, a professor of piano at ESMUC (Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya), is an accomplished concert pianist and conductor with a long association with Mompou’s music. His recordings of the complete music for piano solo accompany El eterno recomenzar as a four-CD set. (The book and CDs won the Spanish Codalario Prize from La revista de música clásica for the “Best Musical Product of 2013.”) In 2002 Pla created, along with photographer Marc Llimargas, a multimedia concert called “The Sound of Light” (El sonido de la luz [SoL]), which juxtaposes Mompou’s piano music with Llimargas’s photographs of the work of Antoni Gaudí, the renowned architect from Barcelona. The concert is usually held in conjunction with an exhibition of Llimargas’s photographs and a variety of effective and engaging installations— including sound and video—on Mompou and his music. Pla and Llimargas sense a strong kinship between the composer and the architect, and they offer SoL in part to open discussion about points of contact between both artists. SoL has been presented in twenty countries since its inception. (For video excerpts of the concert and a guide to the exhibition, see Pla’s Web site, http://www.adolfpla.com/#!the-sound-of-light/c1m4e [accessed 27 June 2014]).

The form and content of El eterno recomenzar derive from the various presentations of SoL and, with its dozens of photographs and illustrations, make for a visually beautiful and accessible book. Like SoL, it is intended for a broader, musically knowledgeable public, rather than a more specialized academic audience. (Pla is currently working on just such a study, which...