Federico Mompou: a style analysis of thirty-five songs

Federico Mompou (1893-1987) was a Catalan composer known primarily for his piano compositions. In addition to his piano works, Mompou also composed thirty-seven songs for voice and piano, a ballet, a few choral works, and a guitar suite. Mompou's songs and piano pieces were well-received by critics and audiences in France, Spain, and even the United States during his lifetime, but since the mid-1970s, majority of his songs have been overlooked by Western performers and scholars. Mompou's songs, composed between 1915 and 1971, are settings of Catalan, Spanish, and French texts. They are characterized by their simplicity, expressiveness, and evocative style. The poetry represents a variety of subjects that range from expressions of simple, childlike pleasure, to those of a highly reflective and emotional mind. Federico Mompou's songs represent an important contribution to Catalan art song of the twentieth century. The songs are deserving of performance and study in any voice studio because they contain a variety of technical, linguistic, and interpretive challenges for a wide variety of singers.

The purpose of this doctoral essay for limited distribution is to provide a style analysis of thirty-five songs of Federico Mompou. The analysis divides the songs into three groups based on technical difficulty, progressing from the least difficult to the most difficult. Information about each song will include date of publication, language, poet, poem and translation. Prose analysis of each individual song is based on Jan LaRue's Guidelines for Style Analysis. Musical examples demonstrate important aspects of each individual song.