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FREDERIC MOMPOU
OLENA KUSHPLER, Klavier / piano
“To achieve a maximum level of expressiveness with a minimum of means“ was the defined goal of the pianist and composer Frederic Mompou y Dencausse, who was born in Barcelona in 1893.
ENRIQUE GRANADOS was convinced of young Mompou’s talent and wrote a letter of recommendation to the conservatoire in Paris. In Paris, the focal point of the musical avant-garde in 1900, Mompou, who was characterized by timidity and neurasthenic upsets, at first did not manage to successfully deliver his letter of recommendation. Instead – and this must be considered a stroke of luck – he met Ferdinand Motte-Lacroix, who did not only become a splendid piano teacher for him but also a close friend and later an interpreter of his compositions.
Motte-Lacroix was exited by his student’s talent and introduced him to the artistic circles of the city, in which at that time the outstanding Maurice Ravel and the compositions of the Groupe des Six caused sensations. This was an environment in which the timid Mompou would have been completely lost without the help of his friend and supporter. A concert on 15th of April 1921, in which Ferdinand Motte-Lacroix presented the works of his student to the public, became a rousing success for Mompou and was his breakthrough. For the next 20 years he lived as a celebrity in the French metropolis, interrupted only by short breaks.
