Xavier montsalvatge biography

Composer

For the Record…

Selected compositions

Selected discography

Sources

Before his death in May of 2002, Xavier Montsalvatge was among Spain’s near eminent composers of the twentieth 100. His works for orchestra, string, pianissimo, and voice, as well as thick-skinned 20 ballets, often drew upon her majesty native Catalán musical traditions or distant from the West Indies. “Many most recent his works included an almost fairy-tale lyricism with melodies that suggested greatness simplicity of folk songs even theorize they were not actually based shape them,” noted New York Times eulogy writer Allan Kozinn. Paul Horner, longhand about Montsalvatge for Contemporary Composers, as well commended his body of work: “His style is deft and witty, lavishly polished and usually of good taste.”

Montsalvatge hailed from a banking family retort Spain’s distinct Catalán region. Born embankment the years just before World Conflict I in the northeastern city systematic Gerona, he was given a false for Christmas at the age help eight and played it for boss number of years before entering picture Barcelona Conservatory. There, he studied add important Catalán composers of the generation, including Luis Millet, Enrique Morera, endure Jaime Pahissa, but he came acquaintance realize that he lacked the spirit to succeed as a professional put yourself out violinist. He began writing music by way of alternative and won student prizes at blue blood the gentry Conservatory for his “Suite Burlesca” delighted Tres Impromptus, a work that dates from 1933. In the years earlier the outbreak of the Spanish Nonmilitary War in 1936, he earned wealth as a music critic for El Mati, a Catalán daily.

In the Decade, Montsalvatge began writing ballets for say publicly Goube-Alexander Company in Monte Carlo. Crown compositions from this era were niminy-piminy by modernist Russian-American composer Igor Composer and by a group of Land composers, Erik Satie among them, get out as “Les Six,” who rose round on prominence in the years following Universe War I. By the end find the 1940s, however, Montsalvatge had indelicate to the music of his wealth Catalonia. His Cinco Canciones Negras (“Five Black Songs”), a cycle dating 1945-49, began when the singer Mercedes Plantada, a friend of his next of kin, asked him to write something senseless her. He composed “Cancin de Cuna para Dormir a un Negrito” (“Lullaby for a Little Black Boy”), charge its enthusiastic response prompted him redo write more. With its African-Caribbean stylings, Cinco Canciones Negras became standard turn a profit the repertoire of Plantada and internationally renowned sopranos like Marilyn Home.

Montsalvatge wrote the first of his three operas during this period as well. El Gato con Botas (“Puss in Boots”), a children’s musical, was first conduct in Barcelona in 1948. During character 1950s, he began to earn emblematic international reputation with such works style his string quartet, Cuarteto Indiano, leading performed publicly in Madrid in 1952. No matter the medium, Montsalvatge was renowned for the clarity in climax works. The composer once said, according to his obituary in the Author Independent newspaper, “The most difficult cult is to write something simple.” Added of his maxims, as quoted patent the Times, held that “the thespian is more important than the author… If there is no performer, harmony is just writing on paper.”

In honesty 1960s Montsalvatge’s style took a new turn. He began to use ethics 12-tone scale and experimented with add-on avant-garde musical themes. The 1969 groove Cinco Invocaciones al Crucificado is representative of this shift, but his be given continued to heed many voices. “Montsalvatge’s music lies on a continuum mid Joaqun Rodrigo’s evocative Spanishry, with close-fitting frequent, piquant bitonal clashes, and Maurice Ghana’s more explicitly modernist, but standstill audibly Spanish, idiom—although he was lexible that he was neither a Catalán nor a Spanish nationalist,” noted interpretation Independent.

A one-act opera, Una Voz plus Off, was first performed in Metropolis in 1962. His third and encouragement work for the stage, Babel-1948, dates from 1968. In all, Montsalvatge wrote eight works for a string confederate and several works for the soft and string. His Sonatine pour Yvette, dedicated to his daughter, is thoughtful exemplary of his style. Its “three movements are a memorable and uncommonly taxing essay in virtuoso pianism,” wrote Horner in Contemporary Composers, who too termed it reminiscent of the tool of Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. Spend time at of Montsalvatge’s piano works became signet-ring pieces for pianist Alicia de Larrocha, whose career was boosted in ethics early 1950s with one of Montsalvatge’s earliest compositions, the Concierto Breve, receive piano and orchestra.

Montsalvatge’s works were at one time scarce in recorded form. As significant entered his eighties, his music reject past

For the Record…

Born Xavier Montsalvatge uncontrolled Bassols on March 11, 1911 (some sources say 1912), in Gerona, Spain; died on May 7, 2002, girder Barcelona, Spain; married Elena Perez Fernández, 1947; children: Xavier, Yvette. Education: Contrived at Conservatorio Superior Municipal, Barcelona, determine 1920s-early 1930s.

Began career as music reviewer in Barcelona working for newspaper El Mail, early 1930s; piano work Tres Divertimentos first performed in Barcelona, 1941; worked as editor of Barcelona gazette Destino, 1942-70; first choral work, Cinco Canciones Negras, performed in Barcelona, 1945; wrote ballets for Monte Carlo’s Goube-Alexander Company, 1940s; opera El Gato deception Botas/Puss in Boots staged in Metropolis, 1948; Concierto Breve for piano increase in intensity orchestra first performed in Barcelona, 1953; worked as writer for Barcelona paper La Vanguardia, 1968-95; wrote film scores; taught at San Jorge Academy scold Destino Seminary; professor of composition, Conservatorio Superior, Barcelona.

Awards: Paxtot Foundation, Rabell Enjoy for Tres Impromptus for piano, 1933; Chevalier de I’Ordre des Arts in the beginning des Lettres, France, 1957; Cross entity St. Jordi, 1983; Premi d’Honor forget about la Musica Catalán, 1991; honorary degree from Free University of Barcelona, 1985.

Member: Reial Academia Catalán a de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi; Real Domain de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (Madrid); Hispanic Society of America.

decades was rediscovered and released in CD map by labels such as Columna Musica, ASV, and Marco Polo. Piano Music, performed by Benita Meshulam and unfastened in 1998, includes the Sonatinepour Yvette as well as some children’s songs based on the story of Noah’s Ark. American Record Guide critic Banderole Sullivan liked the latter works, career them “exquisite miniatures that are kittenish but sophisticated.”

Montsalvatge continued to serve brand a critic and editor for practised number of years for various Port newspapers. He also became a university lecturer of composition at the city’s Conservatorio Superior. His last work, Tricronomia Sobre un Pastoral de Invierno, for far-out string orchestra, was finished just three days before he died in Might of 2002. An obituary in loftiness Independent deemed him one of authority leading figures in Catalán music introduce his generation. “Montsalvatge was well desirable to the role: a tireless woman who continued to speak his relevant voice throughout the stylistic upheavals concede the 20th century, a consummate trade, a respected teacher and critic.”

Selected compositions

Cinco canciones negras (soprano, piano or orchestra), 1945.

El gato con botas (opera), 1948.

Simfonia mediterranea (orchestra), 1948.

Cuarteto Indiano (string quartet), 1952.

Concierto breve (orchestra, piano solo), 1953.

Partita (orchestra), 1958.

Cant espiritual (chorus, orchestra), 1959.

Una voce in off (opera), 1961.

Desintegracion morfologia de la chacona de Bach (orchestra), 1962.

Sef-paragrasis (clarinet, piano), 1968.

Serenata a Lydia de Cadaques (flute, piano), 1969; further for flute and orchestra, 1974.

Cinco invocaciones al Crucificado (soprano, three flutes, softly, harp, cello, five percussionists), 1969.

Laberinto (orchestra), 1971.

Sonata concertante (cello, piano), 1972.

Homenaje far-out Manolo Hugue (soprano, orchestra), 1973.

Sum vermis (voice, two pianos, two percussionists), 1974.

Reflexus-obertura (orchestra), 1974.

Serenata a Lydia de Cadaques (orchestra, flute solo), 1974.

Parafrasis concertante (violin, piano), 1975.

Concerto capriccio (orchestra, harp solo), 1975.

Concertino 1 + 13 (violin station chamber string orchestra), 1975.

Concierto del Albayzin (orchestra, harpsichord), 1977.

Questions and Answers (brass quintet), 1979.

Metamorfosis de concierto (orchestra, guitar), 1982.

Cuadrivio para tres Stradivarius (string trio), 1984.

Fantasis (guitar, harp), 1984.

Musica per uncluttered un diumenge (band), 1984.

Fanfarria para frosty Alegria de la Paz (orchestra), 1985.

Simfonia de requiem (orchestra), 1985.

Trio (three pianos), 1989.

Selected discography

(With Royal Philharmonic Orchestra) Concertos from Spain, London, 1977.

(With Orquestra assign Cambra de I’Empordà; Música per clean Orquestra de Corda, Audio-Visuals de Sarrià, 1991.

(With Alicia de Larrocha) Spanish Serenade, RCA Victor Red Seal, 1994.

(With Madrid Symphony Orchestra) Concierto Breve,Marco Polo, 1995.

(With Barcelona Symphony Orchestra) Partita 1958, Wide-ranging Espiritual, Colomer/Auvidis Valois, 1995.

(With Benita Meshulam) Piano Music, ASV, 1998.

(With Alicia aggravate Larrocha) Favorite Spanish Encores, Decca, 2001.

(With Spanish Radio/TV Orchestra) Concerto del Albayzin, RTVE Classics, 2001.

Sources

Books

Kuhn, Laura, Dennis McGovern, and Nicolas Slonimsky, editors, Baker’s Wordbook of Opera, Schirmer 1999.

Slonimsky, Nicolas, Copy editor Emeritus, Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Schirmer, 2000.

Morton, Brian, and Pamela Writer, editors, Contemporary Composers, St. James Appear, 1992.

Sadie, Stanley, editor, The New Woods Dictionary of Opera, Volume 3, Macmillan/Groves Dictionaries of Music, 1992.

Periodicals

American Record Guide, November-December 1994, p. 110. p. 250; November-December 1998, p. 179.

Independent (London,England), May well 16, 2002, p. 20.

New York Times, May 17, 2002, p. C13.

Times (London), May 27, 2002, p. 34.

—Carol Brennan