Federico Mompou: Oeuvres pour piano

Over a span of six decades between 1918 and 1972, the Catalan composer Federico Mompou composed his Cançons i Danses—a series of piano miniatures comprising (in each case) a wordless “song” followed by a more-or-less lively “dance”. But this being Mompou, whole worlds open up behind those outwardly unshowy piano miniatures. Not every pianist is attuned to the inner magic of Mompou’s music, but the Madrid-born Luis Fernando Pérez loves and understands it profoundly. His recording of the Cançons i Danses—plus the three sonic landscape paintings Paisajes and the deceptively guileless Scènes d’enfants—was greeted with delight when it first appeared in 2017. Pérez’s playing combines fantasy with profound sympathy, and it’s a wonderful introduction to Mompou’s gentle but intoxicating musical universe.