In a sweet swoon

A year ago, I talked about the exceptional nature of Saint George's Day; there was a day we lived in the middle of the hardest lock-down, when we all were confined at home. Everything was exceptional last year. This year the situation is better, that's true, but we are exhausted and confused (pandemic fatigue will be an issue for a long time); while I'm writing this post, there are just a few days left until the 23rd, and we still don't know what will be allowed.

We know for sure that we won't be able to move freely, the streets of Barcelona won't be crowded as they used to be; crowds are not my cup of tea, but I would like to be able to choose. Who knows, maybe next year. For the time being, I've tried to fill Liederabend with roses; we're listening to a new one on this post, the tenth; I'm linking two more (and an infiltrated dragon) at the bottom of the article, and there is a new collection of articles on the Home, with seven roses.

Frederic Mompou brings us this year's musical rose, Rosa del camí [A rose on the path], which is added to a list that began with Strauss and continued with Quilter, Haydn, Schumann, Walton, Hensel, Sibelius, Grieg and Medtner. As you can see, I'm trying to choose roses with different fragrances, and today's rose has a delicate and subtle scent. Mompou is the author of both music and lyrics, although he did not write them at the same time; The poem was written around 1915, when he was twenty-two, while the song was composed in 1925. Rosa del camí is the first of the Quatre melodies published in 1931 in Catalan and French (the French version was of Mathilde Pomès). This song is composed seventeen years before the oldest we've heard so far by Mompou, Damunt de tu només les flors, and we can already identify the constant in his songs; in all his music, in fact: sobriety. The composer always sought in music the maximum expressiveness and the minimum number of notes, and this song is one example, one more, of his wonderful capacity of synthesis.

Mompou defined himself as "a man of few words and few notes", and both things are quite clear in Rosa del camí. The first sentence of the brief poem suggests the image of a shooting star that disappears over the woods, while the second one, the rose on the path, may simply be one more moment of beauty, or a loving encounter related to the wish made upon the star, or who knows... The song has a nearly static melody, as little as it varies, and the first chord we hear is repeated many times. And despite this simplicity, or precisely because of it, Rosa del camí has a great power of evocation.

I hope you like this small, fine rose, performed by Marisa Martins and Mac McClure. Have a nice day of St. George!

Rosa del camí