While the name of the Catalan composer Federico Mompou (1893-1987) remains largely obscure, he began making inroads with pianists and some listeners in the late twentieth century. His music is mostly for piano and is typically written in an intimate and subdued style. Impressions intimes (Intimate Impressions) is not only an appropriate name for this collection of nine pieces but one that sums up the character of Mompou's keyboard output in general. The composer lived in Paris for many years, and his music contains a fascinating mixture of French and Spanish (including Catalan) influences: it merges the quiet intimacy of Fauré with the quirky, unexpected simplicity of Satie and the regionalist experimentation of Falla. The Impressions intimes were Mompou's first published work, but they contain in miniature many of the traits of his later music.

The first piece here, "Plany I," is melancholy and subdued, gentle and dark, seeming almost listless in its glacial pacing and sparse textures. "Plany II" is marginally brighter but also slow-moving and gloomy. A noticeable mood shift comes in "Plany III," where the playfulness and sunny atmosphere contrast effectively with the gray skies from the previous pieces. But its half-minute length suggests a fragile happiness. "Plany IV" is fast and anxious, sounding like nervous Rachmaninov.

"Ocell triste" returns to the gentle gloom of the opening pieces, only now in a more expansive mode, this three-minute piece being one of the longer efforts in the set. "La barca" is dark and sinister, but its gentleness prevents its black clouds from producing dangerous storms or bolts of lightning. "Bressol" sounds Debussyan, the music swelling from gentle caresses to chordal statements of relative grandeur. Not surprisingly, "Secret" is subdued and intimate in its melancholy. "Gitano" closes the set with a gentle joy, again recalling Debussy in some of the chords. One must assess Mompou's music here as original and significant at the least, and masterful at best.

© Robert Cummings, Rovi