The complete 28-part magnum opus of Federico Mompou’s Musica Callada (“Silent Music”)
World-renowned pianist Haskell Small is furthering his fascination with music that is primarily quiet, spacious and of a mystical nature with a series of solo concerts throughout the United States and Europe.
Mr. Small will perform the complete 28-part magnum opus of Musica Callada (“Silent Music”) composed by Federico Mompou in four books, started in 1959 and completed in 1974. This spare yet intense work is inwardly searching, prayerful, searing, and at times explosive. Mostly in very slow tempos, it seeks to explore the very space between life and death, a seemingly static place where there is no pulse. Yet there is remarkable drama in this stark setting, and the piece proceeds through its four books with an increasingly mystical tone, only coming to peace in the final pages. With a strong Catalan flavor, and sometimes with an almost childlike naiveté, this is a fantastic voyage, and a work of extraordinary beauty.
Haskell Small is currently the Piano Department Chair at the Washington Conservatory of Music in Washington, D.C.
Hailed by England’s Musical Times for his “dazzlingly prodigious technique,” Mr. Small has concertized with great success in major European capitals, South America, Japan and China, and has been enthusiastically received by American audiences in such venues as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and the Spoleto Festival USA. The top semifinalist in the Johann Sebastian Bach International Piano Competition, he has received numerous awards and has been featured in the nationally broadcast PBS special, “A Celebration of the Piano.”
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For more information, visit www.distinguishedartists.org or www.haskellsmall.com/journeys-in-silence