Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- Chapter 1 The Deep Roots of a Career 1912–1920
- Chapter 2 Formation of a Musician in Barcelona 1921–1936
- Chapter 3 The Deluge 1936–1939
- Chapter 4 The Postguerra and Caribbean Breezes 1939–1953
- Chapter 5 Moving On 1953–1957
- Chapter 6 Consolidation 1958–1986
- Chapter 7 Postcards to Posterity 1991–2002
- Appendices
- Acknowledgments
- Works Principally Cited
- Index of Names
Chapter 6 - Consolidation 1958–1986
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- Chapter 1 The Deep Roots of a Career 1912–1920
- Chapter 2 Formation of a Musician in Barcelona 1921–1936
- Chapter 3 The Deluge 1936–1939
- Chapter 4 The Postguerra and Caribbean Breezes 1939–1953
- Chapter 5 Moving On 1953–1957
- Chapter 6 Consolidation 1958–1986
- Chapter 7 Postcards to Posterity 1991–2002
- Appendices
- Acknowledgments
- Works Principally Cited
- Index of Names
Summary
Aquest to racial, per damunt dels mèrits que cal atribuir-li (discrets, però, en relació als de les grans cultures musicals), té la gran virtut d’ésser personal, de posseir l'indeclinable valor de tenir un contingut anímic, producte d'un poble darrerament conformat que no tenia precedent en la cultura musical europea, a la qual modestament i amb plena consciència de la seva discreta aportació ha vingut cordialment a sumar-se.
This tone that belongs to a people, beyond the merits that can be attributed to it (merits that are its own but are related to the larger musical cultures), has the great virtue of being personal, of possessing the undeniable value of having a spiritual core, emerging from a latterly formed community that has had no precedent in European musical culture — one that modestly and with full awareness of its own contribution has sincerely come to join up with it.
– Manuel Valls, 1960Nada puede tener más interés que la atonalidad que convive y se confronta con la tonalidad.
Nothing can have more interest than atonality that coexists with and confronts tonality.
– oft-repeated credo of X.M.The year 1958 brought both the Premi Òscar Esplà' and the Premi Lluís Millet. The first was for Partita 1958, a work whose bitonality and more overt dissonance within a neo-classical framework help explain why Montsalvatge regarded it as the beginning of a new compositional period, his third and most spacious. Of course the second period, which may be said to begin with the Tres divertimentos, had also privileged bitonality, but it was harmonic venture softened by the popular styles with which it was integrated. Another significant difference is that the earlier work — like a generous helping of his entire oeuvre — shows Montsalvatge's rapport with the piano, whereas Partita declares a mastery of the details of orchestration that would increasingly come to be one of his most conspicuous characteristics.
The second prize of that year, the one named for Montsalvatge's old teacher Millet, was given by the Orfeó Català that the mestre had founded, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Orfeó's grand hall, the Palau de la Músic Catalana.
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- Information
- Xavier MontsalvatgeA Musical Life in Eventful Times, pp. 71 - 92Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2012