AÑO 18 Nº 31. ENERO - DICIEMBRE 2023

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Revista Arbitrada de la Facultad Experimental de Arte

de la Universidad del Zulia

Maracaibo, Venezuela

Revista Arbitrada de la Facultad Experimental de Arte

de la Universidad del Zulia. Maracaibo, Venezuela

AÑO 18 N° 31. ENERO - DICIEMBRE 2023 ~ pp. 33-39

Camilla Rubagotti

Giuseppe Tartini Conservatory of Music

Trieste, Italy

rubagotticamilla@gmail.com

Recibido: 12-05-22

Aceptado: 22-07-22

Frederic Mompou’s Guitar Version of Cançó i Dansa

X: A Dating Hypothesis

La versión para guitarra de Cançó i Dansa X de Frederic

Mompou: una hipótesis de datación

The present paper aims to provide a dating hypothesis

for the guitar version of Cançó i Dansa X for guitar by

Frederic Mompou. This hypothesis is based on autograph

documents written by the composer and the dedicatee of

the diptych, which enhanced a historical reconstruction

allowed by contemporary and successive sources about

Frederic Mompou, Andrés Segovia, and other people and

facts named in the documents. This paper ultimately shows

how Cançó i Dansa X for guitar might be contemporary or

even earlier than the versions for piano and vocal quartet

and thus Mompou’s rst piece for guitar, ten years before

Suite Compostelana.

Keywords: Andrés Segovia, Music for Guitar, Spanish

Music, Guitar Version, Music Dating.

El objetivo de este artículo es formular una hipótesis de

datación para Canción y Danza X para guitarra de Federico

Mompou. Esta hipótesis se basa en documentos autógrafos

del compositor y del dedicatario del díptico, que hicieron

posible una reconstrucción histórica, además de fuentes

contemporáneas y sucesivas sobre Federico Mompou,

Andrés Segovia y otros hechos y personas nombrados en los

documentos. Este artículo evidencia en última instancia que

Canción y Danza X para guitarra podría ser contamporánea

o anterior a las versiones para piano y para cuarteto vocal y,

por lo tanto, la primera pieza para guitarra de Mompou, diez

años antes de Suite Compostelana.

Palabras clave: Andrés Segovia, música para guitarra,

música española, versión de guitarra,

datación musical.

Abstract Resumen

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Introduction

The Barcelonan pianist and composer Frederic

Mompou (1893-1987) is still acknowledged as one of the

greatest Catalan musicians of the 20th century. Though

he is best known for his piano works, he also wrote three

compositions for guitar; after all, his guitar works clearly

demonstrate that Mompou had a personal idea of the

sound and possibilities of the instrument in spite of being

so faithful to the piano.

Throughout his life, Mompou had continuous

contact with the guitar and with the great Catalan and

Spanish guitarists of his time (notably Miquel Llobet,

Andrés Segovia, and Narciso Yepes). This exposure to the

guitar might have been the source of a personal vision of

the instrument, incredible guitar technique for a pianist,

which clearly underlies Mompou’s pieces.

His guitar works are perfectly consistent with

the aesthetics of his pianistic compositions; however, they

show a deep, instinctive understanding of the idiomatical

characteristics of the instrument in matters such as

resonance and polyphony and incredibly few pianistic

elements.

Even before Frederic Mompou started composing

for the guitar, it is quite obvious that its sonority was deeply

rooted in his personal experience and, most importantly,

in his auditory imagination. Indeed, the guitar is somehow

evoked by two works for piano, El carrer el guitarrista i el

vell cavall (The street, the guitarist and the old horse) and

Prélude pour la main gauche (Prelude for the left hand). The

composition of Prélude pour la main gauche (1930) began

as Mompou’s left hand started moving on the piano while

he was talking with the guitarist Miquel Llobet (Herralde,

1976). On the other hand, El carrer el guitarrista i el vell

cavall belongs to the early work Suburbis (1916-1917). It is

a collection of small piano pieces painting the popular and

urban sounds of Barcelonan suburbs, which had nourished

the composer’s imagination since his childhood (Bastianelli,

2021, p. 19). El carrer el guitarrista i el vell cavall corresponds

to this evocative description of a Barcelonan suburb in

Mompou’s notes:

It is not really a road, but neither is it truly a

street. On one side, there are modest little rst-

oor houses, and on the other side, there are the

elds. The tobacconist is recognisable through

a discoloured national ag. The rag-merchant’s

small shop is shady, with the little ag of rags and

the bird at the door. At the grocer’s house, the

fruit is covered by a pink mosquito net. Tireless

hammer stroke! How well you accompany

with your rhythm the simple song sung by the

mother over there in the little apartment while

she is mending the clothes. The road is poorly

maintained and the holes are deep. All the

factory sirens have let hear their lonely wail in the

evening mist over the elds that are already shady

of rest. Groups of workers passing by ll the road,

which emanates a smell of chimney smoke. The

lamplighter lights up the street lamps and in the

little apartments, the candlelight lls the walls of

shadows among which the desire of an adolescent

sensuality arises. With the night, silence has

come. The hour strikes heavily and all is left in the

street is just the memory of a guitar’s music. A

cart full of rocks goes by, and the horse, with big

and compassionate eyes, pulls with eort, slowly,

dragging a sick hoof.

(Janés, 1987, pp. 103-104) A

decade after Suburbis, in 1927, Mompou showed

a rst hint of desire to compose a piece for guitar.

The proof of this rst, early impulse is a sentence

that the composer wrote in a letter to his friend

Manuel Blancafort: “Moreover, as I am in good

condition while doing a quartet movement, other

motifs come to my mind and bring me new ideas;

they might result in a piece for guitar or maybe in

a melody” (Mompou, 1927, p. 2).

It seems that he did not actualize this desire

until the Fifties. Indeed, the rst certain testimony of the

existence of guitar works by Frederic Mompou is a sentence

in a letter of 27th January 1953. This letter was from the

guitarist Andrés Segovia (1893-1987), who wrote: “Your

small works go perfectly well with the guitar and I wish that

you would quickly send me the other movements that will

1 Original text: “No és purament una carretera, però tampoc

és completament un carrer. D’un costat són casetes humils

de primer pis, i de l’altre costat són els camps. / L’estanc

s’endevina per un descoloriment de bandera nacional. /

La botigueta del drapaire és ombrosa amb la bandereta

de retalls i l’ocell a la porta. / A casa del droguer la fruita

està coberta amb una mosquitera rosa. / Incansable cop

de mall! que bé acompanyes amb el teu ritme la cançoneta

senzilla que la mare canta dalt del piset tot apedassant

la roba. / La carretera està mal cuidada i les roderes són

profundes. / Totes les sirenes de les fàbriques hat fet

sentir el seu plany sol entre la boira de la tarda per sobre

els camps que ja sombregen de repòs. / Passen les colles

de treballadors que omplen el carrer, que desprèn una

olor de fum de llar. / El fanaler encén els fanals del carrer

i en l’interior dels pisets la llum de les espelmes omple

les parets d’ombre entre les quals neix el desig d’una

sensualitat d’adolescent. / Amb la nit ha vingut el silenci. /

Toquen pesadament les hores i en el carrer sols ha quedat

el record d’una musiqueta de guitarra. / Pasa un carro ple

de rocs, i el cavall d’uns ulls grossos i compassius tira amb

esforç lentament, arrossegant una pota malalta” (this and

all the translations are provided by the author).

2 Original text: “Ademés, com que estic en bon estat mestres

estic fent un temps de cuarte, altres motius venen a

portarme noves idees potser resultarà una pessa per a

guitarra, potser una melodia.”

Frederic Mompou‘s Guitar Version of Cançó i Dansa X: A Dating Hypothesis

Camilla Rubagotti

constitute the Suite” (Segovia, 1953, p. 1).

Although Mompou and Segovia already knew

and esteemed each other (Iglesias, 1992), the summer

courses of Música en Compostela deepened the rapport

between them. Taking place since 1958, they also led to

the commission of “a composition rooted in Galicia which

would have the stature of a concert piece” (Iglesias, 1992, pp.

221-222). This composition would later become the most

famous of the composer’s guitar works, Suite Compostelana.

A decade later, in March 1972, Mompou added a

thirteenth diptych for guitar to his cycle of Cançons i Danses.

Cançó i Dansa XIII, based on the Catalan tunes El cant dels

ocells and El bon caçador, was dedicated to the Spanish

guitarist Narciso Yepes (1927-1997). It was the composer’s

last work for guitar.

During an interview, while talking about Suite

Compostelana and Cançó i Dansa XIII, even the composer’s

wife emphasized his husband’s interest in the guitar;

indeed, she claimed: “Mompou knew the guitar well and he

liked it” (Comellas, 1993, p. 40).

Suite Compostelana, composed in 1962 and

dedicated to Andrés Segovia, is the only guitar piece by

Mompou whose rst edition was edited and ngered by

the dedicatee; the Andalusian guitarist also included its

recording in a long playing alongside Alexander Tansman’s

Suite in modo polonico. As for Cançó i Dansa XIII, its recording

was included in Yepes’s long playing Música Catalana a few

months after its composition; it was Jordi Codina, though,

who edited its publication. Thus, the circumstances of the

composition, the publication, and the rst recording of

Suite Compostelana and Cançó i Dansa XIII are known. The

origins of Mompou’s third piece for guitar, on the contrary,

are a real mystery.

Cançó i Dansa X

Cançó i Dansa X was written by Frederic Mompou

in 1953 for both piano and vocal quartet and it was

published by Salabert Éditions. It is the tenth of a cycle of

songs and dances composed over a large period of time,

from the Twenties until the Seventies (Bastianelli, 2021).

After publishing twelve diptychs for piano,

Mompou claimed: “At the moment I have twelve [Cançons

i Danses] and I think I will nish here because, if you begin

the thirteenth, then you are forced to write twenty-four!”

(Trébouta & Vozlinsky, 1971, 27’20’’)

. Over the following

years, however, Mompou added three new diptychs to his

Cançons i Danses. In 1972 he composed Cançó i Dansa XIII for

guitar, which he dedicated to Narciso Yepes. He also added

3 Original text: “Tus obritas van perfectamente a la guitarra

y desearía que no tardases mucho en mandarme los otros

numeros que han de componer la Suite.”

4 Original text: “Mompou coneixia bé la guitarra i li agradava.”

5 Original text: “Actuellement, j’en ai douze [Chansons

et danses] et je crois que je vais nir ici, parce que, si on

commence la treizième, alors on est obligé d’en faire

jusqu’à vingt-quatre!”.

two last diptychs for keyboard instruments: the fourteenth,

for piano, and the fteenth, for organ.

The cycle of the Cançons i Danses is overall

inspired by Catalan folklore and most of the musical

material used by Mompou comes from his homeland’s

folksongs. There are only a few exceptions: some original

compositions and Cançó i Dansa X, whose musical material

is derived from two of the medieval Cantigas de Santa

María attributed to Alfonso X, the Wise King. According

to Mompou’s wife, Cançó i Dansa X is a “very sober, very

religious harmonization” of the melodies (Comellas, 1993, p.

38)

of Cantigas number 100 (Mettmann, 1959, pp. 285-286)

and 179 (Mettmann, 1961, pp. 197-198).

Nobody knew that a guitar version of Cançó i

Dansa X existed before Angelo Gilardino found its undated

autograph manuscript. It was in Andrés Segovia’s archives

in Linares (Gilardino, 2001), so it looks like the Andalusian

guitarist was the musician for whom the composition was

conceived. It seems that Segovia never played it or talked

about it, and neither did Mompou. This manuscript was

thus rediscovered and published posthumously and no

sure evidence about its date has ever been found. The aim

of this study is to present a dating hypothesis for Cançó i

Dansa X based on the correspondence between Segovia

and Mompou and on the biographical facts of their life.

An address on the last page of the

autograph

The rst element of this dating hypothesis is the

address written on the last page of the autograph of Cançó i

Dansa X (Attademo, 2010, p. 82), “Durán y Bas 1 Barcelona

”.

It was the address of the apartment owned by Lluís Duran

i Ventosa, the second husband of Mompou’s mother,

Josena Dencausse.

According to Janés (1987), Mompou moved to

his mother’s house in 1941, as he returned to Barcelona

from Paris. At rst, Frederic, Josena, and Lluís lived on

Passeig de Gràcia because Duran i Ventosa’s apartment had

been damaged during the Spanish Civil War, so it was still

under repairs. About one year later, after the completion

of all repairs, the family moved to Carrer de Durán i Bas, 1.

The composer lived there until his mother’s death, which

occurred in February 1953. After Josena’s death, he moved

to his brother’s apartment in Avinguda de la República

Argentina. After Mompou’s marriage to Carme Bravo in

1957, the couple moved to Carrer del Mestre Nicolau. Thus,

the address written on the last page of the manuscript is

that of the apartment where Frederic Mompou lived from

1942 until February 1953. As the composition date of the

versions for piano and for vocal quartet is precisely 1953,

Cançó i Dansa X for guitar might date back to the same

period.

6 Original text: “Una harmonització molt sobria, molt

religiosa.”

7 Information telephoned by the Fundación Andrés Segovia

of Linares.

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An undated letter to Segovia

The correspondence between Mompou and

Segovia preserved in the Biblioteca de Catalunya

another element to be considered. Most of the letters in

this collection, dated or undated, are referable to the years

ensuing the composition of Suite Compostelana. Only one

dated letter was certainly written before the Suite: Segovia’s

letter of 27th January 1953. Of all the correspondence

preserved in the Fons Mompou, only one undated letter

to Segovia mentions a Canción y Danza for guitar. This is

surely a reference to Cançó i Dansa X; indeed, Mompou

composed no other work of this cycle for the Andalusian

guitarist (the only other diptych he wrote for guitar, the

thirteenth, was dedicated to Narciso Yepes). However, there

is no other explicit mention of Cançó i Dansa in the letters

that Mompou and Segovia exchanged.

The letterhead is that of L’Ermita

: the drawing

of a little hermitage with two poplars made by Frederic’s

brother, the painter Josep. Here is the text of Mompou’s

letter alongside its English translation (Tab. 1).

Querido amigo Segovia:

Fué una pena para mi verme pri-

vado de tu concierto y del placer

de saludarte el pasado domingo.

Estaba de excursion con unos

amigos entre ellos el escritor sui-

zo John Knittel y estaba prevista

nuestra llegada las 6 pero falló el

horario!

Te telefoneé a la mañana si-

guiente y me contestaron que

ya habias volado. Tenia mucho

interes é ilusion en saber si mi

“Canción y Danza” era guitarrís-

tica. Estoy estos dias intentando

esribir algo mas para este dulce,

pero rebelde instrumento, que

tu eres el único en dominar.

Con mi cordial abrazo,

F. Mompou

Dear friend Segovia:

It was a pain for me to be depri-

ved of your concert and of the

pleasure to say hello last Satur-

day. I was on an excursion with

some friends, among whom the

Swiss writer John Knittel, and our

arrival was foreseen for 6 p. m.,

but we were late!

I called you the following mor-

ning, but I was told that you had

already taken a ight. I was cu-

rious and desirous to know whe-

ther my Canción y Danza was

guitaristic. In these days, I am tr-

ying to write something more for

this sweet, but rebel instrument,

which only you can dominate.

Hugs,

F. Mompou

Figure 1

Mompou’s undated letter to Segovia (Janés, 1987, p. 82).

Mompou’s undated letter was clearly written prior

to 1963, as it is completely dierent from those exchanged

after the composition of Suite Compostelana.

8 Andrés Segovia, correspondence sent to F. Mompou and

Carme Bravo (with 16 letters from Mompou to Segovia).

These letters are preserved in Barcelona, Biblioteca de

Catalunya, included in M 5022/4.

9 L’Ermita was a refuge that Mompou had founded with

his friend Guillem Viñas. It was a sort of shelter where

they could meet. They organised reunions in order to talk

about art, literature and religion. L’Ermita was located in La

Garriga, in the province of Barcelona (Janés, 1987).

First of all, the topics of this letter are completely

unrelated to the conversations between 1963 and 1978,

which can be easily reconstructed. Indeed, the main topics

of the correspondence are Suite Compostelana (its ngering,

execution, editing, publishing, recording, and rights),

the French documentary Federico Mompou for the series

L’homme et sa musique, the death of Segovia’s daughter,

Música en Compostela and health problems.

Moreover, in this letter, Mompou used the

guitarist’s surname in the salutation and his own surname

in the signature. However, the composer and the guitarist

used rst names in both the salutation and the signature

in all of the correspondence from 1963 until 1978, which

implies a dierent degree of intimacy. Therefore, it is likely

that this undated letter was written prior to the others. This

implies that Mompou probably nished the guitar version

of Cançó i Dansa X before Suite Compostelana.

A dating hypothesis for Mompou’s letter

This dating hypothesis for Mompou’s undated

letter is based on elements provided by the writer. It takes

into account the Sunday day trip and the presence of John

Knittel as well as some details about Segovia’s concert.

The excursion

Mompou’s short description of the excursion

hints at two elements: rstly, the presence of a Swiss writer

named John Knittel and secondly, the fact that this day trip

took place with a group of friends on a Sunday.

John Knittel was a Swiss writer who enjoyed a

wide success in Spain in the Forties. It seems that he had

no direct contact with the composer, but he knew Josep

Janés (1913-1959 ). He was a Catalan poet and publisher and

a great friend to Mompou, who composed a cycle of ve

songs titled Combat del Somni on ve poems from Janés’s

homonymous collection.

Mengual Català (2013) arms that Knittel

met Janés in 1944 when he went to Madrid looking for

a Spanish publisher after the success of the lm based

on his novel Vía mala. In 1946, Janés bought a house in

the neighborhood of Pedralbes and he started to receive

important representatives of Barcelona’s cultural life.

Alongside intellectuals such as Ignacio Agustí, Eugenio

d’Ors, Sagarra, François Mauriac, Mika Waltari, Roger

Caillois, André Maurois, he regularly met Frederic Mompou

and John Knittel.

Therefore, John Knittel was a member of the same

group of friends as Mompou, who knew the poet well.

There is no trace of personal contact between Mompou and

Knittel; it is worth mentioning that they met their common

friend Josep Janés in a group formed by about twenty

people (Mengual Català 2013).

Janés (1987) explains that the undated letter’s

connection to Josep Janés is conrmed by a second element:

Frederic Mompou‘s Guitar Version of Cançó i Dansa X: A Dating Hypothesis

Camilla Rubagotti

the excursion with a group of friends on a Sunday afternoon.

Indeed, after the Janés family moved to Pedralbes, Frederic

Mompou and Carme Bravo used to spend their Sunday

afternoons with them and they often made excursions

by car all over Catalonia. The habit of meeting for Sunday

excursions continued until 1959, the year of Josep’s fatal

accident. His death caused great emotional distress to

Mompou, leading to an aective substitution that brought

him closer to the young composers of that time.

In conclusion, based on the details about

the excursion that can be inferred from the document,

Mompou’s letter can be dated to around 1946-1959. Thus,

Segovia’s concert might have taken place on the same day

as one of Mompou’s usual Sunday excursions with Carme

Bravo and the Janes family.

Segovia’s concert

Based on the information discussed in the

previous paragraph, a minimum start time, a place, a day of

the week and an approximate range of years can be dened

for Segovia’s concert. The arrival of the group of friends was

planned for 6:00 p.m. and the concert began after their

scheduled return time. Moreover, both Mompou and the

Janés family lived in Barcelona, which means that they very

probably left there and got back there after their day trip.

Therefore, the concert most likely took place in the Ciutat

Comtal and started after 6:00 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon

between 1946 and 1959.

Only two concerts meet all of these requirements:

those of 14th and 21st December 1952, namely Recital

Andrés Segovia and Despedida de Andrés Segovia. Both were

held in Barcelona at the Palau de la Música Catalana; both

took place on a Sunday and started at 6:30 p.m.

These concerts were part of a charity tour in

Spain after Segovia’s long absence from the Spanish

concert scene. Segovia’s tour started with the recital on

14th December in Barcelona and continued with concerts

in Madrid, Santander, Bilbao, Vitoria, and San Sebastián. On

21st December, Segovia went back to Barcelona and the

following day he played in Valencia. On Christmas Eve, he

went to Jaén, where he received two honors and performed

twice (on 25th and 26th December). The concert tour

continued in Madrid and Oviedo and ended on New Year’s

Eve in Gijón (López Poveda, 2009).

Two concerts in Barcelona within a week of each

other might also explain why further correspondence on

this piece is not available and why the composer’s address

is written on the last page of the manuscript. Indeed,

Mompou could have handed it in person to Segovia on

the occasion of his rst concert, in order to get his opinion

the following week. On the other hand, if he had sent the

manuscript to Segovia by post, he would have put it in an

10 The start time is written on the concert programs preserved

in the Centre de Documentació de l’Orfeó Catalá.

envelope bearing his address and he would have added a

letter, in which he could specify it again.

A letter from Segovia

Thus, only one of Mompou’s and Segovia’s

letters preserved in the Fons Mompou of the Biblioteca de

Catalunya mentions a Cançó i Dansa. It is quite unrelated to

the rest of the correspondence because of the topics and

of the use of surnames for the salutation and the signature.

López Poveda (2009) writes that the only

document preserved in the Fons Mompou showing

similarities to this undated letter dates back to 1953. Segovia

wrote it a few days after his arrival in the United States from

Lisbon. His concert tour in North America began on 17th

January 1953, which was the date of his rst concert in New

York, and went on until the end of March, when he arrived

in Central America. Then, at the beginning of April 1953, he

started touring South America.

Here is the text of Segovia’s letter of 27th January

1953 alongside its English translation (Tab. 2):

27 de enero de 1953

Mi querido Mompou: me ha sido

imposible escribirte antes por

la acumulación de trabajo y de

viajes. Sin apenas descansar, ya

estoy en danza en este enorme

territorio de los Estados Unidos,

volando casi diariamente.

Tus obritas van perfectamente

a la guitarra y desearía que no

tardases mucho en mandarme

los otros números que han de

componer la Suite. Quisiera

tocarlos en el segundo recital

que daré en Nueva York antes

de emprender mi tournée por

América del Sur, o sea, a nes de

marzo. Si eres diligente, podré

incluirla en mi programa.

Mi dirección central es: 248

Central Park West, New York, 24,

o si extravía esta carta, escríbeme

al Consulado General de España,

en Nueva York, así: Spanish

General Consulate, New York

City.

Adiós. Un abrazo de tu amigo y

admirador

Segovia

27 January 1953

My dear Mompou, It was

impossible for me to write to

you sooner due to the load of

work and travel. With barely any

rest, I am already busy in this

enormous territory of the United

States, ying almost every day.

Your small works go perfectly

well with the guitar and I wish

that you would quickly send

me the other movements that

will constitute the Suite. I would

like to play them in the second

recital that I will give in New York

before I start my tour in South

America, which means at the

end of March. If you are diligent,

I will be able to include them in

my program.

My central address is: 248 Central

Park West, New York, 24., or, if

this letter gets lost, write to me

at the Spanish General Consulate

in New York, like this: Spanish

General Consulate, New York

City.

Goodbye. A hug from your friend

and admirer

Segovia

Figure 2

Mompou's letter to Segovia (27 January 1953).

There are striking similarities in both content and

level of formality between this text and Mompou’s undated

11 The letter has been transcribed with Andrés Segovia’s

original spelling and punctuation.

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letter. Firstly, this is the only other letter in which the

writer used surnames for the salutation and the signature.

Undoubtedly, the rapport between the guitarist and the

composer deepened over the following years, notably

thanks to the summer courses of Música en Compostela

that were created in 1958, resulting in the commission of

Suite (Iglesias, 1992).

A second similarity between the two letters lies

in their content. The key subjects of Mompou’s letter were

the comment on Segovia’s departure by plane immediately

after his concert, the feedback request on Canción y Danza,

and the news that he was trying to write something more

for guitar.

Thus, Segovia’s paragraph about the amount of

work and travel seems connected to Mompou’s remark

about his rapid departure after the concert. It even includes

a commentary about the necessity of traveling almost every

day, by which the writer hinted that he had to y ceaselessly

and resumed the subject of his rapid departures after his

concerts.

In the following paragraph, Segovia gave a

positive opinion of Mompou’s piece, which he found very

suited to the guitar. He also encouraged the addressee

to keep on composing for him and showed his interest in

receiving other works, replying thus to the last sentence of

the body of the undated letter. Both these elements and the

date suggest that the above message might be Segovia’s

answer to the composer.

Segovia did not write the title of the piece, but

it is likely that he referred to Cançó i Dansa X. Indeed, the

diptych has an incredible guitar technique and the word

obritas (small works) perfectly suits its manuscript, which

is made of two short pieces of one page each. In fact,

Mompou composed only one other work for the Andalusian

guitarist, Suite Compostelana; the small pieces mentioned

in this letter could not belong to it as the commission of

Suite originated from the summer courses of Música en

Compostela, which began ve years later.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Segovia’s letter testies that, in

January 1953, Mompou had already composed obritas

(small works) for guitar and that he had already requested

an opinion from the greatest guitarist of that time on the

compositions’ suitability to the instrument. Therefore, it is

irrefutable that Mompou had already composed for guitar

about a decade before Suite Compostelana.

Based on all the elements considered for this

dating hypothesis – which is to say: the address written on

the last page of the autograph, the elements mentioned by

Mompou in his undated message, and Segovia’s letter of

January 1953 – the guitar version of Cançó i Dansa X could

coincide with the obritas composed in 1952. Thus, the tenth

diptych of Cançons i Danses would be Frederic Mompou’s

rst composition for guitar.

After all, this dating hypothesis cannot come as a

surprise. Indeed, Mompou’s interest in composing for guitar

started long before 1952, as demonstrated by this sentence:

“Moreover, as I am in good condition while doing a quartet

movement, other motifs come to my mind and bring me

new ideas; they might result in a piece for guitar or maybe

in a melody” (Mompou, 1927, p. 2).

Further research is needed in this matter. In

fact, according to all the elements taken into account for

this dating hypothesis, Cançó i Dansa X could date back to

1952, while the ocial composition date of the versions

for piano and vocal quartet is 1953. Therefore, Mompou

might have written the version for guitar at the end of

1952 and those for piano and vocal quartet the following

year. This means that this diptych could be Mompou’s rst

original composition for guitar, even though it remained

unpublished, unrecorded, and thus unknown for half a

century.

Acknowledgments

The completion of this paper would not have

been possible without the contribution of the following

organizations: Biblioteca de Catalunya of Barcelona,

Fundación Andrés Segovia of Linares, Orfeó Catalá of

Barcelona.

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