Chamber works of Catalan Composer Joan Massià (1890-1969)

JOAN MASSIÀ

We are pleased to present this CD that, for the first time, offers the works for violin and piano, as well as the songs for voice and piano, by Joan Massià (1890-1969). This CD also includes some works for piano in the version of the remembered Maria Carbonell (1911-1988), the composer's wife.

Despite the fact of being rather unjustly unknown to the general public, Maestro Massià occupies a place of honour in the history of music in our country. It is a paradigm of what we could call a complete musician.

Trained as a violinist in Brussels with Alfred Marchot, a pupil of the great Eugène Isaÿe, he lived for some time in Paris where he was able to participate in the European musical scene of the early twentieth century and be in contact with the great musicians and musical trends of the time.

He knew perfectly the world of performance, for he enjoyed a long career as concert performer and worked especially in chamber music, mainly in the violin and piano repertoire. He combined his activity as a concert performer with his other great vocation: pedagogy. His efforts to create a Catalan school of violin were successful since among his pupils we find a large number of violinists and professors of an undeniable category recognised in our country and abroad. But his pedagogic activity was not limited to the violin; it was also very important in chamber music. Today, many musicians who are not violinists consider themselves his pupils. His pedagogic work was complemented with that of his wife Maria Carbonell, pianist and piano professor. Their home was a centre for the study and cultivation of music.

In these notes we wish to focus mainly on Joan Massià as a composer. His great facility to compose, improvise and accompany any music on the piano has only been written on stave for a very small part. The compositions that have been kept are twenty-four works for piano (two of them for four hands), four works for violin and piano and a collection of seven songs. Indeed, it is not a very large number of pieces of work, but it is high-quality music and very beautiful. Unfortunately, he did not write more.

It is surprising that, being a violinist, he only wrote such a small number of works for this instrument. Perhaps, since he knew so much music for this instrument, he already had so many works to play as a concert performer and as a professor available. When he composed some works to be played by his pupils for violin and piano, he did it “in the style of...”.

We are referring to four works in styles between classical and romantic, in which he uses the violin more due to its melodic and expressive capacity than to its merely virtuoso possibilities. The version we present in this CD is that of the excellent violinist Gonçal Comellas, favourite pupil of Joan Massià, accompanied by Maria Carbonell. It is no doubt a definitive version because the performers were able to work on these pieces with the composer and convey to us the whole meaning he wanted to give to them with the greatest accuracy.

With respect to the songs, it is not clear whether they were written with a pedagogic aim or for a specific performer. They are a sample of intimate music, the unequivocal expression of the composer’s feelings. Joan Massià was able to transform these seven exquisite poems by Tomàs Garcés into seven beautiful songs. The atmosphere of each poem is attained by using a musical language that is quite daring from the melodic and harmonic point of view. The parts of the piano, very elaborated, are not simple accompaniments but works that require remarkable virtuosity. We also present here an outstanding and certainly a definitive version of them. From the seven songs, four are sung by the soprano Mª Carmen Bustamante accompanied on the piano by Manuel García Morante, and the other three by the tenor Josep Carreras accompanied by David Jiménez. As it could not be otherwise, both singers offer an accurate and intimate version of these songs. They recite them with the difficult naturalness and poetry that only great performers are able to express. In addition, the two pianists are the appropriate counterpoint to the voices, fully attaining the atmosphere of each song.

This version is like a posthumous homage to Maria Carbonell. She had already decided with Josep Carreras to record the songs, but she died before being able to do it. Nevertheless, the project was carried out as proof of the performers’ friendship. It is fair to say it and be grateful for it.

This CD includes also a large number of Joan Massià’s works for piano. Certainly, in the works for piano we may observe the most genuine talent of Joan Massià as a composer. Composition, which had for him a meaning of “intimate and spiritually necessary” expression, as the composer himself said, found its greatest exponent in the music for piano.

Some of his works are dedicated to pianists who were his friends, but the fact that his wife was a pianist was certainly an important reason for him to write most of his works for this instrument. In a very personal style, it is a cultivated music with popular resonances that expresses a lively harmony that inserts itself into the musical trends of the early twentieth century. Who could play this music better than Maria Carbonell, filling it with all the feelings in which it is rooted? Her musical talent and her closeness to the author make this version to be a unique one; once more, a true interpretative reference.
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Before finishing, let me say a few words on the Massià–Carbonell Association. By recalling these two figures of our country, it organises activities (concerts every month and a contest each year) with the aim of helping young musicians, offering good music and making people know the works by Joan Massià. For the Association it is important to disseminate good music, but it is even more so to work to help young musicians, as Joan Massià and Maria Carbonell did.

The Association wants to thank Maria Massià (the daughter of Joan Massià and Maria Carbonell), Gonçal Comellas, Mª Carmen Bustamante, Manuel García Morante, Josep Carreras and David Jiménez, for generously allowing us to edit this recording. The music is Joan Massià’s, but without the skill and the generosity of the performers this CD would never have been released.

The work done by Albert Moraleda is remarkable, recuperating the recordings carried out in his studio between 1986 and 1988 and updating them. The accurate work done by Llorenç Balsach has produced a high-quality CD. We also want to express our gratitude to them.

Finally, we hope you enjoy listening to this music that keeps the freshness and the charm of the time when it was written: this is classical music.

Jaume Argemí
President of the Massià–Carbonell Association
www.joanmassia.com

English translation: Beatrice Krayenbühl