Recordant Miquel Llobet

Remembering Miquel Llobet, Song and Dance for solo guitar, which as its title suggests, is a memorial to the great Catalan guitarist from the end of the 19th century and the first third of the 20th century. Llobet used to include a great number of popular Catalan music programmes in his concert transcripts and arrangements for guitar from the universal repertoire for piano. Master Tàrrega’s transcript of Chopin’s work is a particular highlight of this. Llobet’s tendency to incorporate these transcriptions led to the idea of working on a simple original melody from a popular Catalan Song, and on the main theme of one of Chopin’s Mazurkas for piano in the Dance.
From the Song, one can emphasize the symmetrical structure of its phrases, so typical of the Catalan song style, and from the Dance, the colourful harmonic and melodic variations and the mention of a very well known Catalan song - El Cant dels Ocells (Birdsong), near the end of the work. I clearly took the idea of writing a Song and Dance from the distinguished Catalan composer Frederic Mompou, who in 1972 composed his two last Songs and Dances, number 15 for organ, by the title of Pastoral, and number 13 for guitar.

Moisès Bertran