著者

服部 洋一

出版者

東京芸術大学

雑誌

東京藝術大学音楽学部紀要 (ISSN:09148787)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.21, pp.63-91, 1995

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Composer Frederic (Federico) Mompou (1893-1987) searched throughout his life for ways to express his own musical ideals and sensibilities. This paper examines his attitude toward this search, and also analyzes changes in his means of musical expression as shown in his songs. From 1914 to 1915, Mompou was greatly concerned with the problem of finding his own means of musical expression. He wrote a report entitled "Estudi del sentiment per a l'interpretacio al piano," in which he reconsidered and reanalyzed traditional musical terms. From this, we can see that his search for his own musical language began while he was still young; this search continued throughout Mompou's career, not only in his piano works, but also in his vocal works. In order to analyze the changes in musical language in Mompou's vocal works, the following songs were selected: L'hora grisa (1915) from his early period; Cortina de fullatge (1925) and Canconeta incerta (1926) from his middle period; Damunt de tu nemes les flors and Aquesta nit un mateix vent (from the suite Combat del Somni; 1942-51) for his mature period; and finally La fausse morte (from the suite Cine chansons sur les poemes de Paul Valery; 1973) for his later years. Through this analysis the following characteristics have been shown: In his early and middle periods: (1) Mompou avoided conventional stability by using an "ambiguous tonality" which although diatonic is neither major nor minor (even when a mode is used, cadences do not have traditional chords); (2) he tended to avoid definiteness through using parallel dominant chord progressions; (3) he used the major second interval as a standard device to express anguish or pain in the song text. In his middle and mature periods, in addition to the above techniques: (4) Mompou used "two-storied chords" (an invented term meaning a kind of compound chord made from two adjoining chords) with increasing frequency and effectiveness; (5) his work came to show a characteristic sense of cadence through the use of 3rd inversion chords. All of these characteristics give a particular color to Mompou's songs, distinguishing him from other Spanish composers in the 20th century. In his later years, Mompou adopted Messiaen's "2nd mode" in his vocal work La fausse morte. But this fact is closely related to his use of parallel dominant chord progressions in his earlier works. Mompou's adoption of this mode for his own expressive purposes should be seen to reflect his interest in the use of diminished chords for their dominant function, and the fact that the combination of tones in Messiaen's 2nd mode give a richness in melody which satisfied Mompou's sense of sound in his later years.