2009

Eduard Toldrà (1885-1962) was the most representative musician of Catalan Noucentisme, which marked a remarkable culturally rich period in Catalonia and gradually took over from the excesses of Modernism. The concept of “Catalan music” (a concept that has become somewhat diluted in terms of the globalising currents of today’s different cultural trends) is most clearly defined and expressed in the music of Eduard Toldrà. Toldrà’s compositions are clear, direct, lyrical, communicative and highly personal. I believe that the success of his creations and the immense popularity acquired by some of his pieces is due to their spontaneity and clearly popular nature, which was perhaps a result of his contact, from an early age on, with music performed in the streets or his summer encounters with Empordanese farmers, whose songs he collected, and, in many cases, harmonized (rather like a Catalan Bartók or Kodaly), and also, of course, as a result of his being immersed in what was a particularly brilliant cultural world. Consequently, Toldrà’s music, like Schubert’s, was of such a nature that it became extremely difficult to discern between what was from a popular source and what was newly created. His compositions, however, as in the case of the Viennese composer, are so deeply rooted to his homeland that they may be classified as popular music. Toldrà, nonetheless, never actually used a popular tune in his creations, which abound with luminous and elegant melodics, a highly personal chromaticism and preciously refined harmonizations.
 
Such characteristics are perhaps most evident in his songs, and, especially, in that great song and delightful masterpiece El giravolt de maig (The Somersault of May), with a libretto by the poet Josep Carner. This identification with popular music should apparently make his songs easy to perform, but quite the contrary is true. Few singers actually succeed in performing the pieces with the necessary combination of freshness and clarity, required by the public at large, and the technical perfection, demanded by a more expert audience. The majority of singers perform the pieces with affectation and seem incapable of understanding that simplicity is the best approach to connect with the audience, a simplicity that may include a certain degree of playful brazenness and purpose, in a difficult-to-strike balance. Toldrà himself explained just how difficult it is to perform his music: “Rhythm is the enemy of music”. This may well sound strange from the lips of a composer of whom Maurice Ravel said that if rhythm did not exist, Toldrà would have invented it. Indeed, all those people who were lucky enough to work with him perfectly understood what he meant. The fact is that the apparent expressive simplicity of his music conceals extremely subtle lyrical undertones and a particularly refined harmonic treatment.

Toldrà’s music is more intuitive than constructive, and is almost always inspired by poetry. This is quite normal as far as songs are concerned, but most of his chamber music pieces also came about after his reading of a poem. Indeed, Toldrà’s personality was specially receptive to the musicality inherent in poetry. And, curiously, he was much more sensitive to the influence of Catalan poetry than he was to that of other contemporary composers. Such an influence combined with his knowledge of great composers’ chamber music, which he had gained during many years of performance of their works, either in violin concerts or performances with his string quartet. Although such knowledge constituted a strong influence in the definition of his own particular musical language, he always composed independently of schools and fashions. He would say: “If I compose a fashionable piece, when the fashion dies out, what will be left of it?”. Nor did he ever seek to be particularly original, claiming that originality should always be a result, and never an objective.

Toldrà began to compose songs from a very early age. In 1915, when he was just twenty, he composed five songs in which we can already appreciate the different characteristics that would make them so personal and unmistakable. Indeed, the song that heads the list, Menta i farigola (Mint and Thyme) is one of his most popular pieces and has become an almost compulsory encore for many singers. As for his style, it may be argued that it remained invariable throughout his compositional life. He had effortlessly encountered his style and was forever faithful to it, and was always himself. But on the contrary to what might seem evident when listening to his songs, Toldrà was slow in his composition. He had an extremely marked sense of self-criticism, which he strongly applied to his work. A simple song would occupy him, and indeed obsess him, for days on end until he finally found the tone, the character, the line, the modulation he was seeking. Once he had found this, he would become transfigured and full of joy. But in no way does the finished product betray such an intense and laborious process and his music always appears to be the result of flowing inspiration, both clear and transparent. 
 
From the very outset he knew exactly what he wanted and from his very first composition onwards he found a style that, as we have previously stated, he maintained without practically any variation throughout his creative life, that is if we do not class the constant reworking of the basic principles of his language as a stylistic evolution. Solely in his orchestral cycle of songs La rosa als llavis (The Rose on Your Lips) can we find a more concise language and a richer timbric quality, which leads us to consider that if the Spanish Civil War had not so brutally interrupted his career, and his orchestra conducting had not distanced him from composition, perhaps he would have further elaborated such tendencies.

In Toldrà’s songs, as we stated above, melody is of the essence. The harmonic and rhythmic treatment, both very elaborate, always serve the melody, which stands out as a result of its adaptation to the natural phrasing of the verses, in the same way as the rhythm is subordinated to the natural prosody. The piano plays a significant role here, but never subordinates the vocals. Another characteristic of Toldrà’s songs is their textural clarity, the fact that they are so readily intelligible. And indeed he never made use of polyphony or counterpoint.

Toldrà composed 71 songs, 21 of which were harmonisations of popular pieces. Only 7 were written for vocals and orchestra, although he did later orchestrate some of his songs written for vocals and piano. He orchestrated 7 of the 9 popular Catalan songs for choir. Although it was mainly Catalan poetry he set to music, in the difficult period imposed by the post-war period and Franco’s dictatorship, together with the prohibition and implacable persecution of Catalan culture, he was obliged to work with Spanish poetry and composed his six magnificent Castilian songs and the twelve popular Spanish children’s songs (and managed to include a couple of Catalan pieces into the bargain). In 1951, in order to please his good friend Antonio Fernández-Cid, he also set a Galician poem to music.

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