A small niggle first. The cover announces, in an implausible mixture of Catalan and Spanish, “Complete Canciones y danzas”; but it’s not. Even disregarding No. 13, which is for guitar, where is No. 14, which Larrocha has recorded? That said, however, let me welcome these extremely appealing performances of Mompou’s little pieces, so seemingly artless yet uniquely haunting. The early Impresiones intimas were a pointer to the composer’s shy, withdrawn personality – predominantly melancholy, except for the more lively “Gipsy” (which, even so, has a plaintive quality) and the agitated “Lament” No. 4. Gustavo Romero, a pianist I had not previously heard, is intensely sensitive to the music’s poetry, and everywhere produces a beautiful tone (well captured by the recording).
Imaginative tonal nuances are a feature of his Cancons i danses, where, besides meticulously observing all Mompou’s dynamic shadings, he shows himself alive to the almost erotic harmonic subtleties and the touches of imitation and counter-melody; and his evidently large hands enable him to play extended chords without needing to break them. In his affectionate moulding of phrases he sometimes, by adopting a particularly slow pace, comes close to loving them to death – I instance No. 1, the outer sections of No. 4 and the concluding section of No. 3’s sardana – but it’s a fault on the right side; and in the Latin-American rhythm of No. 6’s dance he is most engagingly springy. A strong recommendation.'