6. Quatre melodies sobre Tomàs Garcés

Vídeo amb la partitura i la pronunciació dels textos

Quatre melodies sobre Tomàs Garcés. (Four Songs Based on poems by Tomàs Garcés 1901-1993)

This cycle is made up of four pieces, two composed in 1946 and two in 1950.
Cançó del grumet (Song of the Cabin Boy) and Cançó del port (The Song of the Harbour) were in fact the two first official commissions Narcís Bonet was asked to write. To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first publication of his poems, Tomàs Garcés decided to publish a new special numbered edition in two volumes with his first twenty poems. One of the volumes included his texts and illustrations by the artist Ramon Rogent whereas the second included the music that various Catalan composers had written for his poems – the work of a young Narcís Bonet sat alongside compositions by Frederic Mompou, Xavier Montsalvatge, Eduard Toldrà, Joaquim Serra and Joan Llongueras, among others. The compositions were first presented in public in a concert at the Bonet family home in Barcelona. Several writers attended, and Frederic Mompou and Narcís Bonet, on the piano, accompanied the singer Conxita Badia who had just returned from exile.
The Cançó de bressol (Lullaby), a short piece with subtle harmonies, is dedicated to Joan Massià i Carbonell, Narcís Bonet’s godson, son of the music teacher Joan Massià and his wife Maria Carbonell, herself a student of
the great pianist Blanche Selva and one of Narcís’s piano teachers.
Joc d’infant (Child’s Play), which finishes with the words ‘I love you’ is dedicated to Narcís’s first love, the young girl, Maria Albet.

Hélène Bonet-Giraudier