Wilhem LATCHOUMIA

Is it music that falls easily under a pianist’s fingers?

Yes and no. Before tackling Falla I had already worked on some of the pieces from

Iberia

, the

Goyescas

of Granados, works by Mompou. When I started to play his

music, to realise it in physical terms, I initially had the impression that something

was missing, and it took me a while before I was satisfied with what I was hearing.

I’d already had that feeling with Villa-Lobos, but you have to get past that first

impression; in fact you have to appropriate for yourself not just a style, a language,

but a whole universe. Now, it happens to be the case that we get very little chance

to work on the scores of Falla or Villa-Lobos at the Conservatoire. Their pianistic

formulas are very different from anything else: it’s often said they evoke the guitar,

but I don’t know how guitarists would react if you gave them the score of the

Fantasía bætica

and told them to have a go at playing it . . .

Yet the idea of the guitar, or rather the musical embodiment of the guitar,

is omnipresent in Falla, but in the sound-world of his imagination.

Yes, the colours, the accents – in fact it’s more the guitar reconceived in orchestral

terms and only then taken up by the piano.

WILHEM LATCHOUMIA