28 CATALUÑA LLIVIA... DISTANT PRESENCE Bells, children’s shouting, the sounds of nature… So there is a multitude of sounds to be heard in these evocative pieces. How is such imitation achieved on the piano? It is all a result of imagination. As I often remind my students, it is not enough to simply play: you also have to make the piano resonate, bringing certain notes into relief to create underlying textures of sound. There is a whole process at work involving colour and spatialisation, which gives depth and suggests effects of perspective. Although there are few notes in Mompou’s pieces, whose musical language is sparse and understated, you still have to know how to arrange the notes within the musical space. You must identify, within the chords, those ‘alien’ notes that create dissonances designed to reproduce resonant effects. This is how you can succeed in making the complex vibrations of a bell audible. For the bell emits a fundamental note accompanied by harmonics, namely sound waves of different pitches that are barely perceptible to the ear.
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