La música para piano de Felip Pedrell

The main part of Pedrell’s pianistic production is centred on the years 1862-1871, during his youth in Tortosa. It makes up a considerable corpus of pieces that cover the pianistic genres of the time; nocturnes, waltzes, ballads, improvisations, studies, fantasies, sonnets, symphonic notes, characteristic topics. The study of this repertoire reveals its quantitative and qualitative importance in Pedrell’s production of compositions; in them we find features that were later developed in larger works, together with the clear influence of the romance music and aesthetic of the time. The language, clearly pianistic, shows a practical knowledge of the instrument; the composition structure, especially in the medium sized pieces, reveals a taste for motivic development, audacious modulations and chromatism, although in a tonal context. On some occasions the characteristics of ballroom music are exceeded. The last ten years of intense pianistic creation came to a sudden stop, making way for, from 1873, the Lied and stage music, and also for the search for better timbral development.