First the music, then the words. Notes on the poetic creation of Joan Maragall

Joan Maragall wrote some of his poems adapted to music, such as "Per tu ploro" or "La pubilla empordanesa". He himself used to play on the piano the compositions to which he wrote lyrics, writing in the scores the first versions of the texts. It is likely that he also did so when translating songs or other pieces of vocal music. When the poet thought of stanzas and verses sung, he was guided by the specific reference to a melody or defined musical sections; even when the composer he worked with asked for the lyrics before composing the music. The writing process of the sardana "L'Empordà" confirms this need for a pre-existing work to decide the structure and metric of the poems to which music was to be played. Maragall applied this technique of poetic invention, typical of the translation of sung texts: starting from music to delimit the form of words. Taking this into account even allows us to modify the critical edition of some of his poems.