Federico Mompou wrote the 28 brief piano pieces that make up the four volumes of his Música Callada (Silent Music) between 1959 and 1967, but they could easily be mistaken for a product of the first decade of the century. The influence of Satie and Debussy is pronounced, but the music has an idiosyncratic individuality that keeps it from being mistaken for the work of either of those composers. The composer traced his aesthetic in part to his memories of the sound of bells when he was a child, and it's not hard to hear the influence of bell-like sonorities in Música Callada. The music doesn't follow the conventions of traditional tonality, but Mompou is discreet in the use of dissonance and the result is very gentle music that is not always clearly directional but is easy on the ear. Each of the miniatures is beautifully structured and proportioned, and even though most of them are slow and quiet, Mompou finds infinite ways to create slow, quiet moods without sounding redundant. The set, which lasts about 70 minutes, should make for very pleasant listening for fans of pastel keyboard music flavored with touches of impressionism and gentle modernism. The performance by Jenny Lin tends to be on the loud side, with greater dynamic contrasts than are usual for the work. Just hearing her playing, without knowing the title of the piece, it's doubtful that many listeners would guess Silent Music was an appropriate title. On some levels, Lin's performance works on its own terms; her tone is lovely, and her phrasing supple and flexible. Her wide dynamic range, however, makes the piece sound more conventional than the composer seems to have intended; the aura of distant mystery that a very quiet performance can produce is missing, as well as the composer's apparent intention to flout tradition by writing a work of this length within an unusually circumscribed dynamic range. The sound of the Steinway & Sons recording is immaculate, but a little on the bright side.
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