Catalonian native Manuel Blancafort was largely self-taught as a composer. Taken under Frederic Mompou’s wing, he was introduced to the rich cultural life of 1920s Paris and became part of a fertile aesthetic revolution that rejected Romanticism and marked a revival of Classicism and beauty, his concise, intimate and playful spirit connected to that of Grieg, Fauré and Satie. Always maintaining their Catalan roots, Blancafort’s songs evoke the past and dream of a country aspiring to become cultured and free from oppression. The clarity and simplicity of this message led one commentator to describe him as “the living synthesis of Catalan musical culture”