SONGS FROM LISBON AND OTHER CITIES

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Frank Smalley

piano

Frank Smalley adquiriu e desenvolveu a sua formação e actividade musical no Reino Unido.

Após se ter aposentado do ensino, viveu em Espanha, residindo actualmente em Portugal.

"Songs from Lisbon and other cities" homenageia as cidades em que viveu ou adoptou — Barcelona, Girona, Paris e Lisboa — numa visão pessoal que as palavras dificilmente podem exprimir.

Focalizada na inspiração e intenção artística, a sua música utiliza a técnica para registar as sensações do compositor, de forma poética e impressionista, num estilo onde sobressai a originalidade.

 

Frank Smalley received his musical education in his native UK. After retiring from teaching he moved to Spain and now lives in Portugal.

In "Songs from Lisbon and other cities" he eulogizes the cities in which he chose to live or which he loves — Barcelona, Girona, Paris and Lisbon — and gives us his personal impression of them, in a way that would have been difficult to express in words.

Instead, he has used his musical skills to concentrate on what those cities inspired in him, expressing it in a poetic, impressionistic and original way.

 

"The musical ideas in the pieces came to me after I had visited the places during the last twenty years or so.

Three of them, however, require a specific explanation.

In St. Michel I imagined a ballet dancer pirouetting and moving joyfully through its ancient streets, becoming tired, falling into a restless, dreamy sleep.

Monet's Garden is a profile of a friend of mine (G.S.F.) as she calmly enters the garden, becomes clearly overwhelmed by its beauty and leaving enchanted.

V's Lullaby I wrote many, many years ago before I became acquainted with Barcelona. I became obsessed with the idea that, V, a world-renowned Catalan soprano would hum the baby asleep in her arms. But, alas, that was never to be."

                                                                                                                                 Frank Smalley

Compositor / All songs composed by Frank Smalley

Piano: Frank Smalley

Gravado / Recorded: Lisboa 2018

© Fabula Urbis, 2018

1. A song for Lisbon

2. Lisbon Romanza n.º 1

3. Lisbon Romanza n.º 2

4. Saudade

5. St. Michel

6. Paris

7. Giverny (Monet's Garden)

8. Girona

9. Barcelona

10. V.’s Lullaby