Maria Canals (pianist)

From the first years of her childhood, Maria Remei Canals had been musical. She started her piano studies with her father, Joaquim Canals, who then was a piano teacher in the Municipal Conservatory of Barcelona.[3] When she was 11 years old she enrolled in the Municipal Conservatory of Barcelona and there she continued her studies with her father while she studied solfeo, music theory and composition with Lluís Millet. Later, he also offered her private lessons, from which a relationship of precious spiritual wealth and affect grew.[1]

In April 1932 she debuted professionally with two recitals in the Municipal Conservatory.

In these first years, Maria had the privilege of having an extraordinary teacher, Ricard Viñes, who gave her lessons at home during two intense years (1941–43), and they became very important to her technical and expressive perfection because they introduced her in a deeper knowledge of French music. Meanwhile, Viñes introduced her in concerts that were organized often in many private residences.[1]

After the Spanish Civil War, on May 30, 1942, she attended a concert together with Ricard Viñes in the Palau de la Música Catalana, where she debuted solo in November of the same year.

The release of works after the Civil War and thanks to her career in the world of music and studies and progress in the technique of the piano, Maria Canals slowly grew up from great composers and performers who saw in her an excellent performer for their works. Another of the most outstanding friendships she had was that of Manuel Blancafort, a friend of the family since 1933.

Blancafort introduced her in the musical environments of Barcelona and presented her the composers Frederic Mompou and Xavier Montsalvatge, among other personalities from the world of culture and music. It was precisely Blancafort who proposed to the renowned pianist Ricard Viñes that he could give her piano lessons. From Blancafort, Maria Canals premiered many works, such as the Iberian Concert on March 3, 1950, and Nocturn nº 2 on November 9, 1947, among others.

Throughout her long career as a pianist we observe her predilection to interpret music of the moment and of the country; Thus, she premiered works by Xavier Montsalvatge, Frederic Mompou, or her own husband, Rossend Llates. Maria Canals, then, became a pianist who promoted both the premiere and the interpretation of contemporary work.

"Blancafort used to come every week once. He brought me the pieces of music that he had been able to compose in the last few days and I executed the ones he brought me the previous week. [...] I noticed that in Blancafort although he was not a pianist, he gave me some advice that I highly appreciated and agreed with the way of playing of the great pianists [...] ", (UVDLM, p. 99-100).[4]

Maria Canals began her career as a pianist in the 1940s, just after the Civil War. Her career appearances ranged across the main European capitals: in addition to Madrid, also in France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany, but without forgetting the numerous appearances in the Palau de la Música after her first solo concert on November 10 of 1942. That first program included a series of works for which the main composers of the moment complimented the pianist. And since then, at Palau, Canals has offered recitals that included premieres, until the sixties, when the performer gave way to a fuller dedication to her own contest and to pedagogy.

Maria Canals promoted in the majority of her concerts, the work of the Spanish authors Granados, Falla, Turina, Blancafort and Mompou, which is the reason why she became one of the main ambassadors of piano music from Catalonia, and Spain.

"I have never put my personality into the interpretation, I have tried to understand what the composer wanted to say and convey it." Interview Diari Avui.

In 1948, with the help of her fiancée and shortly thereafter husband and musical critic, writer and composer Rossend Llates, she created the Ars Nova Academy.[5] For a long time, the number of students who went to their particular address was increasingly difficult to conceive and thought that the best way to offer good education would be to open a music academy. Initially, the Academy began to work in the same private home, but two years later it moved to a new attic in the Rambla de Catalunya, becoming a prestigious training centre. According to what Maria Canals explains in her book Una vida dins la música:

"We were very enthusiastic about Ars Nova and my mother and Rossend both stood firm to create a school with equivalent education to the best conservatories," (UVDLM, p. 214-215).[4]

From the beginning, the academy not only wanted to offer excellence in its classes but also considered it important to organize recitals of the students in different spaces, such as in the Sala Lluís Millet of the Palau de la Música, at the Municipal Library or the French Institute of Barcelona. For Maria Canals, it was very important to train the students to play in front of the public so that they could gain security.

In addition to recitals, the academy also offered conferences and music courses with speakers of great international prestige, as well as the creation of prizes to spur the interpretive quality of the students. As a result of this intense musical activity, some outstanding disciples began to emerge, including: Maria Neus Miró, Maria Roma, Pere Carboné, Núria Escofet and Leonora Milà, whom was a surprising case of precociousness, as she debuted with only seven years at the Palau de la Música on January 6, 1950, and became a predilect student of Maria Canals; and in 1966, with 24 years, she won the first prize of the Maria Canals International Competition.

In addition to the activities of the academy, Maria Canals created an International Music Course in Sitges with the support of a board of trustees and the organization in charge of the Sitges City Council and Conciertos Aster. The course was carried out between the years 1960 and 1963, with the objective of bringing in good young executants from different countries and different schools.[6]