Nin-Culmell: España Me Persigue
by Arlene B. Woehl

Excerpt from España Me Persigue by Arlene B. Woehl, published in Clavier, January 1987. Used with permission of the author.

"Spain haunts me," used to muse Joaquín Nin-Culmell, an American composer whose piano works vibrantly and eloquently portray the various regions of Spain. Although not all of his wide-ranging compositions, which include songs, choral works, chamber and orchestral music, ballets, and an opera, have been inspired by his Spanish heritage, his series of short piano works called Tonadas hauntingly evoke the richness of Spanish folk music.

Joaquín Nin-Culmell led a cosmopolitan life. Born in Berlin in 1908, he traveled extensively throughout Europe with his mother and father, both professional musicians who were born in Cuba when it was still under Spanish rule. (His older sister Anaïs Nin, the writer, was born in Paris, in 1903, and his older brother Thorvald in Havana, in 1905 --editor)

His mother was the celebrated lieder singer, Rosa Culmell (1871-1954) of Franco Danish ancestry, and his father was the eminent composer, musicologist and pianist, Joaquín Nin (1879-1949) of Catalonian lineage, known for his performance of old, little-known music and for his editions of 18th-century Spanish keyboard and vocal music. Nin-Culmell's father also set more than 30 folk songs from all regions of Spain for voice and piano and wrote two books on the aesthetics of music.

The young Nin-Culmell's musical education began in 1913-14 in Barcelona, where he studied solfege with Conchita Badia, who would later become one of the great vocal interpreters of Falla, Granados and Nin. His education continued in the United States from 1914 to 1924, then in Paris from 1924 to 1935 at the Schola Cantorum and the Conservatoire. After completing his studies Nin-Culmell spent several years giving concerts in Europe and then returned to settle in the United States. He taught at Williams College (1940-1950) and the University of California at Berkeley (1950-1974) until his retirement. He divided his time between California and Spain.

From childhood Nin-Culmell was equally devoted to composition and piano performance. In Paris he studied piano with Paul Braud, Alfred Cortot, and Ricardo Viñes while also studying composition with Paul Dukas; during the summers he traveled to Granada to study with Manuel de Falla. His dual talents are wedded in his piano works, all of which display an intimate knowledge of the instrument. In fact, Nin-Culmell wrote his early works, the Piano Quintet, the Piano Concerto, and the Sonata Breve for his own use as a concert pianist. Nin-Culmell began working with Spanish folk music in 1938 when he collaborated with the Spanish musicologist Adolfo Salazar in a series of illustrated lectures on Spanish folklore at Middlebury College in Vermont. In 1955, when he was asked to write some short homages, including one for Madame Rosina Lhévinne, he decided to draw upon the wealth of Spanish folk music and began the series of short pieces (48 in four volumes) entitled Tonadas (tonada is a Spanish word meaning anything sung, played, danced, or all three). Nin-Culmell did not conceive of these pieces as merely harmonized folk melodies. He described the creative process of writing the Tonadas this way: "The musical elements began having a life of their own...in some cases, even the original folk melody would be blurred by other considerations...Tunes might be quoted literally but they might also be distorted, varied, distilled in all possible ways, changing the tempo and rhythm, mode, or melodic outline."

Nin-Culmell's interest in Spanish folk music went beyond ethnomusicology. He likened folk tunes in collections to "beautifully colored butterflies...carefully pinned down for future reference...the whole collection being interesting but lifeless." Though he considered these collections important and stimulating to the composer, "the pinned-down butterflies must be brought back to life." The manner in which he breathed life into these Spanish folk tunes preserved the inherent beauty of the original melodies while surrounding them with settings that reflect and enhance their color and form. Nin-Culmell's music transcended the literal reproduction of the folk material; it distilled the essence of these melodies and the music became something more. We feel the moods, the landscapes, and the spirit of this musically rich country. In the composer's view, "as a drop of rain can reflect the entire sky, a folk tune can be an entire world".

Arlene Barbara Woehl is professor emerita of music at Holy Names University in Oakland, California where she taught piano, piano literature and 20th-Century music. She earned her M.M. degree from Indiana Universtiy and studied with Daniel Pollack, Adolph Baller, and Alfonso Montecino.