Impressions / FT Bd.145 (PDF)

Born in Molins de Rei on 12 March 1895, Francesc Civil benefitted from a very favourable family musical atmosphere. At the age of six, he was taught his first notions of music by his father and his brother Joseph and attended his first concerts. Then the time spent at the Escolania de Montserrat (Montserrat Choir School), from 1903 to 1907, played a decisive role in laying the solid foundations needed to develop a musical personality of the highest level. At the age of twelve, apparently by decision of his father, he moved to Paris, the world's leading artistic, literary and intellectual centre at the turn of the century, where his brother Aleix and his brother and godfather Joseph lived. There he continued his general academic training in the towns of Étampes and Pithiviers and finally graduated from the Sorbonne in Paris with a bachelor's degree.
In September 1913, he was admitted to the Schola Cantorum in Paris, directed at the time by Vincent d'Indy, where he studied until 1917. The teaching at this institution, which used more innovative methods than at the Conservatory, preached a return to the Gregorian tradition and the appreciation of the Palestrina style. At the same time, it proposed a three-sided approach to learning music: the study of theory, the compositional practice of certain musical genres and forms, and the analysis of scores as a tool for understanding the different styles, from the Renaissance to César Franck (a key figure for the Schola Cantorum). It should also be noted that the instrumentalists were obliged to participate in the vocal ensembles, so that here Civil would resume the instruction in singing begun at the Escolania de Montserrat.
This type of education, with the voice as the pivot, would define the composer's entire output. In addition, he would produce a body of work that perfectly reflected the premise of his composition teacher, D'Indy, according to which harmony should be the result of counterpoint.