Llorenç Balsach

Llorenç Balsach was born in Sabadell on 16 April 1953. He is a Catalan composer whose work is distinguished by humour, irony and a notable variety of resources, traits that place him within the postmodern current of his country's music.

His training began at the Conservatori de Barcelona, where he studied harmony and composition with Carles Guinovart and Josep Soler Sardà, among others. While studying mathematics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, he experimented with electronic music under the guidance of Brncic. He also attended composition seminars given by Petrassi in Italy.

His output falls into two phases. In the first, influenced by the ideas of Cage, he sought to blur the boundary between musical sound and noise: he employed unconventional ways of playing traditional instruments, made use of electronic instruments and mixed magnetic tape with live sound. Works such as Suite gàstrica (1979) and El cant de les artèries (1979) illustrate this approach, as they imitate the sounds of the digestive system and the flow of the arteries, respectively, using traditional instruments.

In the second phase he turned to more conventional musical procedures, including an openly tonal language. Visions grotesques (1992) is a succession of musical images, or 'visions', that explores a wide range of orchestral colour, from full orchestra to string quartet. Each vision is an independent piece, but a chromatic motif that recurs in each one, played by a different instrument, provides a lasting structural unity.

Despite this diversity, his music consistently maintains a detached and ironic attitude, visible in titles with a Satie-like resonance that suggest concrete images, though they above all privilege the idea of play. It is this playfulness that gives his music its postmodern character.