Manuel Blancafort’s music has a concise tonal directness that draws on his fondness for French composers. His Cançons are not simply evocative but embody an increasing use of the Noucentist aesthetic: the Catalan cultural movement of the early 20th century that was a reaction against Modernisme. Blancafort rejected the Romanticism and Wagnerian pathos of the modernist Lied in favour of Classicism and beauty – sentiments he shared with his Catalan contemporaries Toldrà, Gerhard and Mompou. Intimate, sensitive and playful, his Catalan songs connect both to his country’s past and also to a wider European musical culture.