Here’s a follow-up to my post on Sunday, about the J. Montsalvatje bookplate. You may recall, I was wondering if it had once been the property of Catalan composer Xavier Montsalvatge.
I heard back from my contact, which in fact is the composer’s nephew. The composer’s father was the brother of my acquaintance’s grandfather. I had forgotten their exact relationship in my alcoholic haze. (We met at a party.) In any case, it’s not the easiest thing to remember!
According to the nephew, the composer changed the spelling “because in the grammatical catalonia is correct way [sic], but Monsalvatje is the ancient form for writing my last name.
“This last name was born in Girona (Catalonia, Spain) long time ago and only my family has this name in all Spain, it’s true that in States there are person with that name too, because one of my old family went to States in XIX century.”
He goes on to relate that his great grandfather was a collector of books, by the name of Joseph Montsalvatje. Apparently, many of those books are now in museums and private collections. Books are very big in the Montsalvatje family. Also the arts. The family tree is full of artists and musicians.
Since I originally posted, I managed to trace the bookplate, by googling the designer (L. Brunet), to the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois. The plate is identified as having belonged to one Jordi Montsalvatje i Fossa – probably from the branch of the family Montsalvatge’s nephew says settled in the U.S.
In the meantime, I also managed to uncover a second bookplate (pictured), likely the former property of the same Joseph Montsalvatje cited by my acquaintance. Here I learn that the artist/designer’s full name is Llorenç Brunet Torroll:
The caption reads: “Music pagat, no fa mal sò,” apparently a common expression in that part of the world, since a Google search turns up many results. The translation is roughly, “Music paid for makes bad sound,” meaning, as far as I can make out, that when one is paid for one’s work, one doesn’t do it well, or doesn’t do it at all. Feel free to correct me on that, Catalan speakers.
If you didn’t catch my earlier post on the matter, you can always just scroll down my Facebook page until you find it, if it means that much to you.
For the time being, I’m using the earlier bookplate as my profile pic.
As a reward for reading, enjoy some more music by Xavier Montsalvatge!