Maria

Maria Carratalà van der Wouver

Barcelona , 1899
Barcelona , 1984

Performer

Pianist and music critic

She studied at the French School and at the Conservatori del Liceu, and later with Frank Marshall (piano) and Felip Pedrell (composition).
During the 1920s she performed in Paris as a concert pianist. She devoted herself to performing Spanish music, including composers from Antonio de Cabezón to Manuel de Falla, and contemporary Catalan composers such as Jaume Pahissa or Manuel Blancafort. She was also very active as a critic and defended the need to program contemporary Catalan composers. She wrote scripts for theater and in the 1930s, she translated writers such as Cocteau, Strindberg and Goethe. Politically leaned to the left, she was one of the promoters of women's participation in cultural, intellectual and sports fields. It appears that she coined the term "independent composers" to refer to what would be the Group of the Eight of Barcelona.