Maria Luisa Cantos organizes the V International Musical Encounter

From “Revista de pensament musical”:

In May 2007 María Luisa Cantos donated the musical archive of the Fundación Música Española Suiza to the Musicological Institute at the University in Zürich. The collection contains more then 1000 scores, books and catalogues concerning those composers María Luisa Cantos featured during almost 30 years of activity of the foundation, with an emphasis on piano or chant and piano.

Two main aspects should be mentioned in order to understand the importance of this donation. The first one can be summarized in absolute numbers: the University of Zürich obtained the most valuable collection of Spanish music in Switzerland and probably one of the biggest collections in centre Europe. The relevance of the collection is not only dependent on its size, the content of the collection is unique. We find works for piano and cembalo from Spanish and Swiss authors that are very difficult to get because they have not  entered the general channels of bibliographical supply. Thus the collection is a best of the musical creation but it has also real jewels impossible to find because they are out of stock. Scholars and musicians get the opportunity to reconstruct the Spanish repertoire for piano of almost three centuries on the basis of their best composers and works and to unveil unknown treasures.

The collection supplies with a panorama view of Spanish music history but also of a particular moment in the musical history of modern Switzerland. It came into being because of the need to supply with music the participants of the Master Classes the foundation featured during more then 25 years in Baden.

As her musical director María Luisa Cantos anticipated the taste of the students, she mentored them in a very individual and personal way. Her Master Class displayed everything she considered to be the most pristine and relevant repertoire. Guided by her musical intuition and her extensive knowledge about history and cultural development she has formed a collection that documents also her long lasting pedagogical engagement. Working with María Luisa Cantos, watching her work is a privilege. The perfect match of aesthetic talent, love for Spanish music, musical passion and intelligence, of patience and energy that form part of her character as artist, as scholar and as cultural sponsor formed a collection that is at a time the shop window of Spanish piano music and a mirror of her taste, her predilections and her view about music history.

It is a rare exception when a collection started and managed by one person with the intention of featuring national music transcends the limits of the idiosyncratic and enhances universal values.”