Soon after I settled into my new house in Barcelona’s Eixample, I took up the habit of capturing fleeting impressions of the passing seasons, filming the variations of the tree that is framed by my window. I gradually began to feel an interest in the figures that I could sense behind the leaves, in the facade across the road: one of them, a violinist obstinately rehearsing Bach´s The Ciaccona at his window. In a scene such as this, the year that crowns the building and dates it, “1900”, seemed to announce the close of the 19th century rather than the start of the 20th. When I heard about the violinist’s tragic death on my return from a trip, I also found out that he and I were the same age, and that he was the author of the most recent Spanish translation of one of the key texts of my youth: The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe. Based on these elements, I decided to review the images I had captured randomly from my window, and I ventured to approach my neighbours - whom I had barely had dealings with - on the lookout for any small revelation.

NOTE: The title Memories of a Morning refers equally to the morning of the tragic death of the violinist and to his most important work as a translator: Proust´s Against Saint-Beuve, Memories of a Morning.