ABSTRACT
Maurice Ohana’s cultural background is full of contradictions which conspire to make him difficult to place for those who desire the convenience of tidy labelling by nationality. For this reason, Ohana tended to speak more of cultural roots and geographical influence than of nationality. When describing his cultural origins himself, Ohana liked to identify his birthplace as the ‘balcony of Europe’, drawing attention to the proximity of southern Spain and North Africa as a meeting point of cultures. Ohana’s outstanding pianistic gifts were encouraged by Bonnal and before the age of eighteen he had performed all thirty-two Beethoven piano sonatas. During the late 1930s Ohana met many refugees of the Spanish Civil War who had fled to Paris, the logical and well-established centre for the northward migration of Spanish composers, performers, writers and artists. Ohana’s real beginnings as a composer were interrupted by the outbreak of war.
