Page 393 - Weiss, Jernej, ur. 2017. Glasbene migracije: stičišče evropske glasbene raznolikosti - Musical Migrations: Crossroads of European Musical Diversity. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 1
P. 393
escape from catalonia: the composing experience of roberto gerhard
part of a totally integrated style, one that blends them into the serial, most-
ly non-melodic textures.
Yet there is another side to what followed, one that probably was un-
expected, because soon after the completion of the Symphony No.1 Gerhard
began to compose electronic music. His private facilities in Cambridge were
by today’s standards very primitive, but it is clear that he obtained the best
equipment that he could afford at this time. His first essays in this direc-
tion were of incidental music, for tape usually with an instrumental ensem-
ble, for example, Shakespeare’s King Lear (1955)39 for the Royal Shakespeare
Company in Stratford. From 1958 he was able to use the BBC Radiophon-
ic Workshop which had been created for electronic music composition, to
provide facilities to create incidental music for drama and for sound effects,
and regularly used these facilities in addition to his own studio equipment
in Cambridge. During the 1960s Gerhard created a handful of electron-
ic works mostly of incidental music for tape, again usually with a chamber
ensemble. 40 Of course while this music did have fairly wide transmission as
part of stage or broadcast plays, Gerhard’s name did not feature strongly in
the credits. There were also a small number of independent electronic piec-
es, under the titles of Sculpture and Audiomobile, some of which remained
incomplete at Gerhard’s death.
Two important electronic or part electronic works, however, did reach
the broader musical public with his name firmly attached to them. The first
was the music to accompany a recitation of Federico García Lorca’s poem
Lament on the Death of a Bullfighter in 1959. It was a brilliantly conceived
“score”, set against the expressive spoken delivery by the actor Stephen
Murray of an excellent translation by A.L. Lloyd of the extended poem by
Gerhard’s compatriot Lorca. The electronic sounds mirror the words or
rather they comment on them in a vivid and sometimes grisly way.41 It is
not the place here to analyse the detailed interaction between the words and
the sounds involved, but some remarks are pertinent. The poem itself has a
hypnotic power, for example, in the first section the phrase repeated every
39 Some details are given by Irena Cholij in “Gerhard, Electronic Music and King Lear,”
Tempo, 198 (October 1996): 28–34.
40 For details see Hugh Davies, “The Electronic Music,” Tempo, 139 (December 1981):
35–38 and Gregorio García Karman, “Roberto Gerhard’s BBC Sound Compositions,”
The Roberto Gerhard Companion, 307–47.
41 The BBC recording of Lament for the Death of a Bullfighter was transferred to CD
with recordings of five other electronic pieces by Gerhard on SR 378 (Brussels: Sub
Rosa, 2014).
391
part of a totally integrated style, one that blends them into the serial, most-
ly non-melodic textures.
Yet there is another side to what followed, one that probably was un-
expected, because soon after the completion of the Symphony No.1 Gerhard
began to compose electronic music. His private facilities in Cambridge were
by today’s standards very primitive, but it is clear that he obtained the best
equipment that he could afford at this time. His first essays in this direc-
tion were of incidental music, for tape usually with an instrumental ensem-
ble, for example, Shakespeare’s King Lear (1955)39 for the Royal Shakespeare
Company in Stratford. From 1958 he was able to use the BBC Radiophon-
ic Workshop which had been created for electronic music composition, to
provide facilities to create incidental music for drama and for sound effects,
and regularly used these facilities in addition to his own studio equipment
in Cambridge. During the 1960s Gerhard created a handful of electron-
ic works mostly of incidental music for tape, again usually with a chamber
ensemble. 40 Of course while this music did have fairly wide transmission as
part of stage or broadcast plays, Gerhard’s name did not feature strongly in
the credits. There were also a small number of independent electronic piec-
es, under the titles of Sculpture and Audiomobile, some of which remained
incomplete at Gerhard’s death.
Two important electronic or part electronic works, however, did reach
the broader musical public with his name firmly attached to them. The first
was the music to accompany a recitation of Federico García Lorca’s poem
Lament on the Death of a Bullfighter in 1959. It was a brilliantly conceived
“score”, set against the expressive spoken delivery by the actor Stephen
Murray of an excellent translation by A.L. Lloyd of the extended poem by
Gerhard’s compatriot Lorca. The electronic sounds mirror the words or
rather they comment on them in a vivid and sometimes grisly way.41 It is
not the place here to analyse the detailed interaction between the words and
the sounds involved, but some remarks are pertinent. The poem itself has a
hypnotic power, for example, in the first section the phrase repeated every
39 Some details are given by Irena Cholij in “Gerhard, Electronic Music and King Lear,”
Tempo, 198 (October 1996): 28–34.
40 For details see Hugh Davies, “The Electronic Music,” Tempo, 139 (December 1981):
35–38 and Gregorio García Karman, “Roberto Gerhard’s BBC Sound Compositions,”
The Roberto Gerhard Companion, 307–47.
41 The BBC recording of Lament for the Death of a Bullfighter was transferred to CD
with recordings of five other electronic pieces by Gerhard on SR 378 (Brussels: Sub
Rosa, 2014).
391
