Page 395 - 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. 395
escape from catalonia: the composing experience of roberto gerhard
To move back into Gerhard’s purely orchestral works we can see that
the Second Symphony completed in 1959 was another landmark in his de-
velopment, with its elaborate hexachordal construction and extensive num-
ber working. It was a good example of the ideas that the composer had
presented in lectures in 1960 at Ann Arbor in the United States and other
papers on serial techniques as he saw them. He never felt that total serialism
would ever serve his purpose and was always sceptical about any sugges-
tion that it might. He summarily dismissed some of Stockhausen’s ideas on
rhythm in the lecture, “the idea that you can play about with time-relations
just in the same way as you can with pitch-relations and apprehend direct
proportionality between the two is a complete fallacy.”44 Instead Gerhard
always bent his technique according to common sense and discretion, even
introducing Spanish related music to his otherwise “abstract” symphon-
ic works. The Third Symphony includes a Spanish rhythmic outburst with
a trumpet fanfare (see section V in Table 1), the Fourth Symphony includes
a quotation from a Catalan folk song that he had arranged in 1928 about a
prisoner as an old man who longs for his native land (see below), and in the
two masterly chamber pieces based on the astrological signs of his wife and
himself (Libra of 1968 and Leo of 1969), a haunting Spanish tune appears.
He was able to produce such brilliant essays in exciting rhythmical fig-
ures and pure physical exhilaration as the Concerto for Orchestra of 1965
and the Symphony No.4 of 1967 in a style that is very difficult to find any-
where else in contemporary music. The Concerto for Orchestra45 followed
in the tradition of Bartók’s work of the same name, but the composer noted
the obvious differences from the aim of the latter work. Gerhard wanted to
create music which made a feature of ensemble playing instead of spotlight-
ing a virtuoso soloist.46 This is constantly shown in the way that the sec-
tions of the orchestra are coordinated, with individual solo melodic phras-
es very infrequent in the work. The composer goes on to explain that “its
form largely depends upon three contrasting types of continuity which, in
their alternation, strongly affect our passage-of-time consciousness.” These
44 Roberto Gerhard, “Functions of the series in twelve-note composition,” Gerhard on
Music, 164
45 First performed in the USA in Boston on April 25, 1965 by the BBC Symphony Or-
chestra conducted by Antal Doráti, and in the UK at Cheltenham on July 9, 1965 by
the same orchestra conducted by Norman Del Mar, who also recorded the Concerto
on ZRG 553 (London: Decca/Argo, 1968).
46 Roberto Gerhard, “Composer’s Note,” Concerto for orchestra, score (London: Oxford
University Press, 1965), [p.iii]
393
To move back into Gerhard’s purely orchestral works we can see that
the Second Symphony completed in 1959 was another landmark in his de-
velopment, with its elaborate hexachordal construction and extensive num-
ber working. It was a good example of the ideas that the composer had
presented in lectures in 1960 at Ann Arbor in the United States and other
papers on serial techniques as he saw them. He never felt that total serialism
would ever serve his purpose and was always sceptical about any sugges-
tion that it might. He summarily dismissed some of Stockhausen’s ideas on
rhythm in the lecture, “the idea that you can play about with time-relations
just in the same way as you can with pitch-relations and apprehend direct
proportionality between the two is a complete fallacy.”44 Instead Gerhard
always bent his technique according to common sense and discretion, even
introducing Spanish related music to his otherwise “abstract” symphon-
ic works. The Third Symphony includes a Spanish rhythmic outburst with
a trumpet fanfare (see section V in Table 1), the Fourth Symphony includes
a quotation from a Catalan folk song that he had arranged in 1928 about a
prisoner as an old man who longs for his native land (see below), and in the
two masterly chamber pieces based on the astrological signs of his wife and
himself (Libra of 1968 and Leo of 1969), a haunting Spanish tune appears.
He was able to produce such brilliant essays in exciting rhythmical fig-
ures and pure physical exhilaration as the Concerto for Orchestra of 1965
and the Symphony No.4 of 1967 in a style that is very difficult to find any-
where else in contemporary music. The Concerto for Orchestra45 followed
in the tradition of Bartók’s work of the same name, but the composer noted
the obvious differences from the aim of the latter work. Gerhard wanted to
create music which made a feature of ensemble playing instead of spotlight-
ing a virtuoso soloist.46 This is constantly shown in the way that the sec-
tions of the orchestra are coordinated, with individual solo melodic phras-
es very infrequent in the work. The composer goes on to explain that “its
form largely depends upon three contrasting types of continuity which, in
their alternation, strongly affect our passage-of-time consciousness.” These
44 Roberto Gerhard, “Functions of the series in twelve-note composition,” Gerhard on
Music, 164
45 First performed in the USA in Boston on April 25, 1965 by the BBC Symphony Or-
chestra conducted by Antal Doráti, and in the UK at Cheltenham on July 9, 1965 by
the same orchestra conducted by Norman Del Mar, who also recorded the Concerto
on ZRG 553 (London: Decca/Argo, 1968).
46 Roberto Gerhard, “Composer’s Note,” Concerto for orchestra, score (London: Oxford
University Press, 1965), [p.iii]
393
