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Music
List of Works (selected)
Opera
- The Duenna (1945-7), opera in 3 acts after Sheridan
Ballets
- Ariel, ballet in one act (1934)
- Soirees de Barcelone, ballet in 3 tableaux (1936-39; unfinished; performing version edited with completion of orchestration by Malcolm MacDonald, 1995-96)
- Don Quixote, ballet in one act (two versions, 1940-41 & 1947-49)
- Alegrias - Divertissement flamenco (1942)
- Pandora, ballet in one act (1943-44)
Other orchestral
- Concertino for string orchestra (1927-28)
- 2 Sardanas (1928)
- Albada, Interludi i Danza (1936)
- Symphony ‘Homenaje a Pedrell’ on themes from Pedrell’s ‘La Celestina’ (1941 - also Pedrelliana, version of finale from the Symphony as indepoendent work)
- Violin Concerto (1942-43)
- Concerto for piano and strings (1951)
- Symphony No.1 (1952-3)
- Harpsichord Concerto (1955-56)
- Symphony No.2 (1957-59; recomposed 1967-68 as Metamorphoses, unfinished)
- Symphony No.3 ‘Collages’ with electronic tape (1960)
- Concerto for Orchestra (1964)
- Epithalamion (1966)
- Symphony No.4 ‘New York’(1967)
Choral and vocal works
- L’Infantament meravellos de Scherazada (1917-18)
- 7 Haiku for high voice and chamber ensemble (1922 rev. 1958)
- 6 Catalan Folksongs for high voice and piano or orchestra (1928 - the published numbers of a set of 14)
- Cantata, L’Alta Naixenca del Rei en Jaume (1932)
- Cancionero de Pedrell for high voice and piano or chamber ensemble (1941)
- 3 Canciones Toreras for medium voice and orchestra (ca. 1943)
- Cantares, seven Spanish songs for voice and guitar (1957)
- The Plague, oratorio after Camus (1963)
Chamber music
- Piano Trio (1918)
- Wind Quintet (1928)
- String Quartet No.1 (1955-56; at least three earlier quartets are lost)
- Nonet (1956-57)
- Concert for Eight
- Hymnody
- Gemini, duo for violin and piano (1966)
- Libra, sextet (1968)
- Leo, chamber symphony (1969)
Solo instrumental
- Dos Apunts for piano (1920)
- Dances from Don Quixote for piano (1947)
- 3 Impromptus for piano (1950)
- Capriccio for solo flute (1949)
- Fantasia for guitar (1957)
- Chaconne for solo violin (1959)
Also, many arrangements of Zarzuela material; incidental music for stage, television and film, some including electronic music; some independent electronic compositions including ‘Lament on the Death of a Bullfighter’ after Lorca.
Life
Gerhard was born Robert Gerhard Ottenwaelder; his father was German-Swiss and his mother Alsatian, but he identified closely with the national traditions of Catalonia where he was born, balancing this against a profoundly international outlook. He studied piano with Granados and composition with Pedrell. After Pedrell’s death he sought to study with Falla, but was rebuffed - instead he became a pupil of Schoenberg in Vienna and Berlin. Returning to Barcelona in the late 1920s he campaigned for contemporary music and was principally responsible for organizing the 1936 ISCM Festival in Barcelona, where Berg’s Violin Concerto was premiered. He also invited Schoenberg to Barcelona, and it was while staying with Gerhard and his wife that Schoenberg composed the bulk of ‘Moses und Aron’.
During the Spanish Civil War Gerhard was identified with the Republican Government, of which his brother was a member. Shortly before the fall of Barcelona to Franco’s troops in 1939 he fled to Paris and then to England, where he was able to settle in Cambridge. He held no post at the University, however. During and after the war he supported himself principally by ballet, theatre and radio work, arranging and a little private teaching. From the early 1950s he began to experiment with electronic music. The successful premiere of the First Symphony at the 1955 ISCM Festival in Baden-Baden launched a late international celebrity; Gerhard was encouraged by William Glock, who became Controller of BBC Music, so in the last decade of his life Gerhard enjoyed many performances and critical acclaim while his music became steadily more radical.