Repertoire
Robert Gerhard:
Pandora Suite, ballet for two pianos and percussion (1943-44) 30’
Ariel, ballet for piano four-hands (1936) 24′, original version
Alegrías, ballet for two pianos (1943) 12’
Artists
Miquel Villalba, piano
Jordi Masó, piano
Miquel Vich, percussion
Program
Robert Gerhard (1896-1970) is surely the most influential Catalan composer of the 20th century. First from Catalonia and, after the Civil War, from the United Kingdom, Gerhard’s contribution to the aesthetic and compositional renewal of Catalan music was fundamental to the expansion and knowledge of Central European trends such as the twelve-tone technique.
DOWNLOAD THE PROGRAM HERETo mark the 50th anniversary of this death, pianists Miquel Villalba and Jordi Masó perform three ballets transcribed for piano four hands or two pianos by Gerhard himself. Pandora (1942), written on commission by Ballet Joos, is a highly political work, with criticism of militarism and totalitarianism, premiered in a version for two pianos and percussion in 1944 in Cambridge. Ariel (1934), based on William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, did not premiere as a ballet, but as a concert suite, in 1936, and we will have a chance to hear Gerhard’s version for piano four hands based on the autographed manuscript preserved in Valls. A brilliant and effective composer of all kinds of commissions, Gerhard wrote for the dancer Marie Rambert a Spanish-inspired flamenco divertimento, the ballet i Alegrías (1943), which was a huge success in a London dazed by the Second World War.
