Don Quixote, complete ballet by Roberto Gerhard, plus more!

Catalan composer Roberto Gerhard (1896-1970) famously studied with Schoenberg (the only Spanish composer to do so). He also made his base in England for a while, so his neglect in this country seems incomprehensibe.

The disc begins with the suite from the ballet Allegrías (Joys, 1942/3). One can hear the Spanish elements in the music, undoubtedly, as well as a kind of Stravinskian edge. The Chandos recording is spectacular: every detail is in place by the performers, and every detail is also placed (in the sound picture). More, Mena captures the essence of the atmosphere Gerhard wishes to create. Try the slinky “Jácara” second movement:

The finale “Ferruca,” is a funaral march leading to a frenzied dance (Jaleo). The woodwind pointing in the“Jaleo” is off the scale; Gerhard then counterpoints this with a quote from Chopin’s “Funeral March”. Fascinating music, effectively dramatic:

Felip Pedrell (1841-1922) was Gerhard’s teacher (Pedrell also taught Albéniz). In Pedrelliana, the booklet annotator suggests that for Gerhard this was not just a homage but a farewell to a mode of writing. The piece is urgent, grandiose, completely, magnificent. The BBC performance is no less excllemce: punchy, rhythmic, and yet somehow prevailingly mysterious. There’s a long build that seems to want to out in a Ravellian sunrise but somehow never does. :

Most astonishing of all, though, is Don Quixote (1940, heard here in its second version of 1947-9). As the dates imply, this score preoccupied Gerhard for pretty much a decade, and the result is magnificent. Listen to the magically-scored “Don Quixote’s vision of Dulcinea”:

Mena’s sense of colour, his pacing, and his clear understanding of narrative all conspire to create what is surely a great performance. We seem to enter the world of ballet fully, without a single visual.

The Epilogue is stuuning, quiet, meditative and somehow yearning (an impression created by the composer’s use of registral space in his scoring):