I took a plunge just yesterday into the music of Roberto Gerhard
(1896-1970).  I expect several of you must be familiar...? Catalan
composer who lived in Britain from around the time of Franco to his
death.

Chandos has a series of his 4 symphonies out, with Bamert conducting
the BBC Symph Orch.  There's a VC, a PC, one for Harpsichord, one for
Orchestra, lots of ballet pieces, sung stuff galore, some chamber, etc.
I've heard enough to know that he's a fine craftsman in the best European
traditions:  has the craft of a Frank Martin or Toch or KA Hartmann, but
also the emotional range and fire to make the music more than just of
academic passability or interest.

The rub for me, as one who's only slightly penetrated 12-tone music, is
that he veered from the more-or-less traditionalist tonal approach based
on folk rhythms and tunes -- like that of his mentors Falla and Pedrell,
which most appeals to me -- to 12-tone composition.  I gather that Falla
invited him to take part in his master classes, but he went to study under
Schoenberg instead.  But as even I recognize:  there's 12 tone and 12 tone.
Frank Martin being one case in point:  not entirely traditionalist, but his
variant on modernism is seductive, at least to me.  And there's Bacewicz
and Veress and a few others who make me reluctant to dismiss the field
entirely, who keep me open to the chance of persuasion.  So, in short, I
was curious.

At the store I heard the Chandos with his VC and Symphony #1, and was drawn
but not entirely convinced.

Instead, I went for an Auvidis/Montaigne disc that focuses on transitional
works from the 50s:  a Harpsichord Concerto (55-56), a PC (51), and a
Nonet (56-57).  Well, what a pleasant surprise:  (again, as you might well
already know:) the HC is lively, sometimes challenging but _most_ worthy,
a fascinating use of the forces in a not aggressively modernistic piece.
The Nonet is certainly challenging, but does succeed at charming me ...but
for one or two very static passages that I may come to hear differently,
in time.  The Piano Concerto is something else:  a knockout through and
through, afaic.  (I'd liken it to Frank Martin's 2, very generally:  not
in terms of any relentlessness; more in the eloquence and passion, the big
shoulders, the countrapuntal strokes)

There are 3 double CD sets, each for the price of one:  of the Symphonies,
of Ballets and of sung music I think, all on Auvidis/Montaigne.  These
compete with the Chandos, which are full-priced but with stellar sound
and production ...and Mathias Bamert and the BBCSO.  My hope is that the
ballets will be from the 30s to early 50s, my standard fare.  But also
that the symphonies will also be palatable, like this PC ...more so, that
the seductiveness will be strong, by which I mean I hope his variant on 12
tone modernism will win me over.

I'm curious to learn about your acquaintance with his music, if any.  What
I've read tells me that his symphonies 1, 3 and 4 are his best, and that
his use of percussion increased in the later ones.  I'd say Hartmann gained
big-time from taking that direction -- though afaik he remained in the
tonal camp.  Would you say Gerhard goes *way* out with his use of 12-tone
techniques? How would you compare the PC and HC with those symphonies, in
terms of the tonal/modernist categories laid out above?

Many thanks for any advice.

Best regards,

Bert B, in Ottawa