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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2016
What might have happened to Roberto Gerhard had he not left Spain at the end of the Spanis Civil War will remain one of the great imponderables of his career. His voluntary exile to Britain released him from the role of ‘responsible artist of the Spanish Republic’ – and from the many activities (musicological, literary, pedagogical and administrative) which however vital to the cultural politics of Catalonia had inevitably limited his composing time. He came to view exile as a ‘blessing in disguise’ and eventually took up British citizenship.
1 Such is the case with the folkloristic Cantata L'Alta naixenca del Rei En Jaume composed in 1932, the year in which Catalonia was granted a Statute of Autonomy following the proclamation of the Spanish Republic in 1931. At this time politics and culture were inextricably linked in the formation of a specifically Catalan national identity and Gerhard accordingly based his Cantata on a Catalan text by Josep Carner recounting the ‘noble’ birth of King James I (‘the Conqueror’) – a prominent hero in the mythology of Catalan nationalism.
2 For a detailed account of the conception, composition, scenario and musicological background of the ballet see MacDonald, Calum, ‘ Soirées de Barcelone – a preliminary report’; Tempo 139 (12 1981): 19–26 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. (The details of the work's genesis, summarized here, were derived from the composer's widow; when written up the account was read over by Antal Dorati, who pronounced it accurate. –Ed.)
3 See Wittlin, Curt, ‘Folklore and Politics in Catalonia. Traditional popular activities as symbolic expressions of nationalism’, Catalan Review, Vol. VII no. 1 1993: 103–122 Google Scholar.
4 Celebrated in Jacint Verdaguer's epic poem (Canigó, 1886) about the legendary origins of Catalonia in a Monastery.
5 According to Joan Amades, this is an example of a Carço de Dansa [Sung dance]. See his Folklore de Catalunya – Cançoner (Barcelona, 1950–1969)Google Scholar.
6 cf. ‘Un Català Mundial-Robert Gerhard’: the title of an article by Llates, Rossend in Mirador vol. V (22 06, 1933): 5 Google Scholar.
7 Gerhard, Roberto ‘Els musics d'ara – Béla Bartók’, Mirador col. III no.105 (5 02, 1931): 5 Google Scholar.
8 This is one of a number of Catalan folk tunes used in Soirées de Barcelone that can also be found in the piano works of Mompou – a composer with whom Gerhard had been closely associated both before his Schoenberg studies (when both were members, along with Adolfo Salazar and Oscar Espla, of the Grupo de los Cuatro) and after, during the 1930s, when both were founder members of the CIC (Compositors Independent de Catalunya). As one might expect of a composer brought up in the traditions of French Impressionism, Mompou's arrangements, though extremely sophisticated, are far less harmonically progressive than Gerhard's.
9 Amades, Joan, op.cit: 363 Google Scholar.
10 Roberto Gerhard, op.cit.
11 Amades, Joan, op.cit.: 360 Google Scholar.
12 Horns, Joaquim, Robert Gerhard i la seva obra (Barcelona: Biblioteca de Catalunya, 1991), 55 Google Scholar.
13 Certainly, visits to popubr festivals including the Xiquets of Vails and the Patum of Berga featured prominently (during the 1930s) in the activities of the avant-garde artistic group Adlan (Amies de l'Art Nou), to which Gerhard belonged. See: Subirana, Rosa Maria, ‘ADLAN and the artists of the Republic’ in Hommage to Barcelona: the city and its art (1888–1935), (London, 1985), p.212 Google Scholar.
14 Saint Ramon de Penyafort was a 13th century Catalan priest, who was attached to the royal household of Barcelona at a time of significant Catalan Mediterranean expansion. There he acted as confessor to one of the most celebrated of Catalan kings, Kingjames I (‘The Conqueror’) who drove the Moors from Mallorca in 1229, took Menorca in and Ibiza in 1235 and reached Valencia in 1238. Ramon de Penyafort was also friend and mentor of the medieval Catalan poet and mystical philosopher Ramon Llull - the creator of Catalan as a literary language. In the words of Trueta, Josep (The Spirit of Catalonia, p. 37)Google Scholar, he was ‘one of the outstanding representatives of Catalan mentality of all times’ making a crucial ‘contribution to the consolidation of Catalan nationality and to the development of Western civilization’.
15 Subirà, Josep, Cançons populars Catalanes. Editorial Millà Barcelona 1990: 96 Google Scholar.
16 Aureli Capmeny. See ‘L'aigua i foe en la revettla de Sant Joan’ [Fire and water in the celebration of Saint John] in Calendari de llegendes, costums i festes tradicionals Catalanes (Barcelona: Laia 1951), 161–166 Google Scholar.
17 Calum MacDonald op.cit.
18 Boyd, Alistair, The Essence of Catalonia (London, 1988) 270 Google Scholar.
19 Aureli Capmeny, op.cit.
20 See Muntanyer, Josep Massot i, Els Segadors, Hymne nacional de Catalunya (Barcelona: Generalitat, 1983)Google Scholar.
21 Serralonga is immortalized in the Ball de Serralonga (Serralonga dance), the participants of which dress in knee britches, waistcoats and red floppy Catalan berets. Gerhard, himself, adopted the name Juan de Serralonga (carefully avoiding the Catalan spelling!) for his arrangements of Spanish Zarzuela music that were broadcast to Spain during the early 1940s.
22 Amades, Joan, op.cit.; 319 Google Scholar. Elsewhere in Catalonia, apparently, this ‘archaic’ song also accompanies dancing around prehistoric standing stones.
23 Capmeny, Aureli, El Ball I la Dansa Popular a Catalunya (Barcelona: Editorial Milla, 1948), 68 Google Scholar.