Libra
for flute, clarinet, violin, guitar, piano and percussion
Libra was commissioned for the BBC Music Programme's Weekend at Cambridge in October 1968, and given its first performance there. The first London performance was in a Park Lane Group concert in April 1969.
The composer wrote of the work: "Libra - the balance - happens to be my own Zodiac sign. I have a certain weakness for astrology, and for horoscopes in particular, and I believe that people born under the same Zodiac sign have in common certain distinctive character traits. I don't know whether any of mine are exhibited in Libra: if so I would assume that - as one's handwriting - this must be unconscious. Which would be an additional reason, if one were required, for holding (as I do) that when introducing one's own music, absolutely nothing is to be said about 'the heart of the matter'."
In common with all Gerhard's works since the third Symphony (Collages) of 1960, Libra is in one continuous movement divided into contrasting and 'balancing' sections.
Gemini (1966)
for Violin and Piano
Gemini - one of the so-called 'master works' of Gerhard's last ten years or so of creative development - was composed in response to a commission from the American duo team, Morris and Sylvia Hochberg. Its première, under the title of Duo Concertante, was given in London on 24 September 1966 by Yfrah Neaman and Susan Bradshaw. The work is in the by now characteristic single-movement form, subdivided into a succession of short, inter-related sections. The thematic and sound content of the work is powerful in its vigorous expression, and the exotic colouring from both violin and piano (the latter makes a bold and sharply tinted use of chord clusters, harmonics, and direct physical contact with the strings of the instrument - in addition to conventional means of playing) does much to project the dramatic imagery and contrasts of emotional and dramatic tension which lie at the core of Gerhard's fertile imagination. In its virtuoso demands Gemini emerges as a striking and taxing work, calculated to produce the maximum of effect yet totally without contrivance and always delightful in its sense of unbridled youth and joie de vivre, qualities which many have justifiably found remarkable for a man who was nearly seventy when this work was completed.
In a note to the score Gerhard wrote:
"The work consists of a series of contrasting episodes, whose sequence is more like a braiding of diverse strands than a straight linear development. Except for the concluding episodes, nearly every one recurs more than once, generally in a different context. These recurrences are not like refrains, and do not fulfil anything remotely like the function of the classical refrain. Rather might they be compared to thought persistently to some main topic."
© Roberto Gerhard
Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press
Sonata for Cello and Piano
i. Allegro molto energico
ii. Grave
iii. Molto vivace
Gerhard’s Cello Sonata was to some extent a re-composition of his Viola Sonata (1946) and since its premiere (given by Florence Hooton and Wilfred Parry in a BBC radio broadcast on 10 October 1964) it has only been heard (and published) in its present form. Its three movements juxtapose serial passages alongside freely-written musical material. Folk-music references figure here, also, most notably in the highly ornate slow movement.
© Meirion Bowen
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