Repertoire

ROBERT GERHARD:
Vuit cançons populars catalanes for voice and piano
Sis chansons populaires françaises for voice and piano
Set Hai-Kai for voice and ensemble

Robert Gerhard and Ottenwaelder (Valls, 1896 - Cambridge, 1970) is one of the most important European composers of the twentieth century. The first concert of the Chamber Season is part of the collective celebration of the 50th anniversary of his death and the 125th anniversary of his birth, with a group of leading Catalan performers and three major works from the vocal repertoire of Gerhard based on texts with popular roots. The songs show us the most concise and formalist Gerhard, but also the most lyrical and exuberant.

Les Vuit cançons populars catalanes, dedicated to the soprano Conxita Badia, premiered in 1929 at the Palau de la Música Catalana, in a monographic concert organized by the Associazione de Música da Camera dedicated to a Gerhard who had just returned from a stay in Vienna with Arnold Schönberg . Les Six chansons populaires françaises, on the other hand, already correspond to the British era of Gerhard. The refined and austere outline of Japanese poetry, very much in vogue in Europe since Japan opened to international trade in 1853, inspires the 7 Haiku through the poems — in Catalan and French — of another avant-garde icon, Josep Maria Junoy.

Performers

María Hinojosa Montenegro, soprano
Francisco Poyato, piano
Anna Alàs i Jové, mezzo-soprano
Anna Crexells, piano
SEED Ensemble
Francesc Prat, conductor