Conductor Matthias Bamert
Tonight and tomorrow evening, an opportunity to hear four substantial pieces by one of the century's most strikingly original composers, the Catalan-born Roberto Gerhard , who studied with Granados and Pedrell in his native Barcelona and later with Schoenberg. After the Spanish Civil
War, he settled in England, where he forged a distinctive, highly colourful style as a composer of brilliantly orchestrated scores whose complexity is rigorously subordinated to the higher goal of powerful musical communication - Gerhard said that the sense of his music should come across to the listener without the need for explanatory programme notes. Tonight's concert includes the rarely performed original version of the second symphony, with its strange percussion sounds and an extraordinary final scherzo - one of his most striking creations. Gerhard Symphony No 2;
Symphony (Homenaje a Pedrell) See also tomorrow 11.55pm