String Quartet No. 1 (Gerhard)
-II: Con vivacità -III: Grave The String Quartet No.1 is a piece for two violins, viola and cello, composed by Robert Gerhard between 1951 and 1955, premiered at Dartington in 1956.
Gerhard brilliantly develops, combines and transforms these resources along with new systematic processes created by himself, so that it leads to a new and broad theoretical framework that will be essential to his music thereafter.
Robert Gerhard began writing this string quartet in 1951 in Cambridge, where he lived in exile since 1939 as a result of Franco's dictatorship, within a significant historical and personal context.
At the same moment, the twelve-tone compositional technique of the avant-garde in the interwar period defended by Schoenberg was replaced by integral serialism, led by Pierre Boulez.
[6][7] However, despite the criticisms and his predilection for this new serialism, Gerhard was never opposed to use elements from the Catalan folk music in aspects such as rhythm, orchestration or in the shape of the tone-rows.
In addition to this, by comparing aspects such as form, rhythm, modes or coloration, one can clearly see the existence of similarities in the use of folk music from the respective regions of each of the composers.
[11] Despite Gerhard didn't follow the other new musical currents, he was well aware of the work of the new generations of British composers and, in general, of the international scene.
[14] In addition, two years before his return to Catalonia in 1929, he presented this quartet to a composition competition in Barcelona, to get a boost in his career in terms of recognition and economic autonomy.
The temporal difference between the beginning of the compositional process of the work and the end, although based on the same twelve-note sequence, creates a stylistic separation between movements 1–2 and 3–4.
Gerhard worked hard to reinvent the application of the sonata form by mixing it with the stylistic resources that he uses in his compositions, and this movement is a clear example of this.
[20] Hexachords are a resource Schoenberg had used before, and Gerhard is known to have spent some time studying his master's compositions such as Von Heute auf Morgen.
Due to this relationship, Gerhard can move perfectly between multiple transformations of the series keeping at least five notes in common between each hexachord, resulting in clear and uninterrupted harmonic coherence.
[24] The following schema refers to the association of these traditional segmentations and how Gerhard implements series transpositions and hexachords (encoded with P and H respectively).
[30] Thus, in addition to the rows, there is a rhythmic series that is used and that governs, in the words of Julian White "the movement, duration, and temporal succession of the total of sound events".
For the first time, Gerhard radically applied the rhythmic series theory in this quartet: The third movement can be understood as a study of proportions, and for it to be effective it is necessary to ensure perceptibility to the listener.
[31] Gerhard continually sought to keep updated with the innovations in all the art forms, science and technology, which greatly influenced the way he conceived and analyzed music.
[9]"In the final two movements of the Quartet, Gerhard tries to rationalize such correspondences and to establish in his music precise connections between the pitch- and time-dimensions, which derive from a preconceived constructive plan.
Thus, to every note in the series measured in semitones from a 'root-note' in the hexachordal system, a number is made to correspond it such that it can equally refer to a scale of time or of metrical values.
