This, I believe, is only the second time that Don Quixote (finished by Roberto Gerhard, 1896-1970, in 1949) has been recorded complete, it being more likely that Dances from… will turn up. Complete it is wholly engaging: melody, rhythm, characterisation and orchestration fused as one – atmospheric and vibrant – passing thirty-seven minutes engagingly and effortlessly, with plenty of ever-inventive variety, description and scoring. Algerias (1943), another ballet score, here in Suite form, is lively, colourful and sunny, slinky too, and reminds at times, through the composers’ Spanish brotherhood, of Falla’s music for The Three-Cornered Hat. The suggestive and painterly Pedrilliana (1941/54) completes this enjoyable and revealing release – music that predates Gerhard’s later compositional phase (tougher maybe if certainly rewarding). All these opuses are worthy of our attention – here idiomatically interpreted by Juanjo Mena, and superbly played and recorded – on Chandos CHAN 20268.
BBC Philharmonic & Juanjo Mena record Roberto Gerhard’s Don Quixote for Chandos.
A far cry from his late, often BBC Prom period. I attended all the late Prom premieres and thought little of the conversion from the earlier works.
A recent rehearing of Symphony 4 creates a new interest in the late period.
So.maybe I will have the best of both worlds!