6 Songs from L’infantament meravellós de Schahrazada

Valls ( 1896 ) - Cambridge ( 1970 )

Born in Valls (Catalonia) of a mixture of Swiss and Alsacian parents, Gerhard studied first with Felip Pedrell, the figurehead of musical nationalism in Spain, and then with Arnold Schoenberg in Vienna and Berlin. After confronting the most conservative sectors of Barcelona musical world, later, during the Republic he became Professor of Music at the Escola Normal de la Generalitat in Barcelona and undertook administrative and editorial work at the Biblioteca de Catalunya). With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, he settled in Cambridge, England, where his musical reputation eventually flourished in the late 1950s and 60s. He remained there until his death.