Gerhard's Cantata: 1) Gerhard, Carner, and King James ‘The Conqueror’

Abstract

Roberto Gerhard's widow tells of how at some time in the early 1930's, when the Gerhards were still living in Barcelona, their friend Josep Carner—perhaps the foremost poet of the Catalan language in the 20th century and dubbed by his contemporaries ‘the prince of poets’—complained to the composer that Gerhard had not yet honoured him by setting any of his verses to music. Gerhard readily accepted this invitation, couched as it was in the form of a mild reproach! It was Carner himself who suggested the text to be used, a specially re-worked version of a poem which had first appeared in a sort of pastiche medieval novel entitled La malvestat d'Oriana, written by Carner in 1910. The re-drafted poem and the new Gerhard cantata received the title L'alta naixença del rei En Jaume (The Noble Birth of the Sovereign Lord King James).