Symphony No. 3, ‘Collages’

Program notes

About the Work

Roberto Gerhard’s Third Symphony, subtitled ‘Collages,’ is one of the boldest and most original orchestral works of its time: a piece that fuses a large symphony orchestra with electronic sounds on tape, written by a composer in his sixties at the height of his experimental powers. Commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation and dedicated to the memory of Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky, it was first performed in London in 1961. Its very title, ‘Collages,’ signals Gerhard’s method: rather than developing themes in the traditional symphonic way, he juxtaposes and layers contrasting blocks of sound, orchestral and electronic, much as a visual artist assembles a collage from disparate materials.

Gerhard said the work was inspired in part by the experience of watching a sunrise from an aeroplane, and it has a real sense of vast space, light and elemental wonder. The electronic tape part, remarkable for 1960, adds an extra dimension of strange, otherworldly sound to the already vivid and imaginative orchestral writing. This is genuinely adventurous music: atmospheric, dramatic, sometimes violent, sometimes mysterious, demanding open and curious ears. As the opening work of a Rattle programme that moves from this modernist sound-collage through Strauss’s autumnal farewell to Mahler’s childlike heaven, it sets up a fascinating journey, and reminds us of Gerhard’s importance as a pioneer of new sound.

What to Listen For

Approach this with open ears, ready for something genuinely experimental. Listen for the ‘collage’ technique itself: blocks of contrasting sound placed side by side and layered, rather than melodies that grow and develop: sudden shifts of texture, colour and mood, like cutting between images.

Listen especially for the electronic tape: passages where strange, synthetic or processed sounds emerge alongside or against the orchestra, adding an eerie, futuristic dimension (extraordinary for a work of 1960). Listen for Gerhard’s brilliant and unconventional orchestration (glittering percussion, vivid instrumental colours, dramatic contrasts of dense and sparse textures) and for the sense of vast space and light that reflects his sunrise-from-an-aeroplane inspiration. There are moments of violence and high drama, and others of mystery and stillness. Don’t search for conventional tunes or structure; instead, let the sequence of vivid sonic images wash over you, and experience a striking, atmospheric work by one of the twentieth century’s unjustly neglected originals.