Tirant lo Blanc

Tirant lo Blanc (the title of an early Catalan novel of chivalry)
This publication is a reduction for choir and piano of the cantata Tirant lo Blanc composed for children's choir, narrator and orchestra ' two flutes (piccolo), oboe, 2 clarinets, bassoon, 2 French horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, 2 pianos, organ, cellos, double basses and percussion (4 performers: timpani, xylophone, drum, lyre, piatti, gran cassa, tam-tam, bass drum, triangle, legno, suspended cymbal, flexatone and bell).
This cantata masterfully combines the composer's own musical language with that of the past, and it evinces great pedagogical sensibility. It is at once a demonstration of balance between the lyricism of highly inspired melodies and the dramatic nature of scenes such as 'the battle', with that 1970s call for lost freedom so steeped in meaning which still calls out to us today. Ros Marbà displays his deep knowledge of the orchestra (with an unusual line-up ' no violins or violas, he having done without them for purely financial reasons), a knowledge that comes from his profession, and he attains a very transparent, direct general sound in the work that can range from a chamber-music sound to his expertly handled grand climaxes.
As for the text by Núria Albó, its intrinsic quality is to be noted, whether in the prose of the narrator parts or in the verse of the choral parts. And it has something extra: the masterful way in which it turns Joanot Martorell's original text into a cantata for children, enabling them to understand it but without betraying it. This is no doubt its great merit: bringing within reach, or rather opening a door towards, this crowning work of Catalan fifteenth-century literature.