de Andrés. Pasión, desarraigo y literatura: el compositor Robert Gerhard. Madrid: Fundación Scherzo-Antonio Machado Libros, 2013. Col. Musicalia Scherzo, 12. 617 pp. ISBN: 978-84-7774-450-4. Reseña de Germán Gan Quesada (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

Between 1957 and 1962, the composer Cristóbal Halffter (Madrid, 1930) played an integral part in updating Spanish musical composition and spearheaded its dissemination worldwide. In recovering a large number of primary sources, which have yet to be discussed, and, in particular, referring extensively to the composer’s personal collection – held at the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel – this essay offers up new material on some of Halffter’s most significant compositions in this period (Introducción, fuga y final, Sonata para violín solo, 5 microformas para orquesta, Formantes, and In exspectatione resurrectionis Domini). It also provides a preliminary insight into their relevance to a forthcoming reevaluation of the historical, technical, and aesthetic features of the Spanish avant-garde repertoire in the middle years of the Franco regime.

A Roman sarcophagus fragment preserved in Tarragona (MNAT nºInv. 45652 is presented as belonging to the specific group of the seasons sarcophagi showing the dancing erotes cicle Pisa/Ostia. A second fragment found in Barcelona (Plaça de Sant Miquel ref. UE 1276-9) is defined as a summer Hora from a season's sarcophagus lid. It is dated in the second quarter of the 3rd century, whereas the first fragment belongs to the postgallienic epoch.

Our intention when writing this paper has been to study the bronze statues in Hispania, although we only include the pieces of great format. First we refer to the causes of the low number of sculptures in this metal in the Roman world in comparison with the ones in marble. We also explain the production techniques and the importance given by the Romans to the bronzes. Next we analyze each of the statues, taking into account its style, age and function. In the final considerations we sum up the aspects we think most significant, such as the typology, chronology, geographical distribution, the context in which they were located in Antiquity and the problems about the workshops.

The study, from the iconographic and chronological views, of the pieces belonging to eight sarcophagi, has been carried out to complete the sarcophagi catalogue of the prouincia Hispania Tarraconensis. From among them, It stands out the fragments from Ontur (Albacete), because of the difficulty of their iconographic interpretation; we think possible their attribution to a Roman Hippolitos sarcophagus of the later production, corresponding to the type II.a from C. Robert. A second part is devoted to the analysis of the evolution of the Roman sarcophagus use in the Tarraconensis prouincia: from the first century a.C., when the earlier pieces arrive from Rome in this territory, to the fourth century, when the latest pagan pieces were used; these sarcophagi were put in touch with the contemporary remainder burial types, and it is also took into account commercial contacts and production circuits.