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55th Dubrovnik Summer Festival 2004 Croatia Midnight Serenade JAVOR BRAČIĆ piano Sponza Palace Atrium August 23 Midnight Aleksandar Nikolajevič Skrjabin: PRELUDES from Op. 11 Ludwig van Beethoven: FANTASY in G minor, Op. 77 Johannes Brahms: VARIATIONS AND FUGUE ON A THEME BY HÄNDEL, Op. 24 Frédéric Chopin: NOCTURNE in C sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 1 Robert Schumann: TOCCATA, Op. 7 Pianist Javor Bračić (1985) was born in Zagreb. He began to study music at the age of six. He graduated both from the grammar school and from the Piano Department of the Pavao Markovac Music School under Jelica Kuzmin. He is now studying at the Mozarteum in Salzburg with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling He attended master courses with Dag Achatz in Dubrovnik, Peter Eicher in Zagreb, Diana Andersen in Vresse sur Semois, Albert Portugheis in Zagreb and Karl-Heinz Kämmerling in Vienna, Lichtenberg, Würzburg and Salzburg. He took part in two EPTA conferences (in Norway 1999 and Hungary 2000), at the 8th International Festival Music. Youth. Hope in Petrozavodsk (2002) and in the International Young Musicians Gathering the Darko Lukić Memorial in Osijek. He performed with the Zagreb Soloists and performed at recitals in Dalmatia, Zagreb, Senj and Rijeka. He won numerous awards including First Prize at the International Competition Etudes and Scales in Zagreb (1998), Second Prize at the European Competition in Moncalieri (1998), Third and Special Prize at the EPTA Young Pianist Competition in Osijek (1999), Second Prize at the Croatian State Competition in Dubrovnik (2001), First Prize at the International Luigi Stramesi Competition in Sale (2001), First Prize at the International Gathering of Young Pianists in Brussels and Vresse sur Semios, Belgium (2001), First Prize at the Zlatko Grgošević Competition in Sesvete (2002), First Prize at the International Young Pianists Gathering Città di Minerbio (2002) and First and Special Prize of the EMCY at the Croatian Chamber Ensembles Competition in Zagreb (2002) in the Quartet Category. The output of Russian composer and pianist Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (1872 – 1915) is a foresighted catalogue of almost all major streams in the music that will inherit him. His thick and chromatically rich post-romantic atonality is a direct announcement of the dodecaphonic and serial way of structuring. His projects of connecting the sound and light are precious presentiments of the future multimedia spectacles in which a certain medium finds its own essence in the elements of the other, apparently foreign media. Starting from the undeveloped, almost naive or academically closed music scores, Scriabin, in an unjustly short creative period of barely fifteen years of intensive efforts, managed to break through the sound wall of his own abilities and create an output presenting the foundation of the modern music. By an almost revolutionary act, he abolished the old-fashioned harmonic hierarchy composing pieces out of a single chord that actually is nothing but a hidden sequence. This act at the same time changed the meaning of the melody, which helped in the radical disintegration of the metro- rhythm. Regardless of the reforms that he carried out in his last composing period, Scriabin is also interesting as a music philosopher. In his music he did not intend to express certain moods, but the new understanding of the world that he attempted to develop universally. This Scriabin’s philosophical perception of the world formed under the influence of Plato and Hegel had a markedly idealistic character: he believed that music could spiritually restore the mankind. As an echo of the Nietche's superman, the Wagner’s theory of redemption and of the Russian symbolism, Scriabin «elevates the creation, introduces its cult and glorifies the power of creation, in which he recognises the divine element in man, the power that makes him a new god.» The historic development in many ways denied Scriabin's idealistic philosophy, yet, as stated, «when timely and passing things find expression in the creation of a great artist, they acquire permanent significance and become immortal». Young Scriabin composed 24 preludes Op. 11 (there are later cycles of the same forms, preserved in Op. 13, 15, 16, 17, 22, 27, 31, 33, 35, 37, 39, 48, 67 and 74) from 1888 to 1896. These masterfully composed miniatures with sophisticated melodic and harmonic systems from Scriabin's early opus reveal a significant influence of the great piano predecessors, particularly Chopin. It therefore is not surprising that the European music critics at first called Scriabin «Chopin form the north». Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) composed his Fantasy in G minor, Op. 77 in 1809. In accordance with its form and character, Beethoven freely combines the music substance of various contents and moods. The piece retained certain elements from huge baroque improvisations and inspirations. It also borrowed certain solutions of theirs in the field of instrumental technique. When listening to this music, we imagine the composer immersed in his composing at the keyboard while invoking all possible storms and demons rushing through his life, and, immediately afterwards, we see him sinking into the mists of lyrical fantasies and unachieved ideas. Such eloquent, almost visibly communicating melodic is seldom found in Beethoven's instrumental pieces. We imagine Beethoven composing a new melody, constantly correcting and adding something, working hard and finding better solutions, in the same way he did when finding the ideal theme of joy he needed for his Symphony No. 9. Although the music material for his Fantasy in G minor is incredibly varied, Beethoven managed to integrate it into a harmonic and convincing expressional unity. Although Beethoven is still movingly parting from the saloon, virtuoso-improvising art of the passed époque, in this fantasy we can already recognise a genius composer of the future great piano sonatas. One of the most impressive piano pieces of Johannes Brahms (1833 1897) Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Händel, Op. 24 was composed in 1861, its starting point being the gracious and elegant theme of the varied Aria which is also the core of Händel’s Suite in B flat major. However, while the baroque master was content with five modest, similar fragments, Brahms composed 25 colourful and rich transformations, that unstoppably spring one from another, crowned with the magnificent eruption of the extensive four-voiced fugue. Following Beethoven’s principle of structurally caused transformation of a unique idea, Brahms manages to preserve the outlines of the main idea from the beginning to the end, as a fixed sample of his filigree development employing the symmetrically neat and memorable, periodical structure of Händel’s theme. Deeply respecting Händel’s tonality, B flat major, he will darken only three variations by B flat minor and only once slip into the parallel, soft G minor. When the rhythm is concerned, Brahms remains faithful to the original: the 4/4 measure will be disintegrated into 12/8 only on three occasions. Besides, Brahms will prove how well acquainted he is with the old practice of combining the similar variation pairs. Like in a funny musical card play, the seventh will be combined with the eight, the fourteenth with the fifteenth, the seventeenth with the eighteenth and the twenty third with the twenty fourth variation. Instead of the previous routine of creating the variations resembling the etudes, we have the testing of the motives and rhythmic inventiveness; through varied rhythmic formulating and motive application, the same theme is enlightened always with new nuances. Like the theme itself, each of the variations has two parts with numerous new and varied ideas. The amusingly contrasted measures of the higher and lower voice supplement each other; a false counterpoint is formed leading the listener's attention in the wrong direction. The appearance of a new fragment is thus even a greater surprise. The Bach's, Mozart's, i.e. Beethoven’s solutions are employed with a different result; the fragments from his own pieces are used, such as the fragment from choral fugue with baritone solo from Act 3 of the German Requiem – that will suddenly take an unexpected course. The baroque pompousness is maximally employed, i.e. the baroque skeleton is wrapped in a romantic cloak. The dense chromatic blurs the view, so that the music – which is so music dreamed of by the later avantgarde –suddenly apparently stands still. The fugue itself (the tissue gradually collected from all the music particles so far), pretending to stand still, eventually runs and screams. Brahms here not only shows his virtuoso superiority in solving technical problems – from treating the theme, increasing and reducing it, by the mirroring combinatorial skill or the demonic phenomenon of the pedal point up the splendid removal of the vacuum inter-movement dangers – but also, employing all the means at his disposal, brings the multifaceted, almost orchestrally developed piano sound abilities to the very edge of explosion. Like the serenade, the nocturne is also a night music form, yet, contrary to the serenade, it is not foreseen for the open-air or group performance. It is therefore a lonely instrumental night song, most often a sad monologue in which neither the composer, nor the performer, count with the presence of the being it was dedicated to. The nocturnes by the Irish composer and Clementi's disciple, John Field (1782-1837), served as models to probably the greatest magician of this composing genre Frédéric Chopin (18101849). Field, whose melodic-harmonic imagination Chopin very much appreciated, composed altogether 18 nocturnes. It is probably a mere coincidence that Chopin published the same number of nocturnes as Field during his lifetime. The additionally found nineteenth nocturne was published by Fontana only in 1855. Chopin first grouped these lyrical miniatures (composed from 1828 to 1846 in the form of a three-part song) into the groups of three (Op. 9 and 15) and then into the groups of two (Op. 27, 32, 37, 48, 55 and 62). The only one preserved independently is Nocturne in E minor, Op. 72. Characteristic of all these pieces are: a moderate tempo, mainly still, but richly nuanced dynamics, above all expressive melody of a wide span accompanied by the refined ornaments and the harmony completely filled with secretive modulations and dense chromatics. The anthological Nocturne in C minor, Op. 27, No. 1 in the Larghetto tempo, was composed in 1836. Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856) composed his Toccata in D major, Op. 7 from 1829 to 1830 in Heildelberg. Unhappy with its first version from 1933, he revised it to a great extent and transformed in C major. In that form, dedicated to his wife to be Clara Wieck, it was published the following year. His model was not the baroque, Bach-like toccata type, but the form of the etude based on the motoric movement, that as a form generally spread in the 19th century, reaching its peak in the following century (Prokofiev!). Schumann's direct model was most probably the famous Toccata from Czerny's Op. 92, showing a marked similarity with its structure, particularly in the very beginning. Schumann, however, composed a piece with predominating enormous technical requirements requiring an exceptional skill and endurance of the performer, but also having an evident artistic value. Markedly economical in writing down the dynamic marks and performing instructions, Schumann tried to ensure the utmost performing freedom, thus announcing, in an interesting way, the opened aleatoric and minimalist inscriptions in the music of the following century. D. Detoni