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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