Download gudački kvartet rucner trio boška petrovića

54. dubrovačke ljetne igre
54th Dubrovnik Summer Festival
2003
Hrvatska Croatia
GUDAČKI KVARTET RUCNER
RUCNER STRING QUARTET
Jože Haluza
violina violin
Josip Novosel
violina violin
Dragan Rucner
viola
Snježana Rucner
violončelo cello
Solist Soloist:
Peter Soave
bandoneon
TRIO BOŠKA PETROVIĆA
BOŠKO PETROVIĆ TRIO
Boško Petrović
vibrafon vibraphone
Mario Mavrin
bas-gitara bass guitar
Primož Grašič
gitara guitar
Taraca tvrđave Revelin
Revelin Fort Terrace
19. srpnja 19th July
21.30 9.30 p.m.
Astor Piazzolla: Undertango
Astor Piazzolla: Amelitango
Astor Piazzolla: Tristango
Astor Piazzolla: Meditango
Astor Piazzolla: Chicquilin de Bachin / Decarissimo
Aldemaro Romero: Tango furioso
*****
Boško Petrović: With Pain I Was Born
Boško Petrović: Oberkreiner Lullaby
Mario Mavrin: Samba de Pipi
Boško Petrović: Zagreb By Night
Astor Piazzolla: Oblivion
Astor Piazzolla: Libertango
Spouses Dragan and Snježana Rucner (by then long time members of the Klima Quartet)
formed the Rucner String Quartet together with their reputable colleagues Jože Haluza and
Josip Novosel in 1998. Continuing the tradition of chamber music in Zagreb, and while
cherishing the classical and modern repertoire equally (particularly the output of Croatian
composers), the Quartet ventures into other musical genres as has been well illustrated
through a fruitful collaboration with the American artist Peter Soave, resulting with a CD
release Tango Moods (for Jazzette) and a CD release Five Tango Sensations (for Cantus),
both with pieces by Astor Piazzolla. So far the Quartet has appeared in Zagreb and all over
Croatia, at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival in 2002 and at the Zagreb Music Biennale both in
2001 and 2003, as well as in France, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina and Egypt. Many Croatian composers composed for the Quartet (including S.
Bradić, S. Horvat, A. Kezic, A. Klobučar, M. Prohaska, A. T. Šaban, B. Šipuš, T. Uhlik and
others). Cantus label recently released their new CD with the guitar player Darko Petrinjak
with pieces by Stephen Dodgson, Boris Papandopulo, Carlos Guastavin and John William
Duarte.
Violinist Jože Haluza (1950) graduated from the Zagreb Academy of Music under Ivan
Pinkava and Ivan Weiland. He began his career at the Zagreb Philharmonic in the section of
leading violins and was its second concert master (1973-1982), whereupon he joined the
Zagreb Soloists. His national and international appearances also feature his concerts as soloist
with the Ars Longa Trio, Pro Arte String Quartet, the Zagreb Quartet and the Varaždin
Chamber Orchestra. He shares his time as teacher at the Elly Bašić Music School and at the
Academy of Music in Zagreb, temporarily also as the concertmaster of the orchestra of the
Komedija Theatre in Zagreb.
Violinist Josip Novosel (1967) graduated from the Zagreb Academy of Music under Silvan
Kuzmin in 1987. While still a student, he played at the Academy’s Chamber orchestra and
attended master classes in Hannover and Grožnjan. As soloist he has appeared with the
Chamber Orchestra of the Zagreb Academy of Music, and as chamber musician with the
Alpe-Adria Chamber orchestra and the Zlatko Baloković String Quartet with acclaimed
appearances at the Venetian Chamber Music International Festival and at the Paolo Borciani
International Competition in Reggio Emilia. With the Zlatko Baloković Quartet Novosel won
the Deans’ Award of the Zagreb University. His other awards include the first places at
republic and federal competitions in the former country (1987,1988). A member of the
Bruckner Orchestra in Linz for one season, Novosel shares his time as a member of the
Zagreb Philharmonic as well.
Violist Dragan Rucner (1954) graduated from the Zagreb Academy of Music under Daniel
Thune by winning the Václav Huml Award assigned by Croatian Musical Institute (HGZ). As
soloist he has appeared with the Croatian RTV Symphony Orchestra, the Zagreb
Philharmonic, the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra, was the first violist of the Norwegian
Opera Orchestra in Oslo, and is presently the leading viola player at the Zagreb Philharmonic.
As chamber musician Rucner was a member of the Klima String Quartet (1987-1997) with
whom he won the Milka Trnina (1991) and Josip Štolcer Slavenski (1992) awards. He teaches
at the Zagreb Academy of Music.
Violoncellist Snježana Rucner graduated from the Zagreb Academy of Music under Valter
Dešpalj and then attended master courses of André Navarra, Daniel Šafran and Siegfried
Palm. Awarded many times while still a student, she won the Matrix Croatica Award (1993)
for her appearances as soloist (with a distinct talent for contemporary music). Long time
member of the Zagreb Philharmonic, she also plays with the Orchestra of the Zagreb Opera.
As chamber musician, she has played with the Zagreb Piano Trio, the Sarajevo Quartet and
the Klima String Quartet, with whom she won the Milka Trnina (1991) and Josip Štolcer
Slavenski (1993) awards.
Peter Soave (1964) was born in the USA into a family of new Italian immigrants. He started
playing the accordion at the age of five, later turned to jazz and collaborated and appeared
with such reputable accordion masters as are Art van Damme and Leon Sash. Eventually his
interest turned towards the classical repertoire, now his major occupation. He performs
extensively throughout Europe and the USA and his career is growing more and more
successful. Particularly inspired by the output of Astor Piazzolla, Soave also arranged his
music for the bajan, has played his pieces at almost every appearance and made his first CD
Pride and Passion with his pieces. Recently he has turned to as genuine performance of
Piazzolla as possible, and has been playing on the tango-accordion (bandoneon). Last year
Soave completed his two albums with Piazzolla’s music (Tango Sensations with the Rucner
Quartet and Concerto for bandoneon and orchestra with the Moscow Philharmonic).
Vibraphone player Boško Petrović (1935) was born in Bjelovar. He began to play the violin
at the age of seven and later started to learn the accordion, the drums and finally the
vibraphone. He founded his first group as violinist in 1950 and in 1959 the Zagreb Jazz
Quartet whose repertoire was based on the original music inspired by Croatian music
traditions. During its eight-years existence, the quartet extensively performed in the country
and abroad (Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, former
Czechoslovakia and former Soviet Union, etc.). After one-year pause, the quartet turned into
the Zagreb Jazz Quintet with the famous American trumpet player Art Farmer joining in
1968/1969. In 1970 Boško Petrović founded a group of young jazz musicians BP Convention
with which he toured the majority of European countries, the USA and Japan. In collaboration
with brilliant East European jazz musicians (Michael Urbaniak, Zbigniew Seifert,
Woldemierz Nahornz, Csaba Dësëo, Aladar Pege, Radul Mihaly, Janos Fogarasi, Jiri Stivin,
Ernst Ludwig Petrovsky, Simeon Sterev and Dan Mindrila) Boško Petrović formed a group
called The Nonconvertible All Stars, with which he still performs from time to time. He
performs in a duo with the pianist from Zagreb, Neven Frangeš, since 1985. He performed
and recorded with numerous international jazz stars and also played as soloist with the big
bands of Oliver Nelson, Gerry Mulligan, Woody Herman, Tito Puente, Gerald Wilson, Gustav
Brom, Clark Terry and others. Boško Petrović frequently appears on the radio and TV as
author and performer of jazz programmes and continues to release and thus expand his huge
recording output. The recipient of the Josip Štolcer Slavenski Award (Vjesnik), The City of
Zagreb Award and the Porin Croatian Record Award, Boško Petrović is presently a resident
of Zagreb where he runs his own jazz club (B. P. Club), as well as a very successful Jazzete
music label.
Guitar player Mario Mavrin was born in 1949. Before he joined the BP Convention in 1970,
he had played in various pop ensembles in Zagreb and collaborated with the Zagreb Radio
Television Dance Orchestra (under the baton of Miljenko Prohaska). A year later, he joined
the original team of The Time band with which he recorded the first LP with the same title. He
later played in various bands of Boško Petrović taking part in numerous concerts, festivals
and releases ("Blue Sunset", 1975; "With Pain I Was Born", 1977; "Stabilisation Blues", 1982;
records from the festivals the Zagreb Jazz Fair and Springtime Jazz Fever). He played with
the leading European and American soloists such as Csaba Deseo, Gianni Basso, Kristian
Schultze, Albert Mangelsdorff, Pete King, Georgie Fame, Art Farmer, Clark Terry, Ernie
Wilkins, Sal Nistico and Lew Soloff, as well in the John Lewis Piano Trio with the drummer
Martin Drew. Together with the guitar player Damir Dičić he released the LP "Out of the
Past" in 1987 and performed and made releases with the vibraphone player Igor Lešnik’s
Jazzbina group. The Croatian Music Union awarded him the Status Award for the best bass
player on the Croatian jazz scene in 1997 and 1998. His last international performance with
the Boško Petrović Trio was at the Cork Jazz Festival in Ireland.
Guitar player Primož Grašič (1968) was born in Kranj. Having completed the high school in
Kranj, he studied the guitar at the Klagenfurt Conservatory. Immediately after the graduation
he joins the Greentown Jazz Band and also works with the Dixieland Band from Kranj. From
1991 to 1993 he plays as member of the Ugrin-Divjak Quintet and works with the Slovenian
Radio Television Big Band. Since 1992 he has been member of the Boško Petrović All Stars
Band, the Ratko Divjak Ensemble, the Dominik Krajnc Quartet, the SLO Jazz Project and as
studio musician he has worked with the groups such as the New Swing Quartet, the Vocal Art,
Alenka Godec, Darja Svajger, Janez Bončina, Marta Zore and others. In 1998 he joins both
the Slovenian Radio Television Big Band and the Slovenian Radio Television Big Orchestra.
Together with Janez Bončina he wins two awards for arrangements. In 1995 he is nominated
for the Zlatni Petelin Music Award for the best arrangement in the category of foreign
compositions. He than works with the Jože Privšek Orchestra, with whom he performs at
concerts in Cankarjev Dom Portorož and Ljubljana and records more than sixty LPs. In 1993
he performs at one of the biggest European festivals in Perugia. Primož Grašič performs both
as soloist and as member of various orchestras at jazz festivals throughout Germany,
Switzerland, Great Britain, France, Italy, Holland, the USA and Canada. In 1994 he plays in
Amsterdam as member of the European Broadcasting Union Big band under the baton of
Jerry van Roojeen and Henk Meutgeert together with the greatest jazz stars worldwide. He
also worked with prestigious conductors such as Peter Herbolsheimer, Herb Pomeroy, Jerry
van Roojeen, David Devilliere, Walter Proost, Maria Schneider and Mathias Ruegg.
Argentinian composer and guitar player Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992), highly educated
musician felt the appeal of Bach’s harmonies in his early youth. The Brazilian Heitor VillaLobos inspired him to try to amalgamate the west European with exotic musical elements,
which was greatly enhanced at his studies with Alberto Ginastera, another great SouthAmerican author. His stay in Paris and studies with the shrewd Nadia Boulanger, cleared up
his dilemmas of style between Stravinsky, Bartók, de Falla, Webern or Schönberg. Boulanger
encouraged Piazzolla ‘not to be ashamed of the bandoneon and of your own roots. Nay, let
them inspire you!’ Piazzolla’s tango was first widely accepted by the Argentinean intellectual
elite, before it went to conquer Europe, largely supported by most prominent musicians as are
violinist Gidon Kremer, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the Kronos Quartet. Their first collaboration
resulted in their first project, Four for tango in 1988 and in the cycle Five Tango Sensations
(published in 1991).
In the words of Pablo Neruda, the great poet of Latin America, ‘… like Mahler’s or Brecht’s,
so is Piazzolla’s soul immense and endlessly unfinished, his music talking about the dirty
business of man, about despair and jealousy, passion and hopelessness, tiredness and
weariness of emotions impregnated with smoke and sweat, with odours of the lily and of
urine, sprayed with the diversity of deeds, legal or not… like the human body, his music is
dirty like worn-out clothes, stained with food, like the human soul it is shadowed by its own
shame and by the shame of what others have done, filled with tricks, clandestine voyeurisms,
dreams, fury, prophecies, declarations of love and hate, stupidity, shocks, idylls, political
convictions, negations, premature suspicions, belated confirmations…’. According to
America’s most celebrated living author John Adams ‘Piazzolla entered the northern
hemisphere approximately at the same time with Neruda, Màrquez, Vargas Llosa or Borges
who were forcefully penetrating our limited notions of the world in concert with many other
Latin American literary voices. Their mixtures of brutality, magic, sensuality and honesty
astonished us. The vitality of their expressive worlds, emotional achievements, incredible
visions of man’s capacities and situations and their humour smashed into the faces of
crumbled political and economic burdens, gave us a painful blow that blew a new life into us.
In the world of music, the discovery of Piazzolla equalled the discovery of some exotic,
highly and dangerously powerful drug.’
Gualdalupe Jolicoeur said that tango is ‘ the power that unites two strangers, even if for just
one moment. It is a whisper of carnality felt by the announcement of a perfume alone. It is the
shine of the dancing hall, the charm of the underground, the luxury of Paris and the smokefilled darkness of a Buenos Aires café. Tango creates the world of fine comparisons that
conquers one’s soul’. Dražen Vrdoljak finds that tango is, ‘like the blues, both music and the
state of the soul’. Tango was born in the red-light zones of the suburban Buenos Aires in early
20th century, more or less at the same time and environment like the jazz in New Orleans.
Before World War II the position of the all-acclaimed tango king Carlos Gardel could only be
compared to the global stardom of Louis (Satchmo) Armstrong; their promotion of jazz grew
into ‘America’s greatest contribution to the 20th century music’. Tango and jazz are not
compared just by chance. From the pioneer jazz/tango improvisations of Jelly Roll Morton,
pianist and composer in brothels and cabarets of the debauching Storyville quarter of New
Orleans, to the practice of Argentinean-originating Lalo Schifrin and Gato Barbieri, tango and
jazz have so often spoken a common language.
Often on Piazzolla’s own concert bills and recordings, the pieces in the tonight’s programme,
lyrical and dramatic, superb blends of American, Spanish, German, Jewish, Italian and other
roots excel all the features that have a long time ago earned them their global glory.
Particularly interesting is performance of the Chicquilin de Bachin and Decarissimo at the
same time, which will be another proof that tango is never performed in the same way. The
concert will end by a joint performance of the two contrasting Piazzolla’s masterpieces: the
slow tango ballad Oblivion and the quick and dramatic Libertango.
Venezuelan composer, arranger, pianist and conductor Aldemaro Romero (1928) was born
in Valencia. He was 13 years old when he started his career as pianist, conductor and
composer of popular songs that started being performed by various orchestras in ballrooms,
popular festivities and radio programmes. At the age of 19 he already conducted the National
Radio Orchestra, having become the most renowned and the most sought-after (particularly in
the field of discography) Venezuelan pop music composer. In 1951 he moved to the USA
where he took post of the editor at the RCA Victor in New York. His music was extremely
popular both in his homeland and in America and he worked with the greatest orchestras and
soloists including Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Stan Kenton, Ray Mekin, Machito, Noro
Morales, Tito Puentes and others. He extensively toured in Mexico, Portorico, Columbia,
Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, Russia, Sweden, Grece, Egypt and
Japan. The winner of many awards at the most prestigious Spanish, Greek and Mexican pop
music festivals, he introduced a new wave into the Venezuelan pop music that is closely
connected with Brazilian bossa nova. The founder and chief conductor of the Caracas
Philharmonic Orchestra since 1979, Aldemaro Romero conducted the most renowned
orchestras worldwide such as the London Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the London
Symphony Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra and the Romanian Radio Television
Symphony Orchestra. He composed numerous (vocal)orchestral, concert, chamber and solo
pieces and received the highest state awards and recognitions.
Boško Petrović composed With Pain I Was Born 42 years ago for the Zagreb Jazz Quartet.
The piece, based on constant metric changes of the melodic flow (according to the
Macedonian folk music patterns), is an indicative announcement of the present day popular
ethno music. A lullaby in a blues-waltz form, the Oberkreiner Lullaby, was composed six
years ago and dedicated to Primož Grašič. This nostalgic piece humorously ends with a
miniature thematic segment with the elements of Slovenian folklore. Samba de Pipi was
composed by Mario Mavrin in 1989 and dedicated to an old friend of his. An unusual
introduction performed on the six-strings bass guitar blends into a simple and cheerful samba.
Boško Petrović composed the slow and elegant Strauss waltz Zagreb By Night four years
ago in memory of the city the way it used to be. The piece has a special connection with the
piece To Zagreb With Love, composed ten years ago during an American tour, a subtle and
singable ballad with a pronounced melodiousness and rich harmonic basis, a sentimental
dedication to the city the composer is reluctant to leave and which he more and more misses
on every journey.
D. Detoni