The idea of ​​variation is at the heart of the development of Western music; from Renaissance divisions to jazz improvisations in contemporary music, the variation of melody, rhythm, harmony, color, counterpoint, or orchestration forms the basis from which recognizable musical forms and genres are born.

Whether on their own or someone else's theme, numerous famous works were created in the form of a theme with variations, and one of the most important remains from the pen of the great Baroque master, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750). Bach created several masterpieces using the variation technique – Passacaglia in C minor for organ and Chaconne iz Matches in D minor for violin solo. Variation is also the basis of works such as Musical Offering, while in the form of a theme with variations he leaves two masterpieces, Aria variata alla maniera italiana (Canonic Variations on a Christmas Carol Von Himmel hochm da komm' ich her) those famous Goldberg VariationsThis latter work has the aura of a supreme intellectual work, accomplished with exceptional mathematical precision, strict architectural structure, as well as extreme technical complexity, which is why some theorists – similar to Bach's later work, The Art of Fugue – considered primarily a theoretical or abstract work. However, the work is regularly performed, primarily on the harpsichord (with two manuals), for which it was originally composed, but also on the piano – which, due to the frequent overlapping of hands and fingers, makes the performance extremely demanding. The work is unique in every way, even in the context of Bach's vast and diverse oeuvre. It is one of the few that was printed during Bach's lifetime: it was published in 1741 by Bach's friend Balthasar Schmid in Nuremberg, and the title indicated that it was an exercise for two-manual harpsichord, containing an aria and various variations, "composed for connoisseurs, to refresh their spirits". The work is therefore dedicated to advanced players, as the fourth and final volume of the edition Clavier Ubung (Piano exercise), which published six Partita, Italian concert, French Overture and chorale preludes for organ. There are a number of interesting regularities in the work – the cycle of 30 variations is divided into ten groups of three pieces each, and every third variation is written as a canon, with Bach writing progressively, starting with a canon in unison, followed by canons on the second, third, fourth and so on up to the ninth variation (in the ninth). The main theme, or air, is written as an elegant sarabande, but Bach does not vary its melody, but rather the bass line and harmonic architecture of the aria, much as if it were a chaconne or passacaglia. In each group of three variations, in addition to the canon, there is also a virtuoso variation similar to touched, and one elegant slow variation. Instead of the final tenth canon on the tenth, Bach composes quodlibet which combines fragments of two folk songs with a bass line. The basic key of the piece is G major, which exudes calm and serenity, while some of the variations are shaded by the serious, melancholy quality of the minor of the same name. An anecdote, recounted in Bach's biography by the writer Johann Nikolaus Forkel, says that the piece was written to relieve the insomnia of Count Keisering, the Russian ambassador to the Saxon court. His harpsichordist, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, was supposedly forced to play at night in the antechamber of the count's chambers. Forkel's biography was written in 1802, and although it is unlikely that Bach composed the variations to entertain the count, the name has become familiar, and some believe that Goldberg was the first to perform the work.

Goldberg Variations feature frequently in the repertoire of Faz ı la Saya , who is releasing his studio recording of the work in 2022 on Warner Classics, after spending a period of isolation during the 2020 Covid pandemic studying this Bach musical and mathematical masterpiece. His interpretation brings "elegance in the way he plays long, melodic lines," offering "a blend of clarity and nuanced soft dynamics" as well as "energetic moments of joy," ( The Classical Review , theclassicalreview.com), and bringing a playful jazz quality to Bach's work ( Bachtrack , bachtrack.com).

The vividness and playfulness of Say's interpretation of the classics is also a recognizable quality of his own work, whether it is completely original compositions or Say's variations and jazz arrangements of famous melodies by other composers.

Tonight's program covers a twenty-year period of Say's creativity. Among the most successful recent works is Yeni hayat ( New Life ), a piano sonata op. 99 composed in 2021. The composer wrote the work during the pandemic and performed it at the first concert after the end of that period, describing in it "thoughts about the uncertainty and anxiety in which we live and the hope of returning to normal life. In fact, it is a song about the transition from the pandemic to normal life, in which the anxiety we have experienced and the good news of returning to the stage are mixed." This is Say's third sonata, in which he experiments with the color of the piano, but it is not an avant-garde work in the true sense, because melody and harmony remain what still intrigue Say the most as the foundation of his musical language. Fazıl Say's piano ballads are works in which he is guided by the romantic heritage of this genre, the idea of ​​narrativity, bringing biographical and literary associations, and creating romantic, meditative works. The first ballad, Nazım, is the first of the Three Ballads, Op. 12, composed between 1995 and 2005. It is played exclusively on the white keys, and commemorates the Turkish writer Nâzım Hikmet (1902–1963), who, inspired by communist ideas (for which he was often persecuted and imprisoned in Turkey), left Istanbul in 1921 and went to Anatolia to connect with "simple people". The ballad Ses , Op. 40b, is the last part of the semi-staged work of the same name (here arranged for piano solo), and is based on the poem Sivas Acisi , which tells of the arson and massacre at the Madimak Hotel in Sivas in 1993. The title of the ballad, Kumru , Op. 12 No. 2, means dove in Turkish, and is also a popular female name in Turkey. The gentle andante of this composition brings echoes of old love songs. Kara Toprak ( Black Earth ), composed in 1997, is inspired by a popular Turkish song of the same name. Its composer Aşık Veysel (1891–1973) was one of the finest composers of ballads in Turkey, building on a thousand-year-old tradition. Blind since his youth, he played the Turkish lute saz and studied poetry, traveling through villages and drawing inspiration from folk poetry, and becoming one of Turkey's symbols during his lifetime. In this song, he speaks of loneliness and loss. The black earth is the only thing that remains — the color of the earth of his hometown of Sivas. In the composition, Fazıl Say imitates the sound of the saz with a muffled piano tone, interweaving a romantic expression with elements of jazz and folklore. In his own interpretations, he gives space to improvisational freedom, which gives the composition a new, spontaneous expressiveness each time. Say's creativity and pianistic freedom and flexibility naturally found their way to jazz in his jazz fantasies. The Summertime Variations are the third arrangement of this Gershwin composition and the first for solo piano. They begin and end with a very quiet cantabile passage with a meditation on the well-known opening motif. The entire melody then forms the basis of the graceful and extremely virtuosic Presto variations in the central passage. The composition Paganini Jazz , which brings a combination of influences from classical, modern and jazz styles, is reminiscent of the music of greats such as Scott Joplin, Art Tatum, Gershwin or Bernstein, and was originally conceived as a concert "encore" for the audience in 1988. Well received, the composition became more substantial over time and evolved into a kind of jazz variations on the famous Paganini Capriccio No. 24. In addition to the notation that requires virtuoso performance (just like Paganini's original), Say's composition invites further improvisation.

- Zrinka Matic

With his extraordinary pianistic abilities, Fazıl Say has managed to touch audiences and critics in a rare way for almost 30 years. This artist's concerts are different concerts; they are more direct, more open, more exciting. In short: they go straight to the heart. That is what composer Aribert Reimann probably thought when, during a visit to Ankara in 1986, he had the pleasure, more or less by chance, of hearing the then sixteen-year-old. He immediately asked his traveling companion, the American pianist David Levine, to come to the conservatory in the Turkish capital, and he did so with the words that have since become commonplace: "You have to listen to him, the boy plays like the devil."

Fazıl Say received his first piano lessons from Mithat Fenmen, a pianist who had studied with Alfred Cortot in Paris. Fenmen – perhaps sensing the boy’s talent – ​​asked his student to first improvise on everyday topics every day before engaging in the necessary exercises and piano studies. It was in this engagement with free creative processes and forms that the roots of the immense improvisational talent and aesthetic outlook that form the core of pianist and composer Fazıl Say’s self-awareness were laid. As a composer, Fazıl Say has collaborated with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the BBC, the Salzburg Festival, the WDR, the Munich Philharmonic, the Konzerthaus Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Louis Vuitton Foundation, among others. His oeuvre includes six symphonies, two oratorios, various solo concertos, chamber works and numerous piano works.

Fazıl Say trained as a classical pianist with David Levine, first at the Musikhochschule “Robert Schumann” in Düsseldorf and later in Berlin. In addition, he regularly attended master classes with Menahem Pressler. Moreover, his extraordinary technique soon enabled him to master the so-called warhorses of world literature with incredible confidence, and it was this mixture of subtlety in Haydn, Bach and Mozart and virtuoso brilliance in the works of Liszt, Mussorgsky or Beethoven that finally led to his victory at the International “Young Concert Artists” Competition in New York in 1994. Fazıl Say then performed with all the famous American and European orchestras and numerous great conductors, developing a diverse repertoire from the works of Johann Sebastian Bach to the “classics” of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, as well as romantic and contemporary music, including his own piano compositions.

Since then, Fazıl Say has toured countless countries on all five continents; the French newspaper Le Figaro described him as a "genius". In addition, Fazıl Say appeared several times as a chamber musician. With the violinist Patricija Kopatchinskaja, for example, he has been performing in a fantastic duet for years; other prominent partners are Maxim Vengerov, Minetti Quartett, Modigliani Quartett, Nicolas Altstaedt and Marianne Crebassa.

Numerous concert halls, orchestras and festivals have invited Fazıl Say as an artist in residence. These include, among others, the Konzerthaus Dortmund, Konzerthaus Berlin, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Wiener Konzerthaus, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, Zürcher Kammerorchester, Dresdner Philharmonie, Camerata Salzburg, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, Bodenseefestival and Festival der Nationen. Further recitals have been heard in Paris, Tokyo, Merano, Hamburg and Say's hometown of Istanbul. In the 2023/24 season he was the Spotlight Artist at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Composer in Focus at the GAIDA Festival in Vilnius, and Hessischer Rundfunk dedicated a portrait week to him in December 2023.

In 2013, Fazıl Say received the Rheingau Music Prize, and in December 2016, the International Beethoven Prize for Human Rights, Peace, Freedom, Poverty Alleviation and Inclusion in Bonn. In autumn 2017, he was awarded the Music Prize of the City of Duisburg.

Say's recordings of works by Bach, Mozart, Gershwin and Stravinsky on Teldec Classics, as well as Mussorgsky, Beethoven and his own works for naïves, have been critically acclaimed and have won several awards, including three ECHO KLASSIK awards. In 2014, his recording of Beethoven's works – Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Frankfurt Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, the Sonata op. 111 and the Moonlight Sonata – was released, as well as the album Say plays Say with his own works. In autumn 2016, Warner Classics released a recording of all Mozart sonatas, for which Fazıl Say received his fourth ECHO KLASSIK award in 2017. In 2017, he recorded the album "4 Cities" together with Nicolas Altstaedt. In autumn 2017, Warner Classics released Nocturnes and the album Secrets with Marianne Crebassa, which won the Gramophone Classical Music Award in 2018. His 2018 album is dedicated to Debussy. In January 2020, Warner Classics released Say's recording of all Beethoven piano sonatas, followed in November 2022 by Bach's Goldberg Variations . In January 2023, together with Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Fazıl Say released a recording of sonatas by Bartók, Janáček and Brahms (Alpha).

Location: Peristyle, Split.

Pupils, students, pensioners and existing subscribers of the Croatian House Split receive a 20% discount on individual tickets exclusively at the Croatian House box office. Discounts are not cumulative and do not apply to festival tickets.

You can purchase the Peristil Vibrez Pass for all three events at Peristil here.

Croatian House Split ensures an accessible and inclusive experience for all visitors. Persons with disabilities, persons with reduced mobility, and persons requiring assistance are provided with appropriate accessible seating at all concerts and performances of this year's Vibrez Festival.

Johann Sebastian Bach

Goldberg Variations, BWV 988

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Fazil Say

Yeni hayat (New Life), piano sonata op. 99

Nazım, ballad op. 12 no. 1

Ses, ballad op. 40b

Kumru, ballad op. 12 no. 2

Kara Toprak (Black Earth), for piano

Summertime Variations, Jazz Fantasy

Paganini Jazz, jazz fantasy