Proudly bearing the name of the great composer and violinist born in Piran, the distinguished Slovenian String Quartet Tartini, which celebrates forty years of activity this season, performs together with the prominent Slovenian clarinetist Darko Brlek at a concert in Split. The central piece of the program is the Clarinet Quintet and String Quartet in B flat major, Op. 34 by Carl Maria von Weber, framed by two works for string quartet - Three pieces for strings by one of the most important Slovenian composers of the 20th century, Lucijan Marija Škerjanc, and Maurice Ravel's youthful String Quartet, which earned the composer the epithet "master of tomorrow".

Lucijan Marija Škerjanc (1900-1973) played a central role in Slovenian music of the 20th century, as one of the first modernists in whose footsteps generations of future Slovenian composers grew up. He received a broad education, studying in Ljubljana, Prague, Vienna, Paris and Basel, and then worked as a pedagogue for many years, teaching composition at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, and as a conductor and then director of the Slovenian Philharmonic. Škerjanec's compositional language remains linked to late romanticism, expressionism and impressionism. He has broad musical interests, with a large number of works in the field of symphonic, concert and chamber music, as well as compositions for piano, voice with piano and orchestra and various solo instruments. He is also remembered as a film music composer. His Three Pieces for Strings originate from a larger work, the earlier Suite for Strings. The pieces bring short picturesque impressions, which, although not based on any specific program, create strong contrasting moods.

Continuing in the footsteps of Mozart, Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826) composed a number of works for the clarinet, which remain the basis of the repertoire of this instrument. In them he found an ideal combination of virtuoso writing, inventiveness and musicality, composing for his friend and famous clarinet virtuoso Heinrich Baermann. In the Grand Quintet in B flat major, Op. 34, which he completed in 1815, dedicates to him a section filled with difficult passages and bravura coloraturas, which he adapted to the new technically more powerful instrument, on which Baermann played. Although Weber may have had models in the clarinet quintets of Mozart and Beethoven, he, unlike the quintets of his predecessors, in which the clarinet and string parts were treated equally, brought the clarinet part to the fore, treating it almost as a soloist part of the concerto as opposed to an accompaniment. string ensemble. The wealth of romantic dramatic expressiveness and melodic inventiveness, especially in the second movement, Fantasia, seems to come from the world of Weber's operas, which marked the beginnings of German musical romanticism. The friendship between Weber and Baermann is forever woven into the history of music, giving rise to a series of works in addition to this quintet, including the Concertino op. 26 and two clarinet concertos (op. 73 and 74).

Although he left behind only one work in the string quartet genre, Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) with his String Quartet in F major enriched the quartet literature inestimably. He wrote it in 1903 and dedicated it to his professor at the Paris Conservatory, Gabriel Fauré, and submitted it as one of the compositions for the Prix de Rome competition. For Ravel, it was another in a series of unsuccessful applications for this prestigious award, but it helped strengthen Ravel's reputation and recognition of his unique, fresh compositional language. With his quartet, he moved immeasurably away from the late-romantic harmonies of his predecessors, such as Fauré or Franck, whose quartets, although composed only fifteen years before, are still completely immersed in the late-romantic rich sound. The solid harmony of Debussy's quartet is certainly closer to it, but Ravel in his quartet, in addition to the innovation of harmony and harmony, innovatively combines different ways of articulation, which especially in the first movement richly shadow the ethereal melodies of the violin. The first movement in sonata form is followed by a masterful scherzo second movement, realized in contrasts of pizzicato, buzzing tremolos and energetic melodies, and the third movement of a mysterious atmosphere, which is born from bittersweet melodies accompanied by suggestive muted tremolos. Turbulent activity still in the tremoland of all strings marks the stormy start of the last movement, u

to which the themes and moods of the previous movements are sublimated, giving a strong finale to this thematically tightly unified work.

Zrinka Matić

Lucijan Marija Škerjanc:

Three compositions for strings
Andante molto moderato
Lento lugubre
Allegro vivo
                                                              
Carl Maria von Weber:

Quintet for clarinet and string quartet in B major, Op. 34
Allegro
Fantasy. Adagio
Menuetto
Rondo. Allegro gioioso

***

Maurice Ravel:

String quartet in F major
Allegro moderato, Très doux
Assez vif, Très rythmé
Very slow
Vif et agité