Therefore, accept from me the gift that I promised, composed as it may be in an elegiac song, so if it is perhaps not worthy of your guitar, with which you could compete with the Muses, it is still suitable for our friendship (...) Do you insist that I as you repay, you will do it best if you highly recommend me to that same Virgin, to whom, as I see, you are completely devoted, and further, if you bring your musical skill, your voices, rhythms, tones and your intonation to the singing of these verses, there is nothing not minding the meagerness and inappropriateness of my words, but thinking about the holiness and exaltation of the one to whom those words are dedicated. (...) - (trans. Bratislav Lučin, Marulianum Split)

These sentences were written by Marulić with the Latin accompaniment of Petrarch's cancone Vergine bella, dedicating this masterpiece of his singing skills to Jerolim Papalić. Marulić's friend and musician at the same time asked him to sing the famous closing song Canconier, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, transferred into Latin elegiac couplets, so that he would set it to music and perform it singing and accompanying himself on the lute. Although unfortunately the musical text of Papalić's composition has not been preserved, we know from literary testimonies and other contemporary information that the overture and its musical version were created around 1510 or 1511.

And this is where our musical-literary journey from Marulić's era to Split modernity begins, intertwined with the reading of Marulić's texts (Latin poems, Marulić's description of Split), as well as texts about Marulić (Frane Božićević - "The Life of Marko Marulić of Split", Bratislav Lučin "From Music in Marulić to Marulić in music") and the performance of musical works created during Marulić's time in Spain, which was the center of lute music at the time, all the way to original compositions by composers from Split written for the classical guitar, the successor of the Renaissance lute.

The music program consists of works by Spanish composers for the lute who lived in Marulić's time: Luis de Narváez (1490–1547), Luis de Milán (1500 - 1560), Alonso Mudarra (1510–1580); up to compositions by living Split composers for guitar quartet: Vlado Sunko (1954), Ivan Božičević (1961) and Gordan Tudor (1982).

The character and works of Marko Marulić are interpreted by the Drama Champion of HNK Split Mijo Jurišić.

The music program is performed by guitarists from Split Josip Dragnić, Goran Cetinić Koća, Martin Andrijašević and Kajo Milišić.

The dramaturgy is written by Mijo Jurišić, and he is responsible for the preparation and selection of the texts Bratislav Lučin in the role of professional associate.

Luis de Narváez he is one of the first great vihuelists, playing the vihuela, an instrument similar to today's guitar, but tuned and played like a lute. Today, the collection bears witness to Narváez's rich compositional work Los seys libors del Delphin, which contains music for the vihuela and includes the first known compositions in the form of variations. One of such works is Guárdame las vacas (Look after my cows), a set of variations based on a popular song, based on a frequently used chord progression called romance. It is repeated four times, and each time an increasingly complex variation appears over it. As the composer of the court chapel of the King of Spain and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles V, Narváez dedicated a composition to the ruler Canción de emperador. The composition is also a dedication to Josquin des Prez, who was Charles V's favorite composer.

Alonso Mudarra, priest and composer, who was in charge of the musical activities of the cathedral in Seville, is another Spanish Renaissance vihuelist and versatile composer, who is also the author of the first known compositions for the guitar. One of his most beautiful works is still the most popular today Fantasia X. It is sophisticated and elaborate in its form, a simple and elegant theme, which is repeated in different variations, in phrases of unequal duration and diverse figurations and decorations, and an almost arbitrary harmonic course, during the first part of the composition at various heights, acting like an improvisation. This is the basic characteristic of fantasy, and it is even more noticeable in the final part of the composition, which leads to an elegant ending in an increasingly condensed rhythmic course and not shying away from dissonant collisions.

Rich creativity Vlade Sunko reveals inspirations, which can sound close, and are placed in an attractive and musically challenging compositional framework, combining the classical basis with the influences of jazz, rock, folk music... Among his most performed compositions are Variations on Dalmatian theme, which began their journey in 1991 when the first three movements were created, in a composition for four cellos, commissioned by the Split cellist Vladimir Lukas. The composition grows and gets more movements, in versions for mandolin quartet, mandolin orchestra, saxophone quartet...,., and the latest version of this polyvalent composition is the one for tambourines. The theme is a Dalmatian folk song The boat is sailing, the sea is deep, with a series of variations that find inspiration in the atmosphere of the Mediterranean, which remains present even though various stylistic influences intervene, such as jazz or rock undertones in the final variation.

Gordon Tudor is a strong musical name of international renown both as a saxophonist and as a composer, whose compositions captivate with lively energy and research nerve, as well as listening to the bond towards his audience. In a three-movement composition Soundtracks, created in 2019 at the instigation of the Split Guitar Quartet, its language is pitak, which grew out of dramatic situations originally conceived for the play Electra ITD theater in Zagreb, directed by Ivan Plazibata. The musical fragments that remain unused in the performance grow into three movements of the quartet, in which one musical situation develops, that is, an emotion, which grows with repetition: in the second movement, it slowly thickens from loose threads like an improvisation into an increasingly ornate and dramatic syllable. while the third is built on the same procedures, the repetitiveness of which could be described as minimalist if it were not for the constant thickening and decoration, which ideally employ guitar instrumental principles.

In the composition toccata Vlade Sunko it is a recognizable baroque basis of fast passages and complex chord sequences, as well as fast polyphonic ones dialogue between sections, which get a superstructure in the form of quasi-rocker riffs in the moving first part of the composition, over a persistent sixteenth-note ostinato flow, calming down in the central fantasy. We are harmoniously in a world slightly colored with Latin-jazz nuances, in which even a hint of shrill intervals can be recognized from the composer's favorite sound world of Dalmatian Zagora.

Composer, organist, pianist - versatile musician Ivan Božičević is one of the favorite contemporary composers from Split, whose works are frequent in the repertoire of numerous musicians. Eclectic in his expression, he finds inspiration in collaboration with musicians of various origins, from classical to jazz and pop musicians. Composition Never Say Never perhaps it is a reflection of this eclecticism in the approach to music, which has no stylistic limitations. The piece was commissioned by the Split Guitar Quartet in 2022, which premiered it in August 2023 and has been playing it regularly ever since, so far on stages in Croatia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and the Czech Republic. The work was created on the basis of an earlier composition from 2014, If There Is a Place Between, for harpsichord solo, which wins the international competition of compositions for harpsichord Aliénor. Three movements lead the way from the quasi-baroque syllable of the first movement, Admission, which in the middle part dissolves into soft arpeggios, over the sometimes bright and sometimes melancholic cantilena of the second movement, Breezy, filled with richly varied harmony, a bit like an old sarabanda. Original Fandango (from the original piece for harpsichord), becomes Fun-dango, is a fun Spanish-style arabesque dance.

Split guitar quartet was founded in 2010 with the aim of enriching the Croatian guitar scene. Over the course of many years of continuous activity, he holds numerous concerts in Croatia, and realizes a notable international concert activity, profiling himself as one of the leading promoters of Croatian musical creativity for the guitar abroad.

The quartet gave concerts in Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands, at famous festivals such as Festival de la Guitarra de Sevilla, Ronda Guitar Festival, Euro Chamber Music Festival, Geneva Puplinge Classique , and in prestigious halls such as La Grande Salle du Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles, Bulgaria Hall in the Sofia Philharmonic, Espacio Joaquin Turina, Cercle Cité, etc.

The Split guitar quartet won the award Golden watercolor for contribution to the music scene of the city of Split, awarded by the Croatian Music Union and the City of Split, and awards Biokov's smile for the best classical music concert at the Makarska cultural summer festival in 2015.

The performances of the Split Guitar Quartet have been broadcast several times on the air of Croatian Radio (Prvi, Treći program, Glas Hrvatske, Radio Split) and in the program of RTV Slovenia - Ars.

Mijo Jurišić was born in 1983 in Brčko (BiH). He completed his acting studies at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb in 2006. In the same year, he was permanently employed at HNK Split. He performs over fifty theater and television roles, among which Hamlet stands out (Hamlet), Raskolnikov (Crime and Punishment), Fireman (Bald singer), Biff Lamon (Death of a traveling salesman), Hippolytus (Fedra), Orestes (Orestius), Leone Glembay (Messrs. Glembays), while in cinematography he embodied roles in films halimin put, High fashion tension, Look at me and others Among the television projects, roles in series such as Newspaper, Silence itd.

LUIS DE NARVÁEZ (1490–1547): Guárdame las Vacas
LUIS DE NARVÁEZ: Canción del emperador
ALONSO MUDARRA (1510–1580): Fantasia X

VLADO SUNKO (1954): Variations on a Dalmatian theme

GORDAN TUDOR (1982): Soundtracks
II
III

VLADO SUNKO - Toccata

IVAN BOŽIČEVIĆ (1961): Never Say Never
Admission
Breezy
Fun-dango