On March 11, prominent Split pianist Vesna Podrug will add to the series of concerts a solo recital that includes some of the peaks of the pianist's repertoire, pairing Schubert, Prokofiev and Božičević. Ivan Božičević, composer and professor of composition at the Split Academy of Arts, achieved a number of international successes in 2021. At the competition of Ithaca College (USA) for jazz composition for big band, Božičević's Salbunada was awarded the winning "Grand Prize", in competition with more than 120 compositions. Božičević's composition was performed on April 30 this year by the Ithaca College Big Band under the direction of Michael Titlebaum.
***
The last year of the prematurely ended life of Franz Schubert (1797-1828) brought Schubert final recognition in a wider circle of the public, as well as financial success. Schubert spent most of his life relatively unknown, except among a narrow circle of admirers. As a member of the society of friends of music, Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (better known as the Vienna Musikverein), he managed to organize his own big concert in March 1828 (on the occasion of the first anniversary of the death of L. van Beethoven) and gain all the attention of the Viennese public. His career was yet to blossom. In May of the same year, Drei Klavierstücke D. 946 (Three piano pieces) were created, which are not specifically named in Schubert's manuscript. Gaining the reputation of a leading romanticist only after his death, through his successors Mendelssohn, Schumann, Listz and Brahms, it was only then that one gained an insight into the great variety and richness of his oeuvre. In 1868, Brahms anonymously edited and published the Three Piano Pieces D. 946, combining them into a cycle although it is not certain whether they were originally intended that way. The first in E flat minor is dominated by the restless, lively music of the main section, which alternates with two quieter episodes of a meditative character. The second of these episodes is crossed out in the manuscript, but Brahms decided to keep it (however, publishers and pianists more often respect Schubert's decision). The second piece in E flat major is the most performed, it begins with a calm lyrical fragment that alternates with two faster fragments, a trio in C major and a trio in A minor. The last piece in bright C major rests on lively syncopated rhythms and irregular, varied phrases, resembling a folkloric dance.
As a composer and pianist, Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) dedicated some of the most important works of his diverse oeuvre to the piano, writing as many as six piano concertos, as well as numerous works for solo piano. His ten sonatas (the eleventh remains only in sketches) are an indispensable part of the pianist's repertoire. Mladenačka Second Piano Sonata in D minor, Op. 14 from 1912 already shows the composer's unique musical language. Within the classical framework of the sonata, modernist musical gestures abound in it, in each of the four movements showing different faces of Prokofiev's musical personality. The first movement is daring, with virtuoso pianistic passages, which alternate with introspective, almost romantic musical thoughts, which are nevertheless filled with playful dissonances. Strong rhythmicity and clownish gesture are a clear signature of Prokofiev in the second movement. The third movement is almost static, with its slow changes that take place almost uncomfortably in the harmony under the melodies, whose gentle flow is interrupted by the jump motif that takes over from the first theme of the first movement. The last movement bursts with fast rhythms, from which again playful gestures are born, similar to those in the first movement, but now enhanced through an even more varied palette of rhythms and theatrical decorations. Prokofiev dedicated the Second Sonata to his friend from the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Maximilian Schmidthof, who committed suicide in 1913. The sonata was first performed by Prokofiev himself in 1914 in Moscow.
Often described as a minimalist, the composer Ivan Božičević, also an organist, pianist, arranger and jazz musician, explains that in his musical language the focus is "an aesthetic approach where one wants to express as much as possible with as few means as possible, but the harmonic language is richer than the one that appears in the style of minimalism". In his works, which range from solo and chamber to symphonic, he looks for a "cross-fertilization" of different styles and periods that interest him, from the baroque, through electronics, to styles such as jazz and world music. In Shaken From a Crane's Bill, he finds inspiration in the haiku poetry of the 13th century Chinese poet and Zen master, Dōgen. The drops that appear in Dōgen's brief impression (With what shall I/Compare the world?/With the moonlight, which is reflected/In the dewdrops/Shaken from the crane's beak), inspire the composition whose soft five-part chords and solutions filled with scattered tones of melody, evoke the atmosphere of ancient meditation. The piece was originally written for violin, clarinet and piano, and won the 2018 Random Access Music competition from New York.
The monumental work, Bach-Busoni's Chaconne, was originally the final movement of Partita no. 2 for solo violin BWV 1004 by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), composed in the period from 1717-1720. in Köthen. The last movement, Chaconna rests on the form of variations on the theme in the bass (there are more than sixty variations in this Chaconna) and is the longest movement in this partita. It is very often performed separately, and has undergone a number of transcriptions for performance on other instruments. One of
the most important is that of Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924), composer and pianist, who showed his enthusiasm for Bach at an early age, and studied his music already during his schooling in Vienna, continuing to study the works of the great master throughout his life. Busoni composed his transcription in the late nineties of the nineteenth century and dedicated it to the pianist Eugene d'Albert, and he often performed it himself at his recitals. Unlike the previous Brahms transcription of Bach's Chaconne for piano for the left hand, which faithfully follows the original, Busoni, in his lavish transcription of Bach's variations, varies the theme in his own way in the spirit of Bach, giving it the grandiosity of the piano sound, and highlighting the different colors and virtuosic aspects of the magnificent and at the same time touching Bach themes.
Zrinka Matić
***
Vesna Podrug Kossjanenko was born in Split, where she began her musical education in the class of prof. Gordan Lentić. She won six first prizes at national and federal competitions in the former Yugoslavia. In 1986 she received a scholarship to the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna under prof. Paula Badura-Skoda. In 1988, she filmed for ORF, and in 1989 she was a scholarship recipient of the Ministry of Science of the Republic of Austria. In 1992, he completed his piano studies with the title of Master of Arts. She perfected piano chamber music with prof. Georg Ebert, he also graduated from the pedagogical department for the title of professor at the same University.
During her studies, Vesna Podrug played numerous recitals: Bösendorfer Saal - Vienna, Seckau - Cultural Weeks, Radtstadt - Cultural Summer, Dalmatian Concert, Egremont - Great Britain, Split and Hvar Summers, and performed as a soloist with the HNK orchestra in Split under the direction of Boris Papandopulo and Iva Lipanović. Vesna Podrug performed Beethoven's Fifth Concerto eight times with the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera. She performed with renowned artists: David Grigorjan, Vladimir Kossjanenko, Soo Kyung Hong, Goran Listeš, Isabell Bringmann, Martina Serafin and Michelangelo Cavalcanti in famous concert halls such as the Musikverein, Konzerthaus and Staatsoper in Vienna, the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall and the Croatian Music Institute in Zagreb and Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan. She held numerous concerts in Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, Ireland, Great Britain, Finland, Turkey and Croatia. Concerts with Belgian violist Michael Kugel and American soprano Denyce Graves at the 53rd Dubrovnik Summer Games, with French violist Gerard Causse at the festival in Hartberg/Austria, with Austrian flautist Karl-Heinz Schütz at the Falaut Festival in Milan, with Chinese soprano Hui He at the 61st Dubrovnik Summer Games and the Tartini String Quartet from Ljubljana at the 56th Split Summer.
In 1999, together with Vladimir Kossjanenko, he recorded the album Music for Viola with Vladimir Kossjanenko for the Viennese record company Extraplatte, and in 2002 In Memoriam Shostakovich with Michael Kugel. This edition was chosen by The Strad Magazine London as the best Recital Disc – Strad Selection. In addition to teaching at the University of Vienna (Wiener Volkshochschule), she also taught at numerous summer seminars. Vesna Podrug was engaged as a permanent accompanist at the Vienna State Opera, and as a teaching assistant at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Since 2007, he has been working as an assistant professor of piano at the Academy of Arts in Split.
Franz Schubert: Three piano pieces, D. 946
Sergei Prokofiev: Piano Sonata No. 2 in D minor
Ivan Božičević: Shaken From a Crane's Bill
JS Bach/Ferruccio Busoni: Chaccona
