Last night, I attended a performance by the Slovenian Symphony Orchestra at Cankarjev Dom. Bulgarian Conductor Rossen Milanov led the symphony. Seeing the orchestra perform live on stage was a terrific experience!
Kromatika 2023 2024
The Kromatika 2023 2024 performance was the sixth in a series of nine concerts. Kromatika highlights the orchestra’s continuing “journey from eternal masterpieces of classical music to creative contemporary Slovenian works”. The sixth concert in the cycle features works by Slavic composers.
Marjan Kozina Slovenian Composer
Slovenian composer Marjan Kozina left a “deep mark on the country’s musical landscape”. He was a student at Ljubljana Conservatory, professor of composition Ljubljana Academy of Music, and first director of the post-war Philharmonic. Kozina also conducted the Maribor Glasbena matica choir and orchestra – Slovenia’s central musical institution between world wars.
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“During World War II, Marjan Kozina’s house was bombed in an air raid, and his wife imprisoned by the Gestapo. In 1943, with the capitulation of Italy, he joined the Slovene Partisans. After liberation in 1948, he became the first manager of the Slovene Philharmonic Orchestra.” sofiaphilharmonic.com
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The orchestra performed Kozina’s beautiful symphonic poem Antiquity – Davnina. Davnina was the “first sentence of his never-completed symphonic cycle Novo Mesto, with which he paid homage to his beloved hometown”.
The Symphony in Four Movements is another of Kozina’s “great contributions to Slovenian music”. During post-war times, “the first movement was one of the most often conducted Slovene symphonic compositions.” The four movements “thematically echo the period of war” as separate symphonic poems:
- Bela Krajina 1946 – White Carniola
- Ilova Gora 1947 – Mount Ilova
- Padlim 1948 – To The Fallen
- Proti Morju 1949 – Towards The Sea
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“Marjan Kozina (1907–1966) is considered a central composing and conducting figure during the first half of the 20th century. A knowledgeable and erudite musician, Kozina left a profound impression on Slovenian culture, particularly through his love of music, complemented by the keenly agile mind of a chess player and mathematician.” momus.si
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Reinhold Glière Russian Composer
Kozina’s work was followed with three movements from Concerto for Horn by Russian composer Reinhold Glière. Glière wrote numerous piano compositions and “interesting and original concertos for violin, cello, harp, and even coloratura soprano”.
Guest hornist, Serbian-Slovenian Mihajlo Bulajić, performed the solo portion of Glière’s Concerto for Horn. Popular Bulajić is a masterful musician with a charming stage presence. The audience loved his performance and cheered him back for an encore.
Mihajlo Bulajić Horn Soloist
In 2010, Bulajić was solo hornist in the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra Ljubljana. He’s a member of the Brass Quintet SiBrass, Brass Trio RTV Slovenia, and Wind Quintet Quintologia.
Leoš Janáček Czech Composer
The programme concluded with the orchestral rhapsody – Taras Bulba – by Czech composer and music folklorist Leoš Janáček. His powerful piece is based on a novel by Russian writer Nikolaj Gogol entitled Taras Bulba and Other Tales. Gogol was known as the “greatest Russian novelist and playwright of the early 19th century”. His “romanticized historical novella” is set in the first half of the 17th century. It features Zaporozhian Cossack, Taras Bulba, and his sons, Andrei and Ostap.
Janáček “chose three episodes from Gogol’s novel. The first movement is the “Death of Andrei,” Bulba’s younger son, who “falls in love with a Polish woman belonging to the enemy nation”. The second movement is the “Death of Ostap,” his older son who is taken prisoner by the Poles, moved to Warsaw, and executed. The third and final movement, “Death and Prophecy of Taras Bulba,” is when Bulba “leads his Cossacks across Poland, looting, pillaging, and burning, until he too is taken prisoner and sentenced to death at the stake”.
What can I say – it was another outstanding classical music experience in Ljubljana!