on the 290th anniversary of the birth of Luka Sorkočević
The Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra has been active since 1924, and in addition to being an important part of the rich cultural heritage of Dubrovnik and Croatia, the Orchestra also continues a long and significant musical tradition that developed in the period of the Dubrovnik Republic (1358-1808). Since December 2020, the conductor of the DSO is Ivan Hut, who especially cultivates the repertoire of local composers. Hut and the DSO will be leading the celebration of the great 290th anniversary of the birth of Dubrovnik composer Luka Sorkočević, on the occasion of which, as part of this concert programme, a work composed by Petar Periša Obradović and ordered by the Festival will be premiered.
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Boris Papandopulo:
Pintarichiana
Sonatina: Allegro con spirito
Pastorella: Andante cantabile
Rondo: Allegretto
Dudaš (Cornemuse): Allegro vivace
Petar Obradović:
Le lacrime della magnolia, suite for strings and piano
Dolce
Impetuoso
Valzer
Partenza
Appassionato
Gentile
Energico
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Luka Sorkočević:
Symphony No. 4 in F Major
Allegro
Andante
Allegro
Luka Sorkočević:
Symphony No. 7 in G Major
Allegro
Largo
Allegro
Boris Papandopulo:
Hommage a Sorkočević, for symphony orchestra
This is the first Dubrovnik performance of the piece, dedicated to the 290th anniversary of the birth of Luka Sorkočević, after premiere at the Osor Musical Evenings on August 8, 2024.
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The programme of the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra’s second concert at this year’s Dubrovnik Summer Festival mainly consists of Dubrovnik music – music by two Dubrovnik composers, and another Croatian composer, who was inspired by Dubrovnik music. The concert is conducted by the permanent conductor of the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra, and includes a performance by a pianist from Dubrovnik.
Boris Papandopulo (Honnef am Rhein, 1906 – Zagreb, 1991) is one of the most important Croatian composers. He grew up in an artistic family, and his mother was the renowned opera singer Maja Strozzi. He earned his degree in composition from the Zagreb Academy of Music under Blagoje Bersa and studied conducting in Vienna under Dirk Fock, at the recommendation of Igor Stravinsky. He was also a pianist and performed throughout Europe. He wrote over 450 works, including operas, ballets, chamber music, piano pieces, sacred music, and theatre and film scores.
Musicologist Davor Merkaš, expert on Papandopulo’s work, pointed out that the ‘astonishing range of his work left a deep and ubiquitous mark not only on Croatian music, but also, I dare say, on the 20th century music in general.’ Musicologist Marija Bergamo wrote: ‘Papandopulo takes almost hedonistic delight in his own ingenuity. He invents rules, obstacles and limitations - and submits to them. In this musically autonomous artistic game, he builds puzzles from a series of possible combinations that seem simply irresistible.’
This evening’s programme includes two compositions from Papandopulo’s very diverse oeuvre, for which he was inspired by the music of other composers. Conductor and composer Mladen Tarbuk wrote: ‘This kind of parody of other composers was not foreign to Papandopoulo; moreover, if we take a closer look at his stylistic procedures, we can see that he was paying attention to the music around him. Jazz, dodecaphony, folk music, pop music, Baroque, Classical music, Papandopulo led a lively discussion with all of them in his composing.’
In Pintarichiana, Papandopulo used the works of Fortunat Pintarić (Čakovec, 1798 – Koprivnica, 1867), Franciscan friar, organist and composer in the late Classical style. When the Zagreb Soloists commissioned a piece for the concert on the occasion of their 20th anniversary in 1974, he adapted and orchestrated some of Pintarić’s miniatures for keyboard instruments: In the first movement of the composition he used the first movement from the Sonatina in C major, for the second and third he used Pintarić’s miniatures, Pastourelle
and Rondo, and concluded the piece with a combination of two of Pintarić’s miniatures, Vivace and Dudaš (Cornemuse). In this unpretentious work, he still managed to leave his mark as a composer, or, as Tarbuk wrote, ‘(in) the humorous score (..) it is hard to tell where Pintarić ends, and Papandopulo begins.’
Trumpeter and composer Petar Obradović (Dubrovnik, 1972) completed secondary music education at the Luka Sorkočević Art School in his hometown Dubrovnik under his father Niko (Nino) Obradović. He graduated in 1994 from the Academy of Music in Ljubljana under Anton Grčar, and in 1995 became the first trumpeter of the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra. Since 1995 he has been solo trumpeter with the Croatian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra in Zagreb. As a soloist, he has performed with the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra, the Croatian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, the Zagreb Philharmonic, the Mostar Symphony Orchestra, the Sorkočević Quartet and the Dubrovnik String Quartet.
In 2000, his first CD was released by Cantus label, with works by Šulek, Detoni, Tarbuk and Obradović, and he recorded Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Trumpets and Orchestra in C major with the Zagreb Philharmonic, which was also released on CD. In 2006, Cantus released his CD with works by Papandopulo, Berdović, Bjelinski, Kuljerić and Obradović, and in 2009 a CD with works by Italian Baroque composers Franceschini and Vivaldi, and by Croatian pre-Classical composers, Bajamonti and Stratik. Performances of his works were also released on numerous albums by other musicians. His upcoming album will contain his original works.
The publishing house ALRY Publications (Seattle, USA) published sheet music editions with four of his compositions, and Martin Schmid (Nagold, Germany) published 17 of his compositions in the Collection Petar Obradovic. He regularly records music for the archive of permanent recordings of the Croatian Radio and Television, and so far he has composed over 250 minutes of original music. He has been a member of the Croatian Composers Society since 1995.
In addition to solo, chamber and orchestral works, he has composed for film, and for the productions of the Lero Theatre Dubrovnik, performed at the Split and Dubrovnik Summer Festivals. He has composed short pieces for music school students. He has collaborated with numerous musicians both as a composer and performer.
In 2019, he received the Porin Music Award for Best Classical Music Composition, for his Bird Concerto, for saxophone and orchestra, premiered at the 68th Dubrovnik Summer Festival; in 2020, he was awarded the Orlando Prize by the Croatian Radio and Television for the most successful music performance at the 71st Dubrovnik Summer Festival. In the 2022/23 season, he was resident composer at the Croatian Radio and Television, for whose ensembles he wrote two compositions (for the Tamburitza Orchestra and the Choir).
Obradović’s new piece was inspired, among other things, by Dubrovnik’s heritage: Suite for strings and piano, Le lacrime della magnolia / Magnolia’s Tears was premiered at the Osor Musical Evenings on 8 August this year. This is what musicologist Ana Vidić wrote for the premiere:
‘The seven movements of the suite, magnolia’s seven tears, symbolize Sorkočević’s seven symphonies (sinfonie) as the base of the work, with Partenza – Departure in the middle as an allusion to Sorkočević’s premature passing. Just as Luka Sorkočević’s music and life are a part of Dubrovnik (hometown of both composers, two centuries apart), this legacy is a part of Magnolia’s Tears, as are the verses by Davor Mojaš:
Stunned by the scent of roses, he walked wet with rain, lost in thought and tears.
High above him, white magnolia flowers bloomed in the treetop.
Later, he would tell how the blossoming magnolias shed tears once.
And how the drops smelled like roses... (D. Mojaš, Dubrovnik 2024)
Stordito dai profumi delle rose in fiore, camminava bagnato, entusiasta e piangente.
Sopra di lui, in alto nei rami, sbocciavano fiori bianchi di magnolia.
Più tardi raccontò come una volta le magnolie in fiore versavano lacrime.
E come le gocce profumavano di rose... (D. Mojaš, Dubrovnik 2024)
Composer Luka (Lukša) Sorkočević (Luka Ignacije Antunov S. or Luca Sorgo, Dubrovnik, 1734 – 1789) was also a diplomat, patron and organizer of art academies, an aristocrat whose family roots go back to the thirteenth century. He received musical training from a young age. According to musicologist Vjera Katalinić, ‘in 1765, he was to be appointed ambassador at the French royal court, which he refused, but he co-signed the Dubrovnik-French Treaty in Dubrovnik in 1776. In 1781, a few months after the death of Maria Theresa, he was sent as an ambassador to the imperial court in Vienna.’
He composed most of his music in his youth, in the period of the revived prosperity of the Republic of Dubrovnik. Luka Sorkočević is the composer of the first Croatian symphonies (sinfonie), modelled on Italian opera overtures, in the so-called transitional period from Baroque to Classical period. He composed eight symphonies and two overtures, chamber works, cantatas and educational pieces. For several decades, it was common to perform the revised versions by composer Stjepan Šulek, but in recent times they are performed as originally written, and in numerous arrangements. The works of Luka Sorkočević, and of his family members, were preserved and found in the Friars Minor Monastery in Dubrovnik.
Musicologist Ennio Stipčević asserted that Sorkočević ‘wrote several pages of the anthology of Croatian and European pre-Classical music’ and that the composer’s autographs show ‘with what ease, confidence and indisputable talent Sorkočević wrote his music, (...) seemingly carelessly, and yet skillfuly, playing deftly, almost like Mozart.’
Luka Sorkočević’s symphonies, or sinfonie, have the standard fast-slow-fast movement structure, and, according to musicologist Vjera Katalinić, ‘they make the most interesting whole in his oeuvre’. She continues: ‘Sorkočević adheres to a homophonic structure, articulates the phrases in small, sometimes asymmetrical units, with animated rhythm, frequently employed syncopations, and changing accentuation. (...) In the transition to Classical bi-thematicism, one already has an inkling of a second theme as a “cantabler Satz” in the first movements (...). The middle movements are always written for a string ensemble and are marked by noble and gallant melodies. The third movements are markedly motoric and often designed in three parts. One encounters Mannheim ornamentation in the melodies and the instrumentation is transparent, even though it remains in part indefinable in some compositions.’
Boris Papandopulo wrote his homage to Sorkočević, or Hommage à Sorkočević, in 1985. In his text about the recording of this charming piece, released by the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra in 2006 as ‘the fruit of the composer’s long-term collaboration with the Dubrovnik musical community’, musicologist Ivan Ćurković wrote that ‘Hommage à Sorkočević addresses the complex relationship between neoclassicism and folklore on the example of specific Croatian and Dubrovnik’s heritage’, which created a mixture of ‘pre-classical symphonic and musical-folkloric procedures and quotations.’
It is worth mentioning that the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra also released a video of their performance of the Hommage during the pandemic.
Ivana Jelača (Dubrovnik, 1985) completed primary and secondary music education at the Luka Sorkočević Art School. She gave her first solo performance with the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra in 1998, under the baton of Tomislav Fačini. From 1995, she regularly participated in regional and national music student competitions, winning first and second prizes. From 1997, she attended the European Piano Teacher Association’s summer piano school in Dubrovnik, training with distinguished pedagogues Rudolf Kehrer, Anatoly Katz, Jean-François Antonioli, Dag Achatz, Arbo Valdma, Vladimir Krpan, Eugen Indjic and others.
In 2004, she began her studies at the Zagreb Academy of Music under Ljubomir Gašparović. As scholarship holder from the Academy of Music, in 2006 she attended a seminar as part of the International Summer Academy Prague-Vienna-Budapest, held by Noel Flores, with whom she afterwards regularly trained in Vienna and Zagreb. She has regularly performed as a soloist and with orchestras (Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra, Dubrovnik Chamber Orchestra, Croatian Chamber Orchestra). After graduating from the Academy of Music in Zagreb, she began postgraduate specialist studies at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana. In 2011, she performed at the 45th Darko Lukić Music Forum in Zagreb, and became a member the Croatian Association of Music Artists. In 2016, she completed her postgraduate studies at the Academy of Music in Zagreb, specialising in performance on historical keyboard instruments, with work entitled The Art of Playing Piano Sonata in the Context of Cultural Change, under the mentorship of Ljubomir Gašparović and Dalibor Davidović.
Interested in the cultural context of music, Ivana Jelača founded the organisation The Rest is Music with the aim of promoting the performing arts, with an emphasis on the performance of classical music. She has been the president and artistic leader of the organisation since its founding in 2012. She is the author of its numerous projects and a member of The Rest is Music chamber ensemble, regularly performing in Croatia and abroad. She is the host and author of several workshop series, Gioachino’s Cookbook, Slušaonica and M.U.Z.A. Workshop, aimed at educating new generations of audience. As part of her regular collaboration with Dubrovnik Museums, she created a multimedia application presenting the ‘Dubrovnik fortepiano’ from 1790, and released a CD entitled Croatian Composers and Their Contemporaries on the Walter Fortepiano from the Rector’s Palace in Dubrovnik, which was promoted at the 69th Dubrovnik Summer Festival. The same year, she attended the workshop held at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival by Maria João Pires, a renowned pianist and educator.
Ivana Jelača is active as a music educator, and she has been a freelance artist since 2017. In September 2020, she enrolled in the DocARTES artistic research doctoral programme at the Orpheus Institute in Ghent and KU Leuven in Belgium with the project Performing in the 21st-century Salon: Tradition and Innovation.
Celebrating the 99th anniversary of its establishment in 2024, the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra remains an inexhaustible source of quality cultural events. They perform their repertoire in venues such as the Rector’s Palace Atrium and Dubrovnik’s churches and squares. They regularly appear with renowned Croatian and international artists, interpreting the works of baroque, classical and romantic masters, both in Dubrovnik and around the world.
The Dubrovnik Orchestra has continuously been active since 1924, initially semi-professionally, and afterwards as a full-sized professional orchestra. It was founded by young enthusiasts, Dubrovnik Grammar School graduates, under the name Dubrovnik Orchestra, which was changed to Dubrovnik Philharmonic Orchestra in 1925. In the years following its establishment, the orchestra was joined by an increasing number of musicians and its repertoire grew accordingly, including more and more complex works. Under renowned conductors Tadeusz Sygietyński and Josef Vlach-Vrutický they premiered the works of Polish-Dubrovnik composer Ludomir Michał Rogowski.
In 1946, the Dubrovnik City Orchestra was officially founded as a professional music body by the City of Dubrovnik with the support of its members, eventually becoming a staple of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival’s music programme. For this reason, it operated under the name Dubrovnik Festival Orchestra for some time. They toured extensively in the 1970s (Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands) under then chief conductor Nikola Debelić, which included a three-month tour of the USA and Canada in collaboration with Columbia Artists Man New York. The orchestra last changed its name in 1992 and has been operating under Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra ever since.
The extensive list of their concerts includes tours in Europe, the USA and Indonesia. The Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra has collaborated with numerous renowned artists, such as Lovro von Matačić, Antonio Janigro, Zubin Mehta, Kirill Kondrashin, Ernst Marzendorfer, Milan Horvat, Nikola Debelić, Pavle Dešpalj, Anton Nanut, David Oistrakh, Yehudi Menuhin, Mstislav Rostropovich, Sviatoslav Richter, Henryk Szeryng, Uto Ughi, Christoph Eschenbach, Stefan Milenkovich, Ivo Pogorelić, Dubravka Tomšič, Dunja Vejzović, Ruža Pospiš Baldani, Monika Leskovar, Radovan Vlatković, Mischa Maisky, Yuri Bashmet, Julian Rachlin, Michel Legrand, Alun Francis, Ivo Dražinić, Maxim Fedotov, Goran Končar, Maxim Vengerov, Nicholas Milton, Christoph Campestrini, Dmitry Sinkovsky, Emmanuel Tjeknavorian, Marija Pavlović, Gordan Nikolić and many others.
The Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra has performed in the world’s most prestigious halls, in Washington (Kennedy Center), New York, Seattle, Zagreb (Lisinski), Versailles, Basel, Jakarta and Vienna (Musikverein). In 2005 they received the prestigious Milka Trnina Award, and in 2015 the Award for the contribution to the reputation and promotion of the Dubrovnik-Neretva County in Croatia and abroad. In 2020 the orchestra was awarded the Orlando Grand Prix for outstanding artistic contribution.
The Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra has organised numerous festivals and concert series, such as the International Opera Arias Festival Tino Pattiera, the International Late Summer Music Festival Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik Musical Spring, Autumn Music Variety, and Chamber Music Festival Stradun Classic.
Dutch-Croatian conductor and violist Ivan Hut (Pula, 1982) began his musical education at the Josip Hatze Music School in Split. He graduated in viola from the Academy of Music in Zagreb under Milan Čunko in 2005. In the course of his education, he won numerous awards in national competitions of young musicians. As a violist, he has performed in Germany, Austria, Italy, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Hungary. From 2000 to 2009 he was a member of the Split Chamber Orchestra where he, supported and inspired by maestro Pavle Dešpalj, developed his love of conducting. In 2013, he founded the Camerata Split string orchestra, and produced the 59th Split Summer Festival concert programme. The following year he was the music director at the same festival. In the 2013/14 season, while he was the director of the Opera of the Croatian National Theatre Split, the operas Mefistofele by Arrigo Boito and Aida by Giuseppe Verdi were performed with great success at the 60th Split Summer Festival.
In 2014, he began his conducting studies at the Codarts University of the Arts in Rotterdam under Hans Leenders. During his studies in the Netherlands, he trained with Kenneth Montgomery, Etienne Siebens and Antony Hermus. He received scholarships from the Lovro and Lilly Matačić Foundation and Het Kersjes Foundation for young conductors in the Netherlands. He was an assistant to Hans Leenders on the Codarts Project – Codarts Symphony Orchestra concert at the Gergiev Festival in Rotterdam conducted by Valery Gergiev. In 2016, he completed his Bachelor’s degree with an operatic debut, conducting Puccini’s Suor Angelica, and enrolled in a Master’s degree programme under Hans Leenders, with Yannick Nezet Seguin as one of his mentors. In the same year, he brought together graduates of the Codarts Rotterdam and the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague in the NOW Orchestra and successfully conducted two performances in Rotterdam in the 2016/17 season (Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade and Ravel’s Bolero). After completing his Master’s degree in 2018 as the best student in his year, he was granted the opportunity to perform at the 30th Gergiev Festival in Rotterdam’s De Doelen Hall.
In December 2020 he was appointed conductor of the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra, and has conducted more than fifty concerts over the last three years. He has collaborated with numerous orchestras, including the Sinfonia Rotterdam (at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam), the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, the Croatian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, the Zadar and Varaždin Chamber Orchestras, the Guanajuato University Symphony Orchestra (Mexico), the Rijeka Symphony Orchestra, the Slovene National Theatre Maribor Symphony Orchestra. He was an assistant to Plácido Domingo in the performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem with the Croatian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, to Ivan Repušić at the opera gala at the Croatian National Theatre Zagreb, and to Srba Dinić in the production of Mozart’s Magic Flute, also at the Croatian National Theatre Zagreb. This year he conducted the performance of The Magic Flute at the Slovene National Theatre Maribor.
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