on the 220th anniversary of the death of Ivan Mane Jarnović
The Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra is an inexhaustible source of quality cultural events, and in the anniversary edition of the 75th Festival, they will hold as many as three top concerts. At their final one of the season, under the baton of the charismatic maestro Valentin Egel, they will host the international guitarist sensation Pablo Sáinz-Villegas, who, among many praises, is also hailed as the successor of the legendary Andrés Segovia. The Orchestra will also pay tribute to Ivan Mane Jarnović on the 220th anniversary of his death.
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Ivan Mane Jarnović:
Suite in A major
Joaquin Rodrigo:
Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra
Pablo Sáinz-Villegas, guitar
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Ludwig van Beethoven:
Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92
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This evening, the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra celebrates the anniversary of the death of a Dubrovnik composer – who may not have been a Dubrovnik composer at all. But even if he was not from Dubrovnik, he was in some way ‘adopted’ by Dubrovnik, and the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra started celebrating his anniversary this spring: Reliable biographical data about the composer Giovanni Giarnovichi / Ivan Mane Jarnović (Ragusa, 1747 – Saint Petersburg, 1804) are scarce. He was probably a son of the theatre professional Giovanni Maria Giernovichi, and some sources mention that he was born ‘in Ragusan waters’. Apart from the fact that ‘Ragusa’ is another name for Dubrovnik, there is also a town of the same name in Sicily. According to sources, he was baptized in Palermo, so maybe he is not from Dubrovnik after all, but it is also written that he is of ‘Dalmatian origin’, so it is possible that he grew up in Dubrovnik. In documents from that period, there are at least 26 different spellings of the surname ‘Giernovichi’ (‘a bewildering variety of spellings’, according to Grove Music Encyclopaedia), including ‘Giarnovichi’, ‘Jarnowich’, ‘Žarnovik’, etc.
We know for a fact that from 1769 he lived in Paris, where he had a successful career as a violinist, and from 1779 in Germany, where he served as concertmaster of the court orchestra of Prince Frederick William II in Berlin. It appears that he spent most of his life on concert tours, and lived an unstable, turbulent life, marked by conflicts, fights, duels and prison sentences, according to some sources. In the 19th century, his life was portrayed in the novel Jarnowick (Gustave Le Brisoys Desnoiresterres) and the novella Une Leçon de Jarnovich (Édouard Monnais under the pseudonym Paul Smith).
He mostly composed for the violin – solo, chamber and concert pieces. Seventeen of his violin concertos have been preserved, with printed parts, and it is presumed that he composed around thirty. According to musicologist Vjera Katalinić, his works are characterized by ‘original, singable melodies and a demanding, elaborate violin technique’, and his concertos by ‘French concerto style’.
Jarnović’s music is occasionally performed in concerts and on various releases. This evening’s Suite in A major, with a measured opening Allegro, elegant Andante and a somewhat livelier final Allegro, was recorded by the Zagreb Soloists and Antonio Janigro for the album Music of the European Courts. Vjera Katalinić lists 17 printed violin concertos among the known works of Ivan Jarnović, some of which have been reworked into sonatas, five sonatas based on undiscovered concertos, string quartets, concertante and ‘dialogue’ duos, a sonata and duets for violin and cello, Airs Variés, the Five Dances, arrangements of works by other composers, quotations in pasticcio operas, and concerto manuscripts, which in some cases are works of other composers. Jarnović’s works were printed by numerous European publishers, and composers of his time arranged them and borrowed themes from them.
Joaquín Rodrigo (Sagunto, 1901 – Madrid, 1999) studied music in Valencia, under Paul Dukas at the Schola Cantorum in Paris – where, apparently, most Spanish composers wanted to study – and with Manuel de Falla. He was almost completely blind since childhood. He also studied music history in Paris; he lived in northern Europe during the Spanish Civil War, and returned to Madrid in 1939. The very successful premiere of his Concierto de Aranjuez in 1940 made him famous, and in 1947 the Manuel de Falla Chair was created for him at the University of Madrid. He also worked for the National Radio and the Spanish National Organization for the Blind, and gave recitals and lectures on world tours.
He wrote around 170 works, including 11 concertos, 60 songs, guitar pieces, piano pieces, and music for theatre and film, as well as a number of texts on music. He described himself as ‘faithful to tradition’, a neoclassicist. Like other Spanish composers of his generation, Rodrigo attempted to blend European Classical idiom with Spanish music: he achieved this by composing Classical music forms influenced by the music of Ravel, Granados, and Stravinsky.
The title of the lyrical Concierto de Aranjuez refers to the town near Madrid where the Royal Palace is located – the spring residence of the Spanish kings with impressive gardens, the story of which inspired Rodrigo. The success and popularity of the concerto earned him the official hereditary title of Marquis of the Gardens of Aranjuez in 1991.
Aranjuez was Rodrigo’s first concerto, skilfully composed, especially considering the relatively quiet sound of the guitar, which had to be carefully combined with the orchestra. The guitar opens the Allegro con spirito with a short rhythmic motif that marks the entire movement, along with the interweaving of lyrical themes. In the melancholic Adagio, the soloist temporarily accompanies the English horn, and then takes over the poignant theme. It was believed that Rodrigo composed the lament in the second movement with the bombing of Guernica in mind, but his wife later revealed that a painful family event inspired it. The guitar opens the third movement and develops dialogues between the instruments with a constant change of metre. The simple, clear orchestration of the Concerto emphasizes the guitar, which is sometimes in conversation with the orchestra, and sometimes as if, to borrow a common phrase about this piece, all instruments ‘merge into one big guitar’. The guitar is sometimes combined with individual instruments of the orchestra, which creates new colours, with numerous allusions to the traditional music of Spain, in a stylized arrangement.
Described by Yehudi Menuhin as ‘a giant, inscrutable to most mortals due to his uncompromising power and unobsequious approach to music and people,’ Ludwig van Beethoven (Bonn, 1770 – Vienna, 1827) was born into a musical family and learned music from his father Johann, and then with the court organist C.G. Neefe. When he first came to Vienna, in 1878, he met Mozart and may have even been his student for a short time. He studied with Haydn, but since they did not get along, he continued his training with Johann Schenk. He was renowned for his pianistic skills, first at private gatherings, and later in public; he was supported by numerous members of the nobility, who gave him annual grant, and he dedicated many of his works to them. He started experiencing problems with his hearing as early as 1795 and eventually had to give up public performances as a pianist and conductor, but he compensated for his subsequent isolation with musical imagination, and combined his high musical standards and strong character in a unique way with the ideals of freedom and brotherly love. He wrote nine symphonies, 32 piano sonatas, the opera Fidelio and a rich opus of chamber works.
His musical output is traditionally divided into three periods: the first, which ended around 1802, when he went through a crisis due to loss of hearing, which would soon disable him from performing, and uncertain future. In the middle period, he wrote ambitious, ‘heroic’ works, and the third period began around 1812 – 1813, marked by his newly-found dedication to music and complex string quartets.
Beethoven began writing his Symphony No. 7 in 1811, in Teplice, Bohemia. He conducted the first performance in Vienna in 1813, at a charity concert for the soldiers wounded in the Battle of Hanau. The Symphony was dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries, one of his patrons; and Wellington's Victory, today rarely performed, was premiered at the same event. The finest Viennese musicians of the day performed at the concert – Ignaz Schuppanzigh and composer Louis Spohr.
The Symphony was well received by the audience and many critics. The composer Carl Maria von Weber, however, believed that the symphony was ‘a sure sign that Beethoven was losing his mind’, while Friedrich Wieck thought that he must have written it drunk. Richard Wagner later described the Symphony as ‘the apotheosis of dance’, alluding to its rhythmic vitality and momentum. Beethoven considered the piece one of his best.
This symphony, like Beethoven’s First, Second and Fourth, begins with a slower introduction, with strong chords that announce fluid phrases and moving Vivace. Allegretto – which Beethoven initially wanted mark as Andante quasi Allegretto, so that performances would not be too fast – is actually a funeral march, although Beethoven did not explicitly call it that. It is characterized by a solemn and persistent rhythm (a quarter note, two eighth notes, two quarter notes). It is often performed separately, and it thrilled the audience at the premiere. Presto returns to dance themes, with a slower central part, and the final movement begins with a motif that evokes the one from the Symphony No. 5 and runs through the entire ‘frantic’ finale.
Speaking of the second movement, but also of the entire symphony, the conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein said that Beethoven showed exceptional ingenuity in constructing the form ‘always choosing the right note to succeed every other note (...) as though he had some private telephone wire to heaven which told him what the next note had to be.’
At the age of 26, Valentin Egel became chief conductor and musical director of the Croatian National Theatre in Rijeka, where he debuted with operas including Tristan und Isolde, Erwartung, Das Rheingold, Aida, La Traviata, Don Carlo, Cavalleria Rusticana, Madama Butterfly, La Fanciulla del West, Die Zauberflöte, and Carmen among others, and led the development of the celebrated and versatile cycle of symphony concerts given by the Rijeka Symphony Orchestra.
He was the winner of the Lovro von Matačić competition in Zagreb, the German Competition of Music Academies Campus Dirigieren, and the MDR Conducting Competition in Leipzig, and included on the German Music Council’s artists list Maestros von Morgen. He has been promoted by the German Conductor’s Forum and was nominated for the German Conducting Award.
Coming from a musical family, he learned the piano at a very early age, took violin lessons and sang in the Boys Choir of the Freiburg Cathedral. As a student at the University of Music Franz Liszt in Weimar he was chief conductor of various student orchestras and was, several times, granted a Charlotte Krupp scholarship, as well as a Richard Wagner Scholarship. His education was enriched by an exchange programme with the Jacob’s School of Music in Bloomington, USA, as well as in masterclasses with conductors such as Peter Gülke, Arthur Fagen, Gabriel Feltz and Teodor Currentzis. He also worked as an assistant to Lothar Zagrosek and Zubin Mehta.
As s concert conductor, he has collaborated with almost all Croatian orchestras, the MDR Sinfonieorchester, the NDR and SR Radio Philharmonic, the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, the State Philharmonic Nürnberg, the Bremen Philharmonic, the Nürnberg and Brandenburg Symphony, the Orchestra of Teatro Verdi Trieste, the Baku Symphony and the Belgrade Philharmonic. As opera and ballet conductor, he has led productions at the Slovenian National Theatre in Ljubljana and Maribor, the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, and the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre in Vilnius. He has collaborated with many celebrated musicians including Ivo Pogorelich, Bruno Delepelaire, Fabrice Millischer and Reinhold Friedrich, and was guest conductor at international festivals in Europe and Asia, as well as in a number of radio, television and CD recordings.
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.
Praised as “the soul of the Spanish guitar”, Pablo Sáinz Villegas has become a worldwide sensation known as this generation’s great guitarist. With his “virtuosic playing characterized by irresistible exuberance” as described by The New York Times, his interpretations conjure the passion, playfulness, and drama of Rioja, his homeland’s rich musical heritage. He is known for his passionate, emotive and open-hearted playing, whether he is performing at intimate recital halls, or playing with Plácido Domingo to an audience of over 85,000 at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid.
Sáinz Villegas has continued to thrive over the past year connecting in new ways with his audience. He was one of the few selected artists to participate at the 2018 Grammy’s Classical event at Carnegie Hall in New York and he recorded an anticipated duo album together with tenor Plácido Domingo. Highlights of his recent collaborations with Domingo include a performance on a floating stage on the Amazon River streamed worldwide to millions, as well as a special anniversary concert at Chile’s National Stadium. Last season, Sáinz Villegas also made his debut at Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival under the baton of Carlos Kalmar at the Millennium Park to an audience of 11,000 people and accomplished summer tours with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. He also gave the world premiere of ‘Rounds’, the first composition for guitar by five-time Academy Award-winner John Williams.
Routinely drawing comparisons with legendary exponents of his instrument such as Andrés Segovia, Sáinz Villegas has already appeared on some of the world’s most prestigious stages including Carnegie Hall in New York, the Philharmonie in Berlin, and at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing. Known for a sound so rich and full that it does not need amplification, his concerto performances regularly inspire new invitations and re-engagements in more than 30 countries. He has played with the world’s top-level orchestras including the Pittsburgh, Bergen and Israel Philharmonics, as well as Cincinnati, Spanish National and Boston Symphonies. He made a series of important debuts under the baton of Frühbeck de Burgos, and has enjoyed fruitful collaborations with conductors including Juanjo Mena, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Carlos Kalmar, Gustavo Gimeno and Cristian Macelaru. Sáinz Villegas continuously searches for ways to communicate with young audiences and to inspire them with music. A born communicator, the guitarist explains: “Music is among things we cannot touch and that is what makes it most powerful”. Over the last decade, he has created projects that bring music beyond the performance halls, reaching more than 20,000 children and youth through volunteering his time, establishing music programs, visiting schools and creating unique community activities around the globe. His efforts have granted him invitations to play for the Spanish Royal Family and the Dalai Lama.
An active recording artist, Sáinz Villegas is now an exclusive SONY Classical recording artist. His next album with Plácido Domingo will be released in Spring of 2018. Billboard Magazine named him “the global ambassador of Spanish guitar” after his latest solo album, Americano, which quickly made its debut to the top 15 on their charts under the PIAS | Harmonia Mundi USA label. Most recently he recorded the three Rodrigo concerti with the National Orchestra of Spain under the baton of Juanjo Mena, thereby becoming the first in more than 20 years to capture the Concierto de Aranjuez with the ensemble.
Born in La Rioja in Northern Spain, Sáinz Villegas was inspired to take guitar lessons at age six and gave his first public performance at just seven years old. Over the years, he accomplished an impressive collection of over 30 international awards, including the Segovia award which he won at age 15 and the coveted Gold Medal at the Inaugural Parkening International Guitar Competition. Sáinz Villegas lives in New York City to this day.
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