Jan Niković, piano | Lovro Peretić, guitar | Luka Sorkočević School of Art Chamber Ensembles

Jan Niković, piano

Winner of the Ferdo Livadić International Competition of Young Musicians

Lovro Peretić, guitar

Winner of the Jeunesses Musicales Croatia Ivo Vuljević Award

Luka Sorkočević School of Art Chamber Ensembles

                                                                                                      

Youth for Youth charity concert

                                                                                                                        

The festival music programme in the Rector's Palace will conclude with a donation concert entitled Youth for Youth. It will feature the best young Croatian musicians, pianist Jan Niković, double winner of the 20th Ferdo Livadić International Competition of Young Musicians, and guitarist Lovro Peretić, winner of the Jeunesses Musicales Croatia Ivo Vuljević Award, with the Luka Sorkočević Art School chamber ensembles.

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PROGRAMME:

                                                        

Luka Sorkočević School of Art Chamber Ensembles

                                                        

Edvard Grieg: From Holberg's Time, suite (arr. G. Seymour / Vanda Đanić)

Prelude

                                     

Marta Kekez, cello

Iva Nodilo, cello

Tia Duper, cello

Lovro Marković, cello

Đive Ćatić, cello

mentored by: mr. art. Vanda Đanić, teacher-adviser

                                                     

Jean-Baptiste Barrière: Sonata no. 10, for two cellos, in G major

Adagio

Allegro prestissimo

                                                             

Lovro Marković, cello

Đive Ćatić, cello

mentored by: mr. art. Vanda Đanić, teacher-adviser

                                                         

Vittorio Monti: Csárdás (arr. Dora Kamber and Pero Škobelj)

                                               

Dorotea Bagović, violin

Zita Medo, cello

Daris Omerčahić, guitar

mentored by: Dora Kamber, univ. spec. mus.       

                               

LOVRO PERETIĆ, guitar
                                                                            

Domenico Scarlatti:

Sonata K. 380, arr. Carlo Marchione
Sonata K. 208, arr. Lovro Peretić
Sonata K. 178, arr. Lovro Peretić

                                              
Petar Iljič Čajkovski: June (Barcarolle), from The Seasons, op. 37a (arr. Antoine Fougeray)

                                  
Agustín Barrios: Mazurka appassionata

          

K. A. Craeyvanger: Introduction & Variations on a Theme from Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber

                                 

***

                           

Luka Sorkočević School of Art Chamber Ensembles          

                                                                 

Frédéric Chopin: Elegy for Cello and Piano, op. 24

Largo

                                

Iva Nodilo, cello

Mia Klinac, piano

mentored by: mr. art. Vanda Đanić, teacher-adviser

                              

Antonio Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, RV 315, Summer

Presto (Storm)

                                 

Paula Ćatić, violin

Lena Eva Crnjak, cello

mentored by: Dora Kamber, univ. spec. mus.         

                                                    

Robert Schumann: Piano Quartet in E flat major, op. 47

Andante cantabile

                                     

Marta Ćatić, violin

Karmen Begić, violin

Iva Nodilo, cello

Mia Klinac, piano

mentored by: Dora Kamber, univ. spec. mus.

                                           

JAN NIKOVIĆ, piano      

                                                                                                          

Joseph Haydn: Sonata in b minor, Hob. XVI:32

Allegro moderato

Tempo di Menuetto

Finale: Presto
            
                                                            
Claude Debussy: Estampes / Prints

Pagodes

La soirée dans Grenade

Jardins sous la pluie

                                                                       

Franz Liszt: Rhapsodie espagnole / Spanish Rhapsody, S254

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MORE ABOUT THE PROGRAMME:

Bilješke Dine Puhovski

In addition to the performances of young, award-winning music professionals – soloists, we will also hear younger musicians, most likely future professionals, who will perform in chamber ensembles. Young music students will take us through a series of atmospheres and styles, from a Baroque storm and Romantic harmonies to Hungarian folklore.

Jan Niković and Lovro Peretić singled out several important works from their repertoire:

Franz Joseph Haydn (Rohrau, 1732 – Vienna, 1809) spent thirty years in the service of the Esterházy family (of Prince Nikolaus), where he found his answer to the common dilemma among composers: permanent employment and composing on demand, or creative freedom and financial insecurity. Before his employment at the Esterháza estate, spanning from 1761 to 1790, Haydn was a highly esteemed independent composer in Vienna, where he was also exceptionally prolific: his output includes 104 symphonies, 83 string quartets and 32 pieces for mechanical clock (Flötenuhr, table or larger ornamental clock containing mechanical organ, the sound of which could be ‘programmed’). Author Erik Tarloff wrote that Haydn was ‘the sanest and most balanced of composers’, and that his intentions were ‘always clear, his procedures always limpid.’

Haydn wrote 55 sonatas for keyboard instruments and set the framework for this music form in the Classical period. His steady musical framework, however, does not lack surprises, which are found in details, an occasional small twist, or unexpected pause. In his time, the predominant harpsichord was gradually replaced by the fortepiano, which slowly influenced the style of composing. In 1776, Haydn wrote six piano sonatas, including this evening’s Sonata, Hob. XVI:32. The sonata is in minor key, which Haydn returns to in reprises of the same material. The first movement brings two contrasting themes – the first is concise, almost creeping, the second is more motoric and characterized by a chromatic sequence. The central movement is a Minuet, in the role of the usual slow movement, a delicate dance that requires finesse, while the minor-key Trio, the middle part of the movement, is again more ‘determined’. The final movement is energetic, with many repeated notes and occasional dramatic pause. Many musicologists have asserted that in this solemn sonata, the restrained ‘Papa’ Haydn invokes Sturm und Drang, the emotion-filled literary style of his time.

         

Claude Achille Debussy (St. Germain-en-Laye, 1862 – Paris, 1918) studied at the Paris Conservatory, where he was criticised for not adhering to the rules of composing (he won the prestigious French Prix de Rome scholarship in 1885 despite that fact). After being influenced by French composers, he discovered Palestrina, Russian composers, and was shortly thrilled by Wagner, but later stated that he ‘mistook a beautiful sunset for a dawn’. Debussy was also very interested in music of other cultures. He often employed non-Western scales, archaic sequences, modes, the pentatonic and the whole-tone scale – he was influenced by the East, but also by contemporary harmonic procedures, i.e. tendencies towards ‘breaking’ tonality. Many of his works were inspired by poetry, and he connected music to visual stimuli (but refused to be considered an ‘impressionist’ composer). He wrote orchestral works, songs, inventive short piano pieces, a string quartet, the opera Pelléas et Mélisande and one of the most important orchestral works of his era, Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune.

Debussy composed Estampes – Prints – in 1903, dedicating it to his friend, painter Jacques-Émile Blanche. The word Estampes is commonly used in art, for prints or engravings. Debussy composed these three movements in Burgundy, and around that time he wrote in one of his letters: ‘If one cannot afford to travel, one substitutes the imagination.’ The titles of the movements – Pagodes (Pagodas), La soirée dans Grenade (Evening in Granada), Jardins sous la pluie (Gardens in the Rain) – refer to different things that inspired Debussy to compose the piece (and Maurice Ravel believed that his Jeux d'eau might have also influenced it).

The first movement, Pagodes, was inspired by Javanese gamelan music, which Debussy heard at the Paris Exhibition in 1889. However, he added more notes to the initial pentatonic, and the initial indication in the text is délicatement et presque sans nuances – delicate and almost without nuance – pointing to the need for restraint, which later recedes, and the structure becomes more complex.

La soirée dans Grenade was inspired, among other things, by the concert entitled Andalusia in Moorish Times at the 1900 Paris Exhibition. Debussy had been to Spain only once, but he supplemented his lack of personal experience with imagination, as he previously wrote, contributing to the French perception of Spain as a ‘land of contrasts’. Here, too, he requires a restrained beginning, indicating slow tempo and nonchalance, but after introducing his version of Moorish music, the energy increases, and the piano even imitates guitar strumming. In the intense movement Jardins sous la pluie, Debussy uses folk melodies and combines diverse musical influences; he reportedly wanted to portray a child’s play in the rain, while the end of the composition is interpreted as the sun coming out.

                       

Franz Liszt (Raiding, 1811 – Bayreuth, 1886), composer and one of the most important pianists of his time, received his early music training in Hungary from his father. He later studied with Czerny and Salieri in Vienna, and played in salons and took private lessons in Paris. He wanted to introduce Paganini’s virtuosity to piano music. He lived in Geneva, Paris and Weimar and later often visited his homeland. He was thrilled by Hungary and Hungary was thrilled by him, which caused a true lisztomania. He also thrilled the audience in Zagreb in 1846. In his later years he began composing larger works and became the leader of the New German School in music, after which he spent most of his time in Italian monasteries. He even received minor orders in 1865 and started calling himself Abbé Liszt; he increasingly wrote sacred music in this period. He composed original pieces and reworked other composers’ works, including transcriptions for other instruments, new pieces on borrowed themes, potpourris. Virtuosic piano pieces, inspired piano recitals, the invention of the masterclass and the tone poem – are considered Liszt’s legacy.

He wrote the Spanish Rhapsody in 1863 or 1864, in a monastery near Rome, where he withdrew after the death of his son, and then his daughter, and after losing all hope that the woman he was in a relationship with would get a divorce so they could get married. He composed while recollecting his travels through Spain and Portugal twenty years earlier. He used two popular tunes, which follow after the opening cadenza, La Folia (Follia) – one of the oldest European melodies / harmonic progressions, probably of Spanish origin, which was also employed by Lully, Corelli, Marais, later also by Rachmaninoff – and the Jota dance of Aragon.

                 

Italian Baroque composer Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti (Naples, 1685 – Madrid, 1757), son of the composer Alessandro, worked in Italy, Spain and Portugal. He was the musical director of one of the chapels at St Peter’s in Rome, for which he wrote church music, and he also wrote several operas. In Lisbon, he served as musical director at the court of King John V and music teacher to the king’s brother Antonio and his daughter Maria Bárbara. He wrote most of his harpsichord sonatas for her, and when she married the Spanish heir to the throne, the future Ferdinand VI, Scarlatti followed the couple to Spain, where he spent the rest of his life.

An unknown author described Scarlatti’s sonatas as ‘Bach's Preludes on a holiday at the Mediterranean.’ Of his 555 sonatas, in which he introduced instrumental and harmonic innovations and skilful ornamentation, ten are for violin and continuo, three are for organ and the rest are for harpsichord. They inspired numerous arrangements, such as the one we will hear this evening. Sonata K. 380 (the ‘K’ markings stand for Kirkpatrick, the man who produced the catalogue of Scarlatti’s works) was described by pianist Ben Laude as ‘an antiphonal dialogue between imagined instruments of a courtly procession.’ Harpsichordist Scott Ross described the Sonata K. 208 as ‘the happiest one, with the most sunshine of all’, while the Sonata K. 178 was described by guitarist Bradford Werner as ‘a short but virtuosic work... suited idiomatically to the guitar.’

Arranger Carlo Marchione (Rome, 1964) is a guitarist and professor at the Maastricht Academy of Music.

                           

The music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Votkinsk, 1840 – Saint Petersburg, 1893), considered by many the ‘most Romantic’ composer, is characterised by rich melodies and colours, dramatic intensity, meticulous orchestration and national elements, all carried out in a cosmopolitan, strict form, with broad strokes considered the sound of the ‘Russian soul’. Tchaikovsky used to say that the most important thing in music for him is beauty. He was of French ancestry on his mother’s side, and Ukrainian-Cossack on his father’s. He studied to become a civil servant, and attended music classes at the Russian Musical Society, which was subsequently transformed into the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, where Tchaikovsky studied composition under Anton Rubinstein. Later he taught at the Moscow Conservatory.

Tchaikovsky wrote The Seasons, for piano, in 1875 at the commission of the Saint Petersburg art magazine Novelist, which published one piece every month. Tchaikovsky added subtitles to the names of the months, in this case – Barcarolle.

Arranger Antoine Fougeray (Chinon, 1988) is a guitarist and founder of the Editions Fougeray publishing house.

                  

Agustín Pio Barrios Mangoré (San Bautista de las Misiones, 1885 – San Salvador, 1944) took his first steps in music in his native Paraguay, whose musical tradition influenced his musical expression. He soon became a respected guitarist, ‘the Paganini of the guitar’, and toured Europe and South America. He developed new methods of teaching the guitar and was one of the most influential guitar composers of his time, writing etudes for students and more complex, virtuosic works. His oeuvre includes folk pieces based on traditional Latin American songs, neoclassical works based on Baroque and Romantic models, as well as religious works. It is presumed that some of his handwritten scores are lost, that is, that they were stolen by his students shortly after his death (which was even claimed to be caused by poisoning).

Barrios composed Mazurka appassionata in 1919, and subtitled it The Soul of María Esther, after the lady he had fallen in love with in Brazil.

                    

K. A. Craeyvanger (Carolus, or Karel, Arnoldus Craeyvanger; Utrecht, 1817 – 1868) was a Dutch composer, guitarist, violinist and singer with a successful performing career. He was a director of several music societies, educator and conductor of the Utrecht Student Orchestra. He published eleven works, including two preserved pieces for the guitar: Three Nocturnes and this evening’s Introduction. One concert programme also lists a Fantasia on a Schubert Song, which has not been preserved.

Lovro Peretić recorded this composition for his album, released by Naxos (as well as two Scarlatti sonatas in his own arrangement, one piece by Barrios and several other works). According to the Presto Music website, ‘his performance of Karel Craeyvanger’s Weber homage reveals the work’s variety and expressiveness.’

               

Jan Niković (Zagreb, 2001) is a Croatian pianist and winner of numerous prestigious competitions. He began his musical training with Ela Korbar, and is currently studying under Ruben Dalibaltayan and with Natalia Trull. Jan is also a scholarship holder of the Liechtenstein International Academy of Music.

In December 2023, Jan Niković won Third Prize at the prestigious James Mottram International Piano Competition in Manchester. Shortly before that, he was awarded the Ferdo Livadić Award for best musical personality and the Award of the City of Samobor and the Croatian Composers Society for best performance of a work by a Croatian composer at the 20th Ferdo Livadić International Competition of Young Musicians. In 2023, he also won Second Prize and Special Prize for best performance of a work by an Ibero-American composer at the International Piano Competition Radovljica, Slovenia.

Jan Niković often performs in Croatia and abroad, in Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Austria, Brazil, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Spain, Russia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, etc. He performed as a soloist in the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall with the Zagreb Philharmonic and maestro Matija Fortuna, and with the Croatian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Ivan Hut. He also appeared with the Zagreb Soloists and the Rucner Quartet. His performance with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Domingo Hindoyan was particularly notable. In 2021, he gave successful recitals at the Scriabin Museum in Moscow and the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.

He is a seven-time winner of the Knowledge Oscar awarded by the Croatian Ministry of Science and Education, and in 2020 he received the Rector’s Award of the University of Zagreb. In 2022, he was the winner of the Val Tidone International Piano Competition (Italy) and the 10th Croatian Papandopulo Competition of Young Musicians in Zagreb, and received the Award for Best Artistic Collaboration at the 55th Darko Lukić Forum, for his recital with the soprano Josipa Bilić. He is a multiple winner of national competitions as a soloist and a member of chamber ensembles. Jan is also the winner of the Young Virtuoso International Piano Competition Zagreb, the Giuliano Pecar International Piano Competition, the Sonus Op. 2 International Competition of Young Musicians, the EPTA International Piano Competition, the Zlatko Grgošević International Competition of Young Pianists, and the Ars Nova International Music Competition. He has also received numerous special awards, and in 2020 the Yamaha Scholarship Award from the Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe.

His mentors include renowned pianists and educators such as Eliso Virsaladze, Milana Chernyavska, Sergio Tiempo, Claudio Martinez Mehner, Rena Shereshevskaya and others. He was selected as one of the 12 participants from around the world for the Junior Music Camp in Barcelona, where he had the opportunity to work with the famous pianist Lang Lang and perform four-hands with him, which resulted in a second performance with Lang Lang at the Allianz Arena in Munich, in front of 70,000 people in a live television broadcast.

The announcement of the jury at the 2023 Ferdo Livadić International Competition award ceremony stated the following about Jan Niković: ‘His absolute commitment to music is impressive, including not only his fingers and mind, but his whole being. It is a truly rare combination of virtuosity, imagination and consideration.’

               

Lovro Peretić (Zagreb, 1995) started learning the guitar at an early age under Xhevdet Sahatxhija at the Pavao Markovac Music School in Zagreb. In 2019, he graduated with honours from the Academy of Music in Zagreb, where he studied under Darko Petrinjak. During his studies, he spent a year in the student exchange programme at the École Supérieure Musique et Danse Hauts-de-France in Lille, studying with Judicaël Perroy, and in 2022 he completed an additional two-year course at the Geneva University of Music, also under Judicaël Perroy. He received the Dean’s Award and Rector's Award of the University of Zagreb. Considered one of the leading guitarists of the younger generation, he regularly performs on international stages, and has won numerous awards in the most prestigious classical music competitions.

During his studies, Peretić honed his skills with renowned musicians such as Zoran Dukić, Marcin Dylla, Lorenzo Micheli, Ana Vidović, Paolo Pegoraro, István Römer, Łukasz Kuropaczewski, Ricardo Gallén, Marco Socías, Pavel Steidl and others. As a soloist and chamber musician, he has performed throughout Croatia, in Germany, Switzerland, the USA, Belgium, Russia, Poland, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Finland, Estonia, Italy, France, Austria, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Greece. He has performed and given master classes at many prestigious international guitar festivals and as part of various concert series, including the Paris and London Guitar Festivals, the Vladimir Spivakov Music Festival in Moscow, the Zagreb and Antwerp Guitar Festivals, the José Tomás Villa de Petrer International Guitar Festival, etc.

He has won over thirty prizes in international competitions, including first prizes in the International Concert Artist Competition of the Guitar Foundation of America, the Changsha International Guitar Competition, the Liechtensteiner Gitarrentage (Liechtenstein), the Boris Papandopulo Competition in Zagreb, the Andrés Segovia Competition in Velbert, the Anna Amalia Guitar Competition in Weimar, as well as in the following festivals and competitions: the Zagreb Guitar Festival, the Antwerp Guitar Festival, the Enrico Mercatali Competition in Gorizia, the Peja International Guitar Festival, the Sarajevo International Guitar Festival, the Paola Ruminelli International Competition, the Split Guitar Festival, the Murska Sobota Guitar Festival, the Poreč International Music Competition, and the Ida Presti International Guitar Competition. Peretić won second prizes in the Fernando Sor Competition in Rome, the Ilse and Nicolas Alfonso International Guitar Competition in Brussels and the Volos Guitar Competition, and the third prize at the Antony International Guitar Competition.

In 2020, Peretić was the winner of the 3rd Eurostrings Competition, the most important European guitar competition, which enabled him to give numerous concerts and master classes in eighteen European countries in 2021/22. Peretić’s most recent and greatest success was winning the International Concert Artist Competition of the Guitar Foundation of America last year, which has enabled him to record his debut album for Naxos Records, and to depart on an extensive year-long concert tour, with fifty concerts throughout the USA and Canada in 2023/24.

In addition to his soloist performances, he regularly performs in various chamber ensembles, including the guitar trio Evocación, whose first album was released by dotGuitar label in March 2020. Peretić has performed as a soloist with the Croatian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra, the Zagreb Soloists, etc.

Lovro Peretić is the winner of the 2023 Ivo Vuljević Award, with the following announcement from the jury: ‘It is a special talent for a young musician to have the ability to adorn his interpretations, built with technical skill, with a specific beauty of tone expression, which gives each such interpretation a reflection of the personality of the interpreter.'

                

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Lovro Peretić (c) Nikola Predović