--
The Papandopulo Quartet consists of four Croatian saxophonists; Nikola Fabijanić, soprano saxophone, Gordan Tudor, alto saxophone, Goran Jurković, tenor saxophone, and Tomislav Žužak, baritone saxophone, all respectively graduates of the Academy of Music in Zagreb in the class of professor Dragan Sremec. Their concerts are always well attended and received, and the festival audience last had the opportunity to listen to the Quartet as part of the 71st Festival.
--
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
Divertimento in F Major, K 138 (arranged by Gordan Tudor)
Allegro
Andante
Presto
Gordan Tudor:
Several Miniatures for Saxophone Quartet
Giacomo Puccini:
Chrysanthemums for String Quartet (arranged by Gordan Tudor)
Dubravko Detoni:
Quartettino
Eugene Bozza:
Andante et Scherzo
George Gershwin:
Rhapsody in Blue (arranged by J. van der Linden)
--
The Papandopulo Quartet’s programme brings a variety of un altro scherzo, and its prankish and amusing character is announced by the first musical genre on the repertoire, ‘divertimento’, from Italian verb ‘divertire’ – to amuse. Although the term was used in music as early as the 16th century, divertimenti – multi-movement, light pieces originally composed for festive occasions and outdoor performances – became more common in mid-18th century. In 1802, musicologist H.C. Koch defined divertimento as music to please the ear, rather than expressing different shades of emotion.
This evening we will hear saxophonist Gordan Tudor’s arrangement of a divertimento by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus, signed as Wolfgang Amadé; Salzburg, 1756 – Vienna, 1791). He composed three Divertimenti, KV 136-138 at the end of 1771 and in 1772, barely sixteen years old, after returning from concert tours in Italy with his father Leopold.
Musicologists disagree on whether these three divertimenti, also known as the ‘Salzburg Symphonies’, were intended for a larger or a chamber ensemble. Alfred Einstein speculated that Mozart may have composed them to be ready in case he got a last-minute commission for a symphony, in which case he could simply have added wind parts. The bright and youthful pieces characterized by singable melodies are written in the standard fast-slow-fast (rondo) format.
Saxophonist and composer Gordan Tudor (Split, 1982) studied at the Academy of Music in Zagreb under Dragan Sremec. He continued his saxophone studies at the Amsterdam Conservatory under Arno Bornkamp, graduating in 2006, and trained with Eugène Rousseau at the Mozarteum Salzburg and Claude Delangle at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. He is the winner of first prizes at national and international competitions, the PBZ and the Zagreb Philharmonic Award for Croatia’s Best Young Musician, the Lions Club Grand Prix, the Rector’s Award of the University of Zagreb, the Judita Award at the 52nd Split Summer Festival, the Marenostrum International Composers Competition Berlin, the Rudolf and Margita Matz Foundation Annual Award for Young Composers. He is a multiple winner of the Porin Award. Gordan Tudor also received the City of Čakovec Josip Štolcer Slavenski Award 2022, for the composition Politics (not according to Aristotle).
Gordan Tudor is an associate professor of saxophone and chamber music at the Arts Academy in Split, where he founded the S/UMAS contemporary music ensemble. He was a professor of saxophone at the Josip Hatze Music School in Split and a visiting assistant professor at the Academy of Music in Novi Sad. He is the founder of the Split Days of New Music festival.
Like Detoni’s Quartettino, Gordan Tudor’s Miniatures were written for the Osor Musical Evenings. Here is what he wrote about the composition:
‘I composed the piece in the spring of 2007 at the urging of my former professors – Dragan Sremec and the Zagreb Saxophone Quartet, as a commission for their performance at the Osor Musical Evenings. I wanted to compose some ten miniatures and connect them into a whole. In that period, I was rediscovering my hometown of Split after seven years of absence (I would say, the most important seven years in the life of a twenty-five-year-old – the most recent years are always the most important).
The images that inspired me to describe them in this work would be imperceptible to someone else, but to me, they were worthy of attention. For example: children’s breakneck cart ride through the streets of Veli Varoš quarter, the night sky above Marjan Hill, swimming in April, shopping centres, or the "famous" waterfront promenade, still new at the time. I deliberately avoided naming the movements, not wanting to impose my images on others. In its final version, the composition consists of thirteen miniatures.’
After the lively Divertimento and Scherzo, the Papandopulo Quartet will show the other, ever-present side of the coin with Puccini’s Chrysanthemums: In Italy, like in Croatia, chrysanthemums are the flowers of mourning and funerals. Giacomo Antonio Puccini (Lucca, 1858 – Brussels, 1924) composed this piece in memory of Amadeo di Savoia, the former King of Spain, who died a few weeks earlier.
Puccini was an opera giant, as is well known, perhaps the last in a long line of Italian opera composers whose works are standard repertoire in opera houses worldwide. This year marks the hundredth anniversary of his death, and even more attention is paid to his operas, characterised by a specific combination of drama, sentimentality, interesting characters and skilful orchestration. Even his non-operatic work, Chrysanthemums, is linked to opera: He used parts of this three-part composition in his opera Manon Lescaut, Acts 3 and 4.
Croatian composer, pianist and writer Dubravko Detoni (Križevci, 1937) is the author of 170 opuses of orchestral, chamber, solo, vocal and electronic music, numerous multimedia projects and experiments, thirteen books of poetry, prose, essays, journals and travel books, radio and television programmes, numerous concert and album reviews and a longtime associate of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival (from 2000 to 2010). He has received around forty national and international music awards and recognitions for his exceptionally prolific and successful work (Vladimir Nazor Award, Josip Štolcer Slavenski Award, six Porin Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, Matica hrvatska and JRT Awards, Grand Prix at the 6th Paris Youth Biennale, Premio Italia, UNESCO Award, Bedřich Smetana Award, etc.). His works have been performed on all continents, at major festivals, published in Croatia and abroad and include 66 record releases. He equally uses elements of classical and electronic music, often combining them in his efforts to enrich his sound and expand expressive possibilities.
Quartettino, Detoni’s first piece written for the Papandopulo Quartet, was premiered at the Osor Musical Evenings in 2023. Here is what musicologist Karolina Rugle wrote after the premiere in her review for glazba.hr:
‘Detoni masterfully shaped his twenty variations, as he described them, into a Quartettino that appears to be a musical reflection of his rapturous, enigmatic, strange and amusing short diary entries, which were published in several volumes.
He managed to pour his abundant compositional resources and emotions into them, a series of details that highlight the individuals in the quartet, an occasional challenge and plenty of room for interpretational contributions to the final outline of the piece, perhaps knowing that it will be included in numerous concert programmes of this quartet. In addition to musical humour, the performance includes whistling, singing and a very clear and dynamic ending.’
Divertimento is followed by a Scherzo, but one with an opening section ‘at a walking pace’, by Eugène Bozza. Eugène Bozza (Nice, 1905 – Valenciennes, 1991) was a French composer, conductor and violinist. He graduated from the Paris Conservatoire with first prizes in violin, conducting and composition, and won the prestigious Prix du Rome. He also studied at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory under Ottorino Respighi. Bozza was concertmaster of the Pasdeloup Orchestra, conductor with Les ballets Russes of Monte Carlo, conductor of the Opéra-Comique for ten years, and director of the National School of Music in Valenciennes, today the Eugène Bozza Conservatoire, for twenty-five years.
Although Bozza also composed large-scale works, chamber works for wind instruments are his most performed pieces. Musicologist Paul Griffiths has written that Bozza’s music ‘shows characteristics typical of the mid-20th century French chamber music: melodic fluency, elegance of structure and a consistently sensitive concern of instrumental capabilities.’
Bozza wrote Andante and Scherzo in 1938. The slower opening part is marked by a tenor saxophone solo, and the livelier part by a persistent staccato. He dedicated the piece to the Paris Quartet.
A hundred years ago, in 1924, the year Puccini died, George Gershwin (Jacob Gershvin, New York, 1898 – Los Angeles, 1937) composed one of the most famous ‘classical non-classical pieces’, Rhapsody in Blue. Originally entitled American Rhapsody, it may have ‘turned blue’ inspired by the titles of James McNeil Whistler’s paintings, which often contained references to colours. ‘Blue’ in the title might therefore refer to the colour blue, but it is more likely that it refers either to ‘melancholy mood’ (‘feeling blue’) or to ‘blue notes’ – variable notes typical of jazz and blues. This is what Gershwin said about the process of composing the first Rhapsody: ‘I frequently hear music in the very heart of the noise.’
The piece was commissioned by Paul Whiteman, known as the New York ‘King of Jazz’ at the time, for a concert called An Experiment in Modern Music. Gershwin initially declined the commission because he was too busy with other engagements, but Whiteman nevertheless announced in the newspaper that Gershwin was writing a ‘jazz concerto’, so they negotiated again. Whiteman warned Gershwin to hurry up, before someone steals his idea of a ‘jazz concerto’.
The Rhapsody indeed became a jazz concerto, which Gershwin quickly wrote for two pianos, and Ferde Grofé orchestrated for the premiere. At the premiere, Gershwin played the solo piano part, most of which was improvised, which is still done today. The famous opening glissando originated from a joke played by clarinettist Ross Gorman during a rehearsal. Gershwin liked it and told him to ‘wail’ as much as possible. It is followed by an abundance of motifs in five thematic groups, in a combination of classical compositional procedures, jazz and blues harmonies, ragtime, clave and Charleston rhythms. The Rhapsody inspired a series of arrangements, and the one we will hear this evening was made by Johan van der Linden (b. 1961), a former member of the Aurelia Saxophone Quartet and professor at several conservatories in the Netherlands.
Founded in 2008, the Papandopulo Quartet was built on the legacy of one of Croatia’s most celebrated composers, Boris Papandopulo. A dynamic, award-winning ensemble, firmly established as one of the leading quartets of its generation, the Papandopulo Quartet has been described as ‘the best thing that could happen to composers’ (Zarez), with performances balancing ‘superb musicality’ (Jutarnji list) and ‘extraordinary dedication’ (Croatian Radio 3).
Papandopulo Quartet has performed throughout Europe and the USA in a remarkable series of more than 300 performances and it has appeared in some of the most important concert halls worldwide such as Carnegie Hall in New York City and Berliner Philharmonie in Berlin. The Quartet has received numerous national and international awards at some of the most prestigious chamber music competitions and festivals (1st prize and Grand Prix at the 3rd Berliner International Music Competition, Golden Medal at the Vienna International Music Competition, 1st prize and Grand Prix at the 6th Manhattan International Music Competition, the Orpheus Prize, the Milka Trnina Diploma, the Vatroslav Lisniski Award, the Danijel Marušić Award, two Porin Awards, the City of Jastrebarsko Award, etc.).
Dedicated to promoting contemporary music by Croatian and international composers, the Quartet has premiered more than 45 new works dedicated to them. Their discography consists of four albums, three of which were recorded for Croatia Records: Papandopulo (2013), Per Quattro (2015) and Scherzo (2017). Their debut album has won the Croatian record award, Porin, and it is the best-selling Croatian classical album in recent years. Their latest album, Scenes, with music dedicated to and written for the quartet, was released in 2022 by Cantus Records and it received four nominations for Porin Award.
The Quartet’s diverse activities also include numerous international radio and television broadcasts and theatre productions. Together they founded the Saxophone School in Jastrebarsko, a highly successful international spring masterclass for saxophone students, which won the annual City of Jastrebarsko Award.
Members of the Quartet are also engaged in pedagogical work, leading chamber music and saxophone courses at universities in Zagreb, Split, Banja Luka and Novi Sad, and music schools in Zagreb and Jastrebarsko.
