The varied musical program of the 74^th Dubrovnik Summer Festival continued last night, 26 July in the Rector’s Palace atrium with the virtuoso Krešimir Bedek’s guitar recital. Judging by the applause, the festival audience truly enjoyed the carefully crafted concert programme, which included the first performance of the Sonata Movement for Guitar by the Croatian composer Ivan Josip Skender.

Designed to present the guitar as a classical and as a Spanish instrument, especially in the first part consisting of only compositions by Spanish and Catalan composers, last night's programme perfectly showcased the virtuosity and musicality of guitarist Krešimir Bedek. The temperamental, flamenco-tinged introduction to the recital was a composition dedicated to the father of classical guitar Francisco Tárrega, Hommage à Tárrega, op. 69, from the pen of Joaquín Turina, and Bedek set the high artistic tone of the evening right from the start with the first plucks of the guitar strings. Fernando Sor, one of the most important composers of early Romanticism, found his place in last night's repertoire with the piece Grand Sonata in C major, Op. 22, expanded on by the Variations on a Theme by Sor, Op. 15a by Miguel Llobet, also a great name in the world of classical guitar and a student of Tárrega. Bedek interwove the second part of the concert with the first through a dedication to the legendary Andrés Segovia, who commissioned new, original contemporary works for the guitar and thus helped create a real musical treasure trove, sometimes revising the notes he would receive from composers, as was the case with the first composition presented this evening. The Mexican composer Manuel Ponce was encouraged by Segovia to write a sonatina with a purely Spanish character, and his Sonatina Meridional delighted the Dubrovnik audience with its seductive folklore and impressionist style. The highlight of the evening was the premiere performance of the Sonata Movement for Guitar by the Croatian composer Ivan Josip Skender, the first movement of a planned larger four-movement Sonata for guitar in which the composer "plays with the classical form of the sonata." This work was commissioned by Krešimir Bedek, whose special artistic intention is the promotion of new and rarely performed compositions. The last piece of the recital was Sonata, Op. 47 by Albert Ginastera, one of the most influential and important guitar works of the 20^th century, included in the programme on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of Ginastera's death. The evening was ended by Tárrega's mysterious and passionate Capricho Árabe, a musical addition in thanks to the enthusiastic audience and loud applause.

Tickets for the next concert at the Rector’s Palace as part of the 74^th Dubrovnik Summer Festival, held by Marko Mimica the renowned Croatian bass baritone and Cuban pianist Marcos Madrigal, are available via the festival website www.dubrovnik-festival.hr or the service www.ulaznice.hr, at the box office in the Festival Palace (Od Sigurate 1) every day from 9:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and in front of the DTS building (Vukovarska St) from Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.