Opera Ballet

Symphony Orchestra of Slovene National Theatre Maribor

Simon Krečič, conductor

Sabina Cvilak, soprano

Programme:

1. Kogoj: Three pictures for voice and string instruments
2. Šenk: Chant for string orchestra

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1. Mahler: Songs after Rücker
2. Mahler: Adagietto from Symphony No. 5

The second concert of the series – featuring the Symphony Orchestra of the Slovene National Theatre Maribor – will be dedicated to the to one of the most prominent Slovenian musicologists Primož Kuret who founded the Slovenian Music Days together with Milan Stibilj. That is why Simon Krečič’s baton will give the first musical word to Marij Kogoj, who was also an expressionist committed to the truth of man’s inner life. He himself wrote about music, which he perceived as a distinctly internalised »art developed from its own substance, placed in man’s interior«. He also wrote criticism that often offended some of his colleagues. He challenged the ideology of his time, which followed the example of the Glasbena matica and placed folk melodies within a romantic idiom, using them to create a sense of nationhood. Meanwhile, Kogoj was inspired by folk music in a different way. He wanted to bring it out in its original form, which he achieved in his composition Three songs for voice and strings, where the Istrian motif is also heard.

A representative of the younger generation of composers, Nina Šenk, will bring internalised modernist contrasts, which reach the proportions of Schönberg›s Angst, to this concert. Angst will emanate even more intensely from the dark string tones of the artful musical movement of the composition Chant, which will be performed for the second time during the Slovenian Music Days.

The tribute to Primož Kuret will continue in the second part of the concert through the sharp lyricism of Gustav Mahler’s lieder. Kuret spent years studying and meticulously describing the composer’s life and work in Ljubljana. Through Sabina Cvilak’s supple lyric soprano, we will hear Mahler’s movingly confessional Songs after Rückert, of which Mahler said: »It is a feeling that rises to the lips, but does not pass over them!… That is me!« They therefore represent his most intimate musical output, composed in the mountains, in a small hut far away from »the world«. That is why they are imbued with the meditative quality that first gave birth to the melody from the Adagietto, the second movement of his Fifth Symphony.

Presentation of the Ljiljana Dubljević-Vojkić’s monograph Anita Meze, translated by Primož Kuret will take place before the concert, beginning at 6.30 pm. The conversation will be moderated by Darja Koter.