Boris Papandopulo (February 25, 1906 – October 16, 1991) was a Croatian

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

and conductor of Greek and

Russian Jewish The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest pop ...

descent. Ha-Kol (Glasilo Židovske zajednice u Hrvatskoj); Djela hrvatskih skladatelja Židovskog podrijetla u Beču; stranica 38; broj 107, studeni / prosinac 2008. He was the son of

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

nobleman Konstantin Papandopulo and Croatian opera singer Maja Strozzi-Pečić and one of the most distinctive Croatian musicians of the 20th century. Papandopulo also worked as music writer,

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

review A review is an evaluation of a publication, product, service, or company or a critical take on current affairs in literature, politics or culture. In addition to a critical evaluation, the review's author may assign the work a content rating, ...

er,

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

and piano accompanist; however, he achieved the peaks of his career in music as a composer. His composing oeuvre is imposing (counting cca 460 works): with great success he created instrumental (orchestral, concertante, chamber and solo), vocal and instrumental (for solo voice and choir), stage music and film music. In all these kinds and genres he left a string of anthology-piece compositions of great artistic value.

Biography

“Born, growing up and being brought up in a family that had always been tightly connected with music and the theatre”, he devoted himself to music very early on. He first of all took private lessons in piano, and then studied composition at the Music Academy in Zagreb (where he attended the lectures of Dugan, Lhotka and Dobronić, and studied composition in and graduated from the class of

Blagoje Bersa Blagoje Bersa (born as Benito Bersa, 21 December 1873 – 1 January 1934) was a Croatian musical composer of substantial influence.

in 1929). In

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, at the New Vienna Conservatory, he studied

conducting Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance, such as an orchestral or choral concert. It has been defined as "the art of directing the simultaneous performance of several players or singers by the use of gesture." The primary duti ...

under Dirk Fock (1928–1930). During two periods (1928–1934 and 1938–1946) he was a conductor of the Croatian Singing Association called Kolo, Zagreb, and from 1931 to 1934 had posts of conductor of the Society Orchestra of the

Croatian Music Institute Croatian Music Institute ( hr, Hrvatski glazbeni zavod, HGZ) is the oldest music institution in Croatia. Also, after the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall, it is the second most important concert hall in Zagreb. It was founded in 1827 under title ...

and choirmaster of the "Ivan Filipović" Teachers’ Singing Association (which he himself founded in 1933). From 1935 to 1938, he worked as a teacher at the State Music School in

Split Split(s) or The Split may refer to: Places * Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia * Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay * Split Island, Falkland Islands * Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua Arts, enterta ...

, and was conductor of the Zvonimir Music Association, as well as, from 1940 to 1945, of the

Zagreb Opera The Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb ( hr, Hrvatsko narodno kazalište u Zagrebu), commonly referred to as HNK Zagreb, is a theatre, opera and ballet house located in Zagreb. Overview The theatre evolved out of the first city theatre opened ...

(from 1943 to 1945 he was its director). At the same time he was a conductor of the orchestra of

Radio Zagreb ''Hrvatska radiotelevizija'' (abbr. HRT), or Croatian Radiotelevision, is Croatia's public broadcasting company. It operates several radio and television channels, over a domestic transmitter network as well as satellite. HRT is divided into thr ...

(1942–1945). After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

he was a director of the Rijeka Opera (1946–1948 and 1953–1959), while, from 1948 to 1953 he was an opera conductor and a teacher in

Sarajevo Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see Names of European cities in different languages (Q–T)#S, names in other languages'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its a ...

. He took up his career in

Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slop ...

again as a conductor of the

(1959–1968) and then the Split Opera (1968–1974). He was a regular guest-conductor of the Komedija Theatre in Zagreb, as well as of the

Cairo Symphony Orchestra The Cairo Symphony Orchestra, ( ar, اوركسترا القاهرة السيمفونى; ''Orkestra el-Qāhera el-Semfōni''), is an orchestra based in Cairo, Egypt. It was founded in 1959 by its first music director and conductor, Franz Litschaue ...

Oeuvre

Papandopulo's youthful opuses were marked by features of the “national music style”, as it was called, that is, of patterns from

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...

(either direct quotations or in the sense of the raw material and modal scale structures), while cosmopolitan influences are also appreciable: the application of composition technique elements of the

neo-Classical style Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing style ...

polyphonic Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, h ...

in structure, with

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

energy and vital rhythmic movement, elementary touches of

Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

and

Expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

musical idioms. Along with a treatment of the instruments that makes great demands on skill, technique and virtuosity, very visible are the optimism and serenity that permeate the music to the full. Connoisseurs of the composer's oeuvre of the earlier (youthful) creative period pick out as the most successful works his ''Laudamus (Slavoslovije)'',

cantata A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir. The meaning of ...

for solo voices, mixed voice choir and orchestra; ''Sinfonietta'' for

String Orchestra A string orchestra is an orchestra consisting solely of a string section made up of the bowed strings used in Western Classical music. The instruments of such an orchestra are most often the following: the violin, which is divided into first ...

(published by Breitkopf und Härtel), ''Zlato / Gold'', a mime

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

with singing and orchestra; the brilliant, bravura ''Concerto da camera'' for Solo Soprano, Violin and Seven Wind Instruments (published by Vienna's

Universal Edition Universal Edition (UE) is a classical music publishing firm. Founded in 1901 in Vienna, they originally intended to provide the core classical works and educational works to the Austrian market (which had until then been dominated by Leipzig-base ...

) and the most important Croatian religious works from the end of that period of Papandopulo's creativity – the oratorio for solo voices and a male a cappella choir ''Muka Gospodina našega Isukrsta / The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ'' and ''Hrvatska misa / Croatian Mass'' for soloists and a cappella mixed voice choir. In his mature creative period, Papandopulo retains elements of folk music idiom, but also addresses the achievements of the European musical Moderne, without “departing from the traditional formants of musical cells, from the settled development of motif and facture or the well-established laws of melodic movement.” This period, revolving around the temporal axis of the end of

(1945), lasted until about 1956, and gave rise to a number of very successful compositions marked by recent history – the creation of the new state and events from the National Liberation War (''Symphony No. 2'', ''Poema o Neretvi / Poem about the Neretva'', ''Stojanka majka Knežopoljka / Stojanka, A Knežopolje Mother'', a musical poem for soprano solo, choir and large orchestra, ''Obnova / Reconstruction'', a symphonic movement for large orchestra). In time his music became more dissonant, rougher in harmony and melody. In the mid-1950s he integrated into his composing technical arsenal elements of

dodecaphony The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who published his "law o ...

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

(most vigorously in the late fifties and early sixties; ''Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No 3'', ''Mosaic'' for Classical String Quartet and Jazz Quartet, ''Capriccio'' for Violin Solo and Jazz Quartet, ''Ein Orchestermosaik'' and so on). Later, pop came in, as did other technical composition techniques of the

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

in music of the

20th century The 20th (twentieth) century began on January 1, 1901 ( MCMI), and ended on December 31, 2000 ( MM). The 20th century was dominated by significant events that defined the modern era: Spanish flu pandemic, World War I and World War II, nuclear ...

, although he retained an ironical distance from some of them, subjecting them on occasions to irony or parody. The origin of part of Papandopulo's oeuvre of the 1960s and 1970s is related to his guest appearances and acquaintanceships with musicians in the then divided

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

(FRG and GDR), where he had opportunities to meet outstanding artistic personalities, as well as recent European musical creation. Ideologically grounded aesthetic worldviews never inhibited Papandopulo in his choice of non-musical subjects for his own works; he always found, in each one of them, universal ideas, profound human values. At the beginning of this work he found non-musical stimuli in topics related to the older strata of the folk tradition – in “legends, rites and myths” (''Svatovske / Bridal, Dodolice'', a Folk Ritual for the Solo Soprano, Piano and Girl's Choir Op 2, ''Zlato / Gold, Utva zlatokrila / Ruddy Shellduck''). Later, after 1950, very curiously, he drew his inspiration from apparently diametrically opposed worldviews. At the same time he would write compositions of religious topics – from the Croatian Catholic mass with traces and elements of Glagolitic chant (''Osorski rekvijem / Osor Requiem, Pučka poljička misa / Folk Mass from Poljica'', the cantata ''Jubilate'' and a number of smaller religious works) and also monumental works of socialist realism (inspired by the ideology and poetics of the post-war socialist revolution and the People's Liberation War, such as the musical-poetical work ''Pasija po srcu / Passion After the Heart'', the poetic-musical vision ''Credo'', 1943 – cycle of songs to words by

Ivan Goran Kovačić Ivan Goran Kovačić (; 21 March 1913 – 12 July 1943) was a Croatian poet and writer. Early life and background He was born in Lukovdol (part of Vrbovsko), a town in Gorski Kotar, to a Croat father, Ivan Kovačić, and Transylvanian Jewi ...

) as well as those inspired by Croatian history (the cantatas ''Libertas, Pohvala Dubrovniku'' / ''In Praise of Dubrovnik, Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro'', ''Mile Gojslavica'' and the triptych for mixed voice choir and large symphony orchestra ''Istarske freske / Istrian Frescos'' and so on). Papandopulo went on composing with vigour and inspiration almost to the day of his death, a full 65 years. In all these works he showed himself a master of his craft – a witty musician of inexhaustible and fresh inspiration, very well versed in the technical procedure of composition, of musical forms and the technical capacities of both instruments and voice. As well as a number of concerts and solo works for individual instruments Papandopulo left a marked trace on the ballet and opera of his time. His six

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

s (''Amfitrion'', ''Rona'', '' Sunčanica'', ''Madame Buffault'', ''Kentervilski duh / The Canterville Ghost'', ''Požar u operi / Fire in the Opera House'') and 15

s (''Žetva / The Harvest'', ''Tri kavalira gospođice Melanije / Miss Melania's Three Gentlemen'', ''Teuta'', ''Horoscope'' (ballet suite for two pianos), ''Ties'' (ballet sketch for chamber ensemble), ''Gold'' (pantomime ballet with singing and orchestra), ''Kći dalmatinskih planina / Daughter of Dalmatian Mountains'', ''Intermezzo, Beatrice Cenci, Gitanella, “Dr. Atom”, Kraljevo, Prsten / The Ring, Menschen im Hotel, Der Königsreiher'') have demonstrated their anthological values in the many repeated performances at home and around the world. He composed music for an impressive number of stage productions and films, and also devoted some of his opuses for children and young people (puppet performances, instrumental compositions and instrumental concerti). A large number of his works feature an authentic and typically Papandopulo buoyant and infectious musical humour (in a large range from tonal play full of brightness to flippancy and rough musical grotesquery) in which he often quotes themes of other authors (''Grotesque for Tuba'', ''Piano and Percussion'', ''Pop Concerto'' for Two Pianos and Orchestra, ''Magic Flute'', ''Papandopulijada'', ''Divertimento alla pasticcio'' and so on). It is not possible to give a concise, pithy and yet comprehensive evaluation of Papandopulo's vast oeuvre from today's point of view because of the inaccessibility of the scores. Nevertheless,

Dubravko Detoni Dubravko Detoni (born 22 February 1937) is a composer, pianist and writer. Although active since the early 1970s he is almost unknown internationally. He was born in Križevci, Croatia, educated in Zagreb, Sienna, Warsaw and Darmstadt, and stud ...

, himself a composer, did make an effort in this direction in the following words: “If it were necessary to utter some kind of definition, then a summation of Papandopulo’s oeuvre should be sought in its being some kind of synthesis of all the more important modern influences from world music in combination with rhythmical, melodic and harmonic features of the Croatian folk melody.” Irrespective of the time of composition or the stylistic or musical expressive orientation, Papandopulo's “music very easily and spontaneously makes direct contact with the listener”, and musicians are glad to play it. Boris Papandopulo played an important role as an arranger of folk songs from the wider region (

Central Europe Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the area' ...

) and as populariser and arranger of works of other composers. This particularly refers to anthological compositions of Croatian concertante and operatic music, some of which he revitalised and put on the stage in his own arrangement (some of the works of Lisinski, Zajc and Krežma, for example).

Selected works

Opera

* '' Sunčanica'' * ''Amfitrion'' * ''Rona''

Ballet

* ''Zlato'' * ''Teuta'' * ''Kraljevo''

Orchestra

* ''Hommage à Bach'' (1972) * Sinfonietta for String Orchestra, Op. 79 * ''Istarske freske'' * ''Podnevna simfonija''

Concertante

* ''Concerto da Camera'' for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble, Op.11 * ''Concerto for Violin and Orchestra'' (1943) * ''Concerto for Double Bass and String Orchestra'' (1968) * ''Concerto for Harpsichord and String Orchestra'' (1962) * ''Percussion Concerto'' (1969) * ''Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra'' * ''Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 3'' (1959) * ''Concerto for Timpani and Orchestra'' * ''Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra'' * ''Little Concerto for Piccolo and String Orchestra'' (1977)

Chamber / instrumental

* Clarinet Quintet (1960) * ''Dialogue'' for Flute and Harpsichord * ''Elegie'' for Bassoon and Piano * ''Introduzione, Ariosa, Danza'' for Cello and Piano * ''Kleine Suite'' for 4 Trombones (1981) * ''Monolog'' for Violin Solo * ''Rhapsody'' for Cello Solo (1987) * Sonata for Viola and Piano (1963) * Sonata for Violin and Piano * String Quartet No. 5 (1970) * ''Three Yugoslavian Dances'' for Guitar * ''Rapsodia Concertante'' for Cello and Piano

Keyboard

* Contradanza for Piano * ''Hrvatski tanac'' (Croatian Dance) for Piano, Op.48 * ''Osam studija'' (8 Etudes) for Piano * Partita for Piano * Passacaglia for Organ * ''Scherzo Fantastico'' for Piano

Vocal

* ''Čakavska Suita'' for (High) Voice and Orchestra * ''Hrvatska Misa'' (Croatian Mass) in D Minor for Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Baritone Soloists and Mixed Chorus, Op.86 (1939) * ''Muka gospodina našega isukrsta '', Oratorio for Soloists and Male Chorus a Cappella, Op.61 * ''Marulova pisan'' * ''Osorski Requiem'' * ''Five Orchestral Songs for Baritone, String Orchestra, and Harp'' (1961) * ''Stojanka majka Knežopoljka'' for Soprano, Chorus and Orchestra