SIBRASS CONCERT CYCLE 2022

Concert 4
Recital
Sunday, 20 November 2022, at 11:00 a.m.
Slovenian Philharmonic, Slavko Osterc Hall

Programme:

Joseph Jongen: Aria and Polonaise

Uroš Krek: Thème Varié for Trombone and Piano

Paul Hindemith: Sonata for Trombone and Piano

I Allegro moderato maestoso

II Allegreto grazioso

III Allegro pesante

IV Allegro moderato maestoso

***

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Elegie, Op. 3, No. 1

Daniel Schnyder: Sonata for Trombone and Piano

I Blues

II An American Ballad

III Below Surface

Performing:

Žan Tkalec, trombone

Nika Tkalec, piano

Žan Tkalec (born 1991) began his musical path at the Krško Music School under professor Franci Arh and continued at the Ljubljana Music and Ballet Conservatory under professor Aleš Šnofl. In 2015, he obtained a master’s degree with honours from the Ljubljana Academy of Music under professor Dušan Kranjc, and two years later he obtained a master’s degree from the Hannover University of Music, Theatre, and Media under professor Jonas Bylund. Furthermore, he has achieved success at a number of competitions: a first place in the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Hochschulwettbewerb Competition in Berlin (2016), a finalist at the Citta di Porcia (2015) and Aeolus in Düsseldorf (2016) competitions, a scholarship awarded by the Yamaha Music Europe Foundation, a Prešeren Award from the Faculty of Music of the University of Ljubljana, etc. Furthermore, he has performed as a soloist with the Studio-Orchestra of the Berlin University of the Arts, the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, the Slovene Military Orchestra, and the Krško Wind Orchestra. He has also collaborated with numerous other orchestras, e.g. the Hannover Radio Orchestra, the Wernigerode Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, and the HNK Opera Split. In Berlin, he recorded an album together with the pianist Nika Tkalec, and also two albums with Brass Quintet Contrast. Since 2013, Tkalec has been a regular member of the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra and is also a regular member of Brass Quintet Contrast.

Nika Tkalec finished primary music school in Krško under professor Branimir Biliško and subsequently continued her education at the Ljubljana Music and Ballet Conservatory, graduating under professor Janez Lovše, while in 2011 she graduated, summa cum laude, from the Academy of Music in Ljubljana under professor Tomaž Petrač. She further upgraded her knowledge at the Madrid Royal Conservatory of Music under professor Pilar Bilbao. As a soloist, she has performed with the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, the SNG Ljubljana Opera and Ballet Orchestra, the Krško Music School Symphony Orchestra, the Krško Wind Orchestra, and the Brass Band of Slovenia. She has been awarded a Prešeren Award by the Academy of Music of the University of Ljubljana. Furthermore, she regularly performs at concerts in Slovenia as an accompanist and playing chamber music. She participates in festivals such as the Lent Festival, the Samobor Music Autumn Festival, EPTA, AS, and Euritmia. She also performs at Ljubljana Musical Youth cycles, seminars, summer schools (Celje, Radenci, Kranjska Gora, Dobrna, and Podsreda), and accompanies young musicians in competitions, auditions, and recitals. Currently, she works at Vrhnika Music School, teaching piano, and at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana.

Organist, composer, and musical teacher Joseph Jongen was an important figure in Belgian musical culture whose musical talent was evident already in his childhood. During his university years, his compositions often won first place at various contests, which built his reputation among colleagues and the broader public. Thus, it is not surprising that in 1902, before the age of thirty, he was already professor of harmony and counterpoint at the college in his hometown of Liège. With the outbreak of World War I, he moved to England. After the war, he returned to his homeland and was named professor of fugue at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, where he also served as director between 1925 and 1939. Jongen’s oeuvre encompasses more than two hundred mostly instrumental pieces, and his musical expression formed at the intersection of the lush acoustics of the (German) late Romantics and the exquisite softness and harmonies of French impressionists. Such is also reflected in the two-partite composition entitled Aria and Polonaise, Op. 128, which was written during World War II and is dedicated to Estevan Dax, professor of trombone at Brussels Conservatory.

The artistic expression of Uroš Krek, a classic of Slovene music of the 20th century, never truly reached into the field of modernism, rather Krek blended, more or less successfully, certain elements of his own with traditional compositional means and forms of past eras; such holds especially true for his chamber music, the field he felt most at home in. His creations are always accomplished and worked out to the finest detail, structurally transparent, musically inventive, and in parts imbued with folk motifs. However, the latter are not present in his Thème varié for trombone and piano. Written around 1970, it is a type of trial piece, one of the rare testimonies to Krek’s attraction to dodecaphony – the technique of using all twelve tones invented by Arnold Schönberg approximately half a century prior. This short composition comprises four sections, with Allegro giusto, Pochissimo meno, Allegro giusto, and Lento tempos.

German composer Paul Hindemith was born in 1895 in Hanau near Frankfurt am Main. He graduated in violin and composition in Frankfurt. While still very young, he became an opera concert master and an esteemed violinist in chamber music orchestras. Until 1927, when he established his permanent residence in Berlin, he played an important role in Frankfurt with his initiatives in the field of contemporary music; he also participated in the organisation of the Donaueschingen Music Days. Hindemith’s music is characterised by a strict orderliness of sound structures, which is more acceptable to the ear of the broader public than the atonal dodecaphony of the Second Viennese School. With his musical style, which is nowadays known as New Objectivity, Hindemith attempted to re-establish the lost connection between music, musicians, and the audience. His Sonata for Trombone and Piano (1941) is one of the most important and demanding compositions for trombone; the same as that of the trombone, the piano part is also tremendously difficult. The composition comprises four relatively fast movements, the themes of which vary from extremely extroverted, flamboyant, and even violent, to more playful and introspective. The introductory and closing movements have a connection as regards the theme and have the same Allegro moderato maestoso tempo. The calmest second movement, Allegretto grazioso, starts abruptly, as if cutting off the end of the first movement. It is devised like a theme with piano variations interrupted by the thematically disconnected ritonels of the trombone. Allegro pesante, the shortest movement, with the subtitle Lied des Raufbolds, spans two contrasting themes.

Nowadays, Sergei Rachmaninoff is deemed to be one of the greatest of the composers who were also true masters of the white-and-black keys. Moreover, he is the last globally known star whose reputation was based upon his skills as a pianist as well as a composer. Long before the appearance of his favourite compositions, such as the final three piano concertos, the later symphonies, Rapsody on a Theme of Paganini, etc., and many years prior to his emigration to the United States, Rachmaninoff composed – at the onset of his path – Fantasy Pieces, Op. 3 (1892), which he devoted to Anton Arensky, his professor of harmony at the Moscow Conservatory. Fantasy Pieces is a set of five compositions, which are unrelated and in concerts often performed alone, not as a set. Some come close to Rachmaninoff’s mature compositional style, including the introductory Elegie in E-flat Minor, which has a three-partite structure and a somewhat unusual ending with the perfect fifth interval and the unresolved dominant. An interesting fact is that at his debut as a pianist Rachmaninoff performed the second composition from Op. 3, the famous Prelude in C-sharp Minor – the performance took place in 1892 at the opening of the Moscow Electrical Exhibition.

The concert will conclude with the Sonata for Trombone and Piano composed by Daniel Schnyder and dedicated to David Taylor. The piece won first prize at the 1996 International Trumpet Guild’s Composition Contest. The Swiss-born Schnyder creates his works at the intersection of classical music and jazz. He performs jazz music on the saxophone and applies the insights and experiences thereby obtained to his composing. Sonata for Trombone was designed in accordance with classical structural principles; however, its main character is influenced primarily by elements from other genres. The titles of the movements carry special significance: Blues, An American Ballad, and Below Surface.