On the immortality of music and spirit

After performing with the Boka Symphony Orchestra at the grand opening of the jubilee KotorArt, the Academic Choir Ivan Goran Kovačić from Zagreb held a separate full-length concert on Wednesday, July 15, at the Church of St. Eustachius in Dobrota. Four years after their previous appearance at the Festival, when they performed works by Croatian composers at the Church of the Virgin Mary on Prčanje under the leadership of long-time conductor Luka Vukšić, this year the Choir performed under the direction of conductor Ivan ŠćepanovićThe program included a cappella compositions and vocal-instrumental excerpts from larger works, creating a wide stylistic palette - from Baroque, through Romanticism, to contemporary music.

From the initial reference contained in the lyrics of “Komm, süßer Tod” from the solo song Johann Sebastian Bach, which depicts death as a transition to eternal peace, the program was developed according to the Christian experience of man faced with the questions of life and (im)mortality. Through excerpts from the German Requiem - “Selig sind die Toten” and “Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen” Johannes Brahms, “Richte mich, Gott” by Felix Mendelssohn, “Ave maris stella” by Edward Grigg and the zavrshnu number Stabat Mater Gioacchino Rossini - “Quando corpus morietur”, a path is shaped from facing death and longing for divine peace to hope for salvation. This circle of themes is rounded off with the number “Hallelujah” from the oratorio Messiah George Frideric Handel, as a universal cry of joy and gratitude. These motifs were further deepened by the works of two Croatian authors - Zvonimir's Ship Jakov Gotovac and finish my steps The Mud.

The Ivan Goran Kovačić Academic Choir based its interpretative power on the precisely shaped textual and sound layer of the compositions. Relying on clear diction, stable intonation, and a secure balance of voices, it developed a powerful sound that gained additional breadth and fullness in the Church of St. Eustachius. A special intensity was achieved in the final fortissimo chords, when the choral mass completely saturated the space and created a sense of monumentality.

If one were to look for a composition that most fully encapsulated the symbolism of the entire program, then it would certainly be the work that began the evening - Immortal Bach. Knuta Nisteda. Starting from Bach's solo song Komm, süßer Tod, the composer shaped a contemporary choral meditation on transience, time and immortality. The interpretation of the Academic Choir Ivan Goran Kovačić was achieved through the spatial distribution of the singers into five physically separate units. Each group of singers performed the same harmonization of Bach's melody, but with different time durations of the same tones, creating new “random harmonies” that gradually lead to a reunion in Bach's original harmonic solution. Such parallelism of different temporal flows of the same musical thought suggests its existence in different experiences and worlds, but at the same time their final union.

In the context of KotorArt, the symbolism of this composition gained an additional dimension. The concert was held in the Church of St. Eustachius, where one of the founders of the Festival, Don Branko Sbutega, served, and in whose cemetery he was buried twenty years ago. On the other hand, conductor Ivan Šćepanović recalled that on the very date of the concert, the conductor passed away six years ago. Darinka Matić-Marović and invited the audience to, after the regular program, listen to secular compositions in front of the Church in her honor. With Linđo Vladimir Berdović, Jump the wheel Boris Papandopoulos, the choir also performed the Boka kolo Ivan Brkanović, which ended the evening symbolically connecting the artistic tradition of the ensemble and the memories cherished by KotorArt. Because, as in Nisted's compositional interpretation of Bach, different temporal flows ultimately meet at the same point: in music that becomes a permanent space of memory.