BEETHOVEN: VIOLIN CONCERTO / ROMANCES

Classical and Modern Music

Format: Digitalno + CD

Code: 118548

EAN: 3838898118548

In cooperation with Radio Slovenia - ARS programme ZKP RTV Slovenia is releasing the album Beethoven: Violin Concerto / Romances performed by one of the most prominent Slovenian violinists and pedagogues Žiga Brank and the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra under the baton of one of the leading young conductors in Slovenia Slaven Kulenović.

Four strokes on the timpani lead the listener into one of the most important and revered violin concertos in the entire repertoire, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. The composition was dedicated to violinist Franz Clement, who gave its premiere in 1806.

With the emergence of numerous virtuosi, the role of the soloist became even more emphasised in the composition of the classical concerto. In Paris, the French violin school began to develop, whose leading representatives, G. B. Viotti, R. Kreutzer and P. Rode, themselves wrote many virtuoso violin concertos. In these works, the orchestra mainly served merely as an accompaniment to musical ideas based on the violin part. The Paris violinists inspired Beethoven and influenced his style of writing for the violin. His famous concert sonata in A major is dedicated to violinist R. Kreutzer, his last violin sonata was premiered by P. Rode, and the influence of G. B. Viotti can be traced in the Romances for Violin and Orchestra.

Along with the Violin Concerto, the two Romances for Violin and Orchestra, in G major and F major, are among Beethoven’s most distinctive works for violin and orchestra. Although published as independent compositions, they could easily have served as slow movements in the larger concerto form. In a calm dialogue, the dominant violin shares elegant, subtle melodic material with the orchestra.

Despite the prevailing tradition of solo works and the romantic virtuoso development of the violin concerto, the main musical ideas appear mainly in the orchestra in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, while the violin part merely accompanies these ideas, colouring, embellishing and completing them in the sense of improvisation. The content of the overall picture is based on the orchestra, and the work is essentially a large concerto for orchestra with the addition of a violin. As well as numerous additions and corrections by the composer, the manuscript also contains alternatives for the violin part that could be understood as notated improvisations. The Violin Concerto did not meet with a great deal of enthusiasm at its premiere, but it has certainly withstood the test of time. With its undoubted compositional and substantive quality, it has gained a reputation as one of the greatest violin concertos of all time. A concerto of timeless, deep, gently romanticised poetics, it opens with springtime rapture and fresh energy, which later in the work experiences its autumn and recollection. For both the listener and the performer, this is a musical story of the four seasons of life.

- Žiga Brank

Žiga Brank

Slovenian violinist and pedagogue Žiga Brank currently holds a teaching position at the Academy of Music Ljubljana and at the Conservatory of Music and Ballet Ljubljana. Numerous critics regard his playing as technically brilliant, also emphasising his refined feeling for interpretation and his convincing conveyance of the music to listeners. Settled in Slovenia, he started to work as a concertmaster of the SNG Opera and Ballet Maribor and later became a member of the Zagreb Soloists. He was teaching in masterclasses in Slovenia, Austria, Israel, Croatia and gave lectures as a guest professor at the Academy of Music in Zagreb. He participates as a jury member in important national and international competitions (Jeno Hubay Violin Competition). In 2021 he was appointed Head of Department of Music Education/Pedagogy at Academy of Music Ljubljana. He is also a central board member of the Slovenian branch of European String Teachers Association.

In this season he is preparing the release of Beethoven's violin concerto and 2 romances (with the RTV Slovenia Orchestra under the baton of S. Kulenović). His other releases for the Slovenian national label ZKP include E. Ysaye's Solo violin sonatas and the Paganini's 24 Capricci, both reviewed with excellent critics.

His recent chamber music projects include numerous recitals at the most important slovenian festivals (Festival Maribor, Festival Radovljica, Festival Tartini, Narodni dom Maribor, Ljubljana Drama).

Žiga Brank was born in Ljubljana, where he started learning the violin at the age of six. His educational path quickly led him abroad, where he continued his studies as a young student at the College of Music and Theatre Rostock with C. Hutcap. He graduated from the Karlsruhe College Music in the class of prof. J. Rissin. Numerous seminars with established professors such as I. Ozim, Z. Bron, G. Zhislin, Ch. Taub, M. Yashvili, G. Lipkind made important contributions to the development of his musical personality and later his own pedagogy.

As a soloist he performed also with Sarajevo Philharmonic, RTV Slovenia Orchestra, Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra of Košice, Slovenian Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra. Among the most important performances is the 2017 first performance of then newly discovered L. M. Škerjanc's violin concerto with the RTV Slovenia orchestra at the Ljubljana Festival.

Žiga Brank plays on violin by C. F. Landolfi, made in 1750 in Milan, previously played by one of the most prominent Slovenian violinists, Dejan Bravničar, between 1957 - 2018.

Slaven Kulenović

Slaven Kulenović is one of the leading young conductors in Slovenia. In January 2023 he took on the position of chief conductor of Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra in the year of its centenary.

He has conducted the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra, Slovenian National Radio Television Symphony Orchestra, Slovenian National Opera & Ballet Ljubljana, Slovenian National Theatre Maribor, Rijeka Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of the Romanian Radio, Chamber String Orchestra of Music Academy in Ljubljana among others.

Since November 2013 until January 2023 he has been the chief conductor and artistic director of Symphony Orchestra Domžale-Kamnik, and since February 2014 he has been entrusted with the artistic leadership of the Symphony Orchestra of the Conservatory of Music and Ballet Ljubljana a position that he continues to fulfill.

In February 2022 he made his operatic debut conducting Verdi’s La Traviata in Slovenian National Theatre in Ljubljana.

Conductor and pianist Slaven Kulenović studied piano with prof. Dubravka Tomšić Srebotnjak at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where he graduated in 2007 with “Summa cum laude” honors. He studied conducting with prof. Milivoj Šurbek at the same academy.

During his piano studies, Slaven Kulenović received Prešeren Award of Music Academy for excellent performance of Mozart’s Concerto for piano and orchestra in C Minor KV491. As a piano soloist and a chamber musician, he has performed in Germany, Austria, Italy, South Korea, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia.

He continued his musical studies in numerous master classes and conducting workshops with distinguished artists and teachers (Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Hannu Lintu, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Marko Letonja, Klaus Arp, Claudio Martinez Mehner,  Mark Stringer, George Hurst, Wolfgang Dörner, Andrey Boreyko). Slaven Kulenović performed/conducted numerous first performances of distinguished Slovenian composers.

Slaven Kulenović is currently teaching piano and chamber music at the Conservatory of Music and Ballet in Ljubljana. He worked also as a répétiteur at the Slovenian National Theatre in Maribor and the Slovenian National Theatre in Ljubljana.

The RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra

The RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra is firmly in its seventh decade, and has been acclaimed for its musical excellence and superb performance since its inception. The Orchestra's main activity are studio and concert recordings for the National Music Archive, available to radio and television programs.Over the last decade, the orchestra has attracted considerable attention of the professional public through collaboration with renowned conductors and soloists, including Marko Letonja, Daniel Raiskin, Roberto González Monjas, Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna, Marcello Alvarez, Mischa Maisky, Aldo Ciccolini, Radu Lupu, Stefan Vladar, Freddy Kempf, Dejan Lazić, Alexei Volodin, Yeol Eum Son, Ning Feng, Gordan Nikolić, Stefan Milenkovich, Jean Rondeau, 2Cellos, Jonas Kaufmann, Andrea Bocelli, Anna Netrebko, José Carreras, Placido Domingo and others, as well as with high-profile concerts in prestigious concert halls in Europe and South America.Chief Conductor is Rossen Milanov, the excellent Bulgarian-American conductor.