Naslov
The topical world of pasts and presents: Igor Kuljerić’s Croatian Glagolitic Requiem (1996)

Autori
Kiš Žuvela, Sanja

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, neobjavljeni rad, znanstveni

Skup
15th International Congress on Musical Signification

Mjesto i datum
Barcelona, Španjolska, 15.06.2022. - 19.06.2022

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Requiem ; topic theory ; Kuljerić ; Croatia ; postmodernism

Sažetak
The final decade of the 20th century presents one of the most tumultuous periods in the Croatian history. The new political status, painstakingly gained during the Croatian War of Independence (1991- 1995), raised questions about the essence of our worldly existence, emphasizing the persistent necessity of repositioning in terms of national, religious and individual, human identity, and where sciences failed to provide any satisfying answers, the arts responded in a most striking fashion. Igor Kuljerić’s (1938- 2006) Croatian Glagolitic Requiem for soloists, mixed choir and symphony orchestra (1996), which represents the pinnacle of the genre in the history of Croatian music, certainly counts among such powerful responses. The referential framework of Kuljerić’s magnum opus emanates from a complex plurality of the Croatian cultural heritage. Following the disposition of the Roman funeral rite, the text underlying this six- movement cycle compiles Old-Slavonic fragments from sources such as the 1483 Missale romanum glagolitice. Its parts, (until recently) traditionally sung in some regions of the Northern Adriatic for centuries, make up the mystical soundscape of Kuljerić’s early childhood on the island of Silba, strongly determining his personal vision of faith. The composer, however, chose to avoid overt paraphrasing of the orally transmitted musical material and resisted the temptation of consulting ethnomusicological sources ; rather, having (in Bartók’s words) “completely absorbed idiom of peasant music which has become his musical mother tongue” (1933), he recreated the spirit of Glagolitic chant by employing the expressive potential of medieval modes and their local folk variants (especially the traditionally death-related Phrygian mode) within the somewhat distorted functional web of the extended harmonic tonality. Furthermore, the topical content of Kuljerić’s funeral mass draws from the canonical masterpieces of this genre created by chief protagonists of musical Heldengeschichte, witnessing the composer’s attempts of proving belongingness to the wider European cultural context. The global narrative of the piece, as described by the composer himself, emerges from his intimate soliloquy on prayer, the Last Judgement and the absolution. The affects of fear, despair and hope of the praying believer, the expressionistic imagery of the martial terror of the Judgement Day, as well as the transcendental relief of the yearned absolution, come reinforced by means of textural manipulation (ranging from quasi-chant, organum, strict polyphony to micropolyphony and controlled aleatorics), rhetorical tools (with an emphasis on exclamatio) and meaningful instrumentation (with trumpets, trombones and tam-tams in leading roles), again built upon the models from the composer’s own “imaginary museum of musical works” (Goehr, 1992). Finally, the Croatian Glagolitic Requiem is a genuine document of its times, a prominent example of musical postmodernism which can be delineated, in Jonathan Kramer's terms, as a work that “locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers” (1996). This paper will attempt to show its relevance for contemporary audiences, performers and researchers.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Znanost o umjetnosti

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