April 15, 2019

  • Rhapsodic Music from Croatia

     

    Mestrovic: 3 Rhapsodies
    Matej Mestrovic, piano.
    Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra/Miran Vaupotic
    Navona Records 6186
    Total Time:  58:00
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    The three works on this album explore unique musical vistas for piano and orchestra.  Croatian composer and pianist Matej Mestrovic (b. 1969) has composed music in a variety of mediums from the concert hall to commercial music.  He was among the early New Age composers in Croatia as well.  Some may have come across his acclaimed album Vivaldi 4 Seasons for 3 Pianos.  More recently he toured China with his trio, Orient Expresto.  Last April, his Danube Rhapsody was performed at Carnegie Hall by the Distinguished Concerts Orchestra.  This is the work that opens the album.

    Danube Rhapsody is cast in four movements that move us from its beginnings along its path through ten countries.  Along the way it explores folk influences from the lands it moves through.  The work also incorporates traditional Croatian instruments (accordion, tambura, cimbalom, and fife).  The music has a blend of romantic harmony with insertions of folk lines and rhythms that add a little extra zest.  Mestrovic’s melodies themselves have an engaging quality.  His first piano entry comes out of the romantic tradition of Rachmaninoff and the natural depictions here will also recall Smetana’s The Moldau.  The joyous dance-like sections are quite stunning as well with excellent rhythmic syncopations to move us along the great river.  (In some respects, the piece is in that line of popular art music styles explored in concert by Yanni and Vangelis, though here the electronics are absent.)  “Danube Dance” is a gorgeous waltz movement.  The orchestra becomes a restrained accompaniment to delightful solo explorations on accordion and violin.  The cimbalom adds an additional color in a more reflective central section which gives way to a duple-time dance.  “Water Reflections” is a beautiful moment of repose with delicate wind writing.  “Danubius” takes its cues from a more Baroque string style at first and moves to a more powerful and exciting conclusion that adds more folk melodies and sounds as the piece dances to its conclusion.  The piece blends these interesting syncopations with a gradually more popular harmony that shifts the music to more crossover style.

    In the central Chinese Rhapsody, Mestrovic explores several folk melodies and integrates additional instrumental color with the use of pipa, zheng, erhu, and solo violin.  This work perhaps more than the first one feels a bit more like that blend of New Age orchestral writing with ethnic melodic idea woven into the fabric of the music and providing melodic interest.  The music is a sort of unique blend of perhaps Tan Dun with a touch of Basil Poledouris.  He takes us on a wonderful musical journey here with sweeping melodies in this single-movement work.

    The final New England Rhapsody is a three-movement work with the central “Poco a Poco” being one of the very first pieces Mestrovic wrote for a piano concerto.  It is now sandwiched between two picturesque movements and proves to be a quite moving piece of music with a sort of Mozartian elegance.  The opening “New England Vibe” has a more modern feel with its jaunty rhythms and warm string writing.  One might be hard pressed to call this “American”, but the style moves through a blend of romantic melodies and a mid-20th Century film style.  But there are also some pop rhythms that appear as well that might remind East Coasters of those 1970s Boston Pops concerts of rock tunes.  Regardless, Mestrovic still finds a way to create compelling melodic ideas in a piece of “pops” music that then begins to assert his own folk background blended with jazzier syncopations for the concluding movement.  Out of the pieces here, this one has the more pops-like feel.

    The Zagreb orchestra seems to be having a blast playing this music with all its references to folk music and accessible musical style.  The music has that cinematic quality that works quite well to bridge gaps between concert and film music.  Sometimes the piano solo areas are set up quite abruptly though.  Mestrovic’s shaping of his folk ideas into the more accessible language, coupled with the general sound of the music helps further communicate well.  These are engaging works that should have great appeal.