LOJZE LEBIČ: ZGODBE (FABLES) - BOŽIČNE ZGODBE (CHRISTMAS FABLES) - PUER NATUS

Classical and Modern Music

Format: CD

Code: 111051

EAN: 3838898111051

Zgodbe - Fables

Božične zgodbe - Christmas Fables – Puer natus

Cantatas for Soprano, Bass-Baritone, Choir and Orchestra

Lojze Lebič (Prevalje, Slovenia, 1934) took a degree in archaeology (1957) from the University of Ljubljana, at the same time studying conducting with Danilo Švara and composition with Marjan Kozina at the Ljubljana Academy of Music (graduating in 1972).

As a composer he emerged from the group Pro Musica Viva, and gained further training by attending contemporary music seminars in Darmstadt. Following an intensive critical confrontation with contemporary trends in composition, he formed his own mode of expression, ranging from sonic impetuosity to meditative restraint, cosmopolitan modernism as well as inherent sensitivity for the heritage of past cultures and civilizations.

Lojze Lebič’s music has been performed at numerous festivals, such as the ISCM World Music Days (Brussels 1981, Zurich 199 1, Bucharest 1999, Yokohama 2001, Ljubljana 2003, Zagreb 2005, Växjö 2009), the Berlin Music Biennale, the Zagreb Music Biennale, Musikprotokoll Graz, Warsaw Autumn, Trieste Prima, the EBU Concerts in Jerusalem, Pan Music Festival Seul etc.

In 1994 he received the Prešeren Prize for his compositional oeuvre to date, and in 2005 the highest award presented by the Society of Slovene Composers - the Kozina Prize. He has been full member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts since 1995, whereas in 2003 he was voted foreign member of the Royal Flemish Academy for Science and the Arts in Belgium.

The two cantatas Zgodbe - Fables and Božične zgodbe (Christmas Fables) - Puer natus are related, though only as regards their setting, their openness to the listener, and their sonic and textual reaching back to the middle ages, i.e. to polystylistic procedures with which the composer creates tensions between the known and the new.Which applies to their outside. Regarding the incentive for their coming about, their timing, contents, and above all their spiritual background, the cantatas are far apart.

Zgodbe - Fables for two soloists, choir and orchestra

Based on the the medieval morality play on man’s weaknesses, making use of texts that were secretly written at the French court in the 14th century, and have survived under the title Le Roman de Fauvel; not because of their morality, but due to the broader validity of their socially critical point, va1id not only for those times. The cantata Zgodbe - Fables is a story about the eternal cheater, against whom resistance is put up textually as well as musically through: Doubt, Love, And there are Dreams ….

Zgodbe - Fables consist of’ five parts:

Flatterie - Flattery Avarice - Meanness Le Doute - Doubt L’amour - Love
Et les songes sont - And there are Dreams

RTV Slovenija Symphony Orchestra. Conductor Marko Munih. Barbara Jernejčič Fürst, mezzo-soprano. Marcos Fink, bass-baritone. Aleš Valič, reciter. Academic Choir Tone Tomšič. Conductor Urša Lah.

Božične zgodbe (Christmas Fables) - Puer natus

The cantata is based on medieval musical-literary heritage which - with the carol Puer natus in Bethlehem - became part of the Slovene folk tradition, and has, in various musical and textual variants, survived up to this day.

In the cantata, medieval songs emerge in various transformations, ranging from motivic fragments to longer chorale segments that disengage themselves from, return as well as vanish in rather contemporary sonorities. Similarly, the selection of texts is embedded between the old and the new, being near to the mystery of Christmas without describing it; on the contrary, they only explain it poetically and musically, thus creating at balance between native Slovene Christmas.
Similarly to the Fables, the Christmas Fables consist of five parts. In the first and fifth part the texts are medieval and in Latin, whereas in the other three sections texts by Slovene poets are linked and intertwined, partly in full or only in fragments.

1. Prologue, after medieval Christmas carols (Resonet in laudibus and Puer natus)
2. Alated Night (Brane Senegačnik: A Fantasia on a Christmas
Theme)
3. At Dusk (Miran Jarc: At Dusk; Pavel Golia: Little Peter’s Last
Dreams)
4. Carolers (Anica Černe: In the Holy Night; Gregor Strniša:
Carolers)
5. Epilogue, after a medieval Christmas carol and Gregorian chant (Oh, the Child has been born to us; Rorate coeli desuper …)

Christmas Fables - Puer natus
Cantata for soloists, two choirs and orchestra

6 Prologue 6’08’’
7 Alated Night 3’39’’
8 At Dusk 6’29’’
9 Carolers 3’19’’ (listen!)
10 Epilogue 5’04’’

The RTV Slovenija Symphony Orchestra. Conductor David de Villiers. Andreja Zakonjšek Krt, soprano. Marcos Fink, bass-baritone. RTV Slovenija Youth Choir. Conductor Matevž Fabijan. Chamber Choir of RTV Slovenija. Conductor Urša Lah.

Total time 55’06’’