Classical and Modern Music
Format: CD
Code: 111600
EAN: 3838898111600
About the Composer
Urška Pompe (born 6 September 1969 in Jesenice) completed her studies of composition with Dane Škerl at the Ljubljana Academy of Music in 1993. She commenced further studies the same year at the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, where she studied composition (Emil Petrovics, 1993 - 1995), chamber music(Márta Gulyás) and solfeggio (Erzsébet Hegyi, 1995–1997). She went on to conclude her formal studies of composition at the Basel Academy of Music with Roland Moser (1995–1997), after which she
attended an array of masterclasses: Royaumont (J. Dillon, B. Ferneyhough), Acanthes (G. Kurtág, I. Fedele, H. Lachenmann), The Bartok Festival in Szombathely (J. Harvey, Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)), The Kodály Institute in Kecskemet, The Salzburg Mozarteum (Sofija Gubaidulina), Luxembourg (K. Huber, T. Jennefelt, B. Holten).
In 1997, Urška Pompe was appointed to the position of assistant at the Ljubljana Academy of Music, and since 2000 she has held the position of senior lecturer in music theory at the same institution.
About the Composer’s Work
There are various approaches to creativity. Especially today, when, with the proclamation of the postmodern, the obligatory personal experience presumably surpasses permissible generalisations. Nonetheless, it seems that the process of creativity today remains very similar to that which historians find in earlier periods. Some composers write quickly today, too, and their opus soon achieves enviable dimensions. Of course, speed of writing is never
a guarantee of quality. However,a significant quantity of completed and, where possible, well performed work somehow contributes to the formation of the taste of a particular period. On the other hand, certain composers create slowly, and in the flood of quotidian events it is difficult to follow their creative output. They live on the sidelines, and do not directly impinge upon the flow of calendar time. With each work they often reflect a distance to that which time brings: they seek
particular values somewhere in their own fleetingness, certain contacts with that which each period inherits from past experience.
The work of Urška Pompe to date counts amongst those opuses that live aloof from the time within which they come about. It knows the time well, and attempts to pick out the values that are sparsely sown in it. Her music nourishes the time with a small spoon, more through the intimacy of individuals than at concerts, from the background of bustle through that apparently small ‘side’ door, which in reality is the most difficult to open. Nonetheless, her opus gains a charm characteristic of a
certain purified wisdom that is learned in each step so to speak, cognisant of the values of the unspoken but ever perceptible ideal of the subtle ‘decanting of nature’ into sound – both genuine nature and human nature. The composer’s musical endeavours to date are probably best summarised in her own words from an interview published in 2007:
Each composition has its own purpose, or is evoked by an event, a sound, that surrounds me, by silence, relationships, nature; each has the purpose of solving a basic compositional idea as economically as possible, solving a technical problem, a technical challenge, while taking into account the personality of the per- former (his or her musicality, technical ability, character), it is a curiosity about discovering colours. The sonic material is made up of notes that communicate with one
another through well considered paths, sometimes more and sometimes less determined, sometimes captured in a narrow framework, sometimes trying to break free on all sides. The basic guiding light is gesture: gesture as a unit of time, as music exists in time; gesture as a musical event, as the content of sound; gesture that is always imbued with an energy that directs and guides the flow of events.
It would perhaps be possible to orient oneself to the composer’s work with an outline
of parallels with the masters of contemporary music. In so doing, we would at least have to include: the sensuous ‘ars subtilior’ of the sound of György Kurtág; the Manichaen impulsiveness of Giacinto Scelsi; a feeling for the translucency of sound of musique spectrale, on the one hand, and the pragmatic complexity of the sound images of Brian Ferneyhough, on the other; the apparent coarseness of musique informelle; an extremely well honed ear for the expressive possibilities of musical
instruments; and, not least, an animated relationship to the psychological effect of sound. In each composition there unfolds a particular refined Dionysian play on differences: a play on zeal and reflection, disorder and reconciliation, a timorous wandering through sound events and an egotistical, prophetic statement: this is how it must be. A musical will that gains ever more weight the further it yields to the ordered, well guided disquiet of the research of sound – to a certain
perceptible, entirely subtle restraining of sound, imbued with personality.
The creative efforts of Urška Pompe have not gone unnoticed, as is testified to by the Student Prešeren Prize (1993), the prize of the international competition Alpe-Adria Giovanni (1994), selection in the international call for the project Young Composers in Leipzig (1995), selection for ISCM Zagreb 2006, and the Prešeren Fund Prize (2007). The depth of her work is also testified to by a series of scholarships abroad, as well as by positive responses to her work and invitations to various
festivals of contemporary music outside Slovenia, which increase from year to year: Mouvement – Musik im 21. Jahrhundert (Saarbrücken, 2004), Musik unserer Zeit (Münster, 2004), Rostrum (Paris,2004), Freiburger Klang- Sequenzen (Freiburg, 2005, 2009), Chamber Music Festival” (Gödölo, 2005), EXPAN (Spittal an der Drau, 2006), Carinthischer Sommer (Ossiah, 2007), Glasbeni bienale Zagreb (2009).
About the Works on This Compact Disc
The opus of Urška Pompe is dominated by chamber music, while it is also possible to find certain vocal works that, since the late period of her postgraduate study, count as her spiritual children. For her first por- trait compact disc the composer has selected mainly chamber compositions from the last ten years, along with two solo works, one vocal-instrumental work and a piece for two saxophones and orchestra.
Leon Stefanija
Translated by Neville Hall
Compositions:
1. Dan za dnem - Day After Day (2003)
Betka Kotnik, Dejan Prešiček, alto saxophones
2. Čuječi – The Vigilant (2001)
Slowind woodwind quintet:
3. Kolor (2003)
Jože Kotar, clarinet
4. Almost a Loneliness (2005)
Françoise Kubler, soprano; Slowind woodwind quintet:
5. Miles and Miles Above My Head (2009)
Primož Parovel, accordion
6. Brst - Bud (2009) (listen!)
Trio Ecco
7. Near (2006)
Rok Volk, tenor saxophone, Betka Kotnik, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, RTV Slovenija Symphony Orchestra, En Shao, conductor
Almost a Loneliness
Emily Dickenson
Pink- small - and punctual - Aromatic - low -
Covert - in April - Candid - in May - Dear to the Moss - Known to the Knoll - Next to the Robin -
In every human Soul - Bold little Beauty Bedecked with thee Nature forswears Antiquity -
I heard, as if had no Ear
Until a Vital Word
Came all the way from Life to me and then I knew I heard.
Bee! I’m expecting you! Was saying Yesterday
To Somebody you know
That you were due -
The frogs got Home last Week - Are settled, and at work -
Birds, mostly back -
The clover warm and thick -
You’ll get my Letter by The seventeenth; Reply Or better, be with me - Yours, Fly
I hide myself within my flower, That fading from your Vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me - almost a loneliness.
Dying at my Music! Bubble! Bubble!
Hold me till the Octave’s run! Quick! Burst the Windows! Ritardando!
Phials left, and the Sun!
Of their peculiar light
I keep one ray
To clarify the Sight
To seek them by -
