IN SIGNO TAURI - IN THE SIGN OF TAURUS - Symphonic poem |
The Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra | Conductor: Marko Letonja | 8.2mb - 8:25
IN SIGNO TAURI - IN THE SIGN OF TAURUS is the second symphonic poem by Marko Mihevc, its first performance was on Dec. 4, 1992, with the Swiss conductor Urs Schneider conducting the Symphonic Orchestra of RTV Ljubljana. It is program music linked to the astrological sign in which the composer was born. This autobiography, transposed in a tonal revival, reaches its climax with a rumba, which purified emerges from the atonal world, after which it again returns to the bipolar world, where the modal and chromatic worlds merge in their post-modernist fusion.
Marko Mihevc
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MIRACULA - Symphonic poem |
The Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra | Conductor: Uroš Lajovic | 11.1mb - 11:25
Shepherd boy listen to me, listen to what the bonelet has to say … sings the pipe, which the shepherd boy carved from a white bone. A dark deed is revealed to him, which happened some years earlier, when brother killed brother in order to seize for himself kingdom and wealth. Motto: the truth can never be concealed forever, sooner or later it will resurface. The same story had already attracted G. Mahler, on the basis of which he composed Das klagende Lied (The song of Complaint). In Mihevc's composition MIRACULA (Lat. miracles) two tendencies emerge: one is towards program music, towards the tale by the Brothers Grimm, while the second tendency is a sort of harmonic breviloquence of impressions taking us through our century. The initial polyphonic structure is followed by motoric sonoric plains which lead us to the flute motifs (shepherd's pipe motifs) proceeding on numerous levels. Traditional and contemporary elements are being merged into new forms, with which Marko Mihevc approaches post-modernist thought. He remains faithful to it to the end, when the entire orchestra joins the solemn bells. The simplicity of major scales is interrupted, the last tone is missing. The solo bells are a kind of substitute, which replay the initial motif, with which the circle of the symphonic composition closes.
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EQUI - Symphonic poem |
The Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra | Conductor: Uroš Lajovic | 16.4mb - 16:58
Undoubtedly, EQUI by Marko Mihevc is a success of his youth, resulting from his own growth, and of Slovene music production in the twentieth century. It can be placed among the finest achievements of Slovene symphonic poems. It is program music, coming from poetic mélanges where the dreamlike and the real, the childlike and the practical mingle. The composer has created a melodic, refined fresco with a solid form and exciting instrumentation. It throbs rhythmically, it 'opens' and spreads in the best tradition of the great masters at the turn of the twentieth century: thus post-modernism. With knowledge and taste he blends tonality with atonality, melodic linearity with "textural fields", which do not result in static rigidity, but more or less in vectorial tempestuousness. Epigone? Not in the least, but a successful, modern and most of all optimistic return of music to itself!
Dr. Andrej Rijavec
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