Papandopulo: Piccolo Concerto, Harpsichord Concerto & 5 Orchestral Songs

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Boris Papandopulo: his name sounds Greek, and yet he has to be regarded as the most important Croatian composer of the twentieth century. Our third release featuring this uncommonly versatile composer presents his Concertos for Piccolo and Harpsichord. As in many of his concertos for solo instruments and orchestra, here too Papandopulo draws on neoclassical, that is, Baroque, sources in his Harpsichord Concerto. The three characteristic movements follow the model fast-slow-fast in their sequence. In the introductory cantata the composer incorporates dodecaphonic features into the musical structure in a most highly individual and original manner in order then to blend them with compositional-technical elements of the Baroque. He employed the piccolo in many ways his works. It usually enables him to evoke nature with musical means – the country idyll, the sounds of shepherd’s pipes and birdcalls, and the stylized folk dance. Such a sunny, idyllic, Arcadian atmosphere also radiates throughout the Prelude with its stylized birdsong forming the beginning of the Little Concerto. His orchestral songs round off the album. Papandopulo’s music concentrates as much as possible on the text in these little genre pictures, a fact reflected in his thoroughly recitative treatment of the words as well as in his neo-impressionistic compositional technique. This tonal coloration is shown not only in the subtle chords of the harp but also in his frequent use of bitonal sound layers.