Annual List of Works: Music Centre Slovakia

Title
Cantate Domino. A little sacred cantata

Composera
Ivan Hrušovský (1927 – 2001)

Year of Composition
1991

Instrumentation
mixed choir a cappella

Duration
7’ 36

Premiere performance
1991, Collegium Technicum, E. Zacharová, conductor

Score
Publisher: Musica Slovaca, Music Fund Bratislava, Medená 29, 811 02 Bratislava
URL: www.hf.sk
E-mail: vydavatelstvo@hf.sk
Edition-No.: 1

Recording
Record company: Slovak Philharmonic (non commercial recording)
Performers: Slovak Philharmonic Choir, B. Juha?áková, conductor

Motivation
Ivan Hrušovský is one of the most significant slovak composers of choral works, with his essential affection of this range by bringing therein new elements, original qualities and by using remarkable processes, colours or interesting  modifications of vocal staff. Generally, Ivan Hrušovský was greatly influenced at first by Moyzes: he kept within the boundaries of an extended tonality containing modal elements and preferred rich instrumentation and epic scope, as in the Pastoral Suite (1955) and Tatra Poem (1960). At around the same time he began to explore timbre, which resulted in an emancipation of sound from its subordination to harmonic structure, demonstrated in an especially original way even in the choral compositions. In the course of the 1960s he also absorbed stimuli from serialism, which he applied in its purest form in Combinazioni sonoriche, and from controlled aleatorism, as in the Piano Sonata of 1965. With the aid of these techniques, and in a way reminiscent of Lutos?awski or Górecki, he focussed on developing a new sound world and expressive means in works such as A Dream about a Man or Three Madrigalian Impressions. In their use of modality and polymodality as well as Slovak folk idioms, the later works are not unrelated to the music of Moyzes and his generation, though there is little to suggest links with late Romanticism or Impressionism.

Programme Note
Cantate Domino belongs to the compositions form the later compositional period with typical characteristic of Hrušovský’s works (from the 1970s onwards) in their use of historical forms such as the sonata, the madrigal and Baroque suite; aimed at bridging the gap between musical past and present, this combines with a deepening concentration of expression to project a suggestive though ideological message. Cantata´s features are the alternating poly- and homophonic passages, special classification of rhythm; rhythmical pulsation, influencing syntactic process of this composition, piece of interesting diction hymnic character. And Ivan Hrušovský said to work:“…however strange it may seem, only afterwards I have really started to know the choir´s sound specifity more deeply.”

Composer Biography
Ivan Hrušovský (23. 2. 1927 Bratislava – 5. 10. 2001 Bratislava), slovak composer, musicologist and pedagogue. In 1947 he completed high-school and music-school studies in Žilina. Between 1947–1952  studied composition with Alexander Moyzes at the Bratislava Conservatory, absolved parallel studies of musicology, philosophy, and aesthetics at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Comenius University in Bratislava. After that (1952 – 1953) he worked external at the Institute of Musicology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (folklore, history) and at the same time started to study composition with Alexander Moyzes at the Academy of Music and Drama in Bratislava (AMD), where he graduated in 1957. Between 1953  - 1997 taught at the AMD. In 1966 Ivan Hrušovský achieved the academic title „Candidate of Sciences“, since 1968 lecturer of music theory at AMD and in 1984 he became professor of composition at the AMD and head of the Department of Composition and Conducting. Between 1990 and 2000 lectured music theory at the Department of Music Education and Aesthetics of the Faculty of Arts of the Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica.
For his activities Ivan Hrušovský achieved several awards (The Ján Levoslav Bella Award – 1965 for the cycle Towards Death; 1st prize in the competition, dedicated to the 30th anniversary of Slovak National Insurrection – 1974 for the Way to Light; 1st prize in the competition Prix de musique folklorique de Radio Bratislava – 1976 for To My Dear and 1981 for Around the Midsummer Night’s Fires and also 2nd  prize Omilienci chodia; 1986 – the title Merited Artist).