For Pavle
ZADAR CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Ivan Hut, conductor
Marta Hut, soprano
Nela Šarić, soprano
Marco Graziani, violin
program: Š. Dešpalj, J. S. Bach, J. M. Stratik, P. Dešpalj, J. Hatze, B. Bersa
The final concert of this year's Evenings will take us back to the year 1961, when the church of St Donatus, after centuries-long slumber, at long last opened its doors on August 14 to music and its concert audiences with the first concert of the first-ever Musical Evenings at St Donatus! The then newly founded Zadar Chamber Orchestra performed and opened the event with the work Moba, which was composed especially for the occasion by founder Pavle's father, Šime Dešpalj.
Moba will also open the final concert of this year's Evenings, whose dedication and program will be a kind of homage to the initial one, but also to all the subsequent Musical Evenings at St Donatus. The first part of the concert will begin just like the very first evening back in 1961: with Dešpalj's Moba and Bach's Violin Concerto in A minor. These will be followed by Symphony in D major by Josip Mihovil Stratik, a member of a Zadar noble family from the 18th century, and a selection of art songs (lieder) by Josip Hatze and Blagoje Bersa in the instrumentation of Pavle Dešpalj.
The concert is dedicated to Pavle Dešpalj, a local of Zadar, whose visionary spirit made the church of St Donatus one of the most special concert venues, and the Musical Evenings at St Donatus one of the oldest Croatian music festivals!