Boris Papandopulo


Boris Papandopulo was a Croatian composer and conductor of Russian Jewish descent. He was the son of Greek nobleman Konstantin Papandopulo and Croatian opera singer Maja Strozzi-Pečić and one of the most distinctive Croatian musicians of the 20th century. Papandopulo also worked as music writer, journalist, reviewer, pianist and piano accompanist; however, he achieved the peaks of his career in music as a composer. His composing oeuvre is imposing : with great success he created instrumental, vocal and instrumental, stage music and film music. In all these kinds and genres he left a string of anthology-piece compositions of great artistic value.

Biography

“Born, growing up and being brought up in a family that had always been tightly connected with music and the theatre”, he devoted himself to music very early on. He first of all took private lessons in piano, and then studied composition at the Music Academy in Zagreb. In Vienna, at the New Vienna Conservatory, he studied conducting under Dirk Fock. During two periods he was a conductor of the Croatian Singing Association called Kolo, Zagreb, and from 1931 to 1934 had posts of conductor of the Society Orchestra of the Croatian Music Institute and choirmaster of the Ivan Filipović Teachers’ Singing Association. From 1935 to 1938, he worked as a teacher at the State Music School in Split, and was conductor of the Zvonimir Music Association, as well as, from 1940 to 1945, of the Zagreb Opera. At the same time he was a conductor of the orchestra of Radio Zagreb. After World War II he was a director of the Rijeka Opera, while, from 1948 to 1953 he was an opera conductor and a teacher in Sarajevo. He took up his career in Zagreb again as a conductor of the Zagreb Opera and then the Split Opera. He was a regular guest-conductor of the Komedija Theatre in Zagreb, as well as of the Cairo Symphony Orchestra.

Oeuvre

Papandopulo’s youthful opuses were marked by features of the “national music style”, as it was called, that is, of patterns from folk music, while cosmopolitan influences are also appreciable: the application of composition technique elements of the neo-Classical style: polyphonic in structure, with Baroque energy and vital rhythmic movement, elementary touches of Impressionist and Expressionist musical idioms. Along with a treatment of the instruments that makes great demands on skill, technique and virtuosity, very visible are the optimism and serenity that permeate the music to the full. Connoisseurs of the composer’s oeuvre of the earlier creative period pick out as the most successful works his Laudamus , cantata for solo voices, mixed voice choir and orchestra; Sinfonietta for String Orchestra, Zlato / Gold, a mime ballet with singing and orchestra; the brilliant, bravura Concerto da camera for Solo Soprano, Violin and Seven Wind Instruments and the most important Croatian religious works from the end of that period of Papandopulo’s creativity – the oratorio for solo voices and a male a cappella choir Muka Gospodina našega Isukrsta / The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ and Hrvatska misa / Croatian Mass for soloists and a cappella mixed voice choir.
In his mature creative period, Papandopulo retains elements of folk music idiom, but also addresses the achievements of the European musical Moderne, without “departing from the traditional formants of musical cells, from the settled development of motif and facture or the well-established laws of melodic movement.” This period, revolving around the temporal axis of the end of World War II, lasted until about 1956, and gave rise to a number of very successful compositions marked by recent history – the creation of the new state and events from the National Liberation War.
In time his music became more dissonant, rougher in harmony and melody. In the mid-1950s he integrated into his composing technical arsenal elements of dodecaphony, jazz. Later, pop came in, as did other technical composition techniques of the avant-garde in music of the 20th century, although he retained an ironical distance from some of them, subjecting them on occasions to irony or parody.
The origin of part of Papandopulo’s oeuvre of the 1960s and 1970s is related to his guest appearances and acquaintanceships with musicians in the then divided Germany, where he had opportunities to meet outstanding artistic personalities, as well as recent European musical creation.
Ideologically grounded aesthetic worldviews never inhibited Papandopulo in his choice of non-musical subjects for his own works; he always found, in each one of them, universal ideas, profound human values. At the beginning of this work he found non-musical stimuli in topics related to the older strata of the folk tradition – in “legends, rites and myths”. Later, after 1950, very curiously, he drew his inspiration from apparently diametrically opposed worldviews. At the same time he would write compositions of religious topics – from the Croatian Catholic mass with traces and elements of Glagolitic chant and also monumental works of socialist realism as well as those inspired by Croatian history.
Papandopulo went on composing with vigour and inspiration almost to the day of his death, a full 65 years. In all these works he showed himself a master of his craft – a witty musician of inexhaustible and fresh inspiration, very well versed in the technical procedure of composition, of musical forms and the technical capacities of both instruments and voice.
As well as a number of concerts and solo works for individual instruments Papandopulo left a marked trace on the ballet and opera of his time. His six operas and 15 ballets, Ties, Gold have demonstrated their anthological values in the many repeated performances at home and around the world. He composed music for an impressive number of stage productions and films, and also devoted some of his opuses for children and young people.
A large number of his works feature an authentic and typically Papandopulo buoyant and infectious musical humour in which he often quotes themes of other authors.
It is not possible to give a concise, pithy and yet comprehensive evaluation of Papandopulo’s vast oeuvre from today’s point of view because of the inaccessibility of the scores. Nevertheless, Dubravko Detoni, himself a composer, did make an effort in this direction in the following words: “If it were necessary to utter some kind of definition, then a summation of Papandopulo’s oeuvre should be sought in its being some kind of synthesis of all the more important modern influences from world music in combination with rhythmical, melodic and harmonic features of the Croatian folk melody.”
Irrespective of the time of composition or the stylistic or musical expressive orientation, Papandopulo’s “music very easily and spontaneously makes direct contact with the listener”, and musicians are glad to play it.
Boris Papandopulo played an important role as an arranger of folk songs from the wider region and as populariser and arranger of works of other composers. This particularly refers to anthological compositions of Croatian concertante and operatic music, some of which he revitalised and put on the stage in his own arrangement.

Selected works

Opera