Page 29 - Glasbenopedagoški zbornik Akademije za glasbo v Ljubljani / The Journal of Music Education of the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, leto 8, zvezek 17 / Year 8, Issue 17, 2012
P. 29
nc Kri nar, IVLJENJE IN DELO ZVONIMIRJA CIGLIÈA
LIFE AND WORK OF ZVONIMIR CIGLIÈ
Summary
In this paper, the Slovenian composer, conductor, teacher and honorary
Doctor of Music Zvonimir Cigliè is presented as an artistic personality. He was
born on the 20th of February 1921 in Ljubljana, where he remained musically
active throughout his long career and even during the difficult years of the Second
World War. He studied at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, where his teachers
and mentors in composition and conducting were Lucijan Marija Škerjanc and
Danilo Švara, respectively, completing both degrees in 1948. During the Second
World War, he was held in the Italian concentration camp in Gonars (1942), and,
immediately after the war (1945), he spent three months in the Ljubljana prison
due to a violation of the cultural silence (i.e. the boycott of cultural activity
ordered by the Slovenian Liberation Front in 1941). Cigliè was apolitical before,
during and after the war; yet, in 1950, shortly after the start of the Informbiro
period, he was accused of a political offence.
In spite of several tragic events, he became a well-known conductor and
composer. His interpretations were among the first in the region to offer the
conducting of large (symphonic) works by heart; additionally, some other
conducting qualities must be highlighted: his temperament, his more than reliable
(photographic) memory and his cultured musical personality. It is therefore not
surprising that critics named him a formal advocate of the “Mataèiæ school” of
conducting in Slovenia; after all, he took leave as a kind of unplanned conducting
assistant to Maestro Lovro von Mataèiæ. Cigliè started this performing fragment
of his musical activity in Sarajevo, continuing it in Subotica, further educating
himself in Salzburg (with Lovro von Mataèiæ) and Paris (with Igor Markevitch),
and ending it very early in Ljubljana. He finished his professional music career as
a teacher of music theory (counterpoint and harmony) at the Ljubljana School of
Music and Ballet as well as at the Academy of Pedagogy (1957-73).
Cigliè started writing (piano) compositions very early. This was his point of
departure – writing works for his own performances, since from the beginning on
he had been a distinguished pianist. In his relatively long composing career
(1934-83), it was the “rise and fall” period from 1941 to 1965 that he was at his
most prolific. The works from this period include: Sinfonia appassionata
(1943-48) and Obre je plesalk (“Dancers’ Shore”, symphonic choreographic
poem, ballet; 1952). Cigliè’s most significant works (within the Slovenian as well
as the broader European context) are all in a way connected to the harp: Adagio
amoroso (for harp solo; 1948), Concertino for harp and string orchestra (with the
composer’s unique invention “suoni eolici” – aeolic tones; 1960-61; dedicated to
his father Josip), Triptih (“Triptych”) for middle voice and orchestra (1954-83),
and Sublimacija (“Sublimation”) for horn and harp (1967). Throughout his
29
LIFE AND WORK OF ZVONIMIR CIGLIÈ
Summary
In this paper, the Slovenian composer, conductor, teacher and honorary
Doctor of Music Zvonimir Cigliè is presented as an artistic personality. He was
born on the 20th of February 1921 in Ljubljana, where he remained musically
active throughout his long career and even during the difficult years of the Second
World War. He studied at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, where his teachers
and mentors in composition and conducting were Lucijan Marija Škerjanc and
Danilo Švara, respectively, completing both degrees in 1948. During the Second
World War, he was held in the Italian concentration camp in Gonars (1942), and,
immediately after the war (1945), he spent three months in the Ljubljana prison
due to a violation of the cultural silence (i.e. the boycott of cultural activity
ordered by the Slovenian Liberation Front in 1941). Cigliè was apolitical before,
during and after the war; yet, in 1950, shortly after the start of the Informbiro
period, he was accused of a political offence.
In spite of several tragic events, he became a well-known conductor and
composer. His interpretations were among the first in the region to offer the
conducting of large (symphonic) works by heart; additionally, some other
conducting qualities must be highlighted: his temperament, his more than reliable
(photographic) memory and his cultured musical personality. It is therefore not
surprising that critics named him a formal advocate of the “Mataèiæ school” of
conducting in Slovenia; after all, he took leave as a kind of unplanned conducting
assistant to Maestro Lovro von Mataèiæ. Cigliè started this performing fragment
of his musical activity in Sarajevo, continuing it in Subotica, further educating
himself in Salzburg (with Lovro von Mataèiæ) and Paris (with Igor Markevitch),
and ending it very early in Ljubljana. He finished his professional music career as
a teacher of music theory (counterpoint and harmony) at the Ljubljana School of
Music and Ballet as well as at the Academy of Pedagogy (1957-73).
Cigliè started writing (piano) compositions very early. This was his point of
departure – writing works for his own performances, since from the beginning on
he had been a distinguished pianist. In his relatively long composing career
(1934-83), it was the “rise and fall” period from 1941 to 1965 that he was at his
most prolific. The works from this period include: Sinfonia appassionata
(1943-48) and Obre je plesalk (“Dancers’ Shore”, symphonic choreographic
poem, ballet; 1952). Cigliè’s most significant works (within the Slovenian as well
as the broader European context) are all in a way connected to the harp: Adagio
amoroso (for harp solo; 1948), Concertino for harp and string orchestra (with the
composer’s unique invention “suoni eolici” – aeolic tones; 1960-61; dedicated to
his father Josip), Triptih (“Triptych”) for middle voice and orchestra (1954-83),
and Sublimacija (“Sublimation”) for horn and harp (1967). Throughout his
29
