The Logic of Dreams

Kajana Pačko & Danijel Detoni

Kaija and Anssi moved to Paris in the 1980s. Along with first impressions and experiences of living in a new country, they would often talk about music. A joint collaboration soon followed.

Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho was one of the most important contemporary composers, known for her innovative fusion of acoustic and electronic music and expressive, textural compositions. Sept Papillons is dedicated to cellist Anssi Karttunen, one of the most famous Finnish musicians and a longtime friend of Kaija Saariaho. She composed these seven miniatures after and during rehearsals for the opera L'Amour de loin. In contrast to the themes in the opera that explore eternal love and death, Kaija turns to the butterfly as a symbol of ephemerality.

Dubravko Detoni is an award-winning composer, writer, and musician. In 1971, he founded the first specialised ensemble devoted to contemporary music in Croatia, the Ensemble of the Center for New Tendencies Zagreb (ACEZANTEZ). In Assonance 1, Dubravko Detoni explores the overtones, echoes, and the reaction of silence to interrupted sounding, as well as the relationship between unsynchronised, incomplete lines that complement each other through their dissonance. Although the score is fixed, different tonal and noise possibilities give the impression of freedom of improvisation. A dozen different parts of the composition fit effortlessly into a whole, discovering new possibilities and the limits of instrumental virtuosity.

Kaija wrote Ballade at the behest of pianist Emanuel Ax, who wanted a composition precisely of that title. She said that: “In this short piece, I wanted to create a melody that emerges from the texture and then descends into it again, a piece constantly oscillating between a complex, multi-layered texture, to focused, simple lines, and back again.”

Croatian composer Tibor Szirovicza collaborates with ensembles and artists on multimedia, film, dance and theatre projects. He is the artistic director of the Music Forum of the Croatian Composers’ Society and teaches at the Zagreb Academy of Music. He composed the piece Alchemist for the 2017 Osor Music Evenings, dedicating it to Monika Leskovar. After the introductory segment juxtaposing different extended string techniques, the electronic background gradually comes to the fore and assumes a more active role, building on the sound of the cello with artificial sounds and effects. The result is a sonic space in which the acoustic and electronic intertwine, creating the illusion of opposition between “dry” and spatially augmented sounds. This interplay of contrasts evokes the alchemical process of transformation, erasing the boundaries between the real and the surreal.

Vjekoslav Nježić is a Croatian composer, pedagogue and music producer, and a key figure of electronic composition in Croatia. He studied at the Academy of Music in Zagreb, where he now teaches. His works do not adhere to a specific style, but rather explore binary relationships between live instruments and electronics, both in terms of structure and theme. What if Penderecki had come after all? As a young student of composition, Vjekoslav participated in an International Workshop for Young Composers in Poland, where he awaited the arrival of this champion of contemporary music. However, Penderecki did not arrive, and Vjekoslav realised that they missed him as much as he missed them. That moment shaped his view of music, while lecturers such as Jack Body and Peter Michael Hamel had an even greater effect on him. Upon his return to Zagreb, he began composing the piece As the time….

Im traume commingles two textures: the more stable harmonic foundations and elements that constantly change colours and textures. The interplay of sound and noise produces melodies, bigger structures and phrases that define the dynamics of the piece. More abstractly, the noise becomes dissonance, while smoother sounds become consonance. Inspired by the music of Finnish composer Erik Bergman, the composition attempts, in Kaija’s words, to “capture the logic of dreams”.

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Cellist Kajana Pačko and pianist Danijel Detoni have been playing music together for over 10 years. Kajana was born in Split, and studied in Zagreb, Berlin and Salzburg. She teaches at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theater in Leipzig. She is a member of the Gewandhaus orchestra and the artistic director of the ZAGREBplus festival. Danijel started his musical education in Zagreb and went on to study in Budapest and Paris. He teaches piano and chamber music at the Academy of Music in Zagreb.

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Kajana Pačko, cello
Danijel Detoni, piano

Kaija Saariaho: Sept papillons, za violončelo

Dubravko Detoni: Assonance 1, za violončelo i klavir

Kaija Saariaho: Balada, za klavir

Tibor Szirovicza: Alchemist, za violončelo i elektroniku

Vjekoslav Nježić: As the Time, za klavir

Kaija Saariaho: Im Traume, za violončelo i klavir