Renowned composer Silvio Foretić dies at 84
Silvio Foretić, Croatia's enfant terrible of contemporary music and a long-standing member of the Croatian Composers' Society, passed away yesterday at the age of 84.
His Semi-mono-opera, "semiopera semiseria", for one singer (tenor) and tape, was part of the pre-program of last year's edition of the Music Biennale Zagreb. In this piece, the author played with the idea of one of the most important classical forms - opera. The composition premiered at Music Biennale Zagreb in 1979, and in 2023, the audience had the opportunity to hear this piece of biennial heritage in a new light.
A unique artist whose curiosity, courage, and talent pushed boundaries and expanded horizons for others. He was one of the few whose integrity of artistic personality inevitably provoked strong reactions, which was always his goal - to move people through engaged art. He didn't "play by the rules"; he loved to provoke, explore, and create, and he did so at a high artistic level that consistently elicited admiration. With his sharp humor, warm nature, and beloved presence, his departure left an infinite void. However, he also left a profound legacy; his creative work remains a guide to original aspirations.
Born in Split into a family of an opera tenor, Foretić spent his childhood and youth in Sarajevo and Osijek. During his studies, he worked as a journalist, orchestral musician, ballet and opera répétiteur, operetta conductor, and as a pianist and house composer in the satirical theater Jazavac (now Kerempuh). He graduated composition at the Music Academy in Zagreb in 1965, studying during the beginnings of the Music Biennale Zagreb, founded in 1961 by his professor Milko Kelemen.
In 1963, he founded the Ensemble for Contemporary Music with Janko Jezovšek, organizing provocative concerts until 1967 aimed at opposing conventionality and institutionalism in music. He continued his studies with leading avant-garde composers at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne - composition with Bernd Alois Zimmermann and electronic music with Herbert Eimert. He attended courses with Karlheinz Stockhausen and was a collaborator and assistant to Mauricio Kagel, a renowned author of instrumental theater, participating in performances of his works. From 1974 to 2006, he taught at the Folkwang University in Essen and Duisburg. In 1982, he founded the fin de siècle - fin de millénaire ensemble, with which he organized fifty concerts of contemporary music in twelve years. He was one of the founders and longtime president of the Croatian Cultural Association Colonia croatica in Cologne. For several years, he was a member of the presidency of the Cologne Society for New Music. He was the artistic director of the Music Forum in Opatija.
In 2021, he received the Porin Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Foretić was among the first in Croatia in the 1960s to embrace avant-garde musical expressions. He applied various musical means and techniques of the 20th century, using traditional elements as well as trivial ones, merging them according to his own discretion and necessity in his musical work. Particularly inclined to visual action, he created a specific form of instrumental theater, often participating himself in the realizations of his own compositions as a pianist, singer, or conductor. His compositions often rely on his own texts, expressing an ironic-critical attitude towards anomalies in contemporary musical life or addressing current universal issues such as ecological disasters and wars. "His complex artistic physiognomy in which the composer complements the versatile performer and lyricist clarifies the relationship between care and joy in a clearly recognizable way: Joy is indeed a reaction to care, but as a consciously opposing force. Hence, in joy, in the humor that permeates Foretić's music, there is a sour taste of reality to which he engagedly mocks," wrote his friend, academician Nikša Gligo, about twenty years ago. We hope they are now resting together. We extend our heartfelt condolences to the family, and details regarding the final farewell will be provided in due course.
Photo: glazba.hr/ Matej Grgić