Arti musices, Vol. 51 No. 2, 2020.
Pregledni rad
https://doi.org/10.21857/moxpjhwrom
Pavao Markovac (1903-1941) – A Musical Enlightener between Two World Wars (On The 80th Anniversary of his Death)
Nataša Leverić Špoljarić
; Glazbena škola Pavla Markovca, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Sažetak
Pavao Markovac (1903-1941) was one of the most active cultural workers between the two world wars in Croatia. After acquiring a doctoral degree in musicology in Vienna in 1926 (Die Harmonik in den Werken M. P. Musorgski´s (1839-81)), he returned to Zagreb and by 1941 he developed a wide range of activities: as a music editor at the radio station, musical writer and critic, musician, composer and artistic director of several amateur ensembles within the socialist labour movement, which he joined around 1932. Markovac’s activity was always socially engaged; from a generally enlightening and didactical position, it gradually expanded to the enlightenment of the working class in accordance with his left political intentions. The article follows this path through the main areas of Markovac’s activity, scientific, radio work and journalism, composition, as well as organizational endeavours and conducting. The article brings an overview of Markovac’s life and work, and special attention is given to his musicological significance, which is, following his bibliography, marked by Marxist ideology and sociological approaches. With his work, Marko vac occupies the key position in Croatian musicology between the two World Wars. As the most important results of Markovac’s dissertation, the academician Natko Devčić points out Markovac’s overall comprehension of harmony and tonality, especially the phenomenon of blurring the tonal plans; a new approach to dissonant intervals in connection with the process of gradual emancipation of dissonance and announcement of later impressionistic harmonic procedures; and a psychologic characterization of characters and dramatic situations by means of harmonic language. As the fi rst music editor at the radio station, since the end of 1926, intensively in 1927, partly during 1928 and probably partly in 1929, Markovac enlightened his audience with selected musical programmes and renderings of music in educational broadcasts and cycles. In his radio broadcasts he laid out clear goals of musical education and thematized the issue of the democratization of music. Alongside the milestones of musical literature, he especially nourished Slavic repertoire and works of Croatian composers. His method of presentation leaned towards the overall social-historical-cultural-aesthetical-psychological interpretation. His extensive public writing, which he intensively developed between 1927 and 1941 in more than 600 articles published in various periodicals, comprises concert critiques and notes on repertoire policy, portraits of contemporary Croatian composers and reviews of their works (especially world premieres), essays, studies and treatises, and includes social, stylistic, aesthetic, ethnomusicological and themes of national identity in music. Markovac is a representative of Marxist criticism without direct predecessors in Croatia. The main theses he emphasized were: art is socially and class conditioned; music is tendentious; music as a language of emotions has to be exploited as a mean of ideological struggle; listening to music is a historically shifting category. Markovac’s special areas of interest were »social direction« in music and »music for the working class«. In his interpretations he insisted on understanding typical characteristics of musical styles and he applied Guido Adler’s relatively new methods of style-criticism. The important place Pavao Markovac occupies in Croatian musicology should be viewed including all his historical and ideological determinations, as well as his education and intellectualism.
Ključne riječi
Pavao Markovac; harmonic language; Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky; early history of radio broadcasting in Croatia; music education radio programmes; democratization of music; spreading enlightenment; Marxist criticism; socially engaged compositions
Hrčak ID:
252000
URI
Datum izdavanja:
15.12.2020.
Posjeta: 2.329 *