"Dominosa FF00FF is the second of five pieces in which domino principle is used to create a strict formal frame which holds together one from another in regard to content completely unconnected frazzles of sound. None of them gets a chance for a significant autonomous development, their life resembling that of the information in the mind of an average resident of the media-flooded world. Although they don't manage to grow to their full potential, they nevertheless have a tremendous impact on the anatomy of the whole.

Although it can have a programmatic function, the text served primarily as a source of rhythmic and melodic material used in the composition. 
The piece was originally composed for saxophone and ensemble, and rearranged for croatian Cantus Ansambl later the same year. " (Mirela Ivičević)

Line up: fl, ob, bcl (alternatively alto sax), bsn, perc, pno, vn, vn, vla, vc, cb

Programme notes:
Dominosa FF00FF
(Zagreb edition)
Welcome to the witches’ house!
There’s something evil..,
Or good..,
Depends on how you look at it
Black / white, black / white,
Black /white,
Violet!
Hahaha...
Aestilomariyokaroliaebriloava
Zzzzzzzzzzzzz z z z z
I left my soul in the violet see!
Und der Fibonacci?
112123123451234567812345678910111213
Damn you contemporary art!
?%?
Depends on how you look at it
A dream of a composer. Confused, yet not unorganized, as it is, after all – a dream of a composer. Nightmare, partially - the witch is terrifying but has nice.............(fill in according to your own preferences.) She reads composer’s thoughts and turns them into music, putting them together according to the simple domino game principle: in „time bones“, each divided in two fields, she puts music situations, and connects the bones in the way that the open field of one bone is similar to the subsequent field of the following bone. The composer can´t influence the development of the dream, and the instruments/sounds are excluded from the principle only when the witch decides to speak through them herself. The piece was originally written for somewhat different ensemble Splithesis in March 2008, and afterwards arranged specially for Cantus ensemble.

Mirela Ivičević, Dominosa FF00FF

The possibility of this kind of fourteen instrumentalists ensemble to create numerous colours of different sound registers and instrumental groups, from solos and details to the complex tutti sound“ – as the author wrote – „seems magical to me. In a three movement form, I tried to make a new step in unifying intuitive, abstract and „visual“ musical ideas with the adequate structures of tone and rhythm. The material in its entirety is a result of algorythmic process which I develop using IRCAM's computer program MAX for the last 17 years. The title (I won't forget you) addresses many friendships, acquaintances and meetings with the people from different cultures and nationalities in cosmopolic Amsterdam, which were unforgettable to me.
The piece was written on the encouragement of the MBZ and it's dedicated to Cantus Ensemble, who made new and significant steps in promotion and performance quality of the contemporary music in Croatia.“

Srđan Dedić: Ich vergesse Dich nicht, for chamber ensemble

The composition dolce furioso for chamber orchestra was written in 2003. Its first performance was later that year, on 8th of April, as a part of the Music Biennale Zagreb. Martyn Brabbins conducted the british ensemble London Sinfonietta. On that occasion, the composer himself wrote about the piece: „As the title says, the idea of the piece is continous and persistant balancing of rough and smooth, dark and light, „male“ and „female“ segments, which in a certain way vary the classical motivic-thematic principle of confronting the two extremes, as a ground for vivacity and tension of musical happening. In twenty connected numbers the confrontation of two extreme structures goes on in a similar way, at first, but always differently – from a few shimmering explosions, rough, almost disfigured march paraphrase, intentionally subverted quote from the author's earlier jazz part, an attempt to reach the eternal melody which climbs up to infinity (and then takes the same time to fall down) to polimetric and politonal „furious“ fragments that always find resonance in their own, seemingly calm, lyrical echo.“

dolce furioso, for chamber ensemble

Performed by Cantus Ensemble, on February 4, 2008, at the Vatroslav Lisinski Hall in Zagreb, Croatia. Conducted by Johannes Kalitzke

Anton Webern's Concerto for Nine Instruments, Op. 24 (German, Konzert für neun Instrumente, op. 24, 1934) is a twelve-tone concerto for nine instruments: flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, trumpet, trombone, violin, viola, and piano; containing three movements: I. Etwas lebhaft, II. Sehr langsam, and III. Sehr rasch
"a work of incredible conciseness . . . and of unique concentration . . . . Although I did not understand the work completely, I had the feeling of finding an aesthetic and stylistic unity as great as I could wish for." [Luigi Dallapicolla, Prague, September 5, 1935]

Anton Webern: Concerto for 9 instruments, op.24

Performance: Dunja Vejzović & Cantus Ansambl, conductor: Berislav Šipuš
recorded live at the concert "Silazak na vrh", on November 12, 2007 at the Vatroslav Lisinski Hall in Zagreb, Croatia.

Arrangemen of the Lied der Waldtaube from Gurrelieder for mezzosoprano and chamber ensemble was done by the composer himself, more than a decade after having finished orchestration of Gurrelieder. It was first performed (in this arr.) in 1923, in Copenhagen.

Arnold Schönberg: Lied der Waldtaube, for mezzosoprano and chamber ensemble

The quartet Prudent Views of My Love Passing by the Season (1991) is part of the circle of quartets under the name KWARTETI '91. by four Croatian composers, professors at the Academy of Music in Zagreb that wanted to respond to the unspeakable war situation in Croatia. They were inspired with Messiaen's Quatour pour la fin du temps. The composition Prudent Views of My Love Passing by the Season was originally conceived as three separate movements, and it was only later that the composer interwined them up to a point, inspired by the notion of dislocation and imitating technical procedures of the cutting – room. The inspired musical harmony of the piece is characterized by a relatively sparing use of the instruments, which, during their solo – promenades or in accidental close encounters within longer sections, appear as a string duet caught in the act, a lonely piano passer – by, or a clarinet that has lost its way. All the instruments meet in common cause only in brief introduction and interludes.

Marko Ruzdjak: Prudent Views of My Love Passing by the Season

2+12, for viola, cello and chamber ensemble (1976) is written for an ensemble structured in several groups with two solo instruments that have a double role in the piece - they are a part of the group "play" and at the same time they initiate and continue the sound happening.Their treatment represents a kind of adaptation of certain folklore archetypes where the soloists "interprete" the sound phisionomy of the group, whilst defining the time and space relations through their initiating role. (I.K.)

Igor Kuljerić: 2+12 for viola, cello and chamber ensemble

Stanko Horvat - Silazak Na Vrh

performers:
Branko Mihanović, oboe
Dian Tchobanov, conductor
Cantus Ansambl

„In between za obou, ansambl i elektroniku pronalazi svoj izvor u baroknoj artikulaciji i stilskim značajkama te ih transformira u suvremeni glazbeni izričaj. Monotematski materijal predstavljen kroz engleski rog i obou razvija se kroz kompoziciju suprotstavljajući se pulsirajućim harmonijskim blokovima ostalih instrumentalnih grupa, dok elektronička traka ima ulogu sinteze različitih dijelova. Mehaničko, ritmično i gotovo opsesivno ponavljanje tonova i struktura koje započinju čembalo i gudački instrumenti postupno se širi na cijeli ansambl, posljedično se reflektirajući i na solista (...) Intenzivirajuća opsesija dovodi do kaosa u sustavu, zatim fokusiranog raščišćavanja situacije, naposljetku i do svojevrsnog iscjeljenja. U konačnici preživljava izvorni osjećaj, iskrenost i predanost sjedinjenju. Tako in between predstavlja proces koji se odvija "između" dvaju stanja svijesti. (...) Krajnji je cilj utkan u srž emocionalnog bića, jasan, ali još uvijek u daljini i nedostupan. Kompozicija je narudžba Cantus Ansambla kojem je istom i posvećena, kao i njihovom oboistu - solistu Branku Mihanoviću.“
Tibor Szirovicza

Tibor Szirovicza: In Between

Dubravko Detoni, Noć između srijede i petka (The Night between Wednesday and Friday)

Vinko Globokar, Kaleidoskop im Nebel

"Cantus is also... a desire to approach the contemporary music with high performing and professional criteria; a desire to discover the New and the Unknown; the one that brought us all together. We want this Journey that is about to begin to be as interesting as possible, that it lasts as long as possible and that it is always filled with Curiosity and Wonder..."
- Berislav Šipuš in 2001, the year when the Cantus Ensemble was founded

For almost fifteen years contemporary music in Croatia, both the one by Croatian composers and the one by the forerunners in the international arena, has largely lived through the activities of the Cantus Ensemble that has been established with the aim to explore, discover and introduce new and unchartered musical spheres.  Soon after the leadership of the Music Biennale Zagreb, led by Berislav Šipuš, formed the ensemble in 2001, it established its own place and became a representative participant on the Croatian contemporary music scene. They are protagonists of all national festivals and manifestations, as well as the host of its own concert cycle since 2006. In 2008, Cantus became the official ensemble of the ISCM World Music Days in Vilnius after which their guest performances intensified. The high position of the Cantus Ensemble within the Croatian, as well as international context is indicated by the number of around 100 first performances, more than 500 performed opuses and more than 40 guest performances abroad (most of the countries in Europe, Mexico, Canada and China), as well as numerous guest soloists and conductors. They nurture an intensive cooperation with a number of prominent contemporary music ensembles and they took part in EU funded international projects Re: New Music and New Music: New Audiences.
One of the most important aspects of the Ensemble's work are also guest performances at the leading festivals of contemporary music around the world. It is therefore no accident that they selected their national and international interpretations for the new triple CD, directing thus attention to the importance of the moment in the process of realization of a contemporary music work.

Cantus Ansambl

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