Voices of earthmen (1995) by Vladan Radovanović: A review

Abstract

This paper discusses the compositional technique and the poetic level of the composition Glasovi Zemljana (Voices of Earthmen) composed by Vladan Radovanović in 1995. The work is based on the composer’s own musical principle, which he called hyperpoliphony, established in his early work Polyphony No. 9, and applied in his entire musical opus to date. The composition contains three movements, although the disposition of each section implies integration at a higher level of its structure, enabling us to interpret this work as an organic, textually unified three-part whole. Even though so-called hyperpolyphony creates and pervades the whole composition, this music is not the outcome of some rigid system. It breathes and it has its own ′warm′ and even 'confessing' sections, especially in the unexpected instrumental and vocal 'solo-episodes'. Although this work was composed in an age of musical postmodernism, and shows a very strong imprint of musical expressionism, its atonality and very specific modernist musical technique define it as a modernist work, which places it in the huge trajectory of musical modernism of the second half of the twentieth century.

Kratka studija posvećena kompoziciji Glasovi Zemljana za mešoviti hor i orkestar Vladana Radovanovića, razmatra kompoziciono-tehničku i poetičku ravan ovog dela u kontekstu muzike visokog i kasnog modernizma. Kao i mnoga dela ovog kompozitora koja su joj prethodila, razmatrana kompozicija je izgrađena na principu Radovanovićeve hiperpolifonije kao svojevrsnog kompozitorovog muzičkog modusa menti. Ova kompozicija nedvosmisleno pripada korpusu muzičkog modernizma druge polovine 20. veka. To se očituje u njenom muzičkom jeziku, kompozicionoj tehnici i fizionomiji muzičkog materijala koji je izgrađuje. Najznačajniji iskorak koji ovo delo ostvaruje u odnosu na rigidne postulate visokog i kasnog muzičkog modernizma, ogleda se u prisustvu autentične ekspresije koja je proizvela njegovo poetičko središte.