Kaleidoscope 74, a Suite for Piano

Boris Papandopulo (1906 – 1991) is one of the most distinctive Croatian musicians of the 20th century. Papandopulo also worked as music writer, journalist, reviewer, pianist and piano accompanist; however, he achieved the peaks of his career in music as a composer. His composing oeuvre is imposing – Papandopulo composed almost 500 opuses: with great success he created instrumental (orchestral, concertante, chamber and solo), vocal and instrumental (for solo voice and choir), music-stage and film music. In all these kinds and genres he left a string of anthology-piece compositions of great artistic value. Boris Papandopulo completed Kaleidoscope 74, a suite for piano in 1974. He dedicated the composition to his friend, excellent Croatian pianist and teacher, Jurica Murai, who premiered it on November 13, 1974 in Opatija's Imperial Hotel during the Yugoslav Musical Platform festival. This suite for solo piano consisting of six short, complementary movements, which are all different in character and mood. In a way, Kaleidoscope 74 is the pinnacle of Papandopulo’s creativity for piano, since the composition is a synthesis of all the composing procedures and performing techniques previously used by the composer, as well as new ones that appear in his solo piano oeuvre for the first time, such as keeping the rhythm by hitting the body (wooden parts) of the piano by hand, using clusters or glissandos on white keys (at the very beginning of the composition). We also find different style characteristics, such as the use of dodecaphonic elements – the twelve-tone series and its retrograde inversion at the beginning of the third movement (m. 1-12), 8/8 and 5/8 time originating from the identical folk rhythmic pattern, undoubtedly from Macedonian traditional music, new romantic melody with great expressive charge in the second movement or the new classically colored sixth movement with a rhythmic pattern and canon imitations that are irresistibly reminiscent of the baroque gigue dance moves. All these have been interwoven by Papandopulo into characteristically vivid and communicative music filled with energy, intense sound colors and different moods. (Davor Merkaš)