Songs for Voice and Piano

Blagoje Bersa (1873 – 1934) is one of the most important Croatian musical composers and teachers. He studied in Zagreb with Ivan Zajc and at the Vienna Conservatory with Robert Fuchs and Julius Epstein. In 1919 he returned to Zagreb, where he worked as a composition teacher at the Music academy. He remained there until his death. „In the solo songs we meet Bersa as a pronounced Romantic, whose language had been formed by the various currents of this style in music. First of all this was the cantabile Italian melody, then the various masters of German Romanticism and the relaxed music of Vienna, and in later works the simplicity of folk art. The softness of the melodic line of Bersa’s solo songs sometimes recalls Schubert, under the influence of whom several pages of dramatic excitement were also created. Over the course of time Bersa’s melody became increasingly original and simple, and in essence he remained a romantic, the main feature of whom was the beauty of the lyric.“ (Marija Kuntarić, Blagoje Bersa, JAZU 1959.)