Third Symphony

The score of the recently rediscovered monumental, dramatic and stirring Third Symphony of Josip Mandić – that still too little known brilliant Croatian composer who lived in Trieste and Prague – will in this publication meet the world for the first time. Mandić destroyed the version of the work completed in 1932 and called the Tragic Symphony and upon its foundations built a new and majestic symphonic work that did not see the light of day in its definitive version until 1953. It is impossible to deny Mandić command of his craft, richness of invention and a sovereign mastery of musical form. His musical language, save in the third movement, perhaps, which is still a special mixture of styles, is not completely original, drawing on Romantic models, which comes out in particular in the last movement. The manner in which in the work Mandić employs, above all, the brass, and the physiognomy of the themes, the monumentality of the strokes and the lengths of the movements, and of course the harmonic expression, calls to mind the symphonic movements of Bruckner. Taking it all in all, Mandić’s musical language harks back to that of the 19th century, particularly of the Romantic period, but in his speciously eclectic idiom when listening carefully one can note the influences of contemporary trends as well as entirely original authorly touches. By reason of its imposing and uncommon musical architecture (two movement are composed as original cycles of variations), Mandić’s Third Symphony is unique in Croatian symphony writing of the first half of the 20th century and as “a discovery” stands side by side with similar works of the leading Croatian symphony writers.