Unserious (Christmas) Variations for Saxophone Quartet

Croatian composer and conductor Mladen Tarbuk (1962) is the author of about 90 compositions ranging from chamber music to large symphonic works and works for the stage. His music has been performed in renowned contemporary music festivals. There have also been numerous releases of his works by different record companies. He has won first prizes at the Ernst Vogel and Tolosa international competitions of composers, as well as the national awards. Unserious variations is a work created at the initiative of Dragan Sremec, the leader of the Zagreb Saxophone Quartet, for their 1992 Christmas Concert. However, as it often happens, the composer did not complete the work on time and it was therefore performed on a series of other occasions. The composition was conceived as a series of peculiar variations with very different moods. As a starting point, Tarbuk used a traditional Croatian Christmas carol – Narodil nam se. The carol went through a number of mutations, from jazz idiom to the culmination achieved through a quadritonal fugue, and then the calm in the final Christmas lullaby. The work requires excellent interpreters, excellent both in technique and in ensemble playing, as well as familiarity with idioms of different styles.