Vlastimir Trajković

Vlastimir Trajković (1947), for many years professor of composition, orchestration and Head of the Department (the Belgrade Faculty of Music) — now in retirement. Member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. His works for solo instruments, chamber and orchestral music are performed in Serbia and abroad both by Serbian and foreign musicians and ensembles.

Spanish Suite communicates with the world of the Iberian deep-rooted antiquity. It belongs to the ‘spiritually archeological’, archaically mythological, geo-poetical fantasies, so often encountered in my work. Somewhere in the score we read En Cádiz: Dan­­­za sagrada de los Atlantes, arribados allende el Océano, – portadores de las naranjas, man­za­nas doradas de la di­­­o­sa, – y de las Hespérides, arribadas de Tartessos (In Cádiz: Sacred Dance of the Atlanteans, who arrived from the other end of the Ocean, – bringers of oranges, golden apples of the goddess, – and of Hesperides, who came from Tartessos). In another place it is heralded Te­ne­­bro­si­­dad terrible, glacial e infi­ni­ta. Una paz coercitiva. Fado sem Fa­do (Terrible darkness, glacial and infinte. A forced peace. Fate without Fate.). Textual, not musical mentions of the author’s spiritual mentors De Falla and Ravel are also present. Paeonian feet (‘del ritmo e del metro peonio’, as noted in Italian in the score), are common to South Serbian, Central Balkan, Andalusian and Basque folklore.

All this refers to the First Movement (Canto sobre una danza lejana | Canto over a Distant Dance).

The Second Movement (Balada sobre un caballero aturdido | Ballad of a Reckless Knight) bears as motto the first stanza of Don Ramiro (1894), a ballad by Milorad Mitrović (in French translation by V. T. with respect to poetic meter and rimes followed bythe Serbian original): Don Ramiro monte à cheval / En pleine verve de jeunesse, / Son gouverneur, tout blanc, clamant : / « Mon Seigneur, mais qu’est-ce qui presse ?».

Above а section of the score it is written La muerte de Don Ramiro (The Murder of Don Ramiro).

In the Third Movement (Lamento sobre la muerte por un amor fatal | Lament on the Death Due to Fatal Love) we encounter: En el paraíso (In Paradise), then En el paraíso: « Un bal y est donné » (In Paradise: « Un bal y est donné ») and finally En el paraíso: Béatitudes (In Paradise: Béatitudes).

The First Movement was premièred by Michael Kofler and the Royal Strings of St George in the Belgrade Royal Palace in September 2013. It is dedicated to Kofler, Principal Flute of the Munich Philharmonics, an artist who played my compositions on various occasions. A CD (the flute sonatas by Prokofiev, Trajković and Poulenc, with the pianist Stephan Kief) is soon to be released in Germany by Genuine.

The Second and the Third Movement were composed in 2016. The Second is dedicated to the memory of my father Dušan. Don Ramiro was his favorite ballad. He used to recite it for me when I was little. Therefore the Suite bears subtitle Recuerdos de la infancia (Childhood Memories).
(Written in English by V. T.)