Bratislav Petković (b. Niš, 1968) graduated from the Department of composition at the Faculty of music in Belgrade, where he studied with professor Zoran Erić. He attended masterclasses of Julio F. Largacha, the distinguished Argentine piano professor, at the Osnabrück University and University of Cologne (Germany).

Petković’s music is always imbued with authentic spirituality, but also with exquisite rhythmic diversity. He composes works for various ensembles, vocal and instrumental music. His piece Urobor – Variations for string orchestra is particularly praised, and it was performed regularly by the St. George Strings as a part of their concert repertoire. Hiw works were performed at important contemporary music concerts (at the International Review of Composers, BEMUS and NIMUS festivals, at the Kolarac Foundation Hall, etc.). As a piano soloist, he has performed his improvisations and pieces inspired by jazz, spiritual and nonprofane-ambiental music, in Serbia, the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy. He is also active as a composer of incidental music.

About the piece

„God does not do
Anything with a man
Without the man.”
(Archimandrite Sofronije – To see God as he is)

The source of inspiration and subject of my piece is Phenuil – God’s fight for a man, but also a man’s eternal fight with God, and it represents simply an attempt to interpret artistically the event of Jacob’s Wrestling which is described in the Old Testament. Although the structure of my music is highly influenced by the Biblical anthropologic and eschatological symbols, I don’t think that I should necessarily ’inform’ the listener about the Path that I am over time gradually walking, discovering and believing. Similarly to Stravinsky’s claims that “music is incapable of expressing anything but itself” (The Poetics of Music), and that music is a “fact in itself, regardless of what it might suggest” (Moje shvatanje muzike [My Understanding of Music]), I think that music is the effect of the tones themselves which do not support anything planted. Any extramusical story, to say the least, separates us from its essence. Music has or has not effect.

Dedicated to my brother.