4 OP T IONS TO

Žebeljan also regularly performed as a musical performer (conductor and pianist) of not only her own works, but also works of others, primarily Serbian composers (Ljubica Marić, Ludmila Frajt, Dušan Radić, Vasilije Mokranjac, Aleksandar Obradović). She conducted, among others, concerts in London (with The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields at Wigmore Hall) and in Amsterdam (at the Great Hall of the Muziekgebouw). As a pianist, she performed and recorded with the Brodsky Quartet.

Isidora Žebeljan studied composition at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade with Vlastimir Trajković. In 2002, she was named a composition professor at the same faculty, as the first female composition professor in Serbia. In 2006, she was elected a member of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, as the youngest member (since 2012, a regular member), and in 2012 she was elected a member of the World Academy for Art and Science. Isidora Žebeljan was also the first Balkan winner of the prize of the Parliament of the Mediterranean Countries for Artistic Achievements in 2014.

The Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences announced Isidora Žebeljan died at the age of 54, after a long illness.

BÉLA BARTÓK (1881-1945)

Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist

Béla Bartók was born in the town of Nagyszentmiklós to amateur musical parents. His mother was his first teacher and Bartók began concertizing at the age of 11. By the age of 13 he was taking lessons from one of Hungary’s best-known operatic composers and in 1899 he became a student at the Royal Academy of Music in Budapest. His composition teacher at the Academy was a friend of Brahms, so it is no wonder that Bartók’s early compositions show the influence of that composer as well as Wagner, Liszt and Richard Strauss. By the turn of the century, Bartók was gaining quite a reputation even outside of Hungary as a pianist and subsequently was appointed as an instructor at the Royal Academy in 1903. It was in 1905 that he first became intensely interested in Hungarian folk music thanks to fellow composer, Zoltan Kodaly.

These folk elements would permeate his compositions for the rest of his life and influence his use of chromaticism and dissonance. Bartók’s use of side by side diatonic and chromatic harmonies are one of his greatest contributions to 20th century composition. Bartók and Kodaly would go on to travel and compile collections of Hungarian folk music, and for Bartók the interest in folk idioms also spread geographically to such areas as Transylvania, Romania and even North Africa.

The 1920’s and 30’s found Bartók touring as a performer all over Europe. He also had quite a catalogue of important compositions to his name, including the Violin Concerto No. 2. A vocal anti-fascist, once the Nazis came into power things changed. Works such as his ballet The Miraculous Mandarin were banned and the demand for his talents diminished. Bartók and his wife immigrated to the United States in 1940 while on tour here. Unfortunately, his health was beginning to fail. Bartók’s music was lesser known in this country and commissions to supplement his income were few and far between.

He gained a teaching position at Columbia University as an ethnomusicologist, but even that did not give him much financial security. In 1943, the composer had a breakthrough in this country.

Serge Koussevitzky, longtime conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, commissioned a Concerto for Orchestra which is still one of the composer’s most well-known and beloved works.

Béla Bartók died at the age of 64 from complications of leukemia in New York City. He is widely considered one of the most significant composers of the 20th century.

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873-1943)

Sergei Rachmaninoff is perhaps one of the best-known composers of the 20th century, with his music increasingly programmed, performed, and recorded in the last 50 - 60 years. Known for his gift for crafting beautiful melodies, opulent harmonies, and orchestrations rich in colors, audiences still revel in performances of, especially, his works for orchestra and piano. And little wonder these are compositions of note, as Rachmaninoff is widely considered to be one of the greatest pianists of the last century.

He was born on his aristocratic family’s estate near the Russian village of Semyonovo, into a musical family. Rachmaninoff began playing the piano at age 4. By the time he was 9, financial problems had forced the family to sell their estate and move to St. Petersburg, perhaps fortuitous for the young Rachmaninoff because he now had access to some of the teachers at the Conservatory there. He went on to study piano and composition at the Moscow Conservatory (even making a connection with Tchaikovsky) and graduated with degrees in piano and composition in 1891 and 1892, respectively.

Early on, Rachmaninoff had an unfortunate experience with the reception of one of his compositions which affected his confidence and his emotional state deeply for quite some time. The premiere of his Symphony No. 1 took place in Moscow in 1897 under the baton of Alexander Glazunov. The reception by critics (especially critic and composer Cesar Cui who likened it to the seven plagues of Egypt) and the audience was disastrous. Glazunov truncated the rehearsal time for the piece and by several accounts was drunk while conducting. Deeply depressed and disturbed that he had not had a satisfactory hearing himself of his work, Rachmaninoff took up private teaching. Not finding that to his liking, in 1899 he set out on a series of performance tours to great success.

Thus began a lifelong struggle for balance between performing and composing. Two of his best-known pieces, Piano Concerto No. 2 and his Second Symphony were composed between 1900-1908, the latter while he and his family were living in Dresden to escape the climate of the Russian Revolution of 1905. In 19091910 he embarked on an extended tour of the United States with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, His Piano Concerto No. 3 (Rach 3 as it is now known) was composed upon his return to Russia in 1910. In 1914 a very successful tour of England followed.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 convinced Rachmaninoff that he no longer wished to reside in Russia and so he and his family spent the remainder of his life in Switzerland and the United States. Most of the last 25 years of his life were spent concertizing, with limited composing. Notable exceptions in this period are his Symphony No. 3 and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

In the early 1940s, Rachmaninoff and his wife relocated to Beverly Hills for the more favorable climate suggested by his doctor. His last concert took place on February 7, 1943 at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He died on March 28th, four days before his 70th birthday at his home in Beverly Hills.

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