Before any kind of state recognition, for which he will for sure be nominated one day, Croatia should issue Maestro Ivan Repušić a diplomatic passport as soon as possible.

 

Repušić uses his great authority and brilliant artistic reputation, acquired in Germany, where he was appointed to the leading positions of important and prominent institutions, to promote Croatian music like few people before him. For instance, he started his term as the General Music Director of the State Opera in Hannover, that is, he opened his concert with the local ensemble with Jakov Gotovac’s Symphonic Dance. The concert given in the packed Vatroslav Lisinski Hall on Saturday, historic in many ways, showed that it hadn’t been a one-time symbolic gesture.

The Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, one of the best and most prominent orchestras in the German and global cultural metropolis, opened its concert within the Saturday at Lisinski Hall cycle under conductor Repušić with passionate commitment and very precise and persuasive performance of Natko Devčić’s Istrian Suite.  That, too, will not remain a one-time courtesy gesture to the hosts. Repušić will soon perform this brilliant work of Croatian music literature on the stage of Germany’s most prestigious temple of music, the Berlin Philharmonic Concert Hall. Repušić proved that he has matured into a great maestro in the second part, as well, with the magnificent performance of Gustav Mahler's monumental Symphony No. 1. In the encore, the German guests also moved us with Vatroslav Lisinski’s tender Symphonic Idyll.

 

Two Masterful Encores
Aljoša Jurinić was the second hero of the evening as the top-notch soloist in one of the technically most difficult and interpretatively not less demanding works of the piano literature, Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2. He responded to the rapturous ovation with two masterful encores, virtuoso performances of movements by Ravel and Schubert. It is time for a new recital at Lisinski Hall.