Request
Any [Keyboard] Music (especially his great Piano Concerto No. 3 )**
i.e.
http://youtu.be/3EGMi42MO7Q
Recording Date
1961-11-20_1961-11-21
Recording Location:
Dvorák Hall in the Rudolfinum, Prague, Czech Republic
**Note- His Piano Sonata No 2 ("Elegie disharmonique") and Variations on a Theme of Brahms (c/p Praha 1926 x 2, Czechoslovakia ) are available here
http://en.scorser.com/S/Sheet+music/jirko/-1/1.html
any links to other sources of downloadable scores in addition to posting of scans (unique) for the PP archive would be most appreciated!
*source of biography - Oxford University Press - Oxford Music Online
Subscription Database - Grove Music Dictionary Online:
Ivan Jirko
Ivan Jirko Photo.jpg
*
(b Prague, 7 Oct 1926; d Prague, 20 Aug 1978). Czech composer and critic. He read medicine at Prague University, concurrently studying composition with Karel Janeček (1944–9) and Bořkovec (1949–52). He worked as a psychiatrist from 1951 to 1971, and was also a music critic for Prague newspapers. From 1974 to 1978 he was lecturer at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts; from 1976 he was opera dramaturg at the National Theatre. Jirko was secretary of the Přítomnost association for contemporary music and a committee member of the Union of Czech and Czechoslovak Composers. His articles in Tempo, Rytmus and Hudební rozhledy deal principally with the aesthetics of musical socialist realism.
For more than 25 years Jirko worked at creating a highly individual musical expression rooted in neo-classicism. His music is cast in extended forms that follow examples of Shostakovich and Bořkovec, but it also shows melodic influences from Czech folksong. The vocabulary of his music is predominantly tonal, in the broadest sense of the term, while his settings are concise and formally well-founded. Many works convey a sense of brightness and optimism.
Bibliography
GroveO (H. Havlíková)
I. Jirko: ‘Krása a harmonie v díle W.A. Mozarta’ [Beauty and balance in Mozart’s music], HRo, ix (1957), 17–26
B. Karásek: ‘3. koncert pro klavír a orchestr G-dur Ivana Jirko’, HRo, xvi (1963), 733 only
P. Zapletal: ‘O životě a hudbě s Ivanem Jirko’ [Life and works of Jirko], HRo, xxvii (1974), 229–3 [interview]
Z. Candra: ‘Mnohotvárný jednolity svět skladatelův’, HRo, xxx (1977), 456–61
V. Pospíšil: ‘Odešel Ivan Jirko’, HRo, xxxi (1978), 385–6 [obituary]
Oldřich Pukl/Jan Ledeč
Works
(selective list)
Vocal: Večer třikrálový [Twelfth Night] (op, 3, Jirko, after W. Shakespeare), 1964; Podivuhodné dobrodružství Arthura Rowa [The Wonderful Adventure of Arthur Rowe] (op, 3, Jirko, after G. Greene: The Ministry of Fear), 1968, rev. as Návrat [The Return]; Requiem (Florian, liturgy, Jirko), S, A, T, Bar, B, chorus, orch, 1970; Děvka [The Strumpet] (op divertimento, Jirko, after C. Zavattini), 1970; Milionářka [The Millionairess] (op divertimento, Jirko, after Zavattini), 1970
Orch: Sym. no.1, 1956–7; Pf Conc. no.3, 1957–8; Sym. no.2 ‘Rok 1945’ [The Year 1945], 1961–2; Capriccio all’antico, after J.W. von Goethe: Faust: Walpurgisnacht, 1971; Fl Conc., 1973; Sym. no.3, 1976–7
Chbr and solo inst: Sonata, vc, pf, 1954; Pf Sonata, 1956; Suite, wind qnt, 1956; Str Qt no.2, 1962; Serenata giocosa, vn, gui, 1967; Sonata, 14 wind, timp, 1968; Str Qt no.4, 1969; 5 Preludes, pf, 1970; Serenata a due tempi, ob qt/9 insts, 1970; Str Qt no.5 ‘à la Viennoise’, 1970; Vivat Verdi!, fl, ob, cl, bn, 1969; Giuochi per 3, vn, va, vc, 1970; Pf Sonata no.2 ‘Elégie disharmonique’, 1970; Partita, vn 1973; Str Qt no.6, 1974; Pf Qnt, 1977–8
2nd Bio from Grove/Oxford:
Jirko, Ivan
(b Prague, 7 Oct 1926; d Dobříš, 20 Aug 1978). Czech composer. He read medicine at Prague University, at the same time studying composition with Karel Janeček (1944–9) and Pavel Bořkovec (1949–52). He worked as a psychiatrist from 1951 to 1977, and was also a music critic for Prague newspapers. From 1974 to 1978 he was a lecturer at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts; from 1976 to 1978 he was opera dramaturg at the National Theatre.
Jirko’s music is characterized by its neo-classical stylistic orientation. Mozart was his ideal, and works such as the Piano Concerto no. 3 and the Trumpet Concerto have a
Mozartian spontaneity of expression. Though he also wrote much programme music, he held opera to be the supreme art form and felt ready to attempt the genre only after he had been composing for more than 15 years. All four of his operas are to his own librettos. Večer tříkrálový (‘Twelfth Night’) is a neo-classical Singspiel, with arioso passages, recitatives and spoken dialogue, and shows Jirko to have had a definite theatrical flair. It is a musical symbiosis of lyric poetry and plebeian humour, focussing attention firmly on the voice through clarity of declamation and sparse orchestral textures. Podivuhodné dobrodružství Arthura Rowa (‘The Wonderful Adventure of Arthur Rowe’) is more dramatic, with its rapidly changing mini-scenes (similar to film ‘takes’), economy of expression and theatrical verve. The two one-act chamber operas Milionářka (‘The Millionairess’) and Děvka (‘The Strumpet’) bear all the hallmarks of their source of inspiration, the cinematic style of Cesare Zavattini; these are pieces of musical ‘reportage’, with a rapid dramatic pace and a parlando delivery, on the empty life of the rich and on social inequality.
Bibliography
ČSHS
B. Karásek: ‘Pokus o operní komedii’ [An Attempt at an Operatic Comedy], HRo, xx (1967), 206–7
V. Pospíšil: ‘Greenovo “divertimento” jako opera’ [Greene’s ‘Divertimento’ as Opera], HRo, xxii (1969), 656
P. Zapletal: ‘O životě a hudbě s Ivanem Jirko’ [Life and Music with Ivan Jirko], HRo, xxvii (1974), 229–33
H. Vojtěchová: ‘Na okraj operní tvorby I. Jirko’ [On the Edge of Jirko’s Operatic Output], HRo, xxxii (1979), 271–8
Helena Havlíková
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