What was the connection between Lovro von Matacic, the Croatian conductor and composer, and Latvia?

He studied or was taught privately by prominent teachers and, apparently, received a brilliant education as a pianist, conductor, and composer. His composition “Fantasia Tönkünstler” was played by the orchestra in Vienna when the author was only 16 years old. At the age of 17, he was already an accompanist at the Cologne Opera. He started his career as a conductor at the age of 20. From 1922, already a contract with the Laibach (today Ljubljana in Slovenia) opera. The beginning just like Mahler, who also started in Laibach – only 40 years earlier.

In the continuation, we also come to Latvia, where Matačičs visited more than once in the 1930s. Including the Jūrmala summer concerts with the Radio Symphony Orchestra, and won the sympathy of not only the audience, but also the orchestra. At the end of the 1931 season, the orchestra even gave him a gold watch in memory of his good cooperation! He has played more than one piece of Latvian music. Among them, the most notable event could be the performance of Jānis Ivanov’s Symphony No. 1 in 1935. Although reserved, because it was not “stylish” to be proud of Matacic’s name in Soviet times, Ivanov remembered it with pride – and one might even say excitement – in private conversations. It is also important that Matacic played this symphony in Zagreb and Belgrade.

In the 1930s, his career was only on an upward curve. Concerts with the Berlin and Warsaw Philharmonics, operas in Paris, Vienna and Belgrade, where he was also a director.

In 1941, with the establishment of the Ustaše Croatian Republic, Matačić was appointed as the Chief Marshal of the National Guard in the rank of lieutenant colonel. However, concert activity also continued during the war in both Vienna and Berlin. At the end of the war, in 1945, for being on the “wrong” side, Tito’s government sentenced him to death, which was, however, commuted to five years in prison. His career as a conductor did not stop in prison either, as he conducted the convicted orchestra there. In 1946, thanks to his wife’s persistent and active actions, he was pardoned, however, his international career could continue only after 1954, when his citizenship rights were also restored and he received a passport.

And here follows another link with the Latvians. In the performance of Wagner’s opera “Rienci” directed by Lovro Matačič in Stuttgart in 1957, the main female role is sung by the outstanding Latvian singer Paula Brīvkalne.

The subsequent life could be called one brilliant series of successes, the crowning of which is the hour-long symphony for two pianos, strings and percussion instruments “Confrontations” written at the end of his life (1977).

The rich and adventurous life ended in 1985.

Report a bug