Let it be drawn from the people or let what is newly created be created in the spirit of our nation.
Ljudevit Gaj
Monument of Ivan pl. Zajc in Rijeka
Ivan pl. Zajc Theatre in Rijeka
IVAN pl. ZAJC
Ivan pl. Zajc was born on August 3, 1832 in Rijeka as Ivan Dragutin Stjepan Zajc. His father was a musician and long-time conductor of the Rijeka Theatre, so Zajc grew up in a musical environment and was introduced to music from an early age. He received his first lessons from his father, and then from a local teacher. At the age of fourteen, he composed his first opera, which remained unfinished.
His father’s desire was for Ivan to study law, however, his musical talent and the persuasions of his professors broke his father’s resistance and he sent his son to the Milan Conservatory. In Milan, Zajc studied from 1850 to 1855 and received many recognitions and awards, with the culmination being the public performance of his opera La Tirolese as the best in his class in 1855.
At the end of his studies, he passed away. In the same year, both the father and mother of Zajc return to Rijeka, and he takes over his father’s duties. He becomes the conductor of the orchestra and a teacher of string instruments at the City Philharmonic Institute. The job at that time also included leading the church choir, orchestrating the necessary compositions for the orchestra, transcribing notes, and taking care of the lighting. Zajc and others. Zajc found himself in a dilemma: to continue building worldwide fame as a composer of operas and musical comedies in Vienna or to take on the difficult and responsible duty towards his homeland.
During a meeting in Vienna, Petar Preradović addressed him with the words: … Tell me, dear maestro, why do you entertain the Germans while a great cultural task awaits you here in your homeland? You must come with us to establish the Croatian opera. Our Italian temple has been defiled by foreign music, so you must awaken our people from the slumber they have fallen into after the Illyrian movement… (Excerpts about Ivan pl. Zajc, Antonija Kassowitz-Cvijić)
Scene from the opera Nikola Šubić Zrinski
Scene from the opera Nikola Šubić Zrinski
Scene from the opera Nikola Šubić Zrinski The composer wrote almost 1200 works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and piano; 19 operas, 26 operettas, stage music (for Ivan Gundulić’s Dubrovnik), the oratorio Our Father, 50 cantatas, 19 masses, 14 Ave Marias, 200 choral pieces, and 170 solo songs.
His great contribution is also the writing of educational literature that did not exist in the Croatian language. He left the most literature for singers, but also for piano and violin players; various etudes for individual voices and etudes for solving playing problems.
The speed and ease with which he created became almost proverbial, and there is often a story told about the time when a delegation from a vocal society came to Zajc with a request to write them an anthem; Zajc took the text they brought him, withdrew to his study, and appeared fifteen minutes later with the finished music.
Zajc’s entire day was devoted to work, learning, and creation. One account says that he would wake up very early, around 4 o’clock in the morning, and compose while whistling at his desk. He would have breakfast at 7 o’clock and For 8 or 9 hours, he worked with roses in the garden. At the music school, he worked from 9 to 11 and from 15 to 18, and at the theater from 11 to 14, so he didn’t have much time for lunch. After dinner, he composed until past midnight. He enjoyed working when everything is asleep. He composed without a piano and copied the scores and parts himself. As a teacher and conductor, he was always patient and calm; he was not too talkative, he listened more than he spoke.
Unlike Lisinski, he experienced performances of almost all of his works. He was knighted in 1895 for his contributions to music. He died in 1914 in his sleep at his home.
He is most interesting as an opera composer. He wrote Italian-style vocal music, influenced by Verdi, but infused with Croatian national content. His most famous operas are Mislav and Nikola Šubić Zrinski.
Mislav is a romantic historical opera whose story takes place in the 6th century in the ancestral homeland of the Croats called Great Croatia. The premiere of this opera marked the beginning of the permanent Opera of the National Theater. This is Zajc’s first opera in Croatian.
Over time, this opera falls into oblivion in the shadow of Zajc’s masterpiece, the opera Nikola Šubić Zrinski, which represents his life’s work. This opera is infused with patriotic enthusiasm, which Lisinski showed a few decades earlier. It depicts the death of one of the most prominent representatives of the old Croatian noble family Zrinski under the Hungarian city of Sziget. The libretto of the opera was written by Hugo Badalić, a young poet at the time, based on the drama Zriny by the German Romantic poet Theodor Körner.
Petar Preradović
Its popularity spreads beyond the borders of Croatia. Namely, in 1919, when the Austro-Hungarian warship, which was damaged in the war, spent two months in the Japanese port of Kobe for repairs, the members of the local male choir Kwansei Gakuin were delighted by the aria “U boj, u boj” from Zajc’s opera Nikola Šubić Zrinski, which was sung by Croatian sailors. This oldest Japanese choir continued its performance. He regularly finished, and continues to do so, precisely with Zajc’s aria, which quickly spread among Japanese male choirs. Members of Kwansei Gakuina performed with Zajc’s aria at numerous choir competitions and won a series of gold medals. The aria became one of the most popular melodies, and its origin and author in Japan were only discovered in 1972.
It is rare to find an example of an artist who has dominated the music of a nation for almost four decades, as was the case with Zajc. That is why the period of Croatian music from 1870 to 1916 is named after him. This composer, conductor, educator, and organizer created Croatian opera with a contemporary repertoire during a time of complete musical stagnation and laid the foundations for music education and further affirmation of Croatian music.