Boris Papandopulo - Piano Concerto No. 3; Violin Concerto (Oliver Triendl; Dan Zhu)

Information

Composer: Boris Papandopulo

• Piano Concerto No. 3
• Violin Concerto

Oliver Triendl, piano

Dan Zhu, violin

Rijeka Opera Symphony Orchestra

Ville Matvejeff, conductor

Date: 2017

Label: CPO

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Review

Papandopulo’s father was a Russian aristocrat whose name discloses his Greek ancestry, whilst his mother was a famous Croatian singer, Maja Strozzi, admired by Thomas Mann for possessing what he called ‘perhaps the most beautiful soprano voice of our time’. His family was profoundly cultured and steeped in the artistic milieu of Croatian creative life. His music is tremendously exciting and invigorating and draws on a wide corpus of influences, as the two concertos show.

One of his most devoted contemporary exponents on disc has been Oliver Triendl, one of the world’s hardest working and yet under-appreciated recording artists. The 1959 Piano Concerto No.3 opens with some insinuating impressionist elements but these are soon dismissed in a welter of lilting melodies played first orchestrally and then extrapolated by the garrulous soloist. The ethos is droll, the mood filmic, with giocoso freedom pervasive. There is much made of the mock-brass attacks, the opening movement ending with the solo piano reflecting on earlier material. The central slow movement’s lyric poetry and generous warmth is interrupted on occasion by Gershwinesque paragraphs, though perhaps the model was the similar central movement in Ravel’s Concerto. With a Boogie start, the finale ensures the concerto continues to cover stylistic bases – there’s some more Gershwin in the solo passages – which makes the rather madcap cadenza all the more acceptable, as well as the very brash final furlong. This headlong, whimsical, pan-stylistic concerto has a great deal of heat and attractive, if necessarily derivative features. It’s a bizarre joy to listen to.

The companion concerto is very different. For one thing it was completed in 1943. It’s a much bigger structure, though once again crafted in thee movements, full of texture and colour. It opens with a threnodic hymnal introduction and introduces a quasi-cadential passage for the soloist, whose throaty tone down in the lower strings is balanced by fluty upper voicings. There’s some lovely contrapuntal writing for the winds and a vein of deep nostalgia running throughout over the extended span, as well as orchestral grandeur. The slow movement is a sweetly gentle fantasy on a Croatian song – beautiful, softly textured, the orchestra supplying a supportive tissue for the fiddle’s spinning lied and its elfin, almost otherworldly elegies. The buoyant folk-inclined finale is bright and exciting.

These concertos are full of infectious rhythmic brio and exciting melodic and lyric panache. They have outstanding advocates in Triendl, Dan Zhu and the ever-perceptive marshalling hand of Ville Matvejeff, whose orchestra plays with intense commitment throughout in a well-judged acoustic. Documentation is excellent too, so if you fancy something fresh and zesty, lend an ear to this disc.

— Jonathan Woolf

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Boris Papandopulo (25 February 1906 – 16 October 1991) was one of the most distinctive Croatian musicians of the 20th century. Educated in Zagreb and Vienna, he built a diverse career as a conductor, teacher and music director across major Croatian institutions, including the Zagreb and Rijeka Operas, and worked internationally as a guest conductor. Beyond conducting, he was active as a pianist, writer, and critic. His most significant achievements lie in composition, with an extensive output of around 460 works spanning orchestral, chamber, vocal, stage and film music, many of which are considered artistically significant.

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Oliver Triendl (born 1970 in Mallersdorf, Bavaria) is a German pianist. Trained by distinguished teachers including Gerhard Oppitz and Oleg Maisenberg, he is a prizewinner of numerous international competitions. Triendl has performed globally as a soloist and chamber musician, appearing with leading orchestras such as the Munich Philharmonic, Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg and Shanghai Symphony. His unique repertoire includes around 90 piano concertos and hundreds of chamber works, many of which he has premiered or recorded first. His tireless commitment is reflected in more than 100 CD recordings.

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Dan Zhu is an a Chinese violinist. Hebegan performing at age nine and studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and Mannes College in New York. He gained early recognition with his Carnegie Hall debut at eighteen and has since built a global career, performing with leading orchestras and conductors across North America, Europe and Asia. A prolific recording artist, he has premiered major works and received critical praise for his expressive tone. Zhu is also active as a chamber musician, educator and festival director. In 2025, he has been appointed as violin professor at the Music Academy of Ljubljana University.

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