La Margheritina, Lullaby and Variations

"Here are two contrasting pieces from this Croatian composer; the first being in dropped D tuning. It has an almost constant run of semiquavers with the melody cropping up in the midst of the arpeggio, and the shape and harmony of the notes constantly changing. In other words, you never sit for very long on one shape, but are moving from one group to the next throughout its five-and-a-half-minutes' duration. As a result you are on your toes the whole time. Now this is not a negative criticism, far from it, for the shape of the piece is always involving. It begins with a haunting refrain that begins at the top of the arpeggio, and then migrates into the middle only to swap back and forth. The opening theme then repeals in a varied form, before a different grouping takes hold, and the music moves distinctly away from its home key of D major via some unusual chord juxtapositions. After this the music returns in E major, only to move in and out of various keys before an 'Agitato' section occurs where the pattern momentarily changes shape, until finally D major recurs and the opening idea is largely repeated leading to a coda. [...] The second piece, Lullaby and Variations, marked 'moderate' begins with a rather repetitive idea in 3/4 that didn't strike me as very lullaby-like, and to be fair, the theme goes on for 40 bars in the same shape throughout (i.e. a triplet of quavers and two crotchets) without deviation. I thought this a little long for its content. However things improved considerably with Variations 1, 2 and 3 where the material gets faster and faster, as it is written in quavers, then triplet quavers, and then semiquavers, with lots of little pull-offs and hammer-ons in all sorts of places to make this a real tour de force. Variation 4 is more chordal, and 5 is a Larghetto, which moves all over the place using minor triads that clash harmonically throughout. No. 6 is a Vals that travels through numerous obscure keys and No. 7 is a Milonga, before a return to the opening Lullaby very much as it was before, and a gentle close in E brings the piece to a close. [...] these were two very pleasant pieces that proved to be somewhat out of the ordinary and as such are more than worthy of your attention. They are definitely not too easy, so intermediate players upwards will get the most benefit and this proves to be a nice pairing that 1 think will do well."

Chris Dumigan (Classical Guitar Magazine)