Diana Brekalo

Since the beginning of her career piano star Diana Brekalo has been performing regularly in Great Britain and in Germany, and in both countries she has recorded the albums. In May 2016, her second album was realesed with works by contemporary German composer Hubertus Schwinge, and in 2017 she will performe world premiere of Hubertus Schwinge’ s Enigmatica.

In December 2016 I spoke with Diana Brekalo about her new album, upcoming concert in London and about Fazioli pianos.

Jasna Lovrinčević: “Since September 2016 you have been performing frequently in UK and Germany. Alongside performances n Cambridge, Munich and Würzburg you have performed several times in London and Stuttgart. Could you say more about your performances in London and in the UK. Who das organize the concerts and how do you choose the program? ”

Diana Brekalo: “The past few months I’ve been several times in London and Cambridge, where I had a number of different projects. The concerts in London are organized mostly by the organizers I already have since my study time in London, and cooperation with them has always been a joyful meetings with nice people.

In Germany, one of the concerts was with my dear sister Dolores Brekalo, also a pianist. She won the second prize at Federal German Competition for Chamber Music in 2000 in Berlin. Dolores Brekalo studied music science and obtained her masters degree in history. Most of my concert programs I choose in consultation with my sister Dolores.

In a short time I try to select a program which is interesting and unusual for the audience. Sometimes I try to educate audience too and I don’t focus only on the standard, well known musical works. I like to include in my concert program also the works by Croatian and contemporary composers. Of course, such a program can be performed in the metropolis where audience is opened for contemporary music. I’m not supporter of mainstream concert program. By that, I mean the standard scheme of the music program.”

Emperor Concerto With Darrell Davison

Jasna Lovrinčević: “On 11 February 2017 in Croydon you will play the great Emperor concerto by Ludwig van Beethoven. Could you tell us more about it. Have you already had rehearsal? Do you have some new approach to this concerto regarding your interpretation of the same concerto ten years ago and your recent performance with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra? ”

Diana Brekalo: “In Croydon I will perform with the Croydon Symphony Orchestra under the conductor Darrell Davison. I have had great pleasure to perform five or six times with this extraordinary conductor. Concerts with the conductor Darrell Davison have been performed following my first prize at Contest Concerto Competition in Croydon and the winning aword included few performances with that orchestra. I have already performed Beethoven’s Emperor Piano Concerto, Rachmanjinoff ‘s Concerto No 2 and No 3, Tchaikovsky’ s concerto and Sergei Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 2. Rehearsal for a concert in February 2017 it will be just before the concert and it means I will have only one rehearsal.

My first performance of Beethoven’s No 5. piano concerto was 2007, in Coesfeld in Germany, under the baton of German conductor Alexander Scherf. My interpretation in relation to that concert will be certainly different because I am now ten years more mature and I have more routine and my motivation and inspiration are probably quite different. Now I can more deeper and more studiously go into details and I am now more independent and self confident. This is one of my favorite piano concerto so I think I’ll enjoy it.”

New Album

Jasna Lovrinčević: “Recently, in Stuttgart, you have performed Toccata from Rhythmiana by Hubertus Schwinge. Could you say more about the latest collaboration with composer Hubertus Schwinge, his Rhythmiana as well as Enigmatica whose world premiere you have announced for 2017. ”

Diana Brekalo: “The renowned German composer Hubertus Schwinge composed Rhythmiana when he was still active as a pianist, playing with dance groups in Scandinavia, so that the most of the works from Rhythmiana are dance music. In May 2016 I had recorded it and CD will be realised next year. World premiere of Enigmatica is also planned for 2017. It is quite demanding musical work with two movements. Hubertus Schwinge calls it Music Theatre. Enigmatica is divided on the scenes. The titels od the scenes are, for example: “Rumpelsstilzchen ” or “Dancer in the Arena.” The works last about 45 minutes and I really look forward to premier it. Unfortunately, I have had no enough time to go into details because I have been very busy: alongside teaching at the University of Music in Würzburg and at the musical school in Stuttgart, I had performances of my students and I adjudicated different piano competitions.”

Fazioli Grand Piano

Diana Brekalo, Paolo Fazioli (right), Slavko Brekalo – Diana’s father (left)

Jasna Lovrinčević: “In November 2016 you performed on Fazioli grand piano at the Piano Fischer Musikhaus in Stuttgart. It is interesting that you know prof. Paolo Fazioli, famous piano designer and producer, since your childhood, and several times you have met him. You have been always very happy to play on Fazioli piano. Could you tell us more details about Fazioli piano, when did you play for the first time on the Fazioli piano, what distinguishes Fazioli piano from Stainway piano ones and what is for you especially attractive abou this piano? Where have you played on the piano Fazioli and do you have desire to own one? ”

Diana Brekalo: “I met prof. Paolo Fazioli when I was six and a half years old. He was very favorable, and already at that time he prophesied and expressed desire for my bright future and trusted in me. In recent years I have met prof. Fazioli several times. During my studies at University in London I had a chance to talk with the masters – piano makers. They emphasized and praised the fantastic work of Fazioli piano producers. Fazioli pianos are made by hand not as a Steinway by machinery and the company produces about one hundred pianos a year. This is my favorite piano and I have always had a lot of pleasure when I performed and played on the Fazioli piano. Fazioli pianos do not “screaming” in the descant like a Steinway pianos and they are higly sophisticated and very balanced and how to describe; it is “a fascinating perfection of the art”. After the concert on 5 November on the Fazioli piano I described a feeling when you play on that piano as a driving a Maserati, a car with a perfect machine. A few times I have played on Fazioli piano in Munich and Stuttgart. In the year 2004, at Züblin- Haus I played on Fazioli piano Liszt’s 2nd Piano Concerto. Of course, I would like to own one Fazioli piano, but I need more space for it, and who knows how many times I’m going to move in the future. ”

Jasna Lovrinčević: “What did you performed on the Fazioli piano on 5 November 2016? Did you personally select the program for that concert?”

Diana Brekalo: “At the concert on November 5th 2016, I performed a couple of preludes by Alexander Scriabin op 11: No 1, No11, No 12, No 18, No 19 and No 24. I also played Romance by Jean Sibelius, because I consider that the Sibelius music for piano is unusual and very interesting. At the end, I crowned my performance with the first waltz of Franz Liszt’s Mephisto, so the audience listened something known as a superb piano work.”

Ana-Marija Markovina

The extraordinary pianist with an international career, Ana-Marija Markovina, conducted a concert tour and masterclasses in the countries of Central and North America.

The tour started on the 23rd of September and lasted till the 24th of October, 2015. A fantastic concert audience reception, extremely talented students, unforgettable encounters with great people, earthquakes, tropical storms, a walk on the mountain with an incredible view into the crater of an active volcano, a for the first time ever canceled concert and finally, the experience of the Canadian autumn beauty, are only a part of the events that came one after another during that beautiful and exciting tour.

Orchids (Photographer: Ana-Marija_Markovina)

“It was nice, exciting and very hard”, said Ana-Maria Markovina in an interview I conducted with her in early December 2015, after her concert in Berlin and before she started to record the complete works by Urspruch.

The Central American tour included countries located between the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico, the countries of exceptional beauty, but also the land of volcanoes, tropical storms and frequent earthquakes.

Ana-Marija Markovina experienced a tropical storm and earthquake and she was very close to the volcano Poas at 2575 meters above sea level. During her piano masterclass in Costa Rica she experienced undescribable strong wind, thunder and shower known only in the tropics and an earthquake on the last night in El Salvador. ”

Vulcano Poas (Photographer: Ana-Marija Markovina)

Ana-Marija Markovina: “An earthquake measuring 4.6 on the Richter scale was during the night. I thought I have to go out, but after two and a half minutes it calmed down. The following day people talked about it, although they are accustomed to earthquakes.”

During the tour, there were media report about heavy raining and landslides in Guatemala.
Ana-Marija Markovina dedicated one of her concerts to the victims of the landslide.
Ana-Marija Markovina: “I’ve dedicated the concert in Guatemala-City to victims of landslides and to their families. The people were very grateful. We held a minute of silence before the beginning of the concert.”

The first country of the tour was Costa Rica, famous of its flowers, where Ana-Marija Markovina arrived after a twenty-four hours flight. In the following two days she performed a concert and held a masterclass. Until the end of the tour, different events, concerts, lectures and receptions had been moving at an equaly tempo. In Jamaica, Ana-Marija Markovina gave a concert, master class, she had a reception and made a trip to the hills to visit her friends, all of that during only a forty-six-hour stay.
Ana-Marija Markovina: “The tour was thickened with a lot of traveling, and time was too short.”

Photographer: Ana-Marija Markovina

Although everything was organized in advance, during the tour Ana-Marija Markovina constantlay received requests to do more masterclasses.

Ana-Marija Markovina: “It’s a hunger for music. In these countries people take energy for their life from music. We don’t do that anymore. Here in Europe, concerts are kind of a social event, but for people over there, a concert is a source for mental strength.”

Beginning from her first concert till the last one, the audience was delighted with her performance. Standing ovations accompanied her concerts. “Bravo,” “thank you”, “please come again”, “we love you” were the words with which the audience greeted Ana-Marija Markovina.
Ana-Marija Markovina: “My concert was a national event everywhere, except in Mexico.”

Unfortunately, in Mexico, she had to cancel the concert due to illness. It has happened for the first time in her career. Until now, Ana -Marija Markovina has performed more than two thousand times.

Ana-Marija Markovina

Premieres in El Salvador

This tour is particularly important for El Salvador since Ana Marija Markovina has played two concertos by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (KV 246 and KV 53) and two piano quartets (E-flat major, K. 493 by W. A. Mozart and Es -flat major op. 47 by Robert Schumann) which were performed for the first time ever there.

With the ensemble Asarta she performed the piano quartets and two piano concertos by Mozart with the Orquesta Sinfonica El Salvador under conduction of maestro German Caceres, composer and university professor. The concert with Orquesta Sinfonica El Salvador was held in the prestigious building of the National Theatre. It is interesting that most of the members of the Orquesta Sinfonica El Salvador have two professional titles. Besides their engagement in Orquesta Sinfonica El Salvador they usually work as doctors, lawyers and etc.

Talented Students and Love for Music

Markovina gave piano masterclasses in each country. Students of music endeavour to be able to study music. It testifies their great love for music because they mostly do not have the conditions for a systematic music education. Markovina was visibly moved by their love for music, their desire to learn and their effort to gain knowledge. She mentioned the example of a boy from Jamaica.

Ana-Marija Markovina: “In Jamaica, I was fascinated with a little boy, he was twelve years old. He played Rondo and Capriccioso by Mendelssohn very well, but he used to exercise only at school because he did not have a piano at home. It is so touching how they are used to approach music.”

All experiences of the tour, have been extremely important for Markovina in a specific way.
“I came back changed. The tour has changed my perception of everything”, said Ana-Marija Markovina.

Music as a Spiritual Remedy

Ana-Marija Markovina (Fotograf:Jasna Lovrincevic)

At the end, Markovina once again emphasized how she is delighted with the genuine love for music of the people she met in the countries of Central America and Jamaica.
Ana-Marija Markovina: “The challenge is immense and it is a great joy to work there, people have a different understanding of music. They take it really as a spiritual medicine. A concert for them is not a social event, they really go to a concert to listen; they really want to understand music and they really want to learn. ”

Markovina ended the tour with a concert in Antigonish and Newfoundland in Canada.

Ana – Marija Markovina (Photo: Jasna Lovrinčević)

Pianist Ana – Marija Markovina is one of the few musicians whose performances remain as a permanent record in the memory. Her perfomances give you the experience of fullness that music can provide. It seems like its open some unidentified window located high above of many, which can be reached only by extraordinary, inspired played music, that exceed mostly technical and dinamic perfect performances.

First of all, Ana – Marija Markovina is an artist of exceptional musicality, power, energy, and virtuoso technique, with an impeccable craft in every tone and phrase, rounded and prominent theme. By extremely extroverted performing, she does not leave anything obscure, or unclear. Compositions become clear. Her free approach and courage in her way of interpretation with particularly pronounced dynamic accents, correctly identified, encircle and give special dynamics to performed pieces. That brings freshness and moves the audience.

In the concert, regardless of whose works are performed, she reveals with her interpretation that classic music is not a project of another time. She makes every music peace alive, magically keeping the audience concentrated and fulfilled.

Ana – Marija Markovina is exceptional also as a performer of lesser known or completely unknown works. She recorded and released albums with the complete works of Louis Adolph de Beau and Anton Urspruch, the student of Franz Liszt. She recorded the complete piano works of Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach on 26 CDs. They were released in February 2014 to mark the composer’s 300 th birthday. Ana- Marija Markovina has received the prestigious German Award Schallplattenkritik for her album with the complete piano works of Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach

In the interview I conducted with Ana – Marija Markovina early November 2014
she told me that it was her own idea to perform those composers, as well as to research them collecting data and literature about them.

Ana – Marija Markovina: “I do a lot of research, read biographies and investigate the archives where I always find a new name. In this way I get ideas what to perform. I did this in the case of Louis Adolphe de Beau and Anton Urspruch”.

Jasna Lovrinčević: “When you study one composer, do you start with his/her work or with his/her biography?”
Ana – Marija Markovina: It is mutually emphasized. At Urspruch I had started from the
music, and then I studied biography, where I found all confirmed about what I previousely had thought. I called his granddaughter, Weronika Kirche who lives in Münster and asked her if it was true that Anton Urspruch (her grandfather) was such and such and she said: “Yes, that’s true, he used to be alike… How did you find it?” Once can conclud a lot psychological elements from the music. Of course, the more I know about the person and his time I can more understand how the piece was written. Everything goes as a spiral.”

This meticulous approach to better understanding music pieces results in Markovina’s extremely convincing interpretation.

Ana-Marija Markovina (Photo: Jasna Lovrinčević)

Ana – Marija Markovina has a wide repertory. She has performed almost all the works of the piano literature. It was interesting to hear why she decided to record one of Liszt’s students.

Jasna Lovrinčević: “Have you been atracted by the virtuosity of his opus?”
Ana – Marija Markovina: “I love to play Liszt because I believe that all his works are nice to play and listen to. That suits me very much. But there are many composers who came after him, and no one knows them. I feel a little bit like a lawyer who works against this ” musical Darwinism” in the world ; the most played pieces are the most known – the more we know a piece, the more we play it. But there are so many treasures beside these great and unique composers that I think the world deserves to listen to them as well. I like to listen and play something that I do not know. Anton Urspruch was Liszt’s most important student and he has written tremendously difficult pieces. I love to “sport” his virtuosity. I cannot say that I do not like it.”

Ana-Marija Markovina often has a concert, sometimes two concerts in a week. They are usually different concert programs.

Jasna Lovrinčević:” You have a lot of performances, recordings, theoretical work. I assume that you do not need a lot of exercise ?”
Ana – Marija Markovina:”I have a weekly practice-rate, but I don’t need too much practicing. I play non-stop. I live with it. I am preparing myself for concerts, this is normal, but it is not like when I was a small girl or a very young student that I needed to acquire some technics. It is all in a system. I have no technical limitations, I only have to learn the new notes, it is my daily work. I think I have played over 2000 solo concerts. I learn a new text very fast and memorize it very quickly. It is already from my childhood a small award for me; for that I do not need a lot of time to memorize the text.. The first movement of Mozart’s concerto (no. 12 in A Major KV) 414, I have memorized it in three and half hours It is not a lot, but then it begins the serious work.” (This concert and Concerto in D minor, Wq. 23 of Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach , Markovina played as a soloist with the Klassische Philharmonie Bonn during the great German tour in November 2014 just when we had our interview.)

Jasna Lovrinčević: “When you are on stage one has the feeling that you are completely relaxed with no stress.”
Ana – Marija Markovina:” Yes. I do’t feel any tension.”

During the year of 2014, Ana Marija Markovina had an intense program with many performances, concerts and master classes. In March at the Senate in Hamburg she held her album promotion with works of Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach. In September, she opened the gala concert in the concert hall at the German Embassy in Washington and had two tours with the master classes. In June she performed in Uzbekistan and in March in Central America. In November 2014, as a soloist of the Klassische Philharmonie Bonn she held a series of concert all over Germany including concerts in Hamburg and Cologne in addition to the German tour.

Ana – Marija Markovina is quite concentrated and completely dedicated to her performing despite the constant concert and pedagogical engagements, research, travel, and the care and upbringing of her daughter.

Jasna Lovrinčević: “You seem completely concentrated and dedicated during your performances? ”
Ana – Marija Markovina: “Of course, it’s a strange mix. In one way I repose during the concert , and on onother side I become very tired, what I usually feel on the following day, but at concert (that moment), the concentration is like that one of Zen Buddhism.”

The First Book

Ana-Marija Markovina (Photo: Jasna Lovrinčević)

At the beginning of next year, Ana Marija Markovina said she would focus on writing and publishing her first book in which she shall gather her pedagogical experience and were she will also write about the importance of playing an instrument.

Ana-Marija Markovina: “I have a lot to say. I know that certain things have a good impact, for example with students to whom I give piano master classes. There are things that can directly help them and it is pity and difficult to keep them only for myself. I had started to write down notes and then an idea to write a book arise. That was three and a half years ago. The concept for the book had already been done, and then I became pregnant, I founded my agency, I gave the concerts and recorded the albums so there was no time to write a book..
Since January 2015 I’ll take a few months free to write the book. I willl do it together with my husband. There are many different aspects in the book. There are a lot of aspects when playing an instrument. That is simply good; good for the spirit, good for the body, good for the mind, good for the soul. I would like to motivate everyone who I can approach to sit down again at the piano and start to deal with the music. I am of the opinion that one can not do something better for his or her own spirit. I also would like to write about why we do not listen any more to contemporary music. Why contemporary art is popular, and music is not, why is humanity at all turning away from classical music, why we can no longer listen to an hour of music fully concentrated and so on. If two or three persons start playing the piano (inspired after reading my book) then I will attain what I want to achieve. Also I have collected a lot of conclusions about what one can learn from playing a musical instrument; like understanding his or her own life and about how we treat ourselves, what happens in the brain during the music pause and etc.. Olso, is it a break in the music a living matter or a black hole, what is the pulse, how do we divide the day, what are our expectations, what happens when the plans are not real…..I have so many practical things … it’s time to write it.”

Jasna Lovrinčević: “Frederic Chopin also wrote some kind of practical inctructions for good performances?”
Ana – Marija Markovina: “Chopin and Schumann were both enlightened. They had a tremendous knowledge.. It’s always the question: why do we start something new when everything has been already done?. I still think that maybe I could describe it in one easy way, and with a contemporary approach.”

Jasna Lovrinčević: “When would you like to finish your book?”
Ana Marija Markovina: “I would like to finish the book in the summer. All about the book is very challenging. After publishing the book I am going to do a new recording of Urspruch, one great project of Mozart and much more… ”

Music in Villa Henn

Ana – Marija Markovina brings music to the audience in a very nice way. Together with her husband, prof. dr. Helmuth Reuter, she regularly organizes concerts and scientific lectures in the great hall of their Villa Henn in Cologne.

Jasna Lovrinčević: “When did you begin with the series of music and lectures in Villa Henn?”
Ana Marija -Markovina: “Wir started spontaneously last year. Our house is inside and outside a protected monument. It has a lovely hall, so we spontaneously decided to do it our way, with our own approach and point of view of what culture should be, and respectively reviving an old saloon culture. We started with programs for our friends last year. There were so many requests that we decided to continue. Television channel WDR has provided one hour coverage about the work in Villa Henn. People like to come. It is free of charge. We do not charge entrance fees, if someone wants to voluntarily make a donation, then the donation is welcome, and the money goes for artists, or for lectures or charity. Free of charge, “Croatian croissant” and some wine, a small talk and discussions, it is part of the old culture. It is a place where there is still more time and space for reflection.”

Ana Marija -Markovina together with Prof. Dr. Helmuth Reuter prepare and hold a series of lectures entitled “Music and Psychology”, about the cultural and psychological significance of music in the spirit of times.
Ana Marija -Markovina: “This is something what we really love to do. In fact it is not self-evident what you can find in one piece of music, it has to be explained. People do not know any more, they don’t get any more that knowledge from the parental home or from the school. We should know something about music in order to understand it.”

Jasna Lovrinčević: “What does it mean for you your whole musical involvement?”
Ana Marija-Markovina: “It is something that allows me to grow.”