Alfréd Zemanovský

"His love for the Slovak folk song led Zemanovský gradually to create important choral works: Haymaking and Meadow Songs from Čičmany and Terchova; Four Notebooks for Male Choirs, and others. Wedding Songs from Horné Bzince for Mixed Double Choir won 3rd Prize in 1977 at Prix de musique folklorique de Radio Bratislava, an international radio competition for European folk music. Zemanovský chose texts for musical arrangement with profound responsibility and sensitivity. He gave priority to the poets Š. Žáry, A. Plávka, J. Smrek, J. Kostra, and others. His work for children and youth is particularly rich. Worth mentioning are: Three Replies; The Magic Cart; Dream of a Partisan; Echo, etc. He has important works for 5-voice mixed choirs: New Dawn; Lines for Heroes; Song about a Mother; Little Book of Mixed Choirs, and others. In recent years he has produced inventively strong and interesting choral compositions such as Cupido, to poetry by J. Smrek and V. Beniak; Dear Fatherland; Listening to the Weirs, among others. Dominant above all in Zemanovský’s work is wide-ranging artistry and folk choral composition. The leading Slovak and Czech choral ensembles loved to sing his works, and still do: SFZ, SĽUK, Lúčnica, Technik, Bratislava Children’s Choir, Severáček, Kantiléna, among others.
As a composer and organiser of musical life in Slovakia, Zemanovský was aware that he needed to make the maximum effort to acquaint himself with the current situation in choral performance, and that it was necessary to raise and expand the foundations of Slovak music culture. Apart from that, he had the opportunity to compare composers’ mastery of performance at competitions at home and abroad, often as a member of the jury. He regularly wrote and published critical articles on the dramaturgic and performance level of choral singers appearing at the Choral Singing Festival and the competition for Golden Garland of the City of Bratislava, especially in the journal Hudba, spev a tanec, published by the Educational Institute in Bratislava. Zemanovský has made a major contribution to the development of the choral movement in Slovakia."

(SLUJKA, Vladimír: Alfréd Zemanovský. In: A Hundred Slovak Composers. Eds. Marián Jurík, Peter Zagar. Bratislava : National Music Centre Slovakia, 1998, pp. 296 – 297.)