Svetozár Stračina

Svetozár Stračina worked as a freelance artist.

"Stračina’s work as a composer took shape from the beginning in close connection with syncretic art forms that emerged from the combination of music with words, movements and dance. The starting point for his artistic orientation was dramatic production. In the early 1960s he gradually began to establish himself as an author of music for theatre productions, pantomime, poetry sessions, radio plays and TV productions. During the period when the avantgarde theatre scene was taking shape, he was the co-founder of several small-scale theatre ensembles, which bore the features of alternative art (Divadlo obrazov, Divadlo pantomímy, Divadielko poézie). At that time he was working intensively with M. Sládek, I. Lembovič, and others. From 1964 he expanded his interest to cover film music; he devoted most energy to this in the 1970s and 80s. He worked with many film directors (A. Lettrich, J. Medveď, J. Zeman, Š. Uher, V. Kubenko, I. Teren, V. Bahna, M. Hollý, K. Spišák, E. Fornay, J. Lihosit, M. Slivka, M. Ťapák, J. Zachar). He is the author of music to more than 150 films, of which 78 were full-length features.
In the course of the 1960s, with society’s interest in folklore on the wane,  Stračina shifted the pivotal element of his work to the folk genres. Folk music and song and folk culture as a distinctive system of values and ethics became a lasting inspiration for him. His interest in the dramatic genres drew Stračina’s attention to folk drama. From 1962, when for the first time he took part in preparing a programme for Lúčnica, he began composing music for ensembles. The initial once-off collaboration later became one of his principal areas of work as a composer. An important premise for this work was the study of folk song and music in their original forms. In the genre of music for ensembles he followed on from the traditional symphonic treatment, which he adapted to his own ideal of composing with folk music input. For professional and amateur folk ensembles (SĽUK, Lúčnica, Marína atď.) he created over 80 works for dance and about 50 arrangements of folk songs and instrumental music. He collaborated with the choreographers Š. Nosáľ, J. Kubánek, M. Mázorová, D. Struhár, J. Jamrišek, J. Moravčík, etc. Stračina became one of the leading figures in the folklore movement in Slovakia, not only as a composer and arranger but also as a connoisseur of folk culture. He worked as an organiser and lecturer and he had a practical involvement in publishing, as the collector and initiator of several editions of authentic folk music.
Besides writing music for ensembles, Stračina focused on radio adaptations of folk music, which he was involved in to a greater extent from the early 1970s. In contrast to dramatic folklore, where he preferred monumental forms, radio adaptations enabled him to widen his scope to take in more song and instrumental genres of folk music and enrich folk-based compositional work with new expressive registers. In radio adaptations he often combined authentic performance with his own elaboration of the music. He discovered and brought to public notice many folk singers and musicians, leaving space in his adaptations for the individuality of their delivery while preserving the regional style. His work on radio adaptations culminated in the pieces inspired by Prix de musique folklorique de Radio Bratislava, an international competition for radio recordings of folk music, (Musica pro uno violino; Beluška Dulcimer; The Shepherds’ Language; Hey, Love That Doesn’t Last). In these works he used the potential offered by technical media in sound montage, collage and electronic sound refinement, inspired by the procedures of electro-acoustic music. Stračina’s work of adaptation achieved the status of autonomous composition in pieces such as these, where he benefited from collaboration with Slovak Radio’s Experimental Studio. For the needs of radio broadcasting he prepared over 30 radio adaptations and compositions.
A distinctive area of Stračina’s work is the genre of Christmas music, which he began to devote himself to in the course of the 1970s. He is the author of several cycles of Christmas carols, songs and pastorals. In his treatment of them he proceeded not only from the present-day folklore tradition but also using historical sources of Christmas composition (A. Kmeť Collection, Bardejov Collection). Sporadically he composed pedagogical pieces, songs, works for solo instruments, chamber and orchestra."

(URBANCOVÁ, Hana: Svetozár Stračina. In: A Hundred Slovak Composers. Eds. Marián Jurík, Peter Zagar. Bratislava : National Music Centre Slovakia, 1998, pp. 256 – 258.)