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\n \n About work:

Evgeny Irshai’s music has a wide circle of enthusiasts in Slovakia and abroad. It is proved not only by continuously growing interest of performers asking Irshai to compose for them but also by rapturous applause that his compositions receive amongst the audience.
Unusual, almost one hour lasting project and the main part of this CD, Schoenberg Variations (Air with 30 Variations) was premiered in October 2010 within the 8th year of international festival SPACE 2010. The concert, under the name Irshai plays Irshai was given, in an outstanding interpretation, by the author himself.
The composition and its title was inspired by two titans of European musical history: Arnold Schoenberg and Johann Sebastian Bach. The theme of Irshai’s variations comes from the first bars of Schoenberg’s 5 piano pieces op. 23 while he took the form from Bach’s Goldberg Variations: Aria, 30 variations and aria da capo. „At the beginning I supposed I would follow exactly the structure of Goldberg Variations so that every two variations would be followed by the third, in the form of canon. But the longer I worked on variations, the surer I was that it is not the way how it should be done.  
Irshai worked on the composition between 2002 and 2009. „During those seven years that I was working on this cycle I came across many different ideas that didn’t even get into the final version. I, however, used some of them in other compositions. In Schoenberg Variations it is necessary to use electric piano or the synthesizer with the organ timbre and that is one of the ways how it differs from Goldberg Variations.“
Just like many times before, author proved his mystery of drama and building up the complex cycle (alternation of slow and fast passages, calm and dramatic sections, gentle and temperamental expressive parts and gradually increased tension), which are the crucial preconditions of a successful perception.
The cycle as a whole is incredibly powerful. However, the author allows the interpretation of jus one or several chosen variations: „The whole cycle lasts about 55 minutes, which is unquestionably quite difficult for perception. Being well aware of this I decided to compose it in a way that almost every variation can be performed separately or together with some other variations. The order of variations that I suggested has, of course, its logics but I suppose that there are other possibilities of their arrangement, which I, too, leave up to the performers consideration.“


\n (Zuzana Martináková, in: booklet of the CD \"evgeny irshai – schoenberg variations\", Pavlík records PA 0091-2-131, p. 1–2.)
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First performance in Slovakia

\n \n \n 07.10.2010,\n International Music Festival SPACE,\n Studio 12,\n Bratislava,\n SK\n\n
Performers: Jevgenij Iršai (pf)\n
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