Ladislav Burlas

Prof. PhDr. Ladislav Burlas, DrSc. was a Slovak musicologist, publicist, pedagogue and composer.

He was one of the most important music theorists and contributed significantly to the development of scientific knowledge in several disciplinary areas of musicology (music theory, ethnomusicology, music historiography, music pedagogy, music aesthetics, etc.). Musicological activities of L. Burlas include works focused on older and newer Slovak music history, music theory problems, systematic musicology disciplines, issues of genesis of Slovak national music, and the compositional style of representatives of Slovak musical modernism (Alexander Moyzes, Eugen Suchoň, Ján Cikker and others). He is the author of over 150 musicological works, monographs, studies, academic texts, articles, reflections and profiles.

Ladislav Burlas was a teacher of music history and music theory at the Faculty of Music of the Comenius University in Bratislava, at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava and at several pedagogical faculties and other universities. He was an example of the Humboldtian model of education in our conditions, he entered into a creative dialogue with his pupils, and his house was similarly open to social gatherings as the house of Jan Albrecht.

He was expertly responsible for the organisation of the Smolenice Seminars for Contemporary Music (3 editions in 1968-1970), and at the 3rd edition he contributed not only lectures but also a work Planctus for string orchestra (1968), which was written as an artistic protest against the then occupation of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic on the very days it was taking place. ,,Today Planctus is considered an iconic work of its time, it is also the composer's best-known and most-performed work. Shortly after the work's premiere, the composer was awarded two prizes (1969): the Slovak Composers' Union Prize and the Slovak Music Fund Prize." (Hudobný život, Kopčáková Slávka, 1 March 2024) His work for children is also important, and he placed great emphasis on it.

“Burlas entered the music scene in 1957, when as a theorist and publicist he gave expression to the spontaneous orientation of his compositional generation (a polemic against the orientation of the generation of A. Moyzes) to the modern trends of European music. In addition to the theory and history of music he also dealt with the latest compositional directions, about which he published mainly in the 1960s (especially in the magazine Slovak Music). In addition to its impact on domestic chromatic tradition and modal expanded tonality, highlighted by sublimated elements of Slovak folk music (Symphonic Triptych, Spievajúce srdce / Singing Heart), his work reveals a tendency to primarily linear guidance of voices and delight in finding new options in sonority (Metamorfózy krás / Metamorphoses of Beauties). Inspiration by the work of B. Bartók and stimuli of techniques of New Music led his masterpieces to a special manner of organization of tonal material: modal structures connected with clusters (Planctus) and with elements of twelve-tone techniques. It also emphasizes his tendency toward meditativeness, strongly suggested in works for string instruments (Concert Sonata, 3rd String Quartet), and later with an added penchant for nostalgic retrospect (Poetic Music, Stretnúť človeka / To Meet a Man).” 

(ZVARA, Vladimír: Ladislav Burlas. In: 100 slovenských skladateľov. Ed. Marián Jurík, Peter Zagar. Bratislava : Národné hudobné centrum, 1998, p. 59.)