Tibor Frešo

“The dominant features of Frešo's works are musical-dramatic compositions. The first of these is the opera Martin a slnko / Martin and the Sun. The story of the liberation of the sun from the jail by village juvenile Martin rests on the verge of reality and fantasy of folk creativity and is characterized by a strong portrayal of characters and lots of fabulous – often animated by dance – scenes, as well as using prose. The music is based primarily on musical impressionism and Slovak folk melodies. These constitute a common basis of various inspirational sources. Narodil sa chrobáčik / The Little Bug Was Born ballet music is deliberately simple, but not primitive. The orchestral cast is chamber, but its color is admirable. Especially noteworthy is the translation of Slovak folk incentives and the use of solo instruments. The biggest and most important work of Frešo is an opera-collage François Villon. An interesting feature of this piece is that the title character is non-musical but acting; also the commentator on Villon's life, his uncle Guillaume de Villon, has considerable prosaic stretches. The dominant component in the music is lyricism of vocals and dynamism in the dance scenes; sometimes even their symbiosis occurs: songs with dance undertones. The opera François Villon has a certain analogy to the opera of Richard Strauss Cavalier With the Rose – the central rhythm is waltz rhythm. It is not a Viennese waltz, but French (Ravel's) – adequate to the location where the story is set – true only geographically, not in time. The music is primarily inspired by French impressionism, as well as other composers, marked by impressionistic influences, especially Puccini. The basic contrast of the piece creates contra-placed three-beat rhythms and choral sections and has an apparently ideological subtext: life and death.”

(VAJDA, Igor: Tibor Frešo. In: 100 slovenských skladateľov. Ed. Marián Jurík, Peter Zagar. Bratislava : Národné hudobné centrum, 1998, p. 97.)