The Trieste-born Slovenian Marij Kogoj was before now
not even a name known to me. A pupil of Schreker and Schoenberg during
the Great War, the bulk of his output is piano-based, although includes
many songs and part-songs, as well as chamber and orchestral music and
the opera Black Masks (1929). In 1932 his career was cut short
by mental illness.
Kogoj’s idiom is a mix of folk-inspired late romanticism
and a cautiously explored expressionism. The first three of the six
movements of the suite titled simply Piano (published in 1921)—Andante
cantabile, Allegretto and Andante poco più mosso—are
quietly lyrical, pleasant if not overly remarkable. The fourth, Skica
("Sketch"), is altogether more impressive, its very concision
hinting at a more mature creative figure forcefully confirmed by the
succeeding Andantino sostenuto and Più mosso.
The little Chopiniana in G minor (different
to the earlier B flat piece in the orchestral suite When dancing)
is generally evocative of Chopin’s nocturnes, though the Slovenian’s
brilliance as a miniaturist is endorsed rather by the 22 Bagatelles
("Malenkosti", in the local tongue). The product of a visit
in 1929 to the rural Dolenjska district, here Kogoj comes closer in
spirit to Szymanowski and is even suggestive of Bartók’s folk-inspired
mode, if less percussive.
Bojan Gorišek’s strongly sympathetic, well-executed
performances suffer from rather hard-edged and ungrateful piano tone.
Still, this Sazas disc—produced by Slovenian Radio & TV in Ljubljana
as part of a series devoted to Slovenian composers, available on import—is
well worth investigating.