Grubačević, Dalibor: Musical Gravities

The name of the composer and producer Dalibor Grubačević (1975) is almost synonymous with film music in Croatia. His music has paved the way for his success in the international film scene, where this highly awarded composer boldly and successfully navigates. His enthusiasm and passion for music transformed from initial musical interests (tambura and rock music) into music production and, finally, towards film music. Following these established directions, he became a prolific composer not only of film and so-called applied music but also of various chamber, orchestral, and concert works. This release reflects precisely that part of Grubačević's creative work and his musical gravitation. While in the film he skillfully, expertly, and almost imperceptibly (which means successfully in the case of film music) enhances the dramatization and provides a musical identity to audiovisual work allowing it to "breathe“, in the case of the compositions for the concert part of his work, Grubačević shapes different musical spaces, ideas, and topoi, expanding the imaginary dimensions of the instrumental, while drawing from the same source of imagination. The sound on this record forms a kind of full circle, starting from the powerful, sharp character of the unusual tuba quartet, through the altered sound of the same provenance in the brass quintet, concluding the first part of the circle in the string ensemble. The Valse and Suite share the idea of invoking a specific musical (and geographical) space, indicated already in the titles (balkanique and csárdás). The composer brings characters, stories, and places in the music not in a narrative or descriptive way but through expression, the expressiveness of gesture, and the clarity of dynamic shaping of the entire performing corpus, without losing sight of each section and its specificities. The same approach is maintained on the other side of the record as well as Grubačević's authorial "medals" in the concert work that brings us back to the initial instrument – the tuba, still not well-known and used instrument, which represents the starting impulse for composing several pieces on the record.