Josipović, Ivo: Croatian contemporary composers

After four decades of building his composition opus it is time – and it is also possible – to single out the main elements of the handwriting of Ivo Josipović as a composer. It even comes as a certain challenge to find a connection – or perhaps eliminate it – between compositions written for similar ensembles, such as the popular Samba da camera from 1985 and Kurosawa’s World Unrest created in 2016, as many as three decades later.  It is indisputable that Josipović has retained certain standards throughout all these years – the tendency to repeat rhythm patterns, the application of clusters, the prominent virtuosity which, although embedded and contextualized in different manners, all appear in most of his compositions. Despite their importance as recognizable elements, they mostly act as auxiliary means; the author rarely gives them the role of bearing elements, they act more as links to and support for other parts of the composition.(Erika Krpan, from CD book)