Ivan Hrušovský

Ivan Hrušovský, born in Bratislava on 23 February 1927, is one of the key figures of Slovak music in the second half of the twentieth century, both as a composer and as a musicologist. His academic work focused on twentieth-century music and, in particular, on the music of his own country, which makes him an essential reference point for understanding the Slovak creative landscape of the postwar period.

Between 1947 and 1952 he studied musicology, philosophy and aesthetics at the University of Bratislava, where he took his doctorate, and composition with Alexander Moyzes at the conservatory in the same city. His studies with Moyzes continued at the Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in Bratislava until 1957. His teacher's influence was decisive in his early works, which move within an expanded tonality with modal elements, a rich orchestration and an epic sweep, as can be seen in the Pastorálna suita (1955) and the symphonic poem Tatranská poéma (1960).

Around the beginning of the 1960s he began to explore timbre, freeing sound from its subordination to harmony; this approach is expressed in a particularly original way in his choral compositions. During the 1960s he incorporated serial techniques, which he applied in their purest form in Combinazioni sonoriche, and controlled aleatorism, as in his Piano Sonata of 1965. With these techniques he sought a new sonic world and new expressive means in works such as Sen o človeku and Tri madrigalové impresie, on a path that at times recalls Lutosławski or Górecki.

From the 1970s onwards, his works draw on historical forms such as the sonata, the madrigal and the baroque suite, with the aim of building a bridge between the musical past and present. His later pieces retain links with modality and with the turns of Slovak folk music inherited from Moyzes and his generation, although they have little connection with late Romanticism or Impressionism.

His legacy rests on his twofold achievement: a wide catalogue encompassing orchestral, vocal, chamber and electroacoustic music, and a body of writings that includes studies of Cikker, Novák and Slovak music, as well as theoretical works on controlled aleatoricism and sacred music of the twentieth century.