Marcos Fink - Duhovne pesmi (2024) Hi-Res

At ZKP RTV Slovenija, in cooperation with Radio Slovenija - Ars Program and the Hugo Wolf Society Slovenj Gradec, we are publishing the digital album Hugo Wolf: Spiritual songs performed by Bernarda Fink (mezzo-soprano), Marcos Fink (bass-baritone) and Vladimir Mlinarić (piano). "The immense love for everything that came from the south accompanied Hugo Wolf from his youth and remained with him until the last breaths of his artistic powers; its glorious fruit are the solos from the Spanish Songbook, which he began composing in 1889. With the Spanish Songbook, Wolf achieved one of the refined peaks of the art of solo singing, in which the piano and vocal parts are connected into an inseparable whole, and the characterization of the content of the individual songs is so condensed, that it requires top-notch technical as well as psychologically deep mastery from the performers. The concert evening, titled Where I will find comfort (Wo find' ich Trost), which, in addition to spiritual songs from the Spanish hymnal, also included some selected solos to religious lyrics by Eduard Mörike, is mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink, bass-baritone Marcos Fink, pianist Breda Zakotnik and a drama actor Bojan Maroševič in Wolf's year, on the occasion of the 160th anniversary of the composer's birth, was also performed on September 25, 2020 in the parish church of St. Elizabeth in Slovenj Gradac," wrote curator Marko Košan. The present digital album, which also contains 10 songs by Pavel Oblák transposed into Slovenian, was recorded in the Marjan Kozine Hall of the Slovenian Philharmonic. "Hugo Wolff's spiritual poems are the expression of a man in distress who, in search of the transcendent, looks to the beyond to find solace and meaning in his suffering and to enrich himself spiritually. In reality, these are prayers in musical form, which are very emotional and require interpretive maturity from the singer-re-enactor. That is why I delayed the recording for the Radio Slovenia archive in the hope that the maturation of the content in me, both intellectually and emotionally, would be guaranteed. I personally asked the master of words, Mr. Pavle Oblák, for the Slovene transliteration, who initially rejected the request with the words: "... because the poetic form is very ascetic and condensed and I don't want to compromise on the demands". I thanked him for his honesty. After a few months, we met by chance on the road in Ljubljana. Even before we could greet each other, he was already reciting something in verse, in Slovenian. I understood this to be one of Wolf's spirituals. Did you succeed? Yes! All ten? Yes!!! Both of their eyes watered. A moment of eternity?!” asks Marcos Fink, and Bernarda Fink adds: “Immersing myself in Hugo Wolf's poem was a deep and challenging heart experience for me. I feel that he sought his peace of mind with them. There is a rainbow of colors and feelings in them, from the calm ones, when he sings about the relationship to the little Savior in the manger, to the fear and uncertainty of the traveling Holy Family and the anxiety of the search for salvation and consolation at the Cross, a search full of pain and inner cry. The time I was allowed to spend preparing and performing these songs was a spiritual enrichment for me. With my performance, I tried to capture and pass on at least a small ray of light that shines from these works of the great Hugo Wolf."