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I'm impressed about how long the last movement lasts. Am I being a snob?

If the student was too respectful of the sketch, wasn't prepared to cut out material which Bersa would have eventually discarded, then this might be the result. Just an idea.

You mean: "(...), then this might be a problem."?

Yes he was very respectful not of the sketch but of his professor, and it is highly likely he wasn't willing to sacrifice any part of it not even for the benefit of it.

The big question is why didn't Bersa finish the Finale, and a couple of his other works, but left that to his student before he died? Did Bersa abandon them, and later perhaps his student insisted on them being underrated by the composer himself and expressed the will to complete them? It is important to point out the significant number of years between Bersa stopped working on some of the works and his death, that is it was not death which interrupted the creative process.
I -in my own view- claim that his disciple done a wonderful job. Besides, he was not a student anymore when he worked on these projects. And yes, Bersa did finish the sketch on the piano (not sketch for the piano), at least that's what I've read.

Zvonimir Bradić (Zagreb, 05.07.1904. – Zagreb, 30.12.1997), multiinstrumentalist, arranger and leader of popular music orchestras.
1926-1940 worked as choirmaster and conductor of popular music orchestras;
1941-1951 played timpani in an opera orchestra;
1950-1964 music editor on the Radio Zagreb.
He composed popular vocal-instrumental, light orchestral and serious music with folk elements, and did adaptation, arrangement and revisions of popular and serious music. He compiled, according to Blagoje(Benito) Bersa's sketches, his handbook "The Principles of Modern Instrumentation". He was amongst first Croatian jazzists/jazzman and founded in 1923 the dixieland ensemble "Bongo Boys", the first band of this music genre in Zagreb, later reshaped into "New Dance".

Yep, Italia's not what it used to be.. I know that from many folks here from the coast who work or live there. Sometimes the old say: "Addio bel passato.." Once Croatian major seaside towns, under unofficial Italian administration via influential people, prided with huge luxurious theater, if not even two (Spalato, I think), and other important institutions.. After the Croatian National Party from the north 'saved' the people from Italian 'influence' (that had been continuously present in that region over 2000 years), all the cultural heritage, infrastructure, green areas, villas et c. soon was getting ruined more and more.. And that nowadays, after the cultural crisis overcomed, you got flourishing orchestras, lots of youth involved.. and on the other hand this disturbing news about the Rome Symphonics! And Rome was one of the places where the musicians were coming from to these coastal towns and elevated the cultural life here.. What a whim of destiny

It'll sound like I just want to oppose you, but I really like the IVth move. What exactly in it is that I like: the force, brightness, Mediterranean Italo-Dalmatian light-music melodic modes (which I perhaps 'get' better as it's my native melodics), the conductor's approach. I don't care if it's lacking profound emotionality of the first three moves, as Bersa was 'describing' in tones the 'new life' which never came true while living in poverty and being frustrated, grouchy, embittered.. Well, also it's not like there's no lyricism in it as well, but not in a way one gets used to and would expect after having listened to the moves I-III, and I didn't notice a senseless significant repetition of thematic material either. How should I explain it to you, long story short, .. ah, yes - I felt entertained while listening. I didn't find the first move not close that effective as the final. And word effective doesn't imply touch of emotion. Can there be something sophisticated but emotionless, and that I still like very much? Yes, if I find it amusing, if it draws my attention with monumental moving 'blocks of sound', fast passages, boom-bang big time, shiny brass sound sparkling and shimmering and then all of a sudden sudden change that I don't expect to a mystical elegiac melody which trough an interesting development transforms back to the first 'theme'. For the finale I left this: I would really get bored if the fourth movement was yet another sensual semi-introvert melancholic piece. There had to be something to wake up the audience before the finish, and I find a 20 min. clarion just about it!

Croatia, Mr. Howe, must enter the 21st ct. first!

You're welcome, Jerfilm =)

mjkFendrić, this would be the place to buy it, on publisher Cantus's web-site
TRIO ORLANDO

You can check what else they offer, if you wish, under "DISKOGRAFIJA -> Ozbiljna glazba (DISCOGRAPHY -> Serious music)"

Cheers,
EternalOrphea

Dora Pejačević
Piano Trio No.1 in D-major, Op.15
Allegretto LINK (or, if it's not available, LINK)
Andantino LINK (or LINK)
Adagio LINK (or LINK)
Finale - Allegro ma non troppo LINK (or LINK)

Trio Orlando
Vladimir Krpan, piano
Tonko Ninić, violin
Andrej Petrač, v.cello

Actually the CD had arrived on the address on March 3rd, but only yesterday late evening have I arrived on the same address too. So, I listened to it complete in a row, from midnight to 03:00 AM. It met what I expected, the complete piano works of Dora in a solid interpretation recorded with high quality equipment

I don't find the info source reliable, but
I. move 1898
II. 1902
III. 1902
IV. early 1920's perhaps? While he still nourished false hope that it's gonna be "Vita nuova - New Life" in the future, before the major disappointments..

Ivo Maček (24 March 1914 – 26 May 2002) was a Croatian pianist. From 1939-45 he performed as part of the Maček-Šulek-Janigro Trio. He taught at the Hochschule für Musik "Franz Liszt", Weimar in Germany.

Romantic Trio
--> Listen on YouTube LINK

Trio Orlando

Vladimir Krpan, piano
Tonko Ninić, violin
Andrej Petrač, v.cello

Right click within the video frame and Save video as... *.mp3

Georg Karl Wisner von Morgenstern (also Juraj Karlo Wisner pl. Morgenstern. 1783-1855), Croatian composer of Hungarian noble descent. His students were Croatian composers Josip Juratović, Ivan Padovec (Johann Padowetz), Fortunat Pintarić, Franjo Pokorni and Vatroslav Lisinski. With his help Vatroslav Lisinski managed to instumantate his opera "Ljubav i zloba".
(Wikipedia Deutsch LINK)

Brilliant Variations for Clarinet and Orchestra
--> Listen on YouTube LINK

Željko Milić, clarinet
Symphony Orchestra of the Croatian RTV
Julian Kovatchev, conductor

Right click within the video frame and Save video as... *.mp3

Powerful Symphonic Music from Croatia

And once again it is time to continue our Pejačevič edition, now with her piano concerto and orchestral songs. After her initial experience with vocal lyrics and instrumental miniatures, it was not until after 1908 that Dora Pejačevič took up the individual genres of chamber music and then gradually ventured on to the classical forms of instrumental music. On this path she was primarily an autodidact. She composed her first orchestral work, the Piano Concerto op. 33, at the age of twenty-eight, and it adheres to the tradition of the classical and romantic virtuoso solo concerto with the usual three-movement structure. The finely crafted instrumentation produces highly effective contrasts in the concentration of texture and color. We recognize the composer's feeling for inner dramaturgy in her flair for the distribution of intensifications and high points. Four of Dora Pejačevič's thirty songs for voice and piano are presented here in the version for voice and orchestra. With them the composer also made a valuable contribution to Croatian music of the modern period in the genre of the orchestral song and did so with the expressive worlds that were uniquely her own. To round off this CD: her last orchestral work, the Overture in D minor, with its dramatic tension deriving from its rhythmically striking, syncopated main theme.

Thank you admin. Thomas 
Yes, rather operatic indeed; same goes for the non-vocal genre scores of other Croatian composers with Italian background too.

The orchestra in all four moves's Croatian Radio-Television Symphony Orchestra. The conductor in I-III Mladen Tarbuk, whereas in IV Oscar Danon.

I do love - and above all respect - this work as a whole, but the most >impressive< (not lovely and sentimental, melodious, lyrical, heart-tendering, melancholic, et sim.) part for me is the fugue that starts at time 00:42:41