Tomislav Oliver: Mixórdia IV, transmitting, for flaute solo

The composition Mixórdia IV, transmitting, for flute solo was written in 2020, under the circumstances of the pandemic, and was premiered as part of th ae Mixtur Festival in Barcelona by flutist Luisa Vinuesa Sanz. It is the fourth piece in the Mixórdia cycle, shaped by the composer’s preoccupation with observing an artwork through the lens of heterotopia, “an ontological space containing fragments of possible musical narratives that coexist without an immanent or predetermined hierarchy,” and at the same time conceived as a homage to his late professor, Marko Ruždjak.

According to the composer, this multi-layered work is grounded in bipolarity, and “its form is defined by the concept of heterotopia. For this reason, the material consists of instrumental gestures that correspond to this concept of an unstable musical flow, with motives that are often very short. Each gesture represents an independent narrative discourse in terms of motivic material, tempo and rhythm, dynamics, and performance techniques. Through their collisions, superimpositions, and abrupt interruptions resembling ‘short circuits’, the musical dramaturgy is constructed — or deconstructed.” Silence, as the space between sounds, represents an essential material in the piece, carrying the emotional weight of the farewell to Marko Ruždjak, to whom the work is dedicated. The notation is fixed, as is the formal framework, while the musical fabric is woven from gestures that largely reflect the expressive character of each performer.

After Luisa Vinuesa Sanz, the work has also been performed and recorded by German flutist Susanne Peters, as well as Croatian flutists Dani Bošnjak and Ana Batinica.
It received the Second Prize at the Flute New Music Consortium (2021), was declared the winning composition of the Balkan Composer Competition in 2023, and in the same year was submitted for consideration for the ISCM World New Music Days 2023. The recording of Tomislav Oliver’s (Spanish) Third String Quartet was released on the album Quartets performed by the Arditti Quartet, published by Croatia Records, 2024.