• Publisher: Slovenska matica
• 304 pages
• Author: Veronika Brvar
• Original title: Vdih lepote. Dejan Bravničar, violinist

A portrait of the violinist Dejan Bravničar (1837–2018), A Breath of Beauty, brings back the memory of an outstanding artist, who ennobled Slovenian and international culture, while it also portrays the social circumstances in which the top violinist matured and acted, and provides insight into his family, which had the reputation of being cultivated, broad-spirited and cosmopolitan. His mother, Gizela Bravničar, was the principal dancer of the Slovenian National Theatre of Ljubljana’s Opera and Ballet, and the founder of a secondary ballet school, while his father, Matija Bravničar, was a Slovenian composer and academician. The violinist’s career is assiduously documented in the book, complete with descriptive lists of his concerts in Slovenia and abroad, with selected citations from reviews published by Slovenian and international press, and with testimonies by his colleagues, students and contemporaries. Despite the wealth of documentary materials, however, the artist’s portrait lives up in a colourful narrative. The tone of the seven chapters is set by a selected Dejan Bravničar’s thought, touching upon all aspects of his artistic work and noble pedagogical devotion, while in the introductory and concluding chapters, the book’s author, Veronika Brvar, also reveals less known aspects of Bravničar’s life, and his other special interests. A Breath of Beauty is further enriched by pictorial materials, while the violinist’s portrait is given a special significance by prophetic verses written by the poet Oton Župančič in a dedication when a son was born into the Bravničar family.

About the author

Veronika Brvar

Veronika Brvar, a graduate in musicology, has been actively present on the Slovenian musical scene for several decades. She had been the director of Radio Slovenia’s classical music programme for a number of years, having been elected into the expert committee of the European Broadcasting Union four times during that time. She had been the director of the programme division of the Ljubljana Festival, and currently works as the president and art director of the Glasbena matica Music Society of Ljubljana, and as the editor-in-chief of the music magazine Glasna, published by the Musical Youth of Slovenia. Her abundant international experience in programme formation and art direction is reflected in numerous successful editions of festivals, including the Gledanica, Echos and Tenso international festivals, while the Bells Concert within the 1997 Month of Culture, which she co-initiated with the Spanish composer Llorenç Barber, has gone down as an exceptional event by her. She has collaborated with central cultural institutions of Slovenia as a contributor covering music, and has participated in three TV Slovenia’s documentaries as their screenwriter: Let Music Bring Fresh Air into the City; Velvet Cantilene, i.e. a portrait of the violinist Dejan Bravničar, and a portrait of the composer Igor Švara.

As the president and art director of Glasbena matica, i.e. the oldest Slovenian music society, she, through her programme and other aspects of her work, has extended and enhanced its quality year by year, its music groups having been ever more esteemed on Slovenia’s musical scene with their innovative approaches, their events, and successful coproductions.