STUDIES AND RESEARCH

Vladimir Kraus Rajterić — a film music composer

An analytical study of some of the most characteristic samples of the prolific film-music work by the late Croatian composer Vladimir Kraus-Rajterić. The study is the first one on the important but neglected composer, accompanied by the complete filmography of the composer’s work.

Besides few short remarks by an reviewer of Croatian animation films, there has been no mention anywhere in literature about the work of the late (died recently, in July 29 1996) composer Vladimir Kraus-Rajterić. He was an employee in Jadran film, the biggest Croatian film company, and he wrote film music for about twenty feature films, and for about forty animated and documentary films. Born in December 14 1924 in Zagreb, in 1942 he entered then established Art school, the school of an open nature, where different arts were thought and promoted (literature, drama, music, dance and art). He took additional private lectures in music with Ivo Kirigin, the teacher at the school and later a leading man in music department of Jadran film. Basically, Kraus-Rajterić’s musical education was not complete, up to the university educational standards, but he compensated it by self-education.

Entering the music department in Jadran film at the end of forties, he was introduced into the music editing skills by Tea Brunšmid and Lidija Jojić, and was very much appreciated by them. Along with the music editing jobs he soon started composing music for films. The limits of his music education was noticeable in some failings of the orchestration side of some of his early film-music (e. g. in animated film The Enchanted Castle in Dudinci, 1952), but later on it was not the case any more. He was inventive in finding effective themes, in imaginative coordination of music with picture, and in original compositional solutions of some particular tasks. In his music there can be sensed a nice combination of somewhat naive traditionalist approach and of the traces of contemporary music approach (most probably under the influence of Ivo Kirigin). After his death some music scores for autonomous (non-film) compositions were found (three solo songs; one suite for piano, chorus composition, etc.), but, being very modest person, Vladimir Kraus-Rajterić had never published them.

Irena Paulus