Feim Ibrahimi (1935–1997)
Prominent composer, “People’s Artist”
Born on October 20, 1935, in Gjirokastër, he is one of Albania’s most popular composers. His name is one of the most prominent personalities of Albanian music since the 1970s and beyond.
Practically self-taught in his beginnings, he was the first major Albanian composer to study exclusively within the country, enrolling in 1962 at the newly established Conservatory of Tirana, where he studied under the direction of Tish Daisa until 1966. After that he gave taught composition, counterpoint and harmony at the Conservatory (1966–73), and then held the post of deputy director of the Higher Institute of Arts, the Conservatory’s parent body (1973–1977). His musical creativity contains in itself works of the most different types. It can be divided into three periods.
In the first period, the years 1963-1970, the first creations of the composer are included. We single out here the Toccata for Piano, the suite of the movie “Triumph over Death”, the success of which made it well known, not only in artistic circles but also to the general public.
While the Concerto for Cello and Orchestra proved Ibrahimi’s intention for new trends. The creations of the first period indicated the arrival on the scene of a young composer with serious claims, where the first symptoms of a professional author emerge anyway.
The years 1971-1990, the second period, contains the works where the author crystallized his distinctive features. Two concertos for Piano and Orchestra as well as the Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra are highlighted here. All three of these works brought a new reality to the Albanian music of that time. Outstanding for an innovative spirit, showing Ibrahim’s tendency to go beyond the standards of the time, where the distinctive specifics of the author’s creativity stand out.
A special place in this period is also occupied by the author’s only stage work, The Tenth Wound Ballet by Gjergj Elez Ali, which I created at a time when he had fully reached the stage of compositional maturity, thus bringing one of the best for the Albanian performing arts.
The third and last period includes the works of 1990-1997.
He appears in this period as a composer with a large dose of tragedy in himself. This condition of his is certainly related to the historical-political situation that our country was going through. After, like many other artists, the author created the “illusion” that the flow of Albanian art, with the change of systems, would take a completely new flow and then the disillusionment of the author, for the reason that he would be ignored by the music. Albanian.
Thus he is caught by the darkest thoughts and feelings of a man, always going towards a hopeless state, this phase can also be described as the “tragic” period of Ibrahim’s creativity, represented by the works, De Profundis, Trio Vikamë , Tragic Symphony, romance Dasvidania.
His highest post held by maestro Ibrahimi was that of the secretary for music in the League of Writers and Artists of Albania (1977-1991); later he was the director of the Opera and Ballet Theater, Tirana (1991-92). From 1992 until his death, he taught theory and composition at the Tirana Conservatory.
In 1992, he founded the festival Evening of New Albanian Music. In 1994, he founded the artistic association Pentaton (today the “Feim Ibrahimi” Cultural Foundation), with the aim of organizing several cultural activities and establishing a private conservatory for talented children. Some of his works have been published in England by Emerson Edition.
For his artistic merits, in 1989, the Albanian state awarded him the title “People’s Artist”, Albania’s highest artistic title. While in 2000, the Municipality of Tirana awarded him the title of Honor of Tirana, for his contribution to Albanian culture, and especially to the culture of the capital.
In 2001, the Municipality of Durrës (the city where he spent his childhood and youth) gave him the title of Honorary Citizen. Ibrahimi has won many former national and May Concerts awards (the main annual musical event since 1967). He has twice won the Republic Award – the most important award given for creative activity.
In 1990, in the Aalto Theater foyer, in Essen (Germany), a portrait-concert was organized, which also contained a lecture on his music. In 1994, at the invitation of the Brahms-Gesellschaft, Ibrahimi was composer-in-residence at the Brahmshaus in Baden-Baden (Germany), and immediately after that he studied electro-acoustic music at the Mozarteum in Salzburg (Austria). In 1995, his work De Profundis – composed during his stay in Salzburg – was selected for the electro-acoustic music festival in Bourges, France.
Ibrahim’s music spans almost all genres: instrumental miniatures, film music, chamber music, concertos for solo instruments and orchestra, symphonies, ballets and vocal works. Dialogue for cello and piano, as well as the romance E la tua veste è bianca (based on a poem by S. Quasimodoso) for soprano, cello and piano, (both composed in June 1997) are the last works of the composer.
Maestro Feim Ibrahimi is also the composer of the soundtracks of several Albanian films, among them: “Triumph over death”; “Why does this drumbeat”; “The fall of the idols”; “Forest of freedom”; “Ballad of Kurbin”; “When a day dawned”; “Face to face”; “The uninvited”;
Passed away on August 2, 1997, in Turin, Italy.
Published for the first time on Facebook in August 2016 and reviewed in the following years.
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