The Fourth National Festival and New Bulgarian Music ’75 (1974–1975)

The fatigue from Italy had not yet worn off when preparations began for the Fourth National Festival of Amateur Arts. The standard of choirs across the country was rising, and the final stage was to be held in May 1974 in Varna, which made the hosts all the more determined. In an article on the Varna choirs in the final, Prof. Venelin Krastev named Morski Zvutsi’s large choir as the most compelling: with the exceptionally difficult third movement of “The Bells”, the choir under Marin Chonev gave the choral festival its “most worthy conclusion”. Krastev valued the logic and clarity of its interpretation, the simplicity of expression and the natural shaping of the words; only deeper basses and altos, he felt, could widen its range of colour further.

The reviewer singled out D. Petkov’s cantata “For the Motherland”, the masterly song “Syala y moma ran bosilek” by the young Varna composer Stefan Mutafchiev, Georgi Dimitrov’s tongue-twister “Lika-prilika”, sung with virtuosity, and Kr. Kyurkchiyski’s “Dream”. The chamber choir impressed him with Mutafchiev’s song, Petko Mechkov’s “Kavali”, Veljo Tormis’s sound impressions and Ravel’s “Rondeau” – proof of how methodically Chonev was moving into new chamber repertoire. The book reproduces the festival’s gold medal diplomas of Marin Chonev and of the mixed and chamber choirs (1974).

Already at the end of 1974 the choir accepted an invitation to the New Bulgarian Music ’75 showcase in Sofia in January, with just a month and a half to prepare. The press stressed that Morski Zvutsi was the only amateur choir in the country taking part. On 25 January 1975, in the Bulgaria Hall, the chamber and mixed choirs closed the showcase’s first choral concert – after the Construction Troops Men’s Choir, the Sofia Women Teachers’ Choir and the Folk Song Ensemble of Bulgarian Radio and Television.

Under the headline “A convincing case for new works”, Prof. Krastev reviewed the programme: Mutafchiev’s folk arrangement “Syala y moma ran bosilek” and his “Echo”, Kyurkchiyski’s “Dream” to a text by Langston Hughes, Aleksandar Tanev’s playful “Ya zalyubih kaso libe”, D. Petkov’s “Peyni mi, peyni” and Mechkov’s “Kavali”. He called the chamber choir’s “Echo” and “Kavali” model performances, praised Chonev for never straying from the composer’s intentions, and found only Petkov’s song not fully mastered, its soloists not matching the choir. His verdict: the high level shown at the showcase was another sign of Morski Zvutsi’s great potential.