Ratko Delorko on His Award-Winning “Otmar-Alt-Sonata”
- WOMCO
- 4 hours ago
- 4 min read
Ratko Delorko was awarded the Diamond Prize in the K: Best Sonata category at the 2025 Season 2 Best Classical Musicians Awards for his composition Otmar-Alt-Sonata.
Biography
Ratko Delorko
Pianist - Composer - Educator - Writer
Composer of the Fantastic Realism
I, Ratko Delorko, discovered the piano as my favourite toy at the tender age of three. It took me another three years to discover the piano as a creative tool for writing my youthful compositions.
My professional background—my formative years—were shaped by studying piano, composition and conducting in Cologne, Düsseldorf and Munich.
I have had the privilege of performing in such varied venues as the Berlin Philharmonie, the Tonhalle in Düsseldorf, the Cologne Philharmonie, the Gasteig in Munich, the Philharmonie in Essen, Hamburg's Musikhalle, the Glocke in Bremen, London's St. Martin in the Fields, Paleau de la Musica in Valencia, Beijing's Concert Hall, Shanghai's Oriental Arts Center, Cairo Opera House. Mozartfest Oberösterreich, Mozartfest Istambul and a very extreme experience: The Dachstein Ice Cave.
Music for solo piano, piano duet, chamber music, electronic music, opera and ballet are fields in which my primary efforts are concentrated as a composer.
Currently, I lecture at the Frankfurt University of Music. Former lecturer at the Mozarteum Salzburg (2019-2021). In the past, I have conducted master classes and served as guest professor in Austria, Malaysia, Russia, Italy, Croatia, the US, Vietnam and China, and I continue to do so to the present day.
My book on the piano has been published by “Staccato-Verlag“. The book release in 2023: The Nuts and Bolts of Online Piano Teaching. New release in 2024: „Ratko Delorko’s Piano Police“–a 40 pages guide to better playing. Last year, My MIDI_Sonata for Piano and synthetic sounds has been awarded with the silver medallion of the Global Music Awards.
Could you share the inspiration behind the work Otmar-Alt-Sonata and the message you hope to convey through it?
The inspiration came as always at 2 am in the morning. Had to drop the main theme down on a sticky note, after drawing five lines free hand. Then it was moved to my book of ideas. From there it made it to my computer and I took it from there.
What was your creative process like while composing Otmar-Alt-Sonata? How did you approach the structure and dynamics of the piece?
The conception of the Otmar Alt Sonata was developed then during a working stay at the Otmar Alt Foundation in Hamm: surrounded by the painter's works, walking through the sculpture park and observing the animals in the small zoo. Designed as a four-movement sonata form, the Otmar Alt Sonata essentially corresponds to the classical order of a sonata: the movement structure fast-slow-fast followed by a slow appendix; the main theme with its classical setup with its exposition and development in the first movement, the five-note theme of the second movement and the rondo character of the third movement. There are also condensed improvisational structures and complex rhythmic interleavings. Complexity in simplicity. Always.
Structure:
1.“The Dance With the Grand" springs from the spirit and wit of the Schimmel grand piano designed by Otmar Alt, which was available to me at the time. An inspiringly cheerful and cheeky instrument, which seems to scrape with its feet and after it has let the main theme drink from its overtones, wants to dance with me in crooked rhythms. My listeners on the note stand are two friendly, black-and-white and colored heads, watching me from their perspective while I am improvising, condensing, developing and scribbling. Sometimes I catch myself talking to them.
2.“Out of the Silence of the Night" is a series of paintings in the dark tenor. The similar components are circulated through a five-tone row. Initially, as if engraved with an etching needle, it stands bare in the baritone. It thickens, gets contrapuntal company and sprinkles everything around it with dark ink, like the darkness that envelops the nocturnal walker in the field and in the park. At night you can hear the animals screaming. The meanwhile - similar to the trees full of mistletoe at the location - overgrown with harmonies five-tone row unfolds its morbid beauty completely, while the dread of dawn already clings to the panes. Just as suddenly as the new day lifts the fogs from the meadows, the coda reveals what is actually slumbering under the haze of the five-note ceiling.
3.“Westphalian Platypus" is a painting in acrylic on canvas by Otmar Alt, which I was allowed to hang in my study at the Foundation. A fascinatingly unreal alliance between the duck animal and the cat guy in front of the village church and the barn, guided by the desire to dance, is reflected, of course again in odd and alternating time signatures, in the themes A-B-A-C-A-usw. Stomping and tripping, searching and wandering, but at the same time belly-twisting and flexible coiling, that is the skill of this beaky-mustachioed hairy pas-de-deux of good humor.
4.“Half-Asleep Thoughts of the Platypus". The now weary platypus gratefully reviews the madly tangy events in half-sleep.
Dynamics:
The dynamics developed during the composing and the later practicing process.
How do you feel about the response to your composition, and are there any particular emotions or reactions you'd like listeners to experience when they hear it performed?
The audience loves the work. It is considered as all my music as "Fantastic Realism".
Would you like to share your experience participating in our competition and anyone you'd like to thank (such as mentors, collaborators, or supporters)?
I would like to express a big thank you to the painter Otmar Alt and his team.