Jakov Gotovac created the Croatian national work of art with his opera Ero the Joker, a work brimming with Balkan zest for life but also characterized by melancholy, while always drawing on this regions marvelous folk music tradition. Drawing on their own Balkan experience, Moshe Atzmon and the NDR Radio Philharmonic of Hannover team up for interpretations of Gotovacs most important orchestral works: the symphonic poems Orai Men and Ploughs and Guslar The Gusle Player, the captivating Symphonic Kolo, and the orchestral intermezzi from Ero. The Seven Balkan Dances by Gotovacs Serbian contemporary Marko Tajevi supply the encore.
