Biography
Gotovac was born in Split (then part of Austria-Hungary) and initially had little if any formal education in music. Jakov was fortunate to be encouraged and supported by Josip Hatze, Cyril Metoděj Hrazdira and Antun Dobronić who instilled him with a nationalistic orientation in music. He started as a law student in Zagreb, but switched to writing music in 1920. In Vienna, he studied in the class of Johan Marx.
Back home, in 1922 he founded the Philharmonia Society in Šibenik. In 1923 he moved to Zagreb, where he kept working both as conductor and composer until his death. Between 1923 and 1958, he was opera conductor in the Croatian National Theatre (Hrvatsko narodno kazalište), and leader of an academic musical society Mladost, and of the choir Vladimir Nazor.
The best-known piece of work of Gotovac is no doubt Ero, which has been performed on all continents except Australia, and translated into nine languages, with its libretto written by Milan Begović. It has been performed in more than 80 theatres in Europe alone. He also wrote numerous other works for orchestra as well as vocal music, piano pieces, and others.
In his works, Gotovac represents the late national romanticism, with national folklore being the main source of ideas and inspiration. Musically he prefers homophonic textures, and fairly simple harmonic structures in keeping with the folk idiom he admired.
Gotovac died at the age of 87 in Zagreb (then SFR Yugoslavia).
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