Serbian & Greek Art Music

A Patch to Western Music History

Katy Romanou

• Publisher: Intellect Books
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781841503387
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medien & darstellende Kunst
• Subtopic: Musik

The music of Serbia and Greece has long been a vital part of Balkan culture, but it has been excluded from the academic canon of Western music history. Katy Romanou corrects this oversight with Serbian and Greek Art Music, the first book in English on the subject. Written by seven renowned musicologists, the book stresses the interaction between music and politics and relates the efforts of local musicians to synchronize their musical environment with the West. Focusing on music education, musical culture, and creation, this timely volume will be of interest to musicologists and scholars of Balkan culture.

Part I: Art Music in Serbia

Chapter 1

Serbian Musical Theatre from the Mid-19th Century until World War II

Biljana Milanovi

Petar Konjovi

’s autograph from his Miloš’s Wedding (1903).

The development of a modern Serbian musical theatre was comparable to that of other countries involved in nation-building within the revolutionary-Romantic context of the 19th century. However, the specific situation in Serbia was influenced by the complex political and socio-economic circumstances of the Austro-Hungarian and Turkish empires, by variable geographic and symbolic borders, and by the enduring struggle to unite the Serbs within a single state. Though several stages of liberation from the Turkish rule enabled the formation of first an autonomous Principality and then the Serbian Kingdom, a great many regions inhabited by Serbs on the territories of present-day Vojvodina, Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Metohija were still part of the Habsburg and Ottoman empires right up to the Balkan wars (1912–1913) and World War I. The legitimacy of Serbian statehood was then transferred to a multi-ethnic Yugoslav state (1918) characterised simultaneously by polycentric national cultures and a centralising (supra) national tendency towards the homogenization of an imagined Yugoslav identity. Therefore, the complex layers of collective cultural identities, as well as the multiple traditional strands of cultural life, represent an important context for the investigation not only of musical theatre but of the entire culture of the Serbs in the 19th and 20th centuries. Since the national musical scene had also been developing inside the Serbian state and among the Serbian population in Vojvodina from the beginning of this period, its foundation had been formed in relation to the experience of several different cultures, which meant overcoming numerous obstacles. However, certain regions were marked even prior to this by an expressive continuity of changes, so that the dynamic process of change within social and economic contexts, lifestyles, spiritual values and competing models of national culture had its foundation in an earlier period. This offered a unique potential for creativity.¹

Researches into Serbian musical theatre developed within independent studies of institutions and repertoire on the one hand and compositional-stylistic or dramaturgical features of different musical-dramatic genres on the other. Though a consideration of individual works has been predominant, the resulting extensive corpus of knowledge only serves to emphasise that a detailed and integral insight into the history of the national musical scene in Serbia has yet to be developed in Serbian musicology.

As in earlier stages, from medieval jongleurs’ theatre to Jesuitical dramas and verteps in the 18th century, Serbian musical theatre of the new era is inseparable from the dramatic theatre with which it shares its history. The initial impulses begin with the activity of the versatile Joakim Vuji

(1772–1847), who organised stage performances among the Serbs of Hungary and the Principality of Serbia.² There were Serbian theatrical companies in the first half of the century in Novi Sad, Pan

evo, Kikinda, Sombor and other places in Vojvodina. At that time, the Theatre of the Princedom of Serbia (1834) was established, and its foundation, together with the slightly earlier orchestra (the Band of the Principality of Serbia (1831)), was an important part of the institutionalisation of culture and society in Kragujevac, the then capital of the newly formed Principality. The first developmental phase of a Serbian musical culture began with the cooperation of the two leading figures in these institutions, Joakim Vuji

and Josif Šlezinger (1794–1870). It continued also when the capital was moved to Belgrade (1841) through the short-term activities associated with the theatres at

umruk and at Jelen, and ended with the appearance of the first musical-stage works created by professional composers at the time when national theatres in Novi Sad (1861) and Belgrade (1868) were established. This initial period was characterised by the amateurism of composers, orchestral players and singer-actors alike, as well as by numerous organisational-technical problems and a patriarchal audience that was just beginning to construct its national and cultural identity.

Conditioned by multiple needs, Šlezinger performed various types of music: marches, dances, potpourri, fantasies from foreign, predominantly contemporary, operas (Mozart, Bellini, Donizetti, Halévy), as well as his own pieces dedicated to the theatre, often inspired by folk melodies.³ His activity and cooperation with Vuji

were influenced by the wish...