Department of Musicology Faculty of Music

Department of Musicology
Faculty of Music
International Journal of Music
Belgrade, II/2019
ISSN 0354-818X = New Sound
UDC 78:781(05) COBISS.SR-ID 102800647
Belgrade, II/2019
Publisher:
Faculty of Music
Kralja Milana 50, 11000 Belgrade
Editorial Board:
Mirjana Veselinović-Hofman Ph.D.
(Editor-in-chief)
Vesna Mikić Ph.D.
(Deputy editor-in-chief)
Academician Dejan Despić
Sonja Marinković Ph.D.
Ana Kotevska M.A.
Miloš Zatkalik M.A.
Marcel Cobussen Ph.D. (The Netherlands)
Pierre Albert Castanet Ph.D. (France)
Chris Walton Ph.D. (South Africa/Switzerland)
Eduardo R. Miranda Ph.D. (Brazil/UK)
Nico Schüler Ph.D. (Germany/USA)
Cover design:
Jovana Ćika Novaković
Secretary of the Editorial Board:

Ivana Miladinović Prica Ph.D.
Editorial Board and Office:

Faculty of Music
Kralja Milana 50, 11000 Belgrade
E-mail: [email protected]
www.newsound.org.rs
The Journal is published semestrally.

The Journal is classified in ERIH – European Reference Index for the Humanities
CONTENTS
Editorial ................................................................................................................ 7
CONVERSATIONS
Branislava Trifunović
An Important Thing that Western Contemporary Music has Forgotten about:
Joy. An Interview with the Composer Ana Sokolović .................................... 9
STUDIES
Selena Rakočević
Bouncing as a Distinguishable Structural Feature of Srpsko Kolo:
Aspects of Identification and Notation ......................................................... 19
Rūta Stanevičiūtė
Lithuanian and Polish Musical Networking during the Cold War:
Political Curtains and Cultural Confrontations ........................................... 44
Giorgos Sakallieros
The Symphonic Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1935) by Manolis
Kalomiris: Reaffirming the National-Ideal Topos through the
(Old) Western Canon ...................................................................................... 68
Žarko Cvejić
From “Bach” to “Bach’s Son”: The Work of Aesthetic Ideology in the
Historical Reception of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach ................................... 90
Radoš Mitrović
Improvised Music as Socially Engaged Art: Poetics of
Cardew and Rzewski ...................................................................................... 109
NEW WORKS
Ana Gnjatović
The House that is Here but is not That: Оn the Lonesome Skyscraper
by Ivana Ognjanović ...................................................................................... 123
3
ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVES
Miloš Zatkalik
C, F-sharp and E-flat: The Tragic, the Sublime and the Oppressed (with
C-sharp as Nemesis): Reflections on Eine Kleine Trauermusik by
Milan Mihajlović ........................................................................................... 131
REVIEWS
Selena Rakočević
Vesna Karin, Plesna praksa Dinaraca u Vojvodini [The Dance
Practice of the Dinaric People in Vojvodina], Novi Sad: Akademija
umetnosti, 2018. ............................................................................................ 161
Marija Maglov
Bojana Radovanović, Eksperimentalni glas: Savremena teorija i praksa
[Experimental Voice: Contemporary Theory and Practice],
Belgrade: Orion Art, 2018. ........................................................................... 164
Sanela Nikolić
Ivana Bašičević Antić, Trijumf reči u vizuelnoj umetnosti dvadesetog veka.
Dimitrije Bašičević Mangelos i Marsel Brodars [The Triumph of Words in
Twentieth-Century Visual Art. Dimitrije Bašičević Mangelos and
Marcel Broodthaers], Beograd: Orion Art, 2018. ..................................... 168
Ira Prodanov
Ivan Čavlović, Nauka o muzici u Bosni i Hercegovini [The Study of Music
in Bosnia and Herzegovina], Sarajevo: Fondacija “Čavlović”, 2019. ........ 171
Marijana Kokanović Marković
International Scholarly Conference Jugoslovenska ideja u/o muzici
[The Yugoslav Idea in/of Music], Novi Sad, Matica srpska,
25–26 May 2019 ............................................................................................ 173
Milica Aleksić
Scholarly Conference with International Participation “Maternja melodija”
Momčila Nastasijevića: Interdisciplinarne refleksije [The Native Melody
of Momčilo Nastasijević: Interdisciplinary Reflexions], Belgrade,
Faculty of Music, 23–24 November 2019 ................................................... 178
DEFENDED DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS

Ivana Petković Lozo
The Musical Universe of Claude Debussy. In Search of Immediacy
of Correspondence between the Ear and the Eye ....................................... 183
4
Ivana Miladinović Prica
The Effects of American Experimental Music in the Domain of
Contemporary Art and Theory .................................................................... 185
Igor Radeta
The Piano Music of Maurice Ravel: Hermeneutical
Reflections of Logoseme ................................................................................ 187
Contributors to the Issue .................................................................. 190
5
New Sound 54, II/2019
6
Trifunović, B.: An important thing that western contemporary music has forgotten about: Joy
On the penultimate day of October, in the finishing stages of preparing

this issue of New Sound, our dear and esteemed colleague, Dr. Vesna
Mikić (1967–2019), a dedicated member of our editorial team for
many years and deputy editor-in-chief of New Sound, left us.
Few and far between are those people who do not abandon us even
when they are gone. As one of them, Vesna Mikić remains with us,
with her spirit of curiosity and an oeuvre that has left a deep mark;
she remains as a pillar upholding the solid system of values that she
stood for, both as a scholar and pedagogue in the musicological profes-
sion; she remains with us through her optimism, which she radiated
generously, stimulating activity, supporting thoroughness, responsibil-
ity, and efficiency, friendship and good ethics, encouraging creativity
and critical thinking, professional and personal courage.
We dedicate this issue of New Sound to her, with gratitude and grief.
M. V. H.
7
8
Trifunović, B.: An Interview with the composer Ana Sokolović
CONVERSATIONS
Article received on June 20th 2019

Article accepted on November 28th 2019
UDC: 78.071.1 Соколовић А.
Branislava Trifunović*1
Ph.D. Student
University of Novi Sad
Academy of Arts
Department of Musicology and Ethnomusicology
AN IMPORTANT THING THAT WESTERN

CONTEMPORARY MUSIC HAS FORGOTTEN ABOUT: JOY.
An Interview with the Composer Ana Sokolović
The oeuvre of Ana Sokolović (b. 1968) is a paradigmatic example of a very

successful relationship between two distinct cultural spheres – Serbian and
Canadian. For over two decades now, this artist has cultivated a successful
career as a composer in Canada. She began studying composition with Dušan
Radić at the Academy of Art in Novi Sad and continued her studies at the
Faculty of Music in Belgrade, under the supervision of Zoran Erić. She earned
her master’s degree in composition at the University of Montreal in 1995,
*1Author contact information: [email protected]
9
where her mentor was José Evangelista. Today, she is considered one of the
most important names on the contemporary music scene of Canada, which is
attested to by awards such as the Joseph S. Stauffer Prize (2005), Prix Opus
Composer of the Year award (Conseil québécois de la musique, 2007), two
Jan V. Matejcek Awards (2008 and
2012), and the National Arts Centre
Award (2009), which included com-
missions and a five-year lectureship.
Her opera Svadba (“Wedding”,
2012) was nominated for Dora
Mavor Moore Awards in five catego-
ries (Outstanding Lighting Design,
Outstanding Production, Outstand-
ing Musical Direction, Outstanding
Performance, and Outstanding New
Credit: André Parmentier
Musical/Opera), winning an award
in the Outstanding New Musical/
Opera category. The same year, the Quebec Contemporary Music Society
(Société de musique contemporaine du Québec – SMCQ), as part of their tradi-
tional “Homage to Our Composers” event (Hommage à nos compositeurs),
staged more than a hundred concerts of her music and other events promot-
ing her work throughout Canada, which was an unprecedented honour in
the history of Canadian classical music. In 2015, she won the Serge-Garant
Award presented by the Émile-Nelligan Foundation and, in 2019, the Juno
Award for her piece Golden Slumbers Kiss Your Eyes.
Sokolović has authored some 70 works for various performing forces,
from solo to orchestral pieces, including stage music, opera, modern ballet,
and film music. Her creative activities encompass a keen interest in theatre
and ballet, which has spawned successful collaborations with leading Cana-
dian arts institutions and organizations, such as the Queen of Puddings
Music Theatre, Canadian Opera Company, Ensemble contemporain de Mon-
tréal PLUS, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Vancouver New Music, and Théâtre
UBU, among others. In addition to contracts with renowned soloists and en-
sembles, Sokolović has released 13 CD recordings of her works: Nouvelle mu-
sique montréalaise II (1999), Nouveaux territoires (Ensemble contemporain
de Montréal, 2000), Figment (Matt Haimovitz, 2003), Odusia (Mario Brunello,
2008), So You Want to Write a Fugue (Christina Petrowska Quilico, 2008),
Édifices naturels (Brigitte Poulin, 2008), 5x3 (Fibonacci, 2010), Thirst (Mu-
10
sica Intima & Turning Point Ensemble, 2014), Higgs Ocean (Music for
Gamelan and String Quartet, 2016), and Solo seven (Marc Djokic, 2018). The
discography of Ana Sokolović also includes three CDs exclusively featuring
her music: Jeu des Portraits (2012) and Sirène (2018) with performances by
Ensemble contemporain de Montréal led by Véronique Lacroix and Folklore
imaginaire with performances by Ensemble Transmission. A somewhat curi-
ous CD release, titled New Worlds by the Canadian label Analekta, was in-
spired by themes of migration and crossing national boundaries and features
two works: Antonin Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony (“From the New World”) and
Golden Slumbers Kiss Your Eyes by Ana Sokolović. But Sokolović has enjoyed
success beyond the borders of multicultural Canada as well. Her works have
been performed at festivals such as Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Présence
(Paris), Nordic Music Days (Reykjavík), the Venice Biennale, Music Biennale
Zagreb, Holland Festival (Amsterdam), MNM (Montreal), ADEvantgarde
Festival (Munich), Cervantino (Mexico City), International Diaghilev Festival
(Perm), ISCM Music Days (Vancouver), BEMUS (Belgrade), while her opera
Svadba has had an American as well as a European tour.
Although critics often talk of a “Slavic soul” breathing in works by this
composer, Sokolović’s oeuvre is exemplary for its diversity of artistic expres-
sion. Her language is unique not only in terms of her approach to references
such as folkloric archetypes, which she treats as work materials, but also in
her view of music as an extremely abstract art that must be complemented
with a verbal or visual layer to stimulate the listener/viewer’s imagination –
for her, an essential element of life.2 For Sokolović, composing constitutes an
act of research, using the entire musical tradition, whether national or global,
as an inexhaustible source of stylistic formations, which she then shapes in
peculiar moulds, earning international acclaim. Nonetheless, that statement
would have to be qualified: the pluralist quality of Sokolović’s oeuvre stems
not only from its sonic spectrum, but also, as she puts it herself, from a plural-
ity of inspiration, whether visual impressions, emotional imprints, or verbal
influences. This approach to composition has been characterized as typically
Canadian in the media (Aaron Gervais): a structural analogy between the
pluralistic musical language of Ana Sokolović, based on her minimalist, neo-
expressionist, and folkloric heritage, and multicultural Canada is a necessary
condition for securing the status of a Canadian “national treasure”.
2 According to “Portrait d’Ana Sokolovic”, an interview published in Circuit. Last ac-

cessed 22 November 2018.
11
* * *
1. Your creative opus is already an imposing one, encompassing some 70 works,

most of which have been performed across the world. That is a great achieve-
ment and it seems as if composing for you were not simply a manifestation of a
natural talent, nourished and cultivated by education. For you, composing is
something more than that?
Yes, composing constitutes a type of communication.
Composing represents the composer’s desire to share a part of her world
with others. To offer her audience, at the same time, something that she
thinks they haven’t yet heard, or, at least for a short while, to enable her audi-
ence to travel to different worlds. A composer seeks to make the world a bet-
ter place precisely by sharing with it their common imaginative world, which
is, like dreams, for instance, quite abstract. Because music, as the most ab-
stract of the arts, enables us to do just that.
1a. Does every composer really seek to make the world a better place, though?
Carl Orff was a Nazi. Is it possible to save today’s consumer/exploitation soci-
ety through music, mirroring Dostoyevsky’s assertion that beauty would save
the world? In the 18th century, Baumgarten held that music was abstract,
whereas before that, music had served the Church, while in the 19th century it
served to promote the ruling class – the bourgeoisie. The more seductive music
is, the more dangerous it becomes. Feminists have noted that the main subject
of every half-serious opera is the demise of a woman. Up until the 1970s no one
had noticed that because it was so commonplace that it seemed quite romantic
and natural. Eurydice, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Carmen, La traviata, Mimi,
Aida, Gilda… they all die. Does music encourage escaping from reality? Or are
there ways in which music acts to improve certain dimensions of that reality?
Those are excellent and multifaceted questions. I’ll try to be concise.
First, I think that most composers seek to make the world a better place.
But defining “better” is certainly subjective.
As for Carl Orff, we don’t know for sure whether he was a Nazi or not,
just as we don’t know that about Heidegger or Strauss. Not everything is black
and white like that. But without venturing into details of that nature, it is
paradoxical that very few people have made other people so happy like Orff
did with his music, not only with his famous Carmina Burana, but also with
12
his pedagogical work (the Orff instrumentarium), used by every school in

the world. Even if he didn’t want to make the world happy, he did contribute
to that with his work.
The world cannot be saved by any one thing, including music. But music
can – and for that there is scientific proof – contribute to ennobling people.
Like Dostoyevsky, I also think that beauty will save the world. All people
have good and evil inside them. Which one of those will develop more de-
pends on the circumstances in which we live.
As Baumgarten said, music is abstract, and I would add that it is the
most abstract of the arts. And, as Stravinsky says, it describes nothing but it-
self. But Stravinsky also adds: “I haven’t understood a bar of music in my life,
but I have felt it”. It means that this type of “understanding” through one’s
skin is what is difficult to describe and discuss. Music and love are quite sim-
ilar in terms of their abstractness. Love has started wars, as well as stimulated
the writing of the most beautiful songs. And no one has yet fully explained
what love is, or what music is. And yet we all feel them.
As for music, the Church, and bourgeoisie, I could say a lot about that.
There’s always been music and there always will be. The division of music
into ritual, sacred music, etc. has existed in every tribe and nation. What we
today call classical or artistic instrumental music was born in the Catholic
Church. For praising God, as well as itself, the Catholic Church (and later the
protestant church as well) had the monetary power to hire performers and
composers knowing full well how powerful music is. Then praising God
moved to praising the masters (kings, the bourgeoisie). That is, whoever
could pay. Only after the French Revolution was music democratized.
When it comes to dying in operas – opera means drama. In my opinion,
the death of women is especially dramatic, because it is less commonly en-
countered in the history of society. Unfortunately, civilization is patched to-
gether by numerous wars, where, of course, there are female casualties as
well, but the dying of men is, in a way, more common.
2. Although we just broached a provocative subject, let us move, nonetheless, to

other topics, because the format of this interview obliges us to do so. Your first
composition professor was Dušan Radić. Could you tell us a bit more about
studying in his class, his methods and techniques of work, and could you draw
a comparison with studying with Zoran Erić? What were the influences of these
two mentors that made a special contribution to the formation of your musical
language?
13
Working with two professors was very different.

I think that nothing is random and that I worked with each of my profes-
sors at the right time.
With Radić, I learned, or, rather, confirmed that intuition is very impor-
tant and that cherishing our own thoughts and tastes should be our guiding
principle (the heart).
With Erić I complemented the teaching that reflection, planning, and
good organization do not hamper intuition but, on the contrary, push it
ahead and complete it into a creative force (the brain).
I must add that I also learned a lot about creativity from Zora Bokšan
Tanurdžić, my drama studio professor. She taught me that the artistic obsta-
cles or challenges we set to ourselves are actually quite important, if not the
most important thing in creativity, because they get the imagination going.
And imagination is the most important thing in creativity.
3. In 1992 you moved to Montreal, where you began and completed your mas-
ter’s degree, with Prof. José Evangelista. I would assume that your first encoun-
ter with the society and culture of Canada was a drastic change from the
atmosphere of Yugoslavia at the time. In concrete terms, what was it that at-
tracted you to Canada? What was the difference between studying in Montreal
and in Yugoslavia?
The overall difference in studying is huge in terms of the organization of the
programme, the exams, the possibility to choose your courses, and the gen-
eral organization of group teaching.
But when it comes to one-on-one composition tutorials, there’s no real
difference there. It is all a matter of perception, every person sees the world
in their own way. Thus composers, too, having different priorities, teach their
students in their own way. That’s why I think it’s good that students don’t
study with the same professor for too long, but enrich themselves with com-
ments and perceptions from various angles. That applies especially to higher
education. What I will always remember about my professor José Evangelista
is the generous support he gave me to develop my own musical personality.
4. How would you describe your musical language? What is it about it that you
would label unique?
It’s difficult to talk about oneself. What’s interesting is that I don’t have, un-
like most of my colleagues, a developed harmonic or rhythmic system that I
14
might use for composing. For me, each work is a new project and entails a
new research endeavour, so I’d be hard-pressed to classify all of my works
into “my style”. In fact, I’m happy that I feel no fetters of any kind, precisely
because I live in “the new world”, so I can allow myself to explore and try out
various techniques and approaches to composition. I’m talking about Canada
as this “new world” because in Canada, tradition runs very short, while the
European tradition, which is accepted, does not constitute the natural or only
source of inspiration or impose the “duty” to continue the tradition. The Eu-
ropean tradition is the basis, an inspiration, but for that same reason some-
times also a limitation.
5. In a 2011 interview you gave for the Canadian newspaper The Globe and
Mail, you underscored that at the very beginning of your career as an indepen-
dent composer you did not use the musical heritage of the Balkans, but that
your listeners identified a “Slavic soul” in you. In your opinion, is it indeed that
melodic heritage, from this part of the world, which you later started using con-
sciously, that which makes your works communicative for listeners and critics
in Canada? What is it, in concrete terms, that’s brought you such coveted
awards, most notably the declaration of your work as part of Quebec’s national
treasure in 2012?
I’ve spent a lot of time analysing my own music, trying to identify what it is
that my Canadian listeners have recognized in it as its “Slavic soul”. Its me-
lodic and modal qualities are of an entirely secondary importance, if not ter-
tiary. I think what’s prominent in my music is first and foremost character: a
cohabitation of finesse and boldness (coming from its dual Mediterranean-
carnivalesque nature), then rhythm (stemming from Serbian language/
speech), and play, in terms of playing and dancing alike. As well as another
important thing that Western contemporary music has forgotten about: joy.
6. Your oeuvre encompasses various genres: opera, chamber music, theatre

music, solo works, etc. Do you cherish special affinities for certain genres in
particular? Which medium would you consider the best suited to your brand of
musical expression?
“The stage is my playground.” I’m attracted to whatever takes place on a stage,
from the visually simplest and artistically most abstract (musicians on a
stage) to the most complex (opera). I’m especially attracted to opera precisely
15
due to the sensory complexity it engenders, as well as to the way it combines

all those different arts.
7. Given that you pursued a career in acting while you were still living in Yugo-
slavia and that you are an avid lover of drama and theatre direction, do you
perhaps perceive that other arts, especially stage arts, influence your creativity?
Where do you find inspiration?
I must admit to you that I do not compose like a composer, that is, like a per-
son who has only musical ideas in her head. When composing, I maintain an
insight into the work in its entirety, as a dramatic event, which in fact may
apply to any work of art where time is an important parameter (theatre, film,
music). And music, as the most abstract art, is well-suited to playing pre-
cisely with time, where we, composers, try to have fun with the perception of
time, trying to fool our audiences by repeating sequences, returning to places
we’ve already been to, but differently, and in other ways that are known only
to us, composers (she smiles). And the most important thing, in my view, is
precisely the dramatic event and its staging. And how to achieve a genuine
dramatic event in time? I often quote my favourite filmmaker, Werner Her-
zog, who, responding to a question from a friend of mine, a young Canadian
filmmaker, how he made a fantastic scene in one of his films, said that the
question was wrong. The question should’ve been: “What happened an hour
and seven minutes before that scene occurred?” Of course, this is a story
about timing or form. In other words, it isn’t just about writing notes that will
sound good, but finding the right spot for them in the piece. It’s a perennial
struggle for me…
8. Your latest project is your incidental music for the theatre play Margarites.
Could you tell us a bit more about that project and your collaboration with the
Montreal-based Théâtre Espace Go?
It was a very interesting experience. The project included not only working
with a playwright/dramaturge, but also with a choreographer. This was the
famous danseuse Louise Lecavalier, who has definitely changed the course of
modern dance worldwide. The wider audience remember her by dancing
with David Bowie in the 1980s, but her true mark is her immense energy,
which totally pushed the boundaries of the human body and its abilities.
Even now, in her 60s, she continues to dance and inspire.
16
On the other side there were Stéphanie Jasmin, a dramaturge, and Denis
Marleau, a famous Quebecois theatre director.
My work was complex because I had to collaborate with all three of them,
who had a shared vision, but their paths to that vision were not always the
same. It was extremely interesting to observe them and, with a lot of respect,
to try to understand them. I’m really happy with the result.
9. You often receive commissions to write new works, not only from solo per-
formers, but also from ensembles and numerous Canadian institutions. Do you
see a challenge in that? What is the most difficult aspect of composing a com-
missioned piece? How do you treat the demands that are set before you at the
outset: do you see them as facilitating or limiting factors?
For me, commissions are definitely facilitating factors. I must stress that I
choose projects that are closest to my heart, but the more detailed the com-
mission I get, the more natural it feels to compose for it. Like Stravinsky
would say: “Give me a lot of restrictions so I can feel free!”
10. Your opera Svadba, which, apart from performances in Toronto, Philadel-
phia, San Francisco, Nantes, Perm, Luxembourg, and other cities in Europe
and North America, has also had its Belgrade première, was commissioned by
Toronto’s Queen of Puddings Music Theatre. It was a big success and even seven
years after its première, the opera has remained current, with performances in
Montreal, at Théâtre Espace Go, and the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Per-
forming Arts in New York. In your opinion, what is the secret of its success?
What is it that makes it so attractive to today’s audiences? Is it about the uni-
versality of the subject you chose, or is there something more to it?
I think its audiences have understood that I address them personally and that
all of the Serbian influence present in the opera is actually just a way of tell-
ing a universal story. The opera is in Serbian, I play with words and syllables,
I use the Serbian alphabet as a weapon in a fight, and, ultimately, everything
is clear even without translation. I sought to use a local tale to tell a simple
universal story, as Tolstoy might say: “If you want to be universal, tell us
about your village”. Serbian audiences will understand maybe 5% more than
other audiences will, but no more than that! With my opera I’m not address-
ing just a local, Serbian audience. I’m addressing a global audience, which
includes Serbian audiences.
17
11. What kinds of problems do composers face today?

The same as before: how to write a good work and be relevant.
Today it’s interesting that there is no one musical centre, like Paris was, or
Darmstadt or New York. Today, owing to technology, there are micro-centres
scattered across the world. The path to the audience is changing, as is the way
of life. The arts are combining in new ways and composers are trying to adapt…
But not to worry, it’s not the first time in the history of humanity, or the last.
12. Recently you’ve received a commission from the Canadian Opera Company,
the largest and most influential opera house in Canada, to compose an opera
for its 2019–20 season. You are the first female composer who has received a
commission from them. In your view, is that a sign that women composers are
marginalized on today’s arts scene? Is there a difference in the treatment of
composers based on gender?
I actually don’t see a gender difference in the treatment of men and women
composers. But one shouldn’t forget that composing is not a “managerial” oc-
cupation, where, I think, it’s still more difficult for women. For instance,
women conductors have it harder than men.
13. You teach at the University of Montreal. Can you tell us a bit more about
your methods of work? What do you insist on? Do you afford your students
more opportunity for creativity and freedom than you had? What kinds of
things do you encourage in them and do you find satisfaction yourself in your
pedagogical work?
Already in my first year of teaching, I combined my two loves in order to
offer my students what I wanted to have as a student: I designed my curricula
so as to allow my students to collaborate with the school of modern ballet
and, together with choreographers, dancers, as well as instrumentalists from
our school, to write ballet music. On the other hand, similarly, although that’s
a bit more complicated, I put together an opera composition course.
In my individual work with students, I insist on three things I learned
from my three professors: the importance of intuition, good organization,
and cultivation of one’s own musical personality. But probably the most
important thing – and this will probably sound sentimental – is that I as a
professor should help those young people, who will perhaps work as com-
posers one day, become good human beings.
18
Rakočević, S.: Bouncing as a Distinguishable Structural Feature of Srpsko kolo...
STUDIES
Article received on September 23rd 2019

UDC 793.31(497.11)
781.7(497.11)
Selena Rakočević*
University of Arts in Belgrade
Faculty of Music
Department of Ethnomusicology
BOUNCING AS A DISTINGUISHABLE

STRUCTURAL FEATURE OF SRPSKO KOLO:
ASPECTS OF IDENTIFICATION AND NOTATION1
Abstract: Kolo or kolo u tri, as it is termed by scholars, is the most widespread dance
genre in Serbia since World War II, which has been considered as a vital symbol of
Serbian national identity in recent decades and, consequently, got the adjective srpsko
(Serbian). The movement pattern of kolo has been notated in Rudolf Laban’s kinetog-
raphy many times by various researchers since the 1980s and its microstructural and
formal shaping has been the subject of ethnochoreological analysis in Serbia. However,
* Author contact information: [email protected]

1 This article is realized within the project Music and Dance Tradition of Multiethnic and
Multicultural Serbia (No. 177024) supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and
Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia.
19
the performing and notational particularities of the stretching and bending leg move-
ments, which affect the vertical motion of the center of gravity of the body – the so-
called bouncing, that is its distinguishable characteristic, has not been discussed
previously. This article, therefore, explores some aspects of the performance and no-
tation of bouncing in srpsko kolo.
Keywords: srpsko kolo, movement pattern, bouncing, identification, kinetography
Introduction
Kolo or kolo u tri (lit. kolo in three), as it is termed by scholars, is the most
widespread dance genre in Serbia since World War II. It is a collective chain
dance performed by dancers who, hold hands with arms low next to the body
and move along a circular line. Since it is performed at various private and
public gatherings, family and collective festivities both in rural and urban ar-
eas regardless of the social, religious, professional or generational affiliation
of dancers, it is considered as a vital symbol of Serbian national identity and
consequently has been termed as srpsko (Serbian) in recent years, especially
in multi-ethnic environments and situations where it is necessary to differ-
entiate it from other dances with an ethnic or national connotation. For ex-
ample, in order to differentiate it from vlaško kolo (Vlach kolo), a dance with
a different structure, the metro-rhythmic pattern and performance qualities
that also represents one of the popular dances in contemporary Serbian cul-
ture, dancers and especially musicians, specify kolo dances with the adjective
srpsko. The same phenomenon is common in multi-ethnic communities es-
pecially in the territory of present-day Vojvodina, who ethnically signify their
traditional dances as Slovakian or Romanian. In the case of kolo, the adjective
srpsko, therefore, becomes the determinant for the whole dance genre, whose
structural and performing qualities are labeled as ethnically distinctive in
comparison with those of other dances and dance genres. That is the reason
why this adjective will also be used in this article. The prevalence and vitality
of kolo, with a strong cohesive and integrative social function in contempo-
rary Serbian culture, was the reason why it was chosen to be inscribed on the
UNESCO’s representative list of intangible cultural heritage of the world in
2017 (https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/kolo-traditional-folk-dance-01270).
Apart from the widely known generative term kolo which signifies this
dance genre in general, more than two hundred local names for this dance
were recorded during the 20th century. However, the earliest versions of the
kolo – moravac and kukunješ – were recorded in the narrow territory of cen-
20
tral Serbia in the second half of the 19th century (Vasić 2011: 97; Vasić 2012:
326; Ranisavljević 2012: 559−561). This area may be designated as the center
of the development of various versions of kolo from where it spread and be-
came the most widespread dance genre throughout Serbia but also among
Serbian populations in the other countries in the region, as well as among the
numerous immigrant Serbian communities in the diaspora. A similar type
of circle dance, based on the same pattern of steps, has also spread in other
countries in Southeast Europe after World War II, especially in Bosnia and
Herzegovina (Mladenović 1968: 108; Dopuđa 1971: 163; Bajić 2005: 99).
The reasons for the wide diffusion of kolo genre are complex. Thanks to
the simple basic structure of the step pattern that is performed in a chain of
linked dancers, individuals can join the dance equally and freely, overcoming
all social differences between them regardless whether they know each other
or not. While dancing kolo, skilled individuals can vary the basic steps spon-
taneously expressing their dancing creativity and physical aptitude whilst,
not influencing the less gifted dancers next to them. On the other hand, the
development of instrumental forms of traditional music especially of the so-
called kolos for accordion (harmonikaška kola) during the 20th century also
contributed to the spread of this step pattern. It influenced the production of
numerous melodies (mostly in 2/4 meter called dvojka (lit. in two) and rarely
triple meter 3/8 or 7/16), where this step pattern could be subject to diverse
variations and it could be assigned various local names.2 Along with many
more or less famous kolos such are kukunješ, moravac, Žikino kolo, Gocino
kolo, mercedes kolo, and many others, one of the most widespread and fre-
quently performed kolo melodies, which prevails in traditional dance prac-
tice in the last few decades is užičko kolo (kolo of Užice). This tune was com-
posed by the accordionist Milija Spasojević in 1962 (Ranisavljević 2013: 265).
The prevalence of the melody of užičko kolo has contributed to the fact that
this term is often used as a general name for the whole kolo genre.
The paradigmatic features of kolo music, irrespective of the particular
tunes and possibilities of their versatile variations, are reflected in the tem-
po of its performance (most commonly it is allegro, between 126 and 158
2 More than two hundred local names for this dance were recorded in the 20th cen-
tury: starinski kukunješ, kukunješ, moravac, šestica, u šest, džambasko kolo, Žikino kolo,
mačvanka, šapčanka, krivo kuče, prekid kolo, sec kolo, narodno kolo, svinjarac, bosančica,
divčibarka, vranjanka, krnjevčevo kolo, Radojkino kolo, užičko kolo, mercedes kolo, etc.
(Ranisavljević 2012: 560).
21
MM), portato articulation and melodic ornamentation specific for the but-
ton accordion, as well as constant forte dynamics (see more in Ranisavljević
2013: 272−273). Some versions of kolo u tri known generally as retka kola (lit.
sparsely kolos) can be also performed in slower tempo (in andante, between
76 and 108 MM, most often around 90 MM).3 In order to differentiate from
retka kola, kolos in faster tempo are often colloquially termed kolca (lit. little
kolos). Because of all this, it is possible to speak about srpsko kolo as complex
and comprehensive dance genre.
Paradigmatic features of the invariant step pattern of kolo can be verbally
described as progressing to the right (circling counterclockwise), hopping on
the same spot, progressing to the left (circling clockwise) and hopping on the
same spot, while constantly stretching-bending the knees slightly. Although a
symmetrical movement along a circular line can be observed, the rightward
(counterclockwise) progression is more pronounced because steps are longer
while moving to the right.
Ljubica and Danica Janković verbally described and notated this step pat-
tern in their dance notation in 1934 for the first time (Janković and Jankov-
ić 1934: 62−64).4 There is also an established tradition of its notation in the
Laban system of notation (kinetography) in ethnochoreology in Serbia since
1984 when Olivera Vasić defined it as kolo u tri and notated its eight versions
(Vasić 1984: 155). In the following decades, numerous kolos u tri have been
prescriptively notated in kinetography by many researchers (for example, Ba-
jić 2005: 112; Karin 2018: 254) or, rarely, descriptively, in a mode of a detailed
transcription of the particular performance (Rakočević 2011: 395−398).
The basic feature of kolo step pattern is a laterally symmetric eight-mea-
3 Some of popular melodies of retka kola are composed by the accordionist Radojka
Živković (Radojkino kolo, čarapansko kolo and Tinetovo kolo) but also other accordion
players, for example Miodrag Todorović Krnjevac (Krnjevčevo kolo). Kolo melodies in
andante tempo and with specific style of phrazing and articulating metro-rhythmical
patterns gained popularity after World War II in Serbia. Even though they can be treated
as a kind of subgenre of kolo in general, they have not been discussed in scholarly liter-
ature with the exception of some overall comments by the ethnomusicologist Zdravko
Ranisavljević (Ranisavljević 2014a: 60).
4 The Janković sisters notated Žikino kolo, Potam, povam, and kokonješte in their first
book of Narodne igre [Folk dance] (Janković and Janković 1934: 62−64). However, they
did not included this step pattern in their seminal article devoted to the “types” of tradi-
tional dances (cf. Janković and Janković 1949: 45−53). The reason for this is that maybe
they considered it as a “newer” one in Serbian dance tradition.
22
sure long structure.5 The aspects of possible micro-structural and formal

shaping of this step pattern has already been the subject of ethnochoreolog-
ical analysis among Serbian researchers (Bajić 2005: 101-103; Ranisavljević
2014b: 421−439). However, visually the most recognizable feature of per-
forming kolo – movements of stretching and bending the supporting legs that
affect the continuous and uniform vertical motions of the center of gravity
of the body, has not been analyzed so far, but only sporadically mentioned.
These movements, also known as bouncing, are recognized as an inherent
feature of the “Serbian” way of performing. For example, although they did
not link it with the versions of kolo step pattern, it is important to point out
that the Janković sisters claimed that “soft bending of knees” [in Serbian:
meko savijanje kolena] is the unique characteristic of, to quote them, “our”
[in Serbian: naše, that means Serbian], “folk technique” [in Serbian: narodne
tehnike] (Janković and Janković 1951: 7), especially in the region of the Kol-
ubara river (Central Serbia) (Ibid: 8). Describing the performance style of
dancing moravac, Olivera Mladenović also points out that the knee should
be “movable and with vibrations to get the flickering of the body, but not per-
manently but in the waves” [in Serbian: pokretljiva i sa vibracijama tako da se
dobija izrazito treperenje tela, ali ne permanentno, nego u talasima] (Mlade-
nović 1968: 106). Asserting the importance of vertical motions in identifying
an ethnically specific, that is “Serbian” dance style on the territory of pres-
ent-day Vojvodina, choreographer Milorad Lonić wrote that “Serbian danc-
ing is with very short steps, vibrant and temperamental, with a very small
vertical motions” [Serbian: Srpsko igranje je sitno, treperavo i temperament-
no, sa izrazito malom vertikalom] (Lonić 1994: 89).
Even though they discussed structural and formal characteristics of kolo
step pattern, later researchers did not discuss the possibilities of shaping, to
use Doris Humphrey’s and Milorad Lonić’s term, the “design” of kolo move-
ments (Humphrey 1987 [1959]: 46; Lonić 2018: 53). In other words, they
did not analyze all spatial and temporal possibilities of its kinetics and thus
vertical motions that arise from movements of knees. The aim of this article
is to extend the possible approaches to the analysis of this dance genre and,
5 Among Serbians in Romania, particularly in the area of Danube Gorge, this eight
measure structure is asymmetrical (4 measures are performed through moving to the
right, 2 measures at the spot and 2 measures to the left) which is regional, and possibly
archaic peculiarity of performing this step pattern among this ethnic group in foremen-
tioned region.
23
therefore, to explore some of performance and notational aspects of stretch-

ing and bending leg movements in srpsko kolo.6 It is important to emphasize,
however, that leg movements involving bending are also present as an im-
portant performing quality in other traditional dances, especially those from
the Central Serbia (for example, šetnja, polomka, rudničanka, or city dances
such as ruzmarin, romunka, Gružanka, Srba, bojerka, and many others), al-
though they have a different structure of step patterns. In this sense, stretch-
ing and bending leg movements stand out as an important and recognizable
performance marker of traditional dance heritage that has historically been
shaped as ethnically different, that is, Serbian. Although this paper will focus
on the forms of occurrence of stretching and bending leg movements involv-
ing bending in srpsko kolo, some of the conclusions could potentially have a
wider application since bouncing is a more general performing feature.
Aspects of identification of stretching and bending leg movements

in srpsko kolo
As already indicated, while notating a srpsko kolo step pattern, researchers
have not paid full attention to stretching and bending leg movements that
is one of the most distinguishable features of performing it. They most of-
ten simply marked its appearance as a knee movement without paying atten-
tion to any other peculiarities of its performance (direction of motion, met-
ro-rhythmical patterns and/or energy/dynamics). In their dance notations,
they signified it with the space measurement sign for a so-called bent knee, in
the leg gesture column of the kinetogram (Figure 1).
However, since stretching and bending leg movements are a distinguish-
able marker of kolo performing style recognized as ethnically distinctive, it
seems necessary to analytically identify their appearance. The identification
of particular characteristics of stretching and bending leg movements while
dancing srpsko kolo emanates from the analysis of video recordings repeated
6 This article was presented at the 4th meeting of the International Council for Tradi-
tional Music Sub-Study Group of Movement Analysis devoted to “Vertical motions of the
center of gravity and the so-called svikt-analysis” led by Siri Maeland and János Fügedi.
The meeting was organized by the Department for Ethnomusicology at Faculty of Music
in Belgrade during the weekend 15−17 March 2019. The initial analysis of vertical pul-
sation caused by stretching and bending leg movements, its notation and presentation
to thirteen scholars from various countries of Europe was done together with the ethno-
choreologist Vesna Karin and dancer Milorad Mirčič.
24
Figure 1. Usual way of notating bending leg movement within the

triple-step
at different speeds of many individual performances from various periods of

time during the last few decades, my own experience of performing, teaching,
notating and dancing it, but also from many discussions with ethnochoreolo-
gists, experienced dancers, and choreographers.7
Firstly, leg movements that involve stretching and bending that create ver-
tical motion that rises and lowers the center of gravity occur as independent
movement patterns. Although they appear only while the body is supported
on the legs, they are independent from direction or duration of the supports.
Secondly, stretching and bending leg movements primarily arise from
knee movements but careful observation of the performance details of this
motion point to the fact that while dancing srpsko kolo movements, the an-
kles and, as a consequence, hip joints are also included. The motion of the
ankles are important and these contribute to achieving the “Serbian” style of
kolo performance in mutual accordance with knee movements.
Thirdly, stretching and bending leg movements that create vertical mo-
tion in srpsko kolo can be generally defined as downward movements because
the lowest point of bending with the highest amount of energy is placed on
the beat, which corresponds to taking the weight of the body and is congru-
ent with the musical pulsation. Simultaneously, that means that preparation
for bending, that is resilient extending the supporting legs and consequent re-
lease of weight, happens before the beat in a form of anacrusis or up-beat mo-
tion. In some older versions of kolo u tri which should be performed in slow-
7 The comments of Vesna Karin and Milorad Mirčić, many discussions with the cho-
reographer Milorad Lonić have given insight into many peculiarities of the kinetical as-
pects of kolo performance, also conversations with my colleague Zdravko Ranisavljević
about the formal shaping of the kolo step pattern and specifities of kolo music, as well as
various reflections of other ethnochoreologists during the Sub-Study Group of Move-
ment Analysis meeting also contributed greatly to the articulation of the dilemmas and
possible conclusions expressed here.
25
er tempo such as arapsko kokonješte, as well as during performances of retka

kola, downward motion could not be placed on the beat but afterwards, on
the “contra” beat. In those cases, the preparation for knee bending is placed
on the beat. This accentuation corresponds with the musical accentuation
and provides a special performing manner.
Fourthly, while dancing srpsko kolo, stretching and bending the support-
ing legs are performed mostly in continuous pulsation in a (more or less)
small range. Its metro-rhythmical flow can be realized within continuous
repetition of particular metro-rhythmical patterns with possible agogic vari-
ations (diminishing and augmenting individual durations). Since they are
downward movements, notation of their metro-rhythmical patterning signi-
fies the lowest points of bending, that is the flexing of the leg. Due to the fact
that the points of bending are not identical in the energy involved and the
level of lowering, the lowest point is signified with the tenuto sign.
As an integral up-beat preparation for this motion, the duration of ex-
tending is short and there is no need for its notation in metro-rhythmical
patterns. However, if we want to indicate the movement of stretching in met-
ro-rhythmical patterning, it could be indicated with a grace note.
In 2/4 meter, a and b metro-rhythmical patterns of the supports more of-
ten occur during progression through the space (moving to the right or left),
while c and d are used while dancing on the spot; metro-rhythmical pattern e
is characteristic for “contra” beat bouncing (Figure 2).8
In triple meter, two main metro-rhythmical patterns are most often vi-
brantly used both during progression through the space, and dancing on the
spot (Figure 3).
Fifthly, stretching and bending leg movements can be performed while
the dancer takes weight on the whole foot or on the front half of the foot (1/8
ball) without the heel making contact with the floor.
Finally, but not lastly, stretching and bending of the knees together with
ankle and hip movements are performed smoothly, in a soft and resilient
manner, that is in legato articulation, which is the most recognizable quality
of this movement.
All of aforementioned characteristics of stretching and bending the sup-
porting legs that create vertical motions while performing srpsko kolo should
be appropriately notated. Along with defining the identification features of
8 Metro-rhythmical patterns are ordered according to their presence in traditional

dance practice.
26
Figure 2. Most present met- Figure 3. Most present metro-rhythmical pat-

ro-rhythmical patterns of bending terns of bending leg movements in triple meter
leg movements in double meter (3/8, or dactyloid form of 7/16: long-short-
(2/4).9 short)
stretching and bending leg movements themselves, it should be also point-

ed out that they are more visible (often with a larger amplitude of motion)
on the longer duration of supports (half− and quarter−notes) but they are
also inseparable from supports of shorter duration (eight−notes and even six-
teenths).9
Terminological issues
Since terminology for dance analysis is not standardized in Serbian ethno-

choreology, the most usual colloquial expression for stretching and bending
leg movements that create vertical motion while dancing kolo is “bouncing”
(Serbian: pocupkivanje). Considering the fact that in technical terms it arises
from metro-rhythmically constant movement pairs − resilient extending and
flexing supporting legs − it could be generally signified as a type of vertical
pulsation as defined by János Fügedi (Fügedi 2016: 73; 2019).10 According to
9 If we want to indicate both stretching and bending movements, it should be notated in

the following way:
10 In his earlier article Fügedi also discussed a broad concept of “spring” of Mária Szent-
pál as “a dual and inseparable phenomena of releasing and taking weight” (Fügedi 1999:
160). As suggested by this author springs can be realized with or without leaving the floor
and can be classified in three main categories (Ibid: 180−181). Regardless the fact that
bending leg movements in srpsko kolo corresponds to some types of springs as defined
27
this concept, vertical pulsation is “the rhythmic vertical change of level of the
body (or center of gravity) that pulsates with the beats of the accompanying
music” (Fügedi 2019). It includes two types of pulsation – downward and up-
ward. In downward pulsation “the center of weight moves at the beginning of
the musical beat then it returns to a higher level to be able to repeat the se-
quence” (Ibid). On the other side, when discussing vertical shifts of the cen-
ter of gravity, Albrecht Knust and Ann Hutchinson use the term bouncing.
Knust indicated these movements with “strength measurement signs” as early
as 1956 (Knust 1997: Part I, 280−281), while Hutchinson defined them as “re-
peated up-down movements”, which “mainly take place through relaxed re-
actions in the ankles, knees and hip joints” (Hutchinson and Kolff 2003: 42).
All three concepts, Fügedi’s for vertical pulsation and, Knust’s and
Hutchinson’s for bouncing,11 correspond to stretching and bending leg move-
ments in srpsko kolo. However, since the basic characteristic of stretching and
bending leg movements in srpsko kolo is smooth (elastic) legato performance,
which is already notified as dynamic quality of bouncing in general (Szentpal
1978, see also Fügedi 2016: 99; Knust 1997: Part I, 280; Hutchinson 2005:
428) and considering the fact that this term is colloquially used in Serbian
in recent years, I suggest that the term bouncing could be used as an ethno-
choreologically grounded expression, along with the term vertical pulsation.
However, since vertical pulsation covers broader spectrum of changing of the
vertical level of the center of weight and that it does not refer to dynamic
quality of motions, it seems that expression bouncing suits more for defining
stretching and bending leg movements in srpsko kolo.
by Fügedi, it seems that in his later work he proposed a more distinct general term for
changing the center of weight and that is vertical pulsation.
11 Albrecht Knust also introduced the term bouncing in 1956 (Fügedi 2016: 99). Al-
though he proposed notations both for downward and upward bouncing movements he
introduced them within “strength measurement signs” (Knust 1997: Part I, 280−281) not
defining them in relation to parts of the body which are producing them or changing of
center of weight.
28
Notation issues
Short overview12
As it is already mentioned, the usage of kinetography has a long history in

Serbian ethnochoreology (see more in Karin 2018: 830−833). As Vesna Kar-
in explains, it was the mixture of two streams of the system: the notational
tradition of Europe, the so-called Kinetography Laban introduced by the au-
thor in 1928 and upgraded by Albrecht Knust in the following decades, and
the “American” style of writing dance movements – Labanotation, introduced
and developed by Ann Hutchinson since 1954 (Ibid: 830). This fact is import-
ant because within those two streams of the system, the approach to bounc-
ing is different (see more in Fügedi and Misi 2009: 36). As already indicated,
while according to Knust, it is a kind of repeated accented movement and
should be notated as “strength measurement signs” (Figure 4) for “various
types of elasticity” next to the supports (Knust 1997: Part I, 281, fig. 716),
Ann Hutchinson Guest treats it as a displacement of the center of weight
(Hutchinson Guest and Kolff 2003: 42−43) and notates it on left side of the
staff as the movement of the center of weight (Figure 5a). For signifying elas-
ticity (resiliency) in bouncing movements, Hutchinson Guest also developed
a special notational sign (Hutchinson Guest 2005: 428) (Figure 5b).
Figure 4. Signs for “various types of elasticity” according to Albrecth Knust (Knust 1997:
Part I, 281, figure 716.
12 Fügedi has written more about the history of approaches to movement notation in
kinetography (Fügedi 2019). The precise description of the mechanism of vertical move-
ments in dance locomotion (the so-called svikt analysis) was also discussed by Norwe-
gian scholars Jan-Petter Blom in 1960s (Blom 1961: 101-114) and, later on, Egil Bakka
who published a system for writing vertical movements (more in Bakka 2007: 103-112).
Since Norwegian scholars did not use kinetography, they work will not be discussed here,
although they have made a major contribution to general understanding the vertical
movements of the body and their correspondence with music.
29
Figure 5. a) “A downward bounce” according to Hutchinson Guest (Hutchinson Guest

and Kolff 2003: 43);
b) A double bounce on each step performed elastically (Hutchinson Guest 2005: 428).
Along with his proposed signs for elasticity, Knust also mentions a solu-
tion for “bouncing” of the Hungarian dance notator Maria Szentpál (Knust
1997: Part I, 391, fig. 989) (Figure 6) (see more in Fügedi 2019).
Figure 6. Downward and upward accented movements of bending the knees according
to Maria Szentpál (Knust 1997: Part I, 391, fig. 989).
Mária Sentpál’s solution is accepted in contemporary kinetography by

János Fügedi, who, as it is already mentioned, treats bouncing actions as “ver-
tical pulsation” movements (Fügedi 2016: 173). The following signs are in-
troduced by Sentpál and accepted by Fügedi with a sight graphical change (a
“week” sign is without the curve) (Figure 7).
30
Figure 7. Downward vertical pulsation (Fügedi 2016: 73).
Notation proposal
Regardless the fact that all of aforementioned approaches could be used, it
seems that Szentpál’s solutions are more suitable for notating bouncing in
srpsko kolo, because the displacement of the center of weight while dancing it
(Hutchinson Guest’s solution) is only a consequence of stretching and bend-
ing leg movements, which should be primarily signified within the kineto-
graphic staff. Contrary to Knust, Szentpál and Fugedi’s proposals separate
straightening and bending motions are also important feature of bouncing
movements.
However, in the aim of an analytical identification of a smaller or larger
range of bouncing that appear as a consequence of the amount of energy in-
volved, two different signs for accented movements could be used (Figure 8a
and b). Along with differentiation of various ranges of bouncing, it is import-
ant to indicate that movements of smaller spatial range often occur only from
the ankle as a kind of “bouncing” in the ankle (more in Fügedi 2019). This
should also be signified in notations (Figure 8c).13
Figure 8. Proposal for notation of the bouncing in srpsko kolo: a) accented movement
with lower level of bending b) light bending with a smaller range c) light bending with a
smaller range from the ankle.13
13 In this graphical solution, the curved lines within dynamic signs which indicate
stretching (the so-called a “weak” signs) are used with the aim to be analogous to signs
indicated in Figure 7.
31
Along with the signification of various levels of bending the knees and
the different energy involved in this, it is necessary to notate those move-
ments in a metro-rhythmically precise way, that is in the so-called specific
timing. Namely, since its beginnings, kinetography is based on the so-called
unit timing of rhythmic beats of movements where metro-rhythmic flow of
motion is simplified with the aim of being “adjusted” to the beats within the
kinetographic staff. This relationship to the metro-rhythmic component of
movements was first supported by Albrecht Knust and Ann Hutchinson, but
Knust significantly upgraded it by the introduction of the so-called specific
or exact timing in 1956 (see more in Fügedi and Misi 2009: 34), which later
was generally accepted (see, e.g., Hutchinson Guest 2005: 183−184). The no-
tational tradition in Serbia is based on the mixture of these two approaches to
movement rhythm − unit and specific timing − as it is defined and proposed
by János Fügedi and Gábor Misi as the most appropriate way of notating,
where direction symbols describe the rhythm of the movement in a easily
recognizable way (Fügedi and Misi 2009: 34).
In this regard, when notating bouncing it is important to use the method
of specific timing in which the approach to duration of movements is phys-
ically “realistic” in the graphical writing (more in Hutchinson Guest 2005:
183−184; Fügedi and Misi 2009: 34). According to this method, the leg ex-
tension symbol is written in the form of anacrusis at the moment when the
movement really begins, that is before the beat (and before the beginning
of the measure), and the accent symbol for leg bending (triangle) is written
at the moment when it is physically finalized, that is at the beat (and at the
beginning of the measure). As it is already indicated, the extension always
appears as an up-beat motion, which is an integral preparation for short du-
ration flexing no matter which leg will proceed. By using the specific timing
approach, the notation of metro-rhythm of bouncing corresponds to the tim-
ing of the notation of the supports, which seems necessary, since bouncing
and supports form an unbreakable whole during performance.
Metro-rhythmical patterns of bouncing could be specified more in the
optional additional note line in which the metro-rhythm of the supports or
any other movement could also be notated (Figures 9 and 10).
32
Figure 9. Prescriptive notations of bouncing in srpsko kolo in the specific timing of 2/4
in most present motives14
Figure 10. Prescriptive notations of bouncing in srpsko kolo in the specific timing of tri-
ple meter (3/4 and 7/16) in most present motives 15
14 Parts of the feet are not indicated because they can vary: supports can be performed
on whole foot, front part of it (1/8 ball), in combination of these two, but also the heel
can be used.
15 Parts of the feet are not indicated because they can vary: supports can be performed
on whole foot, front part of it (1/8 ball), in combination of these two, but also the heel
can be used.
33
Analysis of particular performances

As already mentioned, metro-rhythmical pattering of bouncing, its dynamic
articulation and levels of lowering are independent of the duration and direc-
tion of supports that all together can be versatile depending on multifarious
reasons: the regional performing style, quality of accompanying music, age,
gender, and performing skills and experience of dancers, but also their cur-
rent motivation for dancing. With the aim of observing bouncing in srpsko
kolo in specific dance situation, it is necessary to provide descriptive notation
of particular performances. An analysis of the performance of moravac (Fig-
ure 15), during the competition in kolo dancing organized by Savez kultur-
no-umetničkih društava Srbije (SKUDS, Union of Cultural-Artistic Societies
of Serbia) as part of the event, Svetski dan srpskog kola (World day of srpsko
kolo), held in November 2018 in Novi Sad has been made. The final danc-
ing of the best performers was treated as the most representative. Among ten
performers, two males srand out with their variety of variations: Kosta Jocić
and Miloš Lukić, members of the Folklore ensemble “Vila” from Novi Sad.16
Since both Kosta Jocić and Miloš Lukić have been traditional dancers for
many years,17 their dancing skills and creativity in varying the basic step pattern
of Srpsko kolo are very versatile.18 With the aim to show the diversity in the
possible ways of structuring this pattern, I chose to notate several repetitions of
Kosta and Miloš’s dancing: the introductory pattern (A) in Kosta’s performance,
when the leading melody was played by violin in the accompanying musical
arrangement and its variation (Av) accompanied by frula as a leading instru-
ment (Figure 11), and Miloš’s dancing accompanied by bagpipes (Figure 13).19
16 In dancing srpsko kolo, the dancing by men is often more pronounced and richer in
variation than female performances.
17 Kosta Jocić (born in 1995) started to dance in the age of 7. He danced in several
cultural-artisic societies before he become a member of “Vila” ensemble in 2015. Miloš

(born in 1995) started to dance later at the age of 17. His dancing career is linked only to
“Vila” where he started to dance in 2012.
18 Video examples are available online at the official New Sound YouTube channel:
https://youtu.be/Onp3iEgJcGQ, https://youtu.be/F-q32coEpmU
19 Regardless of the fact that all segments of musical accompaniment (rhythm, melody,
tempo, dynamic, form, phrasing, arrangement, etc.) have a great influence on dancing,
only the main melody of the version of moravac of one of the well-known Serbian vio-
linists, Vlastimir Pavlović Carevac (1895−1965) will be included this time. The accordi-
on player, Dragan Narančić, leader of the folk orchestra “Vila”, made an arrangement of
this melody for the competition in kolo dancing. Dragan’s arrangement includes different
leading instruments (violin, frula, bagpipes, and accordion) and it involves a gradual in-
creasing of the tempo in order to initiate various responses in dancing. Unfortunately,
34
In all cases, the kolo pattern is performed in a laterally symmetrical structure.
Figure 11. Descriptive notation of moravac performed by Kosta Jocić. Novi Sad,
November 2018.
the relationship between music and kinetics cannot be explored this time because of the
limited scope of this paper.
35
In its introductory exposure of moravac (A) Kosta used its “basic” vari-
ant typical for the starting tempo (andante, 80 MM): his progression through
the space was performed by “walking” steps while the usual leg gestures in
dancing at the spot were enriched with foot rotations. Due to the faster tempo
(96 MM) in the following, variant (Av) moving to the right was extended by
small supports performed in small triplets in iambic rhythm (short-long) af-
ter which the so-called “crossing-step” motif has been used while dancing on
the spot.20 In this variant, moving to the left was performed with the so-called
“hop-up” motif followed by triple steps performed on the spot. Crossing-steps
and triplets were performed with repetitive turns to the female partner from
his left side with whom Kosta communicated all the time.
All supports were performed with continuous bouncing movements of
the knees and ankles. In progressing through space segments of both vari-
ants, bouncing was performed in “contra rhythm”, although through slightly
different metro-rhythmical patterns: in the introductory variant, downward
bouncing was performed from ankles in eight notes, while in the next one,
it was resiliently performed in triplets. During dancing on the spot in both
variants, bouncing was performed in dactylic figure “quarter-eight-eight”
(long-short-short), this repetition was the most striking visual impression of
Kosta’s dancing (Figure 12).
Figure 12. Metro-rhythmical patterns of bouncing of Kosta Jocić’s performance.
The segment of Miloš’s variation is quite different in selected motifs and

style of performance than Kosta’s. The faster tempo (120 MM) initiated more
engaged dancing with springs and higher lifting of knees in leg gestures. The
chosen motifs in the first phrase are customary for srpsko kolo: after the “hop-
up” motif, which is typical as an initial movement in kolo step pattern, he used
20 Classification of typical motifs in Serbian traditional dances is made by Olivera Vasić
and Zdravko Ranisavljević (Vasić and Ranisavljević 2011: 81−85).
36
Figure 13. Descriptive notation of moravac performed by Miloš Lukić. Novi Sad,
November 2018.
triple steps. However, his dancing is unique in performance style because the
usual motifs are performed with small “jumps” and they are enriched with
constant turns and leg gestures with bent knees. In the second phrase, Miloš
37
used “hop-up” motifs as the initial and finishing segments among which the
crossing of legs typical for dancing in Bačka and Banat regions were per-
formed. What unifies these quite different variations of srpsko kolo is the met-
ro-rhythm of supports and bouncing: although Miloš used triplets, the dac-
tylic structure of long-short-short prevails (Figure 14).
Figure 14. Metro-rhythmical patterns of bouncing of Miloš Lukić’s performance.
Final thoughts
Bouncing is undoubtedly an inherent and distinguishable structural feature
of srpsko kolo. The simplicity of the basic step pattern of this dance allows
versatile variations during dancing. Along with the possibility for express-
ing individual emotions, as a circle chain dance of linked performers, srp-
sko kolo gives dancers a sense of community and belonging together. While
types, duration, and dynamic articulation of supports together with possible
usage of turns can be versatile depending on various factors during particu-
lar performance, the unifying parameter among linked dancers in srpsko kolo
is undoubtedly the bouncing movement. Along with the eight-measure long
structure of the step pattern, bouncing unites all performers in joint dancing
and as a rhythmically uniform and prolonged movement that provides mu-
tual, to use William McNeil expression, muscular bonding (app. Grau 2015:
239). Since metro-rhythmical patterns of bouncing can be various, the meet-
ing point for all linked dancers is the first movement with the highest amount
on bending energy that is performed on the beat. This uniform pulsation is
congruent with the musical rhythm, which gives the dancers a sense of mo-
toricity and continuity of a dance flow. Irrespective of metro-rhythmical dis-
crepancies among dancers, this periodicity of synchronization of their leg
movements that are congruent with the musical beat, represents the phenom-
enon of inter-individual / intra-group entrainment (Clayton 2012: 51), which
implies a profound association between different individuals (Clayton, Sag-
er and Will 2004: 21). Further on, prolonged and unified rhythmical bounc-
ing of the whole group enables the possibility of euphoric fellow feeling and
shared enjoyment. Since it is joint and synchronized action, bouncing is one
38
of the most visible and recognizable features of srpsko kolo, which provides a
sense of otherness and uniqueness of this dance genre. In this sense, it is not
only inseparable and the most distinguishable, but also one of its fundamen-
tal features.
Figure 15. Moravac, Vlastimir Pavlović Carevac
39
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Internet sources
https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/kolo-traditional-folk-dance-01270 (accessed July 10th 2019)
Summary
Kolo or kolo in three, as it is termed by scholars, is the most widespread dance genre in
Serbia since World War II, and has been considered as a vital symbol of Serbian na-
tional identity in recent decades. The invariant structure of its movement pattern ver-
bally described as moving to the right (counterclockwise), hopping on the same spot,
moving to the left (clockwise) and hopping on the same spot, while constantly bending
the knees slightly. Although it has been notated in the Kinetography Laban system
many times by various researchers since 1984 and its microstructural and formal shap-
ing has been the subject of ethnochoreological analysis, the performing and notational
particularities of knee movements has not been discussed previously. Based on anal-
ysis of video recordings, performing and teaching experience of notating and dancing
42
kolo, and also from many discussions with colleagues, the identification features of
stretching and bending leg movements in srpsko kolo can be briefly summarized in the
following: they are vertical motions of lifting-lowering the weight; they arise from
knee and/or ankle movements; they are mostly downward movements congruent with
the musical beat; they are continuous movements; they are independent from types of
supports and usage of the feet; they are performed smoothly in legato articulation.
Although stretching and bending leg movements in srpsko kolo can be generally sig-
nified as vertical pulsation motions (which is the term proposed by János Fügedi), they
can be scholarly termed with the particular expression – bouncing (Serbian: pocup-
kivanje), since this later term indicates the dynamic quality of its smooth (elastic)
legato performance and is already colloquially used in Serbian. As an inherent charac-
teristic of performing srpsko kolo, bouncing should be adequately notated in kinetog-
raphy Laban both prescriptively and descriptively, which is proposed in this article.
Since types, duration and dynamical articulation of supports together with possible
usage of turns and feet can be versatile depending on various factors during a particu-
lar performance, the unifying parameter among linked dancers in srpsko kolo is un-
doubtedly a bouncing movement. It is a continuous movement which is congruent
with the musical beat and as such the most visually recognizable feature of this dance,
which provides the dancers a sense of motoricity and continuity of a dance flow.
Language corrections of English text
Liz Mellish
Acknowledgement
As already mentioned, many individuals have contributed to the formulation of ideas
and analytical considerations expressed in this paper. However, I owe a special thanks
to János Fügedi, and Milorad Lonić who re-read the finished text and once again con-
tributed to its more precise articulation in theoretical and graphic sense (Fügedi), and
a broader and fuller understanding of the structural and semantic aspects of the kinet-
ics of srpsko kolo (Lonić).
I also owe special thanks to Liz Mellish who corrected English text and Nick Green
who gave profound elaboration of the meaning of the term bouncing in English and
some mechanical characteristic of stretching and bending leg movements in srpsko
kolo.
Open dialog with all aforementioned individuals contributed greatly to the articula-
tion of ideas expressed here.
43
Article received on October 6th 2019

UDC: 78(474.5)
78(438)
Rūta Stanevičiūtė*
Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre
LITHUANIAN AND POLISH MUSICAL

NETWORKING DURING THE COLD WAR:
POLITICAL CURTAINS AND CULTURAL CONFRONTATIONS1
Abstract: Poland and Lithuania at the end of the Cold War serve as a case study for
the theorization of music and politics. In this article, a little-studied field of two neigh-
bouring countries’ cultures has been chosen: oppositional musical networking, that in
addition resulted in politically and socially engaged collaboration between Polish and
Lithuanian musicians since late 1970s.
Basing on the concept of a transformative contact (Padraic Kenney 2004), the author
reflects on the factors which predetermined the intercommunication of informal com-
munities in mentioned countries in the years of ideological and political constraints
and the ways in which such relationships contributed to the cultural and political
transformation of societies. Through the interactions of the milieus of the Polish and
Lithuanian contemporary music, the participation of the norms and representations
of one culture in the field of the other culture is discussed. The author shows that the
paradoxical constraints on the informal relations between Lithuanian and Polish mu-
sicians were strongly affected by the political relations between the USSR and the
Polish People’s Republic, especially in the wake of the intensification of political resist-
ance to the imposed Communist regime in Poland.
Keywords: Music and politics; oppositional cultural networking; transnational diffu-
sion; Polish-Lithuanian musicians’ collaboration; Cold War; identity (trans)formation.

1 This article is a part of the project “Music of Change: Expression of Liberation in Pol-
ish and Lithuanian Music Before and After 1989” (Nr. P-LL-18-213), funded by the Na-
tional Science Centre (Poland) and Lithuanian Research Council (Lithuania).
44
Stanevičiūtė, R.: Lithuanian and Polish Musical Networking During the Cold War...
Introduction
In recent decades, when critically reviewing the interpretations of the Sovi-
et era or, more specifically, the Cold War processes, researchers in the his-
tory of the USSR and the Communist bloc countries have been intensively
debating the issues of informally related communities and social and cultur-
al networks.2 Although the research tended to more frequently focus on the
phenomena of a single country and their impact on the political and social
transformation of societies, informal relationships and cultural exchanges
based on them have been of an increasing interest to researchers dealing with
transnational processes. What predetermined the communication of informal
communities from different countries in the years of ideological and political
constraints? How did the exchange of information, people, and ideas between
the cultures of different countries take place through informal channels? Simo
Mikkonen and Pia Koivunen who analysed the specifics of cultural commu-
nication and exchanges between the Western and Eastern countries, sepa-
rated by the ideological tension of the Cold War, noted that the traditional
comparative approaches, based on a systematic study of differences and sim-
ilarities between societies or cultures, were not sufficient there. The Finnish
researchers linked the change in the comparative perspective to the concepts
of transfer and translation, enabling one to consider how the norms and rep-
resentations of one culture participated in the field of another culture.3
Going beyond purely transnational cultural interactions, American his-
torian Padraic Kenney emphasised the need for a more in-depth discussion
of the concept of a transformative contact, conducive to more dynamic com-
parativism. Kenney noted that transnational dissemination processes were a
relatively new field of social research and identified six categories of impor-
tance for transformative contacts: command; text; legend; pilgrimage; cou-
rier; and convocation.4 Importantly, Kenney modelled the said typology to
2 In Lithuania, the most comprehensive research on informal relationships-based net-

working in the Soviet era was conducted by a team of scholars brought together by so-
ciologist Ainė Ramonaitė. Cf. Nematoma sovietmečio visuomenė [The Invisible Society of
the Soviet Era], Ainė Ramonaitė (Ed.), Vilnius, Naujasis židinys-Aidai, 2015.
3 Simo Mikkonen, Pia Koivunen, “Introduction: Beyond the Divide”, in: Simo Mik-
konen, Pia Koivunen (Eds), Beyond the Divide. Entangled Histories of Cold War Europe,
New York, Oxford, Berghahn, 2015, 11–12.
4 Padraic Kenney, “Opposition Networks and Transnational Diffusion in the Revolu-
tions of 1989”, in: Padraic Kenney, Gerd-Rainer Horn (Eds), Transnational Moments of
Change: Europe 1945, 1968, 1989, Lanham, MD, Rowman & Littlefield, 2004, 207–208.
45
examine the processes of resistance and transformation in the communist

countries of Eastern and Central Europe through the analysis of the origins
of the 1989 revolutions. The first category of command, or impulse, was spe-
cifically explained by him with examples from the 1989 revolutions, however,
it could be more broadly defined as a response to political or societal events
(the Soviet perestroika, debated by Kenney, could be supplemented with more
examples, such as the political Solidarity movement in Poland, the Lithua-
nian Reform Movement Sąjūdis, the introduction of the martial law regime
in Poland, the fall of the Berlin Wall, etc.). The category of text was associ-
ated by Kenney with dissident activities, samizdat publishing, and high-im-
pact publications (such as by Václav Havel’s essay The Power of the Powerless,
1978) or other broad-resonance cultural artifacts. The categories of legends
and pilgrimage, interrelated in a specific way, highlighted the importance and
use of cultural memory and the power of intercultural attraction of cities and
artistic events. Individuals (couriers), promoting transnational networking
and collaboration, inspired festivals, conferences, and other events (convo-
cations or meetings), thus enhancing the expression of liberation. Kenney ar-
gued that every form of contact – command or text, legend or courier, etc.
– functioned in two ways: actually and symbolically. For a transnational con-
tact to boost transformation (of a relationship or a self-image), real events,
cultural artifacts, or actions of individuals had to acquire a symbolic mean-
ing. In non-democratic regimes, every real action of transnational network-
ing – “crossing a border, holding a conference, even reading a foreign text or
listening to Radio Free Europe – was a symbolic act, too” that changed the
geography of the living world.5
Kenney’s typology was conducive to the discussion of the transnational
contacts and exchanges of Lithuanian musicians in the late Soviet era that
were forged and developed through informal channels. From Steven Ver-
tovec’s point of view, transnational exchanges were particularly strongly af-
fected by informal relationships between non-governmental institutions and
cultural actors which more fundamentally revealed the nature of cultural
transfer and translation.6 Peter J. Schmelz also noted insufficient attention of
researchers to informal relationships between the Soviet and Western musi-
cians – so far, emphasis had been placed on intercultural diplomacy and mu-
5 Padraic Kenney, op. cit., 221.

6 Steven Vertovec, Transnationalism, London and New York, Routledge, 2009, 3.
46
sical exchange developed at the governmental level.7 It was in the late Soviet
era that transnational informal contacts became a phenomenon which trans-
formed the self-image and international reception of the field of contempo-
rary Lithuanian music. The institutional structure of the Soviet musical cul-
ture resulted in the situation when informal relationships and channels were
of particular concern to composers and musicologists, severely constrained
by two opposing features of the cultural system – the centralized internation-
al dissemination of their works and an underdeveloped institutional network
of contemporary music. Through the research perspectives implied by the ty-
pology of transformative contacts, the article seeks to identify the place oc-
cupied in the transnational relationships by close neighbourhood relations
during the period in question, which had seldom been in focus of interna-
tional research.8 For a more comprehensive analysis, the informal relation-
ships between Lithuanian and Polish musicians at the end of the Cold War
were chosen, because it was during that period that they became particularly
intense and involved a number of prominent figures on the music scene in
both countries.
Political and cultural stagnation as an impetus for change

In his 1975 review of the Warsaw Autumn Festival, Krzysztof Droba, a Polish
musicologist who had then just made his debut in music criticism, wrote:
Contrary to the domains of literature, art, or theatre, no unique artistic genera-
tion emerged in musical life. In scanty debutes of the Autumn, I do not find any
signs of artistic thinking. After all, the artistic and life experience of professors is
different from that of their students. A composer making his debut in 1970s tends
to forget that. Therefore, his performance is not authentic – he never stops to
consider what was said before him or what he himself would like to say. The cur-
rent year can be called a period of debutant pupils: immature, dependent on
others, and false personalities.9
7 Peter J. Schmelz, “Intimate Histories of the Musical Cold War: Fred Prieberg and Igor
Blazhkov’s Unofficial Diplomacy”, in: Jessica C.E. Gienow-Hecht (Ed.), Music and Inter-
national History in the Twentieth Century, New York, Berghahn, 2015, 191–192.
8 In recent years, the theme in question has been especially intensely studied by Peter
J. Schmelz, developing the project Complex Webs: Unofficial Musical Exchange between
Russia, Ukraine, and West Germany during the Cold War.
9 Krzysztof Droba, “Z myślą o przyszłej Jesieni [With a View to Future Autumn]”, Ruch
muzyczny, 25, 1975, 15.
47
Lithuanian composer Giedrius Kuprevičius brought similar impressions

from the 1977 Plenary Session of the USSR Composers’ Union in Moscow
dedicated to the work of young composers:
Strangely enough, quite a few young composers write very traditional music. In
terms of both expressive means and themes, that music does not go beyond the
general level of the fifties or sixties. Blank instrumentation, cold academic forms,
colourless emotions, and pseudo-philosophic posturing prompt passivity. Sur-
prisingly, after the performance of such a composition, a very young composer
comes on the stage. That reminds of the words of Aram Khachaturian at the
opening of the plenary session: “Write as you please, use whatever you like, only
make us feel that the music was written by a young, passionate, and talented
composer.”10
Warsaw and Moscow were two opposing axiological musical centres of
the Socialist Commonwealth countries, two representations of contemporary
music with radically opposite goals, however, the critical opinions that re-
flected them could be seen as symptomatic responses to the signs of ideolog-
ical and cultural stagnation in the communist world. From a historical dis-
tance, researchers on the then Lithuanian art processes noted that the first
signs of stagnation were revealed already in the years 1969 through 1970.11 In
the Lithuanian music culture, the self-image of stagnation became more evi-
dent in the period of 1972 to 1974: the number of events and articles of music
criticism decreased, and trends of creative inertia began to be recorded in the
critical discourse.12 Sociopolitical processes influenced the feeling of stagna-
tion and cultural censorship: events of political and social resistance (such
as the Prague Spring 1968, workers’ strikes and demonstrations in 1970 in
Poland, etc.) were accompanied by campaigns initiated by the communist re-
gimes to suppress the expression of liberation. Between the 1960s and 1970s,
10 Giedrius Kuprevičius, “Jaunųjų kūrybos pasiklausius [Upon Listening to Compos-

tions of the Youth]”, Kauno tiesa, 26. 03. 1977. In the review, Kuprevičius noted that,
during the plenary session, the greatest attention was attracted by Russian composers’
rock operas and the first use of a synthesizer in Soviet pop music (in David Tukhmanov’s
record The Wave of my Memory), although he described them as examples of low music
culture.
11 Cf. Jolita Mulevičiūtė, “Atsinaujinimo sąjūdis lietuvių tapyboje 1956–1970 m. [Re-
newal Movement in Lithuanian Painting in 1956–1970]”, in: Žmogus ir aplinka XX a.

Lietuvos dailėje, Vilnius, Academia, 1992, 189.
12 Cf. Rūta Naktinytė, “Inertiškumo simptomai? [Symptoms of Inertia?]”, Literatūra ir
menas, 30. 11. 1974.
48
the increased ‘witch-hunt’ of political dissidents in Lithuania, the struggle of

the Soviet authorities against the oppositional underground activities of the
Catholic Church, and the Russification of culture after the self-immolation of
young dissident Romas Kalanta in 1972 left an imprint on cultural practices.
Those activities of political restraint were further strengthened by the 1972
Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union on literary and art criticism, triggering a new wave of constraints on,
and censorship of, music criticism.
It was, however, during that period of stagnation of cultural expression
that significant changes in the artistic self-image occurred, which should be
seen as signs of a shift already made and the start of the new beginnings.
That was particularly evident in the milieu of Lithuanian musicians through
the change in geo-cultural identities. After 1970, the cultural optics changed
radically: Lithuanian composers no longer sought unconditional authorities
behind the Iron Curtain, although no stronger cultural isolationism existed,
either. Like in the previous decade, music pilgrims of the 1970s were flock-
ing to the Warsaw Autumn Festival to hear newer music, and contemporary
Western music, also performed not merely by local musicians, was increas-
ingly frequently performed on the Vilnius concert stages. The information
about topical phenomena was supplemented by music recordings, brought
from abroad, and the broadcasts of foreign radio programmes. Through them,
minimalism and European and the US experimental music became popular
quite early in Lithuania, with American John Cage becoming almost a cult
figure, while some composers sought counterbalance for the faded post-war
avant-garde fame in the works of French composer Olivier Messiaen. In that
way, a heterogeneous picture of international contemporary music as a con-
text for the inspirations and interpretations of the works of Lithuanian com-
posers started to form, although it was quite distant from the earlier identifi-
cations with the imaginary West avant-garde both in content and character.
In his influential monograph on the late Soviet era, Alexei Yurchak
identified the imagined West as a powerful myth flourishing in the Sovi-
et self-awareness in various forms, pervading both cultural expression and
everyday activities.13 Contrary to the everyday life, where the demand for
Western goods and their imitations kept growing, the power of the imagi-
13 Алексей Юрчак, Это было навсегда, пока не кончилось. Последнее советское
поколение, Москва, Новое литературное обозрение, 2014, 313–314. According to

author, through the imaginary West, the Soviet subject formed himself. (Ibid., 386).
49
nary West with regard to artistic practices was diminishing in the years of the
Soviet stagnation. Similar changes in the self-image were also characteristic
of the neighboring Soviet republics: thus, e.g., Russian musicologist Tatyana
Cherednichenko wrote about the period of 1974 through 1978 as the true be-
ginning of the 1970s, a tectonic break in which seemingly undeniable truths
based on the history of modern European composition were already slipping
out of hand. Not limiting her story to Russian music, Cherednichenko at-
tributed yesterday’s avant-gardists to contemporary sibeliuses (“avant-garde
academicism”) or kabalevskies (“the garbage of contemporary music”), while
she considered Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, or Krzysztof Penderecki,
inspirators of the Eastern European avant-garde of the 1960s, to have become
prestigious part of the contemporary music festivals.14
When critically exploring the changes in the creative landmarks of Lith-
uanian composers during the Soviet era, composer and music critic Šarūnas
Nakas aptly noted that, “in the 1970s, the natural attraction of several centres
formed. They were all outside Lithuania <...> – Warsaw, Tallinn, Moscow as
well as Kiev and Riga”.15 Nakas believed that the change in attraction centres
was driven by two reasons: first, over the previous decades, no genuine re-
lationships had been forged with the mythologized Western centres which
could have guaranteed the international dissemination of Lithuanian music
and due attention to it, and, second, dissatisfaction with the “transplantation
of fashionable Western styles into the local milieu” and aspirations to “create
a full-blooded world of Lithuanian music”.16 However, the “geographic turn”
of Lithuanian music in the 1970s should not be related merely to the transfor-
mation of the subjective creative orientations of several generations of com-
posers at that time or the restrictions on more intense dissemination of their
music. It is also noteworthy that, during the period in question, due to the
commercialisation of the Soviet export of music, tours of Lithuanian musi-
cians stretched far to the West and East, even though limited by ideological
or conjunctural solutions. On the other hand, the problem of a cultural dia-
logue and the understanding of compositions during the decade in question
14 Татьяна Чередниченко, Музыкальный запас. 70-е. Проблемы. Портреты.

Случаи [Musical Resources. The 1970s. Problems. Portraits. Cases.], Москва: Новое
литературное обозрение, 2002, 9, 17–18.
15 Šarūnas Nakas, “Kelionė be kelio, nes veidrodis be atspindžio [Travel with no Road,
because of the Mirror without Reflection]”. Access online: http://www.modus-radio.

com/eseistika/kelione-be-kelio [viewed on 05. 06. 2019].
16 Ibid.
50
was also faced by the Soviet composers whose music received abundant per-
formances and attracted a new wave of strong interest in the West. Thus, ac-
cording to Levon Hakobian, arrogance and disdainful attitudes were frequent
in reviews of Western music critics of the USSR’s broad-resonance non-con-
formist music festival in Cologne (spring 1979) or concert programmes at the
Paris-Moscow Exhibition (1979); while the reviews of Soviet music published
between the 1970s and 1980s abounded in banal descriptions and factual er-
rors.17
Therefore, when exploring what kind of transnational aspirations and
relationships were forming in the Lithuanian music scene during the years
of the late Soviet stagnation, it is useful to consider broader changes in the
cultural self-image. To contextualise the caesura between the Soviet Thaw
and perestroika, Pierre Bourdieu’s anthropological analysis of conversation
is to be employed, which defines discursive practices as the modalities of dif-
ferent systems of self-image and modus operandi. In the Soviet period, the
outward-oriented discourse of modernisation (the search for “windows of
ideas”, external sources of the musical tradition updating, and new resourc-
es for the language of music), fueled by political liberalisation (the Thaw),
became exhausted in the mid-1970s. Based on Bourdieu’s terminology, the
new expression (from the mid-1970s) can be described as a discourse of famil-
iarity (“the spirit of co-existence”), as opposed to the previous outward-ori-
ented discourse.18 The discourse of familiarity is defined here as an imagined
commonality of values, cultural codes, and experiences of the local or native
world, which is as if taken for granted and does not require further explana-
tion. Such a modus operandi indirectly correlates with the concept of close
communication, explored by Alexei Yurchak19: according to him, it is a spe-
cial affective “space” that defines the deep and intense inter-subjectivity of the
late-Soviet era. In this way, in the 1970s shift in the self-image of musicians,
artistic, moral, and social attitudes intertwined, which enabled the interre-
lationships of the community of musicians and their transnational contacts.
17 Levon Hakobian, “The Reception of Soviet Music in the West: a History of Sympathy
and Misunderstanding”, Musicology, 13, 2012, 132–133.
18 See Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge, Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1977, 18.

19 Алексей Юрчак, op. cit., 296.
51
Meeting places in the mix of formal and informal musical life

Since the 1960s, Lithuanian performers increasingly frequently performed
in Poland under the Soviet Concert Agency (Goskoncert) and the Polish Art
Agency (PAGART) exchange agreements, and they would include national
music in their programmes. Therefore, it sounded paradoxical when some
Polish musicians claimed that, for several decades after the war, Lithuanian
music was unknown in Poland: “more was known about, for example, Poly-
nesian music than that of neighbouring Lithuania”.20 Were there any other
reasons for not to have heard it, although it was actually performed? Back in
1975, Krzysztof Droba, who accidentally met with Lithuanians at a typical
Soviet culture promotion event in Krakow, eventually became the most con-
sistent promoter of Lithuanian music in Poland, arguing that, until then, the
image of the neighbours’ music was shaped solely by official exports:
At that time, Lithuania could only exist to the extent it occupied in the culture of
the Soviet Union – as one of the republics, it could have representatives at inter-
national events, and those often had nothing to do with true values. After all,
people with ‘good reputation’ were going abroad: social activists, the bureaucratic
elite, presidents of the art unions, but not some talented non-conformists. In the
past, the music was imposed on us that had been approved by Moscow.21
It was in 1975 that Droba began organising independent festivals in small
Polish towns (Stalowa Wola, Baranów, Sandomierz), designing them as an
opposition to the formal life of contemporary music and to the Polish Com-
posers’ Union of which he was not yet a member. In that respect, until the late
1980s, the situation in neighbouring Poland was very different from that of
the USSR: despite the ideological and administrative control, organisations
outside the official network of cultural institutions could operate there, such
as the Polish Contemporary Music Society (Polskie Towarzystwo Muzyki
Współczesnej)22 which had suspended its activities only for a short post-war
20 “A zaczeło się – od Festiwali w Stalowej Woli. Z Krzysztofem Drobą rozmawia Alwida

Rolska [It Began from the Festival in Stalowa Wola. Alwida Rolska Interviews Krzysztof
Droba]”, Kurier Wileński, 27. 11. 1990, 6.
21 “Naujasis romantizmas, Lietuva ir kontrabanda. Łukaszas Tischneris kalbasi su
Krzysztofu Droba [The New Romanticism, Lithuania and Smuggling. Łukasz Tischner In-
terviews Krzysztof Droba]”, in: Krzysztof Droba, Susitikimai su Lietuva, Rūta Stanevičiūtė
(Ed.), Vilnius, Lietuvos kompozitorių sąjunga, Lietuvos muzikos ir teatro akademija,
2018, 79.
22 The organisation was the Polish Section of the International Society for Contempo-
rary Music (ISCM), founded in 1924.
52
period, or private festivals could be held, such as the Contemporary Music

Festivals initiated by Krzysztof Penderecki at his private estate in Lusławice
in 1980. Lithuanian musicians, like their colleagues from the USSR cities of
Riga, Tallinn, or Kiev which became the new centres of attraction, did not
have an opportunity to escape from the official institutional network in the
public space. However, it was in the second half of the 1970s that local groups
of musicians, related through informal contacts, began to seek opportunities
for more active public concert activities and other events not only through
official composers’ unions, but also through other institutions, such as Kom-
somol structures, higher schools, or artistic organizations. Characteristically,
in the second half of the 1970s and later, those unspecified spaces beyond
official culture produced premieres of such emblematic works as Bronius Ku-
tavičius’ oratorio The Last Pagan Rites (premiered in the Small Baroque Hall
in Vilnius in 1978) or Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa (premiered in Tallinn Poly-
technic School in 1977).
In the late Soviet period, composers and musicologists of Lithuania and
the neighbouring countries were forging informal contacts, seeking to dis-
tance themselves from the semiofficial life of contemporary music culture
and the calendrical rhythm of congresses and plenary sessions of compos-
ers’ unions. However, until the mid-1980s, no independent festivals featuring
not only local, but also foreign music and performers were held in Lithuania,
therefore it would be inaccurate to talk about the informal life or institutions
of contemporary Lithuanian music. Although the studies of the history of
Lithuanian art in the Soviet era have long since abandoned the binary oppo-
sitions of formal/informal, conformist/nonconformist, etc., research in infor-
mal relationships encourages a critical revision of the established conceptions
of the application or rejection of that division. In such a context, the discus-
sion on the values-based and institutional divides in the Soviet field of culture
was given a great impetus by Alexei Yurchak’s book Everything Was Forever,
Until It Was No More (2006).23 Rejecting the binary division of the late Sovi-
et reality (state/society, oppression/resistance, formal culture/counterculture,
public/private, lie/truth, conformism/non-conformism, etc.), American an-
thropologist Yurchak inserted the predominant apolitical stance of the ma-
jority as a way of ‘being outside’ the system between the ideological discourse
and an openly opposing dissident course of action. In his opinion, that kind
23 First edition in English: Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More.
The Last Soviet Generation, Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2006.
53
of positioning typical of the late Soviet period (to get out of the horizons of
official ideology and to be invisible to the Soviet system) could not be consid-
ered as a non-Soviet existence – rather a symbiosis of the ’non-Soviet worlds’
and the Soviet system.24 Despite the broad resonance, Yurchak’s concept at-
tracted a lot of criticism – musicologists also joined the discussion. Ameri-
can musicologist Peter J. Schmelz, who had most comprehensively consid-
ered Yurchak’s interpretations of the ’existence outside’, sharply criticised the
excessively broad and inaccurate Late Soviet era periodisation (1953–1991),
which did not take into account the specifics of different historical periods
and cultural spheres.25 Schmelz also opposed the justification for the possi-
bility of change: significant turning points in the life of the USSR were ex-
plained in Yurchak’s book by the dynamic interaction between the stability of
the norms, values, and rituals of the Soviet life and the internal shifts and dis-
placements in the system, however, the Soviet music transformations did not
correlate with the performative reproduction of the unchanging authoritative
forms indicated by Yurchak.26
Be that as it may, the scholarly debate on the impossibility of drawing
a clear dividing line between the official and unofficial fields of culture pro-
voked by Yurchak’s book encouraged more careful consideration of the ex-
pression of discursive and institutional opposition in different periods of the
Soviet era. Without going into broader considerations, we shall note that, in
the years of the political Thaw and early stagnation, the meanings of opposi-
tion tended to be looked for in the language of music itself. The institutional
context of the dissemination of creation became more important in the late
Soviet era, after 1970, seeking to establish a symbolic distance from the for-
mal life of contemporary music. Of course, the divide between the formal
and the informal contemporary music life (especially in Lithuania, with its
absence of an alternative institutional network) were rather imaginary modi
operandi. However, the migration of public concerts, meetings, and debates
from specialised formal cultural spaces to institutional peripheries with
a non-specific function as well as the organisation of contemporary music
24 Алексей Юрчак, op. cit., 257–258, 399.

25 Peter J. Schmelz, Such Freedom, If Only Musical: Unofficial Soviet Music during the
Thaw, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009, 17–18, see also “What Was ’Shostakov-
ich’, and What Came Next?” by the same author in: Journal of Musicology, 24/3, 2007,
301–303.
26 Alexei Yurchak, op. cit., 295.
54
festivals in provincial towns of Poland or Lithuania formed as consistent

strategies.27 As a result, in the long run, not only metropolises of creativi-
ty and major prestigious festivals of contemporary music became objects of
intercultural pilgrimage: their prestige was also becoming overshadowed by
small centres of attraction, enriched by privacy and informal contacts. When
drawing the divide between the events of formal and informal musical life
both in the cases of Poland and Lithuania, the divide between censored and
uncensored activities would be more appropriate. Differently from Poland,
where the preconditions for uncensored events formed in the 1960s and
1970s, a favorable environment for them in Lithuania emerged only after the
announcement of the Soviet perestroika. In any event, the Polish organisers
of independent festivals said they had not been bound by any restrictions on
artistic programmes.28
Borders, couriers and smuggling

The press of the 1970s boasted that the tours of the Vilnius String Quartet
reached already the African continent.29 Even more impressive was the geog-
raphy of the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra’s concert tours (especially when
collaborating with Russian musicians), which may have given the impression
that, despite ideological constraints, the international dissemination of Lith-
uanian music was less restricted by Soviet regime than that of other cultural
spheres. However, not all intercultural contacts and cooperation initiatives
went smoothly and without external barriers. From that point of view, the
informal relations between Lithuanian and Polish musicians in the late So-
viet period were forming in a most paradoxical way. Droba, who was an ac-
tive mediator between Lithuanian and Polish contemporary music milieus,
argued that Polish contacts with its eastern neighbours were always acquir-
ing a political tint, since “every [cultural act] was observed and commented
upon. The Russian Embassy would protest against totally ridiculous things,
27 Typical Lithuanian examples included the Days of Youth Chamber Music, organized
by the Youth Section of the Lithuanian Composers’ Union since 1985, independent festi-
vals of happenings held outside of Vilnius since 1988, etc.
28 “Dar od losu. Krzysztof Droba w rozmowie z Kingą Kiwalą [Gift of Fortune. Kinga
Kiwala Interviews Krzysztof Droba]”, Teoria muzyki. Studia, interpretacje, dokumentacje.

Pismo Akademii Muzycznej w Krakowie, IV/6, 2015, 128–129.
29 Donatas Katkus, “Vilnius groja Afrikai [Vilnius Plays for Africa]”, Gimtasis kraštas,
10. 02. 1977.
55
thus providing them with a status of political events.”30 Restrictions on cul-

tural cooperation became especially strong in the first half of the 1980s due
to certain events in Poland, such as the political Solidarity movement, due
to which the martial law regime was introduced between 1981 and 1983, as
well as the stance of Pope John Paul II on the USSR. During the period of
political changes, the above mentioned barriers were remembered with ro-
mantic pathos (“it was real underground struggle”31); authentic documents of
the period (private correspondence and archival materials of the institutions
of the USSR and the Polish People’s Republic) testified to quite a number of
prohibitions and blockages unsubstantiated by convincing arguments. The
1980–1990 correspondence of Droba with Lithuanian musicologist Vytautas
Landsbergis and composer Feliksas Bajoras abounded in considerations how
to get permission to come to one or another event or festival, to get academ-
ic internships, etc., and how to overcome real or imaginary obstacles. Oc-
casionally, even unrealistic initiatives were undertaken: thus, more than one
attempt was made to ask Penderecki, who often gave concerts in Moscow or
Leningrad, to intercede with the Chairman of the USSR Composers’ Union
and the most influential Soviet music functionary Tichon Khrennikov.32 The
trips of Polish musicians to events held in Lithuania were organised through
the Polish Composers’ Union or the Ministry of Culture of the PPR, however,
the visits of guests had to be approved by the central authorities of the USSR
through sending them a personal invitation.
Irrational trip organisation procedures constrained Lithuanian musi-
cians even to a greater degree, therefore quite a few visits of Lithuanian com-
posers Bronius Kutavičius, Feliksas Bajoras, and Osvaldas Balakauskas as well
as Lithuanian performers and musicologists to contemporary music festivals
in Poland in the first half of the 1980s took place through private invitations.
The uncertainty of the exchange system could be illustrated by the circum-
stances of the Vilnius String Quartet participation in the 1980 Lusławice Fes-
tival. Although the Quartet performed extensively on international stages and
their tour was organized through the mediation of the Polish TVR, the USSR
Goskoncert refused to officially send the ensemble – a telegram reported the
30 “Naujasis romantizmas, Lietuva ir kontrabanda...”, op. cit., 82.

31 Ibid.
32 Krzysztof Droba’s letter to Vytautas Landsbergis, 21. 03. 1982. Vytautas Landsbergis
private archive.
56
performers’ being ill.33 Another ensemble, the Silesian String Quartet, was in-
vited to perform a composition by Eugeniusz Knapik, commissioned for the
festival, which was to have been played by the Vilnius musicians. However,
the Vilnius Quartet performers, who arrived as distant relatives (’cousins’) of
Penderecki at his personal invitation, were able to compete with the Polish
colleagues in the interpretation of the double premiere.34
Censorship, which restricted the exchange of literature, music compo-
sitions, and recordings between the USSR and foreign countries, also lacked
any clearer criteria. If the performances of the works of Lithuanian compos-
ers were organised through informal channels, it was not always possible to
send the sheet music or recordings legally. Moreover, because of the political
tensions between the USSR and Poland, parcels and travellers were carefully
checked:
I used to transport books that were usually taken away on the border in Grodno.
But that’s not all! After all, there was always one suitcase or bundle that remained
uninspected. Those were mostly underground Solidarity publications, books by
Czesław Miłosz, Stefan Kisielewski, and priest Tischner – that was the repertoire
of those times. I carried back, for example, letters from Vytautas Landsbergis to
Lech Wałęsa. Still, letters were easier to transport, while journals and books were,
as a rule, taken away from me. Once I lost a whole yearly set of Tygodnik Powsze-
chny, but was allowed to keep [Czesław Miłosz’s] The Valley of Isa, because I
swore I was taking it for children. The bird on the cover did not look suspicious,
and the Belarussian customs tsarina was finally convinced. Records used to be
taken away as well. At that time it was necessary to have permission for the trans-
porting of each and every cassette.35
From a historical perspective, not only the well-known practice of Soviet
censorship was important but also the cultural horizons shared by networks
of musicians linked through informal relationships. Sharing professional lit-
erature, music sheets, and recordings was not a new phenomenon – the pre-
requisites for that emerged in the years of the Soviet Thaw. In the late Soviet
era, the culture of sharing in the milieus of musicians became more active, yet
33 V. Kokonin’s (Goskoncert) telegram to PAGART, 03. 07. 1980. Russian State Archive
for Literature and Art (RGALI), fond 3162, op. 2, ye. kh. 1462.
34 Composer Eugeniusz Knapik remembered the performances in question as two rad-
ically different interpretations. See Krzysztof Droba, Spotkania z Eugeniuszem Knapikem

[Meetings with Eugeniusz Knapik]. Katowice, Akademia Muzyczna im. Karola Szy-
manowskiego w Katowicach, 2011, 43.
35 “Naujasis romantizmas, Lietuva ir kontrabanda...”, op. cit., 82.
57
it had its own specifics. Based on the correspondence of both Lithuanian and
Polish musicians and the data of the correspondence with other musicians of
Western and Eastern European countries, one can argue it was mainly pro-
fessional material, literature on art, fiction, and albums that were exchanged.
Books by Czesław Miłosz, publications of Polish emigration and Vatican, and
periodicals frequently traveled from Poland to Lithuania. It was extremely
rare for samizdat or underground literature to be sent in parcels or person-
ally transported, and then only from Poland to Lithuania. However, that did
not mean that informal music communities were overtly apolitical or neutral
with regard to the ideological discourse. On the contrary, it was specifically
in the 1970s and 1980s that the private correspondence between musicians
abounded in ironic hints and comments on political events and processes,
witty observations on the ideological grimaces of the late stagnation, and in-
sightful perceptions of societal change. In that respect, the letters of Lithua-
nian and Polish musicians differed significantly from other items of foreign
correspondence, in which political topics were mostly avoided.
The colleagues’ moral stance on the political and cultural regime was
important for the relationships between Lithuanians and Poles. Mieczysław
Tomaszewski, spiritus movens of the Musical Meetings in Baranów, the head
of the Polish Music Publishing House (PWM) from 1965 to 1988, said that
moral choices accompanied every field of the professional activity: “From the
very first moment, I regarded the government [of the PPR] as an alien re-
gime. (...) I have always been a positivist, and I think that the positivist spirit
(which can be said to be typical of Greater Poland) meant acting here and
now, in the present reality, taking advantage of every possible territory of
freedom.”36 Similarly, in an interview to the Polish press in July 1990, Lands-
bergis justified the social aspect of his professional career choice: “Armed
struggle, [postwar] resistance in the forests was over, and a new basis for an
honorable life had to be found. (...) Another reason was that nobody invit-
ed me to the underground, and I had no contact with the dissident milieu.
Just in the same way I had never been in contact with the armed movement
before, I was too young. Of course, I knew about that struggle from stories,
I knew what it was, but I never really considered participation in the under-
ground activities. Quite a few people of my generation stayed at a distance
from the underground. During my studies – and those were the years of
36 Quoted from Krzysztof Droba, Odczytywanie na nowo. Rozmowy z Mieczyławem To-
maszewskim [Re-reading. Conversations with Mieczysław Tomaszewski], Kraków, Aka-

demia Muzyczna w Krakowie, PWM, BOSZ, 2011, 147.
58
Stalinism – my worldview was already formed, and I remember explaining to

a doctor that, if not armed struggle, the only thing that mattered was positive
work, organic activity, however, on an individual scale.”37 During the political
events of the 1980s, most people had to choose whether to move beyond the
positivist stance: thus, e.g., after the introduction of the martial law regime in
Poland in 1981 through 1983, Polish musicians ignored the public space and
for some time did not hold either formal (the Warsaw Autumn) or informal
festivals (Musical Meetings in Baranów), while Tadeusz Kaczyński, a media-
tor in the dissemination of Lithuanian music works, set up an illegally func-
tioning Philharmonic named after Romuald Traugutt.38 More than one of
the Polish participants of the independent events in question lost their jobs,
were spied upon, or otherwise persecuted.39 However, from the beginning of
the informal cooperation, political attitudes of anti-systemic activity had a
greater impact on the commitment of Polish musicians to the development
of relationships with their Lithuanian colleagues, greatly enhancing artistic
curiosity and the understanding of the cultural mission. Therefore, in 1988,
with the formation of the Lithuanian Reform Movement Sąjūdis, the promo-
tion of Lithuanian music in Poland inevitably took on a new political dimen-
sion, which was widely echoed in the mass and musical press.40
The longing for quality communication and new musical identities

In the mid-1970s, in Poland as well as in Lithuania musical generations
changed, and new artistic attitudes were forming. Young Polish composers
37 “O muzyce, która pomaga nie kłamać. Rozmowa z Vytautasem Landsbergisem

[About Music Which Helps not to Lie. Conversation with Vytautas Landsbergis]”, Ruch
muzyczny, 18, 1990, 1, 5.
38 See Filharmonia im. Romualda Traugutta w Warszawie. https://culture.pl/pl/tworca/
filharmonia-im-romualda-traugutta-w-warszawie [viewed on 02. 05. 2018].

39 Upon introduction on the martial law regime, Director of the PWM Publishing
House Tomaszewski had to go into hiding for a while. In his letters to Landsbergis, Dro-
ba wrote about his close colleagues Andrzej Chłopecki and Małgorzata Gąsiorowska hav-
ing lost their jobs. Cf. Krzysztof Droba, Odczytywanie na nowo..., op. cit., 160; Krzysztof
Droba’s letter to Vytautas Landsbergis, Krakow, 08. 04. 1982,Vytautas Landsbergis private
archive.
40 In, e.g., interviews of Krzysztof Droba with Vytautas Landsbergis published in the
Polish press in 1990. See Krzysztof Droba, Susitikimai su Lietuva [Meetings with Lithua-
nia], Rūta Stanevičiūtė (Ed.), Vilnius, Lietuvos kompozitorių sąjunga, Lietuvos muzikos
ir teatro akademija, 2018, 37–47.
59
(including “the generation of Stalowa Wola”: Andrzej Krzanowski, Eugeniusz

Knapik, and Aleksander Lasoń) and musicologists were bored both with the
formal musical life and with the Western Second Avant-garde. New spiri-
tual and artistic authorities were looked for: “In the creation of that time, a
sharp turn was made towards traditional values which had been ousted out of
music circulation by serialism; that was the restitution of expressiveness and
emotionality, pushed out by the Second Avant-garde, as integral features of
the individual composer language.”41
Using the above-mentioned Bourdieu’s concept of the discourse of fa-
miliarity, forms of artists’ self-organization, based on the communal life prin-
ciples, emerged, promoting the movement of independent music festivals,
meetings, conferences, seminars, etc. in Poland (1975–1989) and Lithuania
(since 1985). The festivals organized by Droba in Stalowa Wola (1975–1979),
Baranów (1982–1986), and Sandomierz (1988–1989) and the Musical Meet-
ings in Baranów (1976–1981) under the patronage of Tomaszewski brought
together several generations of Polish musicians, philosophers, literary peo-
ple, artists, art historians, architects, and linguists, while only musicians
(composers, musicologists, music performers) would come from abroad. The
need for quality interpersonal communication42 and an intense intellectual
discourse brought together spontaneously emerging communities. Accord-
ing to composer Knapik, those events could not last more than several years,
because “the intensity, temperature, the heat of meetings with art, and the
height of intellectual exchange and interpersonal communication could not
be sustained for a longer period of time. Such creative tension cannot last
long.”43 Back in 1977, Zygmunt Mycielski, a Polish composer and music crit-
ic of the oldest generation, openly stated the ambition of the meetings: “We
have always been looking for what will be said about art (and about us) some-
where else. Darmstadt is already out of fashion, however, there are still Paris
IRCAM, Royan, Graz, and so many other places. Isn’t it high time that an
opinion was born with us – maybe in Baranów?”44
41 Ibid., 189.
42 Interview with Krzysztof Droba, Warsaw, 04. 06. 2017. Droba’s arguments make it
possible to revise Yurchak’s statement that intense personal communication was a special
form of social closeness and intersubjectivity in the USSR with an anti-systemic charac-
ter. Cf. Алексей Юрчак, op. cit., 299.
43 Quoted in Krzysztof Droba, Spotkania z Eugeniuszem Knapikem..., op.cit., 42.
44 Quoted in Vytautas Landsbergis, “Baranovas – dvasia ir apraiškos [Baranów: Spirit
and Manifestations]”, in: Geresnės muzikos troškimas, Vilnius, Vaga, 1990, 325.
60
When talking about the festivals that became the spaces of independent
artistic life, their participants often remembered both the atmosphere of free-
dom, spontaneity, enthusiasm, and intensity as well as the unusual nature of
the events.45 The events were also very different from the typical contempo-
rary music festivals in their concert programmes. Although, e.g., one of the
incentives of the Stalowa Wola festivals was broader presentation of young
composers’ works, the programmes included compositions of the 20th centu-
ry and even of the previous epochs: Polish music from Stanisław Moniuszko
to Witold Lutosławski, Arcangelo Corelli, Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart, Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Alex-
ander Scriabin, and Charles Ives – as well as Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlio-
nis and Bronius Kutavičius.
Authorities and sources of creative freedom were sought not merely in
the music of one’s own generation. Such signposts were also looked for in the
then unexpectedly opened Lithuanian music – and the work of Kutavičius
became one of them. In 1979, in a monographic Kutavičius’ concert in the
framework of the 4th MMMM (Młodzi Muzycy Młodemu Miastu46) Festival,
his Sonata for piano (1975), Perpetuum mobile for cello and piano (1979),
dedicated to the Festival, First String Quartet (1971), Clocks of the Past for
string quartet and guitar (1977), and Two Birds in the Shade of the Woods
for voice and instruments (1978) were interpreted by Polish and Lithuanian
performers: cellist Kazimierz Pyżik, pianist Halina Kochan, singer Giedrė
Kaukaitė, Vilnius String Quartet, and guitarist Krzysztof Sadłowki. The fes-
tival was reviewed by influential critics of Polish music, including current
and future members of the Warsaw Autumn Programme Committee Tadeusz
Kaczyński and Olgierd Pisarenko, who called Kutavičius the most original
Lithuanian composer of the time.
The first performances in Stalowa Wola opened the doors for Lithuanian
music and musicians to other non-conformist festivals in Baranów and San-
domierz. Intervening among those were the private music festivals of com-
poser Penderecki in Lusławice – in 1980, the panorama of the new Lithu-
anian music in them started with Kutavičius’ Second String Quartet Anno
cum Tettigonia (1980), specially commissioned for the festival, followed by
45 Mieczysław Tomaszewski, “Wspominając [Looking Back]”, Teoria muzyki. Studia, in-

terpretacje, dokumentacje. Pismo Akademii Muzycznej w Krakowie, IV/6, 2015, 153.
46 MMMM (Young Musicians for the Young Town) festival in Stalowa Wola (1975–
1979).
61
Bajoras’ Triptych for voice and piano (1982) and Balakauskas’ Spengla-Ūla
for strings (1984), also commissioned for the festival. Over more than a de-
cade, three generations of Lithuanian composers and performers were intro-
duced to Polish independent contemporary music scenes – from Kutavičius,
Bajoras, and Balakauskas to the New Music Ensemble, brought together by
Šarūnas Nakas, and the works of his contemporaries. It was those events in
Poland that made Lithuanian music a phenomenon whose artistic influence
was enhanced by the experience of changes in the political reality.
In the discussions of independent music festivals in Poland from a histor-
ical distance, their political dimension and strategies for opposing the official
cultural discourse had been increasingly emphasised, although at the time, as
argued by their organisers and participants, it was not a conscious position –
just “people who lived at that time looked for a shelter, a place, a milieu in
which they could feel free and easy”.47 The meetings of Polish and Lithuanian
musicians were also a cultural confrontation, useful for reviewing the imag-
es created by the shared memory of the common state and for defining new
musical identities. Before 1989, due to the censorship-imposed restrictions,
only a few informative articles on the participation of Lithuanian musicians
in independent festivals were published in Lithuania, however, even before
the political changes, the feedback of Polish music criticism spread in Lithua-
nia in informal ways as the echoes of international recognition and apprecia-
tion of Lithuanian music. The performances of Kutavičius’ compositions, and
especially his oratorios, at the Warsaw Autumn (1983, 1990) and Collectanea
(1988) festivals inspired a sharp shift in the reception of Lithuanian music,
from “unknown” to “exotic”. Although different, the epithets ’unknown’ and
’exotic’ enabled Polish music critics to define through music a new Lithuanian
cultural identity, far removed from previous politicised stereotypes. Accord-
ing to Lisa Jakelski, that was influenced by a revision of Polish-Lithuanian re-
lationships among Polish intellectuals in the 1970s and 1980s: “Czesław Miło-
sz was rediscovered; independent press articles began defining Belarussians,
Lithuanians, and Ukrainians not as enemies, but as brothers that Poland had
47 “Dar od losu. Krzysztof Droba w rozmowie z Kingą Kiwalą”, Teoria muzyki..., op. cit.,
118, 124. The strategies of political opposition were more frequently emphasised in the
works of foreign reseachers, see, e.g. Cindy Bylander, “Charles Ives i festiwal w Stalowej
Woli. Inspiracje i spuścizna [Charles Ives and the Festival in Stalowa Wola. Inspirations
and Legacy]”, Teoria muzyki..., op. cit., 95–116.
62
to support in their struggle for national self-determination.”48 According to

Jakelski, the Polish music critic who interpreted the oratorios by Kutaviči-
us was filled with sentiments to a history of Lithuania published by Polish
independent publishers in 1984: “We must forget the common trauma and
no longer regard Lithuania as part of Poland. Every nation has the right to
independent life, therefore, if we are to become a sovereign and free nation,
we must respect the aspirations of independence of the people we are related
to through historical and cultural bonds.”49
Resistance to the official discourse and the imposed political and cultur-
al regime enabled Polish and Lithuanian musicologists to get to know each
other and to engage in a more active dialogue in the late 1980s. It is symp-
tomatic that, in the years of political changes, conferences of Lithuanian and
Polish musicologists were first organized: in 1989, the first one was held in
Vilnius by the musicologist sections of the Lithuanian and Polish Composers’
Unions. Although in that year the Lithuanian Composers’ Union declared its
separation from the central organization of the USSR, the Polish colleagues
who undertook the initiative had to obtain permission from the USSR Com-
posers’ Union for a joint event in Lithuania. Delegated by the Polish Compos-
ers’ Union to Moscow, Droba recalled spending a week in Moscow persuad-
ing USSR music functionaries of the benefits of contacts between the “fra-
ternal countries”.50 The Polish Composers’ Union did not participate in the
organization of the conference and just paid a honorarium (PLN 125,000) to
the coordinator of the Polish participants,51 which were rapidly devalued by
inflation. The topic chosen for the 1989 conference in Vilnius _ The Music of
the Late 20th Century in the Eyes of Lithuanians and Poles – brought together
active participants of the festivals and meetings in Stalowa Wola, Baranów,
and Sandomierz, providing the milieu of musicians, born of informal rela-
48 Lisa Jakelski, “The Polish Connection: Lithuanian Music and the Warsaw Autumn
Festival”, in: Agnieszka Pasieka, Paweł Rodak (Eds), #Polishness. Rethinking Modern Pol-
ish Identity. (Forthcoming).
49 Ibid.
50 Krzysztof Droba, “Ku pamięci [In Memory]”, in: X Polsko-Litewska Konferencja

Muzykologyczna. 14–16 grudnia 2006. Program, Kraków, Akademia Muzyczna w Kra-
kowie, 2006, 5.
51 In 1989, due to the inflation in Poland, over the several months of the conference
organization, the exchange rate of the Polish currency fell several times: in March 1989, 1
USD cost 3,000 zloty, while in June, it was already 8,000 zloty. The seemingly impressive
honorarium was worth 25 USD. See http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989.
63
tionships, with a stimulus for the renewal and improvement of transnational

cultural exchanges. The thematic guidelines of the annual conferences, tak-
ing place alternately in a different country, were matured at the meetings and
conferences of independent festivals: common cultural memory and heritage
and new Lithuanian and Polish music in cultural and political contexts.52
Conclusion
The informal relationships between the musicians of the two neighbouring
countries, analysed in the article, opposed the sham internationalism and of-
ficial musical export carried out by the central institutions of the USSR and
the Polish People’s Republic through their hierarchical channels. The pursuit
of keeping distance from the official centre and the musical phenomena pro-
moted by it predetermined the location of the informal contemporary music
scene in both Poland and Lithuania: musicians were getting together off the
censored culture centres and forming communities thirsty for intense and
high quality artistic communication in cultural peripheries. Thus, during the
Cold War period, informal contacts between Lithuanian and Polish musicians
developed into effective networking. In the Lithuanian music culture of that
time, it was an exclusive communion, formed by overcoming long-standing
political stereotypes and being able to recognize the difference and otherness
of a close neighbour’s culture.
Padraic Kenney’s analytical approach, adapted to the analysis of the Lith-
uanian-Polish musical cooperation, revealed that, just like in political and
social movements, the effectiveness of networking in cultural domains was
predetermined by its contribution to social and cultural transformation. Not
only the transnational migration of ideas and artistic phenomena, but also
the synergistic potential of different cultural perspectives was important in
that case. The informal networking of Lithuanian and Polish musicians high-
lighted the transnational competences of both milieus necessary to under-
stand the practices and values of the other culture as well as the political and
national self-image. As a result, at the end of the Cold War, the relationship
between Polish and Lithuanian musicians was accompanied by intercultural
empathy as well as a deep interest in, and respect for, the traditions and ex-
52 Over the period of 1989–2010, ten conferences of Lithuanian and Polish musicolo-
gists were held in Vilnius, Krakow, and Łódź. The programmes of the conferences were
published in: Krzysztof Droba, Susitikimai su Lietuva..., op. cit., 235–256.
64
periences of the other – and a very different – culture.53 The discussed pro-
cesses took place in the context of the political transformations of the bloc of
the communist countries, and although they were not inspired by any specific
events of political history, the political and social commitment of musicians
was evident, while some activists of the Lithuanian and Polish musical net-
works joined the political movements. However, in this case, it is not possible
to speak of absolute synchronisation of political and cultural history, which is
confirmed not only by the origins of the phenomenon in question but also by
the ebb of cooperation between Lithuanian and Polish musicians in the 21st
century, having nothing in common with any specific political impulses.
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53 Cf. Vertovec, op. cit., 70.
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Summary
During different stages of the Cold War, the communication and collaboration of
Polish and Lithuanian musicians were of various levels of intensity and rather contro-
versial. For a long period of time, Lithuanian music spread through Poland only via
vertical channels, as part of the USSR’s foreign cultural (and economic) policies – in
the international activities of influential Soviet institutions, such as Goskoncert, the
official state concert agency of the USSR, and the USSR Composers’ Union. The lim-
itations and constraints imposed by the centralized music exports were circumvented
due to the special role of Poland on the contemporary musical scene both in the Com-
munist world and in the ideologized East-West confrontation. However, the break-
through in the dissemination of Lithuanian and Polish music and its transnational
cultural understanding in Poland and Lithuania occurred not because of the liberali-
zation of political constraints or the strengthening of the economic leverage through
the vertical (centralized institutions) and horizontal (national organizations) channels,
but due to the forging of informal relations between the unofficial Polish stage of con-
temporary music and the institutionally independent actions of Lithuanian composers
and musicologists since mid-1970s. That promoted the full-value representation of the
works of Lithuanian composers on the official stages of Poland, which formed an in-
ternationally influential Polish critical discourse on Lithuanian modern music. In both
Poland and Lithuania, independent music festivals, artistic actions, private lectures
and semi-official publications (samizdat/magnitizdat) flourished on the margins of
official culture as cultural expression of liberation. From oppositional to mainstream
culture festivals in Stalowa Wola, Baranów, Sandomierz, cultural activism during Mar-
tial Law such as the Traugutt Philharmonic (Poland), privately grounded youth music
festivals in Druskininkai, Anykščiai, Kaunas and Vilnius, underground Fluxus move-
ment (Lithuania) to Baltic Singing Revolution – all these cultural events and activities
demonstrate the rupture between the attempts of authorities to maintain a total insti-
tutional control and the distrust of the society in it, the emancipative needs of individ-
ual. In that particular environment, a new view on Lithuanian culture was shaping in
Poland, which allowed Polish critics through music to define a new Lithuanian cul-
tural identity, different from the previous politicised stereotypes, while the Polish
music and musicology contributed to the renewal of the music modernisation dis-
course in Lithuania.
67
Article received on August 25th 2019

UDC: 785.11
78.071.1 Каломирис М.
Giorgos Sakallieros*
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
School of Music Studies
THE SYMPHONIC CONCERTO FOR PIANO AND

ORCHESTRA (1935) BY MANOLIS KALOMIRIS:
REAFFIRMING THE NATIONAL-IDEAL TOPOS THROUGH
THE (OLD) WESTERN CANON1
Abstract: Manolis Kalomiris’s Symphonic Concerto for piano and orchestra (1935)
consolidates the virtuosic piano performance and the complexity of romantic sym-
phonic texture with the appearance of authentic Greek folk material, its westernized
treatments, and symbolic self-references arising from the Greek National School prin-
ciples. The work is critically examined through historical and analytical perspectives,
aiming at a better understanding of the composer’s aspirations expressing the indige-
nous artistic, cultural and political circumstances of the period when it was completed.
Examples of the relative Greek and international “concertante” repertoire, from the
late 19th to the mid-20th century, are also taken into comparative consideration.
Keywords: Greek art music, piano concerto typology, modality, folk song, texture,
variation, fugue, national identity, self-referential portrayal.
The cultivation of instrumental solo concerto was sporadic in Greek art mu-
sic during the first half of the 20th century, either in or beyond nationalistic

1 An initial version of this paper, in Greek, was presented at the musicological sympo-
sium “Manolis Kalomiris and the Greek National School of Music” as part of the 14th
Hellenic Music Festival (Hellēnikes Mousikes Giortes), Music Library of Greece, Athens,
1-2 June 2018. Manolis Kalomiris’s Papers are kept at the repository of the Manolis Ka-
lomiris Society, National Conservatory of Athens. I would like to thank Myrto Econo-
mides, the society’s Secretary for her generous help with the source material regarding
the Symphonic Concerto.
68
Sakallieros, G.: The Symphonic Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1935) by Manolis Kalomiris...
boundaries, in a manner conforming to chamber music2 and in contradis-

tinction with the broader development of symphonic genres or opera. The
Greek National School of Music, prevailing between 1910 and 1940, was af-
fected by the political and cultural ideologies of the period like the irredentist
theory of “Megalē Idea” (Great Ideal),3 of literary controversies like the “lan-
guage question”4 in Greek society, and also of the manifestation of the intri-
cate nationalistic concept of “Greekness”. The creative output of the majority
of Greek composers of the period was centered on nationalistic operas bear-
ing the strong symbolism of the folk narrative or historical figures and events,
symphonic works of epic proportions with the participation of vocal soloists,
choruses and narrators, as well as the solo song and choral repertory utilizing
Greek poetry. The aforementioned trends are very discernible in the person-
ality, ideology, and compositional style of Manolis Kalomiris (1883–1962),
the leader of the Greek National School.
Having arrived in Athens from Kharkov in 1910, and after previous mu-
sic studies in Vienna, Kalomiris quickly became a part of the Athenian mu-
sical establishment, immediately aligning himself with the leading political
and literary figures of the period, taking a public stand in controversies like
the “language question”, and setting out to establish art-music creation en-
visioned through national ideology.5 His extensive writings (articles, music
2 Yannis Belonis, Chamber Music in Greece in the First Half of the 20th Century. The Case
of Marios Varvoglis (1885–1967) [Η μουσική δωματίου στην Ελλάδα στο πρώτο μισό του
20ου αιώνα. Η περίπτωση του Μάριου Βάρβογλη (1885-1967)], Athens, Hellenic Music
Centre, 2012, 79–82.
3 Proclaimed as a mid-19th century irredentist concept of Greek nationalism, Megalē
Idea expressed the longing to establish an expanded Greek state that would encompass
all ethnic Greek-inhabited regions that still lived under Ottoman or other occupation.
This concept dominated foreign policy and domestic politics of Greece right up till the
catastrophic Asia Minor Campaign of 1919–22. See: Richard Clogg, A Concise History of
Greece, Cambridge – New York, Cambridge University Press, 1992, 47–49.
4 The “language question” refers to the opposition between the supporters of the Greek
people’s everyday speaking idiom (demotic, dēmotikē) and the promoters of the lan-
guage’s purified form (kathareuousa), who eventually became an opposition between
upper and lower social classes, liberals and conservatives, bourgeoisie and provincials,
while involving the Greek Orthodox Church, literary circles and the press. The dispute
lasted several decades. See: Philip Carabott, “Politics, Orthodoxy, and the Language
Question in Greece: The Gospel Riots of 1901”, Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 3/1,
1993, 117–138.
5 Yannis Belonis, “The Greek National Music School”, in: Katy Romanou (Ed.), Serbian
and Greek Art Music, Chicago – Bristol, Intellect Books, 2009, 142–144; cf. Jim Samson,
Music in the Balkans, Leiden, Brill, 2013, 302–313.
69
reviews, public lectures, etc.) also aimed at collectively promoting his ideas,
to the notion of constituting a musical and national-ideal topos. The mani-
festation of musical nationalism during the 1910s in Greece correlated mu-
sic composition with literary movements and ideological vocabularies of the
period, such as the notion of “ethnikē psyche” (lit. transl. “national soul”), a
term frequently found in Kalomiris’s texts such as the programme notes of his
first concert in Athens consisting entirely of his works (11th June, 1908). This
text is acknowledged as the official manifesto of the Greek National School.6
Following the reformation of the programme of studies of the Athens
Conservatory in 1891,7 piano became the leading instrument in music educa-
tion amongst the bourgeois Athenians. As expected, piano students primarily
focused on the basic 18th- and 19th-century classics with which the first recital
programmes of the period were also compiled. The broadening of the reper-
toire was enhanced with new Greek works from 1910 onwards by composers
Manolis Kalomiris, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Mario Varvoglis, Dimitrios Levidis
and Loris Margaritis, among others. Before long, Athenian audiences wel-
comed the solo concerto as an integral part of indigenous symphonic concert
life, being fascinated by the first foreign piano virtuosos arriving in the Greek
capital to perform with the Athens Conservatory Symphony Orchestra. After
1920, Greek soloists also initiated their own stage appearances, but it would
take at least another decade for the first concertos for piano and orchestra by
Greek composers to come to light.
Although few in number, these new concertos from the 1930s and ’40s
share a remarkable textural and stylistic diversity.8 Besides Kalomiris, Petros
6 The text is cited in Kalomiris’s memoirs: Manolis Kalomiris, My Life and Art: Memoirs
1883–1908 [Η ζωή μου και η τέχνη μου. Απομνημονεύματα 1883–1908], Athens, Nefeli,
1988, 145–147.
7 This reformation had more of a political than educational background and aimed at
a programme of studies systematically organized according to a new Central European

(predominantly German) orientation, which left behind the institution’s South-Euro-
pean influences modelled on the 18th and 19th century Italian conservatories and phil-
harmonic societies. See: Giorgos Sakallieros, “Perspectives of the Athenian Musical Life,
1870–1940”, in Katrin Stoeck and Gilbert Stoeck (Eds.), Proceedings of the International
Conference “Musik-Stadt. Traditionen und Perspektiven urbaner Musikkulturen”, Leipzig,
Gudrun Schroeder Verlag, 2012, Band 4, 97–98. Two early outcomes of this reforma-
tion were the Artist’s Diploma recipients Dimitri Mitropoulos (piano, 1919) and Nikos
Skalkottas (violin, 1920).
8 From 1930 to 1945, just nine piano concertos by Greek composers were completed. See:
Ioannis Fulias, “Rena Kyriakou’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 18: Its History,
70
Petridis (1892–1977) explored modality, “absolute” music and symphonic

neoclassicism within his two piano concertos (1934, 1937), also respond-
ing to the nationalistic ideal though from a different angle than the National
School’s leader. Lila Lalaouni’s (1918–1996) belated romantic touch, deprived
of any nationalistic impulses, prevails in her Piano Concerto in E minor, a
work concluded in the years of German Occupation in Greece (1942–43).
Impressionistic nuances blended with elements of leisurely exoticism and
neoclassical austerity are evident in the piano concertos of Rena Kyriakou
(1917–1994, another woman composer and prominent piano soloist) and
Yannis Andreou Papaioannou (1910–1989, one of the most important repre-
sentatives of post-war modernism in Greece), both completed in 1940. How-
ever, the most solitary figure of the period, Nikos Skalkottas (1904–1949) was
also the most productive one: his three dodecaphonic piano concertos (from
1931, 1938 and 1939, respectively)9 comprise just part of the six of his concer-
tos including piano, and of thirteen in total from his entire oeuvre.
***
Both the autograph manuscripts of the full score and of the piano reduction
of the Symphonic Concerto are preserved at the repository of the Manolis
Kalomiris Society in Athens. The full score manuscript also exists in a re-
vised, second autographic form in Kalomiris’s own hand, which is more read-
able and includes conductor’s notes. In the last page of this second autograph
the date of completion is included: 18th July, 1935. The second autograph was
completed on the 26th September, 1937 and is used as source material for the
present article. The concerto was dedicated to the memory of Calliope Kok-
kinos, the first woman who taught music theory at the National Conservatory
of Athens (founded by Kalomiris in 1926) but unfortunately died at a young
a First Analytical Approach, a Critical Re-evaluation and an Attempt to Place the Work
within Greek Art-Music Creation” [«Το Κοντσέρτο για πιάνο και ορχήστρα, opus 18, της
Ρένας Κυριακού: ιστορικό, πρώτη αναλυτική προσέγγιση, κριτική επανεκτίμηση και
απόπειρα ένταξης του έργου στην ελληνική έντεχνη μουσική δημιουργία»], Polyphonia,
31, 2017, 64–69.
9 Nikos Skalkottas’s Piano Concerto No. 1 from 1931 is both the first Greek and the first
twelve-tone piano concerto in music history, preceding even the one by the composer’s
teacher, Arnold Schoenberg (from 1942). All three of Skalkottas’s piano concertos were
performed and recorded after 1950. For pre-war performances of the piano concertos of
Kalomiris, Petridis, Lalaouni, and Kyriakou, see: Ibid., 67–68 (Table 2).
71
age. The Symphonic Concerto is also one of the few works the composer la-
beled with an opus number.
Image 1a. Part of the first page of the second autograph of Kalomiris’s Symphonic Con-
certo for piano and orchestra, including title, dedication and opus number in both Greek
and French (the Manolis Kalomiris Society – Reproduced with permission)
Image 1b. Part of the last page of the second autograph of Kalomiris’s Symphonic Con-
certo (ending of the second movement), including the dates of the completion of the
work and the completion of the second autograph (the Manolis Kalomiris Society – Re-
produced with permission)
The first public performances of the work were given by different soloists
within a two-month period. The Symphonic Concerto was premiered on the
5th April, 1937 by Lila Lalaouni (the aforementioned composer of her own
piano concerto) and the Athens Conservatory Symphony Orchestra with
Philoctetes Economides as conductor. Shortly, on the 24th May, 1937 a sec-
ond performance was given by Krino Kalomiris, the composer’s daughter,
as part of the requirements for the degree of the Artist’s Diploma at the Na-
tional Conservatory of Athens. The orchestra was led by the Greek composer
72
and conductor Leonidas Zoras.10 The work was also promoted abroad, e.g.
in Berlin on the 5th December 1938, again with Krino Kalomiris at the piano
and Leonidas Zoras on the podium, conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Or-
chestra (though only the second movement was performed).11 More concerts
followed, in Paris and Munich in 1953.12 The first studio recording was pro-
duced in the same year, again with Krino, this time with her father conduct-
ing the Greek National Radio Symphony Orchestra.13
In Kalomiris’s Symphonic Concerto, the extensive symphonic develop-
ment and the demanding piano part are in dialogue with the ubiquity of a
Greek folk tune (throughout the second movement), its treatment by means
of tonal and modal harmonization, variations and fugue, and the symbolic
representation of self-references as a personified musical portrayal. In the
first movement of the work, “Allegro con moto ma maestoso”, the composer’s
eagerness to corroborate the canon, a sonata-allegro form, is hindered by his
unconstrained melodic infatuation, a focus on the cantilena-like character of
linear part-writing and a cyclic array of variational sections and modal tran-
sitions rather than a typical thematic development.
In the concert programmes of the 5th April, 1937 and the 24th May, 1937
there are unsigned musico-analytical notes which were definitely compiled
under the composer’s supervision.14 On the other hand, Kalomiris not only
signs but also speaks in the first person about the long-term background of
10 The programme requirements of the National Conservatory of Athens for the Artist’s
Diploma in piano performance were impressively demanding at the time: Krino Kalo-
miris had to prepare two concertos with orchestra (the second one was César Franck’s,
Variations symphoniques) and 13 solo works (including five works by Greek composers).
11 For more details about the Berlin concert, including other Greek composers’ works
as well, see: Katy Romanou, “Exchanging Rings under Dictatorships”, in: Roberto Illia-
no and Massimilliano Sala (Eds.) Music and Dictatorship in Europe and Latin America,
Turnhout, Brepols, 2009, 50–55.
12 Nikos Maliaras, The Greek Folk Song in the Music of Manolis Kalomiris [Το ελληνικό
δημοτικό τραγούδι στη μουσική του Μανώλη Καλομοίρη], Athens, Papagregoriou – Nak-
as, 2001, 57–58 (also fn. 135).
13 Kalomiris’s concerto acquired a place in the indigenous repertoire and several perfor-
mances were given over the years. Mary Chairogiorgou-Sigara, a fellow student of Krino
Kalomiris, her talented pupil Dimitri Sgouros, Aris Garoufalis, a pianist widely identified
with the oeuvre of Kalomiris, and more recently Vassilis Varvaresos, were all pianists
closely associated with the Symphonic Concerto from the mid-1940s to the 2010s.
14 The concert programmes from both the 1937 performances are preserved at the re-
pository of the Manolis Kalomiris Society.
73
the Symphonic Concerto’s creation in a separate text included in the 24th May
programme. This is a quite personal and emotional account of the compos-
er, intrinsically going beyond the work’s musical content. In the programme
notes of the 5th April, 1937 concert, the description of the thematic material
of the first movement, accompanied by the requisite musical examples, con-
solidates a somewhat atypical sonata form with three distinctive themes, as
‘an expansion of the classical form’, according to the author’s notes.15 In my
opinion, these three thematic units in the first movement of the Symphonic
Concerto are discernible; their inclusion into a sonata-allegro form is not,
especially as regards the counterbalance of their motivic importance.16 Kalo-
miris mostly aims at a change of atmosphere through the contrasting mood
of each theme against the other two. The principal thematic unit (A1), heroic
and virile, is presented in full force from all four horns of the orchestra.17
Example 1. M. Kalomiris, Symphonic Concerto: Mvt. I. Thematic unit A1 (mm. 1–4)
The A1 principal thematic unit is followed by a supplementary unit (Α2)

that first appears in m. 16; the A2 unit is adaptable in the motivic transfor-
mations and suitable for the alternation of sub-sections and for modal tran-
sitions.
Example 2. Extract of thematic unit A2 (mm. 23–28)
15 Unsigned programme notes from the concert programme of the Athens Conservato-
ry Symphony Orchestra, 5th April, 1937 [Manolis Kalomiris Society].
16 The same opinion is expressed by George Leotsakos in his unpublished essay “Sym-
phonic Concerto for Piano and Orchestra” [«Συμφωνικό Κοντσέρτο για πιάνο και
ορχήστρα»], 3–5. Though unpublished, the essay is important because it included the
only musicological analysis on the first movement of the work so far (a copy is preserved
at the repository of the Manolis Kalomiris Society).
17 Sound examples are available online at the official New Sound YouTube channel:
https://youtu.be/gfXI5V5tjqU
74
The transition of the thematic unit A1 to the upper chromatic tetrachord

of C minor during the first orchestral tutti and after the conclusion of the
introduction (mm. 1–38) is certainly evocative of the epic character of Kalo-
miris’s symphonic and operatic works from the 1910s. The emphasis on the
interval of the augmented second (A-flat – B) is generally a trademark of the
Greek folk element for the composer and his first attempt here to label the
western canon (form, thematic progress) with a national-identity sonic im-
print.
Example 3. Modal transition of thematic unit A1 in the first orchestral tutti (mm. 39–46)
Regardless of the vagueness of the sonata-allegro configuration that Ka-

lomiris has pursued so far, the resolution of the initial heroic section into a
secondary, lyrical and pastoral, theme is inevitable. Conceived in G-dorian
mode, thus emphasizing the relationship between a tonic and dominant key,
thematic unit B conforms to the basic principle of the sonata form; a subor-
dinate section of contrasting atmosphere and of concise development. Intro-
duced by the flute, discreet and calm in its lower register, this melody defi-
nitely resembles the image of a shepherd surrounded by his flock and playing
his pipe, a beloved representation of rural Greece in Kalomiris’s works.
Example 4. Thematic unit B (flute 1, mm. 81–84)
As far as the third thematic unit is concerned, this is actually an interven-

ing short dance episode (entitled “Scherzando”), whose motivic content de-
rives from the rhythmic transformation of the A2 thematic unit (so it should
be labeled A2’ and not C). Initially presented by the flute and celesta, it rapid-
75
ly brings the element of folk-like instrumental performance to the forefront;

the piano accompaniment clearly imitates the santouri, a Greek folk-music
instrument very similar to the dulcimer.
Image 2. Extract from the second autograph of Kalomiris’s Symphonic Concerto (Mvt. I,
mm. 130–31): The beginning of thematic unit A2’, “Scherzando”. See the idiomatic piano
writing (the Manolis Kalomiris Society – Reproduced with permission)
The thematic transformation combined with Kalomiris’s skillfulness on

counterpoint brings impressive textural results in the cyclic character of the
movement. The combination of rhythmic diminution (A1’) of the principal
76
theme (A1) into a dance-like tune is simultaneously cited with its full inver-
sion (A1’’). Within this very characteristic perspective of textural elaboration,
the interval of the augmented second (C – D-sharp) still remains pervasive.
As George Leotsakos succinctly remarks: “It appears that Kalomiris is haunt-
ed by the principal theme”.18
Examples 5a/b. Two transformations of the thematic unit A1 (A1’/rhythmic diminu-

tion, A1’’/inversion), in contrapuntal combination (mm. 189–207)
Τhe basic layout of the 272 measures of the first movement of Kalomiris’s
Symphonic Concerto is shown in the following Table 1. Compared with the
first movement of the composer’s Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello (1921, con-
stituting a more formalistic example of a sonata-allegro pattern), the concer-
to primarily incorporates the contrasting character of the primary and sec-
ondary themes and their contrapuntal juxtaposition rather than a concrete
morphological layout through thematic elaboration. Kalomiris’s obsession
with thematic unit A1 brings the Symphonic Concerto closer to his Sympho-
ny No. 1 and its epic character. The first movements in both works share the
principle of cyclically arraying thematically inter-connected sections through
motivic variation, a common tonal basis (C minor), and even the same intro-
ductory heroic gesture given by the horns.19 The announced (in the 1937 con-
cert programmes’ notes) sonata form is further contradicted in the following
diagram, since the development middle section is dramatically condensed.
18 Ibid., 4.
19 Giorgos Sakallieros, “The Greek Symphony (1900–1950): Oscillating Between Greek
Nationalism and Western Art‐Music Tradition”, in Nikos Maliaras (Ed.), Proceedings of
the International Musicological Conference “The National Element in Music”, Athens, Uni-
versity of Athens, Faculty of Music Studies, 2014, 37–38.
77
Perhaps, a “truncated sonata-allegro form” hybrid would be more appropriate

here.20
Table 1. Manolis Kalomiris, Symphonic Concerto. Mvt. I. Allegro con moto ma maes-
toso: Structural diagram21
Thematic
MM. Section
unit
I. Exposition: Principal thematic unit (Α1) – Virtuosic piano introduction
1 Α1
(conceived as joint ritornello)
16 Α2 Adjustable prolongation of A1
39 Α1’ Orchestral tutti with piano / Α1 in the upper chromatic tetrachord of C minor
60 Α1 +Α2 Elaboration of thematic material, modal transition (E-dorian)
81 Β Secondary thematic unit (Β, lyrical and pastoral) – motivic elaboration
II. “Development”:21 Thematic unit Α1’ in the upper chromatic tetrachord
115 Α1’ + Β
(E-flat minor) – Transitional coda
“Scherzando”: Dance interlude (with elements of A2) / Folk-like performance
130 Α2’
on piano
III. Recapitulation: Principal thematic unit (Α1) + piano (as joint ritornello,
150 Α1
again) – Return to C minor
168 - Cadenza I
Introduction and double contrapuntal variation of A1 (diminution + inver-
183 Α1’/’’
sion) in a “Scherzando”-like sub-section (E minor)
208 - Cadenza II (heavily relying on A1)
234 A1 + Α2 Closing zone: Final statement of A1 and A2 (piano and orchestra) in C minor
250 Α1’’ Final coda
20 An alignment of Kalomiris’s structural design of the first movement with “Type 1

Sonata” in the Hepokoski – Darcy categorization of the sonata forms, namely a binary
type of sonata lacking the middle section of development, would not be very far-fetched
[James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and De-
formations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata, Oxford – New York, Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2006, 343–52]. Although this type is more preferred in slow and condensed
movements of sonatas and concertos (or in overtures) the authors acknowledge that it
can also be traced in large-scale and outer (fast) movements of such works (Ibid., 346–
347). Hepokoski’s and Darcy’s detailed categorizations may be adjustably implemented
into a wide range of 20th century music, e.g. Skalkottas’s concertos.
21 As already mentioned, this is a very concise transitional section and not a fully-fledged
middle part of a ternary sonata-allegro structure.
78
The second movement of the concerto is entitled “Variations, Fugue and

Finale on a Greek folk tune” and has attracted the interest of musicologists
more than the first,22 not only because of Kalomiris’s efforts to reconcile the
authentic Greek melody with the western canon (variations, fugue) but also
due to the history of its conception and creation that the composer himself
describes in detail in the concert programme of the 24th May, 1937.23 Kalo-
miris refers to the folk melody of “Ho Lyngos, ho leventēs, o archilēstēs” (lit.
transl. “Lynx the Gallant”) as a musical evocation he was consistently meeting
with throughout his life; from Smyrna, where his grandmother had sung it
to him; to westernized transcriptions for male voice and piano, like Stefanos
Image 3. Extract from the second autograph of Kalomiris’s Symphonic Concerto: Mvt.
II, beginning (the Manolis Kalomiris Society – Reproduced with permission)
22 Cf. Nikos Maliaras, “The Greek Folk Song…”, op. cit, 57–58, 213–224 and George Le-
otsakos, “The Symphonic Concerto…”, op. cit., 5–8.
23 This text was also slightly revised and included in the 7th January, 1955 issue of the
newspaper Ethnos (where Kalomiris was a music critic for 32 years) for the upcoming
performance of the Symphonic Concerto on the 9th January, 1955. It is also partly in-
cluded and commented upon in: Olympia Frangou-Psychopedis, The National School of
Music. Problems of Ideology [H Εθνική Σχολή Μουσικής. Προβλήματα ιδεολογίας], Ath-
ens, Foundation for Mediterranean Studies, 1990, 80–81.
79
Valtetsiotis’s version performed by lyric male singers (Aramis, Yannis Ange-

lopoulos, Nikos Moschonas); from the years of his studies in Vienna where
he came up with the idea of elaborating “Lyngos” into a set of variations and
fugue modelled on Max Reger who he had personally met and deeply ad-
mired;24 and finally to the years of maturity when he conceived these varia-
tions as a whole movement of a piano concerto.
The folk melody of “Lyngos” comprises a 10-measure pattern that under-
goes variform elaboration through a series of unnumbered variations and re-
sulting in a tortuous and dramatic fugue. Actually, Kalomiris prefers the term
“transformations” instead of “variations” (although he also uses the Greek
term for “variations”: «ΠΑΡΑΛΛΑΓΕΣ», see Image 3), exactly as he does in
the second movement of his 1921 Piano Trio, evidencing the developmental
fluidity that characterizes the second movement of the Symphonic Concerto,
open to multiple analytical commentary. The initial statement of the “Lyngos”
tune by the piano is simple, in A-dorian mode and within an impressionistic
atmosphere to the presence of harp and celesta.
Example 6. M. Kalomiris’s Symphonic Concerto. Mvt. II: Thematic material of the

Greek folk song “Ho Lyngos, ho leventēs, o archilēstēs” (mm. 1–10)
The fugue represents the dramatic culmination of the variations’ section,

authenticating the Baroque canon under a late-romantic Regerian perspec-
tive. It also comprises the preparatory section that links the second move-
ment with the first. The principal fugal subject clearly evokes the “Lyngos”
tune.
Example 7. The principal fugal subject (first stated in mm. 354–357)
24 Kalomiris, My Life and Art, op. cit. 80–82.
80
The fugal development leads to the appearance of the principal subject in

inversion (mm. 400–403), combined with its ordinary form through Stretto
sections, augmentation and diminution. A secondary fugal subject then ap-
pears, along with the principal one, in order for a double-fugato section to
be developed. This second subject is a direct derivative of the A1 principal
thematic unit of the first movement. This is Kalomiris’s way of gradually af-
firming the cyclic character of the whole work by interlocking the thematic
material from both movements into the same section through complex coun-
terpoint. The first four-part exposition of the secondary fugal subject occurs
in mm. 452–474 and is stated by each principal of the woodwind section.
Example 8. The secondary fugal theme (mm. 452–456)
The second movement of the Symphonic Concerto spans 575 measures

and the variations alone (without the fugue) last 353 measures. This is the
lengthiest variations movement in all of Kalomiris’s output and can be com-
pared only with works like the orchestral Variations and Fugue on a Greek
Folk Song (1940) by Antiochos Evangelatos, the variations on the Byzantine
hymn “Tē hypermachō” in the finale of Petros Petridis’s Symphony No. 4
(1942), or the atonal Eight Variations on a Greek Folk Tune (1938) for piano
trio by Nikos Skalkottas that also end with a fugue.25 Kalomiris’s refraining
from strictly numbering his “Lyngos” variations indicates his effort to create
a kaleidoscopic alternation of autonomous musical images, each one with its
own texture and sometimes in significantly contrasting emotional nuances.
The rhapsodic style of the musical text in the variations negates homo-
geneity, provoking the listener to freely associate texture with sentiment. The
rhythmic clarity of variations 1, 2 and 4 leads to an improvisatory rendition
of “Lyngos” material in Nos. 3 and especially 5; a vivid “sousta” (lively folk
dance from the isle of Crete) intervenes throughout the variations (like the
“Scherzando” section of the first movement), forming small dance episodes
that dissolve in the last variation, a slow haunting section of esoteric mysti-
cism where the “Lyngos” tune is contrapuntally deployed in a two-part can-
25 Skalkottas also used the melody of “Lyngos” in his famous 36 Greek Dances for or-
chestra (1931–36, Series II, No. 12 “Peloponissiakos II”).
81
on by the piano. In Kalomiris’s Symphonic Concerto, the transformations of

the folk material build up consecutive sonic impressions sometimes distantly
echoing their source.
Table 2. M. Kalomiris, Symphonic Concerto. Mvt. II: Transformations (Variations) on

the Greek folk tune “Ho Lyngos, ho leventēs, o archilēstēs”. Structural diagram26
MM. Section Elaboration
1 Theme Greek Folk tune by the piano
Partial rendition of the folk tune by the oboe, improvisation-like
15 [Variation 1]26
accompaniment by piano and celesta
Folk tune in 3/8-meter version, more intensively from m. 47
28 [Variation 2]
(evolved into a dance-like dotted rhythmic pattern)
Calm, pastoral rendition of the folk tune by the English horn,
73 [Variation 3]
followed by the piano
Contrasting appearance of the “Lyngos” theme in a lively 2/4-
89 [Variation 4]
metre version by the woodwind section
Narrative character of the folk tune (“quasi recitativo) by clarinet
115 [Variation 5] 1, flute 1 and the English horn; harp and celesta contribute to the
impressionistic atmosphere
Vivid dance-like rendition of the folk tune by the piano (a Cretan
155 [Variation 6] “sousta” dance in 2/4 with dotted rhythmic pattern); impressive
statement by trumpet 1 in mm. 171–178
Dance interlude Development of Cretan “sousta” pattern as basis of linear and

179 contrapuntal development; contrasting dynamics and colourful
(as intervention) instrumental participation
The “Lyngos” theme in the low strings; the piano develops a two-
306 [Variation 7] part canon resulting in a chorale-like chordal sequence (mm.
322–325, 343–353)
The fugue is also the culminating point of Kalomiris’s contrapuntal capa-

bilities, already demonstrated at the end of the first movement. The principal
26 I proceeded to an indicative numbering of the variations for the purpose of analy-
sis and easier transition through sub-sections. The variations’ openness to multiple
analytical commentary is proved by the assertions of the other two musicologists that
have analyzed the work: Nikos Maliaras recognizes nine variations (op. cit., 215–221)
while George Leotsakos comes up with seven but in a different division of measures and
sub-sections than I do (op. cit. 6–8).
82
fugal subject, final transformation of the “Lyngos” folk song, is undoubtedly

manipulated under the late 17th-century contrapuntal canon; answer in the
upper 5th, countersubject accompaniment, four-part exposition, subject en-
tries in Stretto, in augmentation, in diminution, in inversion, and alternation
of subject entries with contrapuntally milder episodes. A secondary fugal
subject, deriving from the A1 principal thematic unit of the first movement,
begets maximum complexity of the contrapuntal progress, being involved in a
double fugato with the principal fugal subject that foretells the Finale section.
The concluding Finale is actually both a recapitulation of the first move-
ment and, at the same time, a verification of the cyclic structure of the Sym-
phonic Concerto. The total recall of the A1 thematic unit from Movement I
contrapuntally interweaves with the principal fugal subject of Movement II,
resulting into a similar juxtaposition of the secondary fugal subject with the
“Lyngos” folk tune and leading to a dazzling coda.
Table 3. M Kalomiris, Symphonic Concerto. Mvt II: Fugue and Finale structural diagram
MM. Section Elaboration

Fugue
• Statement of principal fugal subject
354 Exposition • Four-part exposition with additive subject entries
• Subject entries (Stretto, augmentation, diminution)
Elements of principal subject, combination of imitative with
394 Episode Ι
free counterpoint
Counter-exposition
400 Entries of principal subject in inversion
Ι
Elements of principal subject, in milder contrapuntal elabo-
424 Episode ΙΙ
ration
Principal subject in ordinary and inverted form, use of
Counter-exposition
430 Stretto followed by a short free counterpoint section (as co-
ΙΙ
detta)
• First statement of secondary fugal subject
Counter exposition • Double fugato section with principal and secondary
452
IΙΙ subjects in complex elaboration (Stretto, inversion)
• Coda (mm. 508–515)
Finale
Contrapuntal dialogue between principal fugal subject and
516 Α tempo Maestoso
Α1 thematic unit of Mvt. I (with return to C minor)
83
• Reinstatement of dance interlude from variations’ sec-

tion (Cretan “sousta”)
532 Con brio
• Prolongation, including the dance-like transformation
of the Α1 thematic unit from Mvt. I
Contrapuntal dialogue between the “Lyngos” folk tune and
554 Α tempo Maestoso
the secondary fugal subject
Coda: Final statement of the “Lyngos” folk tune in its origi-
563 Piu agitato nal form (by the strings) and virtuosic passages by the piano
culminating in the forceful cadential ending
***
But why is this piano concerto labeled as “Symphonic”? Kalomiris clarifies his
compositional intentions in the 24th May, 1937 programme:
This concerto mainly expresses the composer’s inner emotions and aims less at a
pianistic show off. The orchestra is equally important to the piano. However, one
should neither assert that the piano part is limited and deprived of high-perfor-
mance demands, nor that this work is a symphony or a symphonic poem with
piano obbligato.27
Although the composer has not assigned too many sections of the piano
emphatically in the forefront, an appropriate performance of the piano part
requires the highest virtuosity available in order for the soloist to cope with
all the octaves, arpeggios, scales, block chord sequences and tremolos Kalo-
miris has meticulously written down. A notion of unconstrained exuberance
in the piano texture may be comprehended as fitting to the rich orchestra-
27 Kalomiris’s indirect relegation of modernism does not make him unaware of the mu-
sic of his time (e.g. Skalkottas’s works which he opposed) but rather defensive against the
criticism about his own works that was often harsh. The musicologist and music critic
Minos Dounias released a negative review for the performance of Symphonic Concerto
on 9th January, 1955 (Kathimerini, 12th January, 1955). For the exact same performance
Kalomiris received two extremely supportive letters by the composer, musicologist and
philosopher Agamemnon Mourtzopoulos (on the 9th and 12th January, 1955), the second
one aiming at literally deconstructing Dounias’s review. See: Byron Fidetzis, “A Corre-
spondence and a Musicological Sketch. Manolis Kalomiris and the Thinker, Composer
and Musicologist Menios Mourtzopoulos” [Μία αλληλογραφία και ένα μουσικολογικό
σπάραγμα. Ο Μανώλης Καλομοίρης και ο στοχαστής, συνθέτης και μουσικολόγος
Μένιος Μουρτζόπουλος], in Nikos Maliaras and Alexandros Charkiolakis (Eds.), Mano-
lis Kalomiris. 50 Years Later, Athens, Fagotto Books, 2013, 259–266.
84
tive palette, a combination contributing to the “symphonic” character of the

work. The orchestral writing is colourfully inventive, in both tutti sections
and accompaniment parts by the strings, harp and celesta, or in the solo pas-
sages by the woodwinds. The harmonic language oscillates between progres-
sions of modal clarity or tonal functionality and more complex or moderately
dissonant chordal structures. As regards the national-identity topos, issues of
folk-music tradition, conservatism and modernism are intermingled in the
composers’s argument:
The music I have imagined for my concerto, as in most of my other works, pre-
supposes a full understanding of the rhythms and modes of the Greek Folk Muse
[….] Ιs this work modern or not? I don’t know and I care less. To me there are not
modern or conservative works, there are only works of honest intentions and of
artificial, false pretenses. There are works that have something to say and works
that are empty though daubed with a splash of modernist paint.
The position of Kalomiris’s Symphonic Concerto in the concertante rep-
ertoire of his time, or a bit earlier, is not easy to classify and may suggest un-
expected associations. Perhaps, the composer aimed at dissociating himself
with works such as Symphonie Concertante op. 60 for piano and orchestra
(1932) by Karol Szymanowski, also known as the latter’s Symphony No. 4. On
the other hand, Kalomiris’s turn to French music and culture in the 1920s and
30s28 brings to mind possible influences by works like Vincent d’Indy’s, Sym-
phonie sur un Chant Montagnard Français [Symphony on a French Mountain
Air] op. 25 for piano and orchestra (1886), a composer, indirectly present at
the Athens Conservatory, through his student Armand Marsick, the teach-
er of Dimitri Mitropoulos. Marsick introduced and continued to use d’In-
dy’s textbook Cours de composition musicale at the conservatory during the
same period Kalomiris taught there (1910–1918).29 In César Franck’s, Vari-
ations symphoniques (1885), for piano and orchestra the characteristic inter-
val of augmented second in the piano introduction (mm. 5-9) definitely refer
28 Belonis, “The Greek National Music School”, op. cit., 135–136.

29 Giorgos Sakallieros, “Imitative Counterpoint in the Works of Dimitri Mitropoulos.
Issues of Texture, Influences, Aesthetics, and Musical Language” [«Η μιμητική αντίστιξη
στο έργο του Δημήτρη Μητρόπουλου: ζητήματα υφής, επιδράσεων, αισθητικής και
μουσικής γλώσσας»], in Kostas Chardas et al. (Eds.) Proceedings of the 8th Interdepart-
mental Musicological Conference “Effetcs and Interactions”, Thessaloniki, Hellenic Mu-
sicological Society, 2019, 244–246 [available online: https://musicology.mus.auth.gr/
wp-content/uploads/2019/04/ConfProc2016.pdf ]
85
to chromatic modal tetrachords, also widely employed by Kalomiris. Let us

not forget that Franck’s Variations symphoniques was the second concertante
work in Krino Kalomiris’s Artist Diploma programme of 1937, along with
her father’s Symphonic Concerto. The belated romantic impulses of the pia-
nistic art of Serge Rachmaninoff are evident in Kalomiris’s concerto, mainly
in the Final Coda of the first movement.30 Russian influences also include a
reference to Aleksandr Glazunov’s Piano Concerto No.1 in F minor, op. 92.31
But before stylistic belatedness and frank conservatism are fervently accred-
ited to the Greek composer, let us just consider for a moment a case like Béla
Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 (1945). Ιn the third movement, Bartók intro-
duces a purely folk-like thematic unit (mm. 141–174) followed by a fugato
section (mm. 228–343), fully compatible with the “old” (contrapuntal) can-
on and in certain ways correlating to Kalomiris’s second movement of the
Symphonic Concerto. Finally, the only work of the 1930s literature bearing
the same title as Kalomiris is the three-movement Symphonic Concerto for
piano and orchestra by the famous conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler. It was
premiered by the pianist Edwin Fischer and the Berlin Philharmonic in Oc-
tober 1937, with the composer as conductor, preceding the aforementioned
German premiere of Kalomiris’s Symphonic Concerto at the German capital
and by the same orchestra, by just one year.32
In conclusion, Kalomiris’s Symphonic Concerto aesthetically identifies
with the composer’s earlier apprehension of the notion of “national identi-
ty” in Greek art music. Concerning belatedness, one should not neglect that
after the experimentations and the spirit of multi-cultural freedom that pre-
vailed in the early inter-war years in Europe, the 1930s arrived as a period
30 The final measures of this section (mm. 244–249) discreetly echo Rachmaninoff ’s Pi-
ano Concerto No. 2, also in C minor, and especially its closing section of Mvt. I, mm.
245–260.
31 Ioannis Fulias, “Rena Kyriakou’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra…”, op. cit., 68–69.
32 The generic title is accredited to the composer Henri Charles Litolff (1818–1891)
who wrote five piano concertos, each one entitled Concerto symphonique. All cast in
four movements, including a scherzo, they certainly influenced Brahms into pursuing
a similar four-movement structure in his Piano Concerto No. 2, op. 83, while other at-
tempts on bringing closer the genres of concerto and symphony had already occurred in
the piano concertos of Liszt and also in the, literally unknown, eight piano concertos of
Ignaz Moscheles (1794–1870) [Stephan D. Lindeman, “The Nineteenth-Century Piano
Concerto”, in: Simon P. Keefe. The Cambridge Companion to the Concerto, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 2005, 99–103, 111–112.
86
of nationalistic resurgences and even authoritarian regimes throughout the

continent.33 The “Lyngos” folk tune, besides its immediate reference to Greek
musical tradition, is also an autobiographical leit-motif of Kalomiris, follow-
ing him all his life. It takes an art form at the composer’s later age, through
a grand-scale symphonic work where the piano is the protagonist. Hence,
both the piano and the “Lyngos” motif symbolically represent the composer
himself,34 in an updated national-identity topos where historical memory be-
comes personal memory, and collective context becomes individual context.
Such an assertion primarily concerns the historical time of its occurrence
(e.g. Kalomiris in the mid-1930s), but it can also be varyingly deciphered
within the perpetual dimensions of musical time.
Works cited
Belonis, Yannis: “The Greek National Music School”, in: Katy Romanou (Ed.), Serbian
and Greek Art Music. Chicago Bristol: Intellect Books, 2009, 127–161.
---: Chamber Music in Greece in the First Half of the 20th Century. The Case of Marios Var-
voglis (1885–1967) [Η μουσική δωματίου στην Ελλάδα στο πρώτο μισό του 20ου
αιώνα. Η περίπτωση του Μάριου Βάρβογλη (1885–1967)]. Athens: Hellenic Music
Centre, 2012.
Block, Adrienne Fried: “A ‘Veritable Autobiography’? Amy Beach’s Piano Concerto in
C-sharp Minor, op. 45”, The Musical Quarterly, 78/2, 1994, 394–416.
Carabott, Philip: “Politics, Orthodoxy, and the Language Question in Greece: The Gos-
pel Riots of 1901”, Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 3/1, 1993, 117–138.
Clogg, Richard: A Concise History of Greece. Cambridge New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1992.
Fidetzis, Byron: “A Correspondence and a Musicological Sketch. Manolis Kalomiris and
the Thinker, Composer and Musicologist Menios Mourtzopoulos Mourtzopou-
los” [Μία αλληλογραφία και ένα μουσικολογικό σπάραγμα. Ο Μανώλης
Καλομοίρης και ο στοχαστής, συνθέτης και μουσικολόγος Μένιος
Μουρτζόπουλος]”, in: Nikos Maliaras and Alexandros Charkiolakis (Eds.), Mano-
lis Kalomiris. 50 Years Later. Athens: Fagotto Books, 2013, 257–282.
33 Germany, Spain, Italy, and Greece (the 1936 Metaxas dictatorship) comprise the fore-
most examples of the 1930s. See: Katy Romanou, “Exchanging Rings under Dictator-
ships”, op. cit., 30–32, 42–47.
34 A similar example, where a concerto serves as a representation of the composer’s
self-references comes from the American female composer Amy Beach (1867–1944).
See: Adrienne Fried Block, “A ‘Veritable Autobiography’? Amy Beach’s Piano Concerto in
C-sharp Minor, op. 45”, The Musical Quarterly, 78/2, 1994, 395, 397–398.
87
Frangou-Psychopedis, Olympia: The National School of Music. Problems of Ideology [H

Εθνική Σχολή Μουσικής. Προβλήματα ιδεολογίας]. Athens: Foundation for Medi-
terranean Studies, 1990.
Fulias, Ioannis: “Rena Kyriakou’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 18: Its His-
tory, a First Analytical Approach, a Critical Re-evaluation and an Attempt to
Place the Work within Greek Art-Music Creation” [«Το Κοντσέρτο για πιάνο και
ορχήστρα, op. 18, της Ρένας Κυριακού: ιστορικό, πρώτη αναλυτική προσέγγιση,
κριτική επανεκτίμηση και απόπειρα ένταξης του έργου στην ελληνική έντεχνη
μουσική δημιουργία»], Polyphonia, 31, 2017, 9–71.
Hepokoski, James and Warren Darcy: Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and De-
formations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata. Oxford – New York: Oxford
University Press, 2006.
Kalomiris, Manolis: “Regarding a Musical Work” [«Γύρω από μία σύνθεση»], Ethnos (7
January 1955).
---: My Life and Art: Memoirs 1883–1908 [Η ζωή μου και η τέχνη μου. Απομνημονεύματα
1883-1908]. Athens: Nefeli, 1988.
Leotsakos, George: “Symphonic Concerto for Piano and Orchestra” [«Συμφωνικό Κο-
ντσέρτο για πιάνο και ορχήστρα»], 1–10 [unpublished essay – Manolis Kalomiris
Society].
Lindeman, Stephan D.: “The Nineteenth-Century Piano Concerto”, in: Simon P. Keefe,
The Cambridge Companion to the Concerto. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005, 93–117.
Maliaras, Nikos: The Greek Folk Song in the Music of Manolis Kalomiris [Το ελληνικό δη-
μοτικό τραγούδι στη μουσική του Μανώλη Καλομοίρη]. Athens: Papagregoriou –
Nakas, 2001.
Romanou, Katy: “Exchanging Rings under Dictatorships”, in: Roberto Illiano and Massi-
milliano Sala (Eds.), Music and Dictatorship in Europe and Latin America. Turn-
hout: Brepols, 2009, 27–64.
Sakallieros, Giorgos: “Perspectives of the Athenian Musical Life, 1870–1940”, in: Katrin
Stoeck and Gilbert Stoeck (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Conference
“Musik-Stadt. Traditionen und Perspektiven urbaner Musikkulturen”. Band 4.
Leipzig: Gudrun Schroeder Verlag, 2012, 94–104.
---: “The Greek Symphony (1900–1950): Oscillating Between Greek Nationalism and
Western Art‐Music Tradition”, in: Nikos Maliaras (Ed.), Proceedings of the Inter-
national Musicological Conference “The National Element in Music”. Athens: Uni-
versity of Athens – Faculty of Music Studies, 2014, 31–49.
---: “Imitative Counterpoint in the Works of Dimitri Mitropoulos. Issues of Texture, In-
fluences, Aesthetics, and Musical Language” [«Η μιμητική αντίστιξη στο έργο του
Δημήτρη Μητρόπουλου: ζητήματα υφής, επιδράσεων, αισθητικής και μουσικής
γλώσσας»], in: Kostas Chardas et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 8th Interdepartmen-
tal Musicological Conference “Effetcs and Interactions”. Thessaloniki: Hellenic Mu-
sicological Society, 2019, 233–256 [available online:
https://musicology.mus.auth.gr/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/ConfProc2016.pdf ]
Samson, Jim: Music in the Balkans. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
88
Summary
The Symphonic Concerto for piano and orchestra (1935) occupies a prominent place
in Manolis Kalomiris’s compositional output as a representative example of a work
providing a counterbalance of ostensibly heterogeneous components. Its complex and
extensive symphonic texture, accompanied by a 19th century-orientated grandiose and
virtuosic piano part allows for the citation of modal folk material in the spirit and
letter of the western canon (variation, thematic and harmonic elaboration, counter-
point, fugue). The symbolic portrayal of the composer’s self-references underlines an
inner autobiographical layout within the work, embraced by the Greek National
School’s ideological principles and the way Kalomiris envisions them. Such a context
allows the composer to renegotiate the national-idea topos some twenty years after the
School’s foundation and prime, both aesthetically and musically. In this article, Kalo-
miris’s Symphonic Concerto is examined from both its historical and analytical angles
(often intermingling), through primary sources of music material (autograph manu-
scripts), notes from concert programmes, newspaper reviews, correspondence, and
even unpublished papers by eminent Greek musicologists. The scrutinization of the
score incorporates all the basic parameters of the music material, aiming at a more
detailed commentary on the thematic and motivic areas and units, tonal and modal
structures, idiomatic instrumental writing, use of orchestral color, and textural ele-
ments of the piano part. The morphological layout is outlined through both macro-
and micro structural viewpoints, being mindful of the existing documentation and
giving answers on the work’s oscillation between the genres of “symphony” and “con-
certo”. Tables, musical examples and autograph manuscript material are included as
complementary resources of interpreting the composer’s compositional style and
practice. The work is also examined both within Kalomiris’s broader output and the
contribution of other Greek composers to the genre of concerto in the first half of the
20th century. Furthermore, the appearance of “concertante” works for piano and or-
chestra in European and American music from the late 19th to the first decades of the
20th century, either entitled or denoted as “symphonic” concertos, allows a compara-
tive commentary on the use of folk material within the concerto genre and the em-
ployment of symbolic self-references as extrinsic to music resources.
89
Article received on November 4th 2019

UDC: 78.071.1 Бах К. Ф. Е.
Žarko Cvejić*1
Singidunum University in Belgrade
Faculty of Media and Communication
FROM “BACH” TO “BACH’S SON”: THE WORK OF

AESTHETIC IDEOLOGY IN THE HISTORICAL RECEPTION
OF CARL PHILIPP EMANUEL BACH
Abstract: The paper explores the historical correlation between the marginalization
of C. P. E. Bach in his posthumous critical reception in the early and mid 19th century
and the paradigm shift that occurred in the philosophical, aesthetic, and ideological
conception of music in Europe around 1800, whereby music was reconceived as a
radically abstract and disembodied art of expression, as opposed to the Enlightenment
idea of music as an irreducibly sensuous, sonic art of representation. More precisely,
the paper argues that the cause of C. P. E. Bach’s marginalization in his posthumous
critical reception should not be sought only in the shadow cast by his father, J. S. Bach,
and the focus of 19th- and 20th-century music historiography on periodization, itself
centred around “great men”, but also in the fundamental incompatibility between this
new aesthetic and philosophical ideology of music from around 1800 and C. P. E.
Bach’s oeuvre, predicated as it was on an older aesthetic paradigm of music, with its
reliance on musical performance, especially improvisation, itself undervalued in early
and mid 19th-century music criticism for the same reasons. Other factors might also
include C. P. E. Bach’s use of the genre of fantasia, as well as the sheer stylistic idiosyn-
crasy of much of his music, especially the fantasias and other works he wrote für
Kenner (“for connoisseurs”). This might also explain why his music was so quickly
sidelined despite its pursuit of “free” expression, a defining ideal of early to mid
19th-century music aesthetics.
Keywords: C. P. E. Bach, reception history, music aesthetics and philosophy, fantasia,
expression, mimesis/representation, Romanticism, Enlightenment
*1Author contact information: [email protected]
90
Cvejić, Ž.: From “Bach” to “Bach’s Son”: The Work of Aesthetic Ideology ...
For most of the 18th century and even well into the following century, in Ger-
many and much of Europe, the name Bach, when appearing alone, was almost
invariably taken to refer to “the Berlin” or “Hamburg Bach” – Carl Philipp
Emanuel, Johann Sebastian’s second son. In England, it could also refer to
“the London Bach”, Johann Christian, Sebastian’s third son and Emanuel’s
younger half-brother. But in those days, by itself that venerable name hard-
ly ever referred to their father, Johann Sebastian, as it invariably does today,
and has done since the days of his “revival” initiated by Felix Mendelssohn in
1829, itself importantly prefigured by Johann Nikolaus Forkel’s monumental
life-and-works biography of J. S. Bach, which took decades to complete and
finally came out in 1802. As for his more famous son, “a gigantic figure of
North German music culture in the 1770s and 1780s”,1 “held by his critics
to embody all those qualities which, for the philosophers of the Enlighten-
ment, characterize the man of genius”,2 for “much of his lifetime […] the best-
known member of the family”, from the 1830s on, C. P. E. Bach increasingly
came to be “considered a minor or transitional figure, of primarily historical
interest”,3 “a transitional figure in a history of musical form and style”,4 even
“a miserly and avaricious businessman more interested in money than in art”.5
Interest in his compositions “waned shortly after the turn of the century” and
his stature was reduced to that of “a bridge and transition figure between the
eighteenth-century ‘great men’ – J. S. Bach and the Viennese masters Haydn,
Mozart, and Beethoven – or as a transition between the Baroque and Classical
eras with his galant style”.6
Most C. P. E. Bach scholars have tended to blame his pretty spectacular
fall from grace, from a “man of genius” to “an almost great composer”,7 on the
1 Annette Richards, “An Enduring Monument: C. P. E. Bach and the Musical Sublime”,
in: Annette Richards (ed.), C. P. E. Bach Studies, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
2006, 152.
2 Richard Kramer, “Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and the Aesthetics of Patricide”, in: Ste-
phen A. Crist and Roberta Montemorra Marvin (eds.), Historical Musicology: Sources,
Methods, Interpretations, Rochester NY, University of Rochester Press, 2004, 122.
3 David Schulenberg, “Introduction”, in: David Schulenberg (ed.), C. P. E. Bach, Alder-
shot, Ashgate Publishing, 2015, xiii.

4 Ibid., xvi.
5 David Ferris, “Plates for Sale: C. P. E. Bach and the Story of Die Kunst der Fuge”, in:
Richards (ed.), op. cit., 202.

6 Doris Bosworth Powers, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: A Guide to Research, New York,
Routledge, 2011, 7.
7 Hans-Günther Ottenberg, C. P. E. Bach, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1987, 183.
91
imposition of large-scale narratives of periodization in 19th- and 20th-century

historical musicology, centred around the “great men” and styles of 18th- and
19th-century central European (i.e. German) music. Their views are further
discussed and exemplified below. However, in this paper I want to highlight
another factor that may have equally contributed to C. P. E. Bach’s margin-
alization in his posthumous critical reception, but has yet to receive, in my
mind, the scholarly attention it deserves: the radical change in the aesthet-
ic and philosophical conception or ideology of music around 1800, from a
sensuous art of representation, inseparable from sound, to an abstract and
intellectual art of expression, which, as I argue below, fuelled a rising hostil-
ity to all genres grounded in improvisation, most notably the fantasia, and,
more broadly, to improvisation itself, due to its own grounding in musical
performance, that is, the sensuous, bodily aspect of music. Unfortunately for
Emanuel Bach, his most characteristic works are precisely his 19 “free” im-
provisatory keyboard fantasias and, as a number of scholars have shown, im-
provisation played a vital role in his compositional oeuvre in general. That
arguably put him at odds with the prevailing music aesthetic ideology of the
early to mid 19th century, so much so that not even his pursuit of free musical
expression, otherwise a mainstay of music aesthetics after 1800, could save
him from oblivion. Another factor explored below is the problem of original-
ity in composition, which was universally expected, but which also attracted
censure whenever it crossed the boundaries of the musically and cultural-
ly intelligible, as in the case of, for instance, Chopin and, as I argue below,
C. P. E. Bach’s fantasias and similar works. Presently, I begin with a sketch
of Emanuel Bach’s critical reception in his lifetime and the decades that fol-
lowed, before offering my own interpretation.
***
“At this point”, writes Hans-Günther Ottenberg, referring to Emanuel Bach’s
death in 1788, “begins the history of the reception of Bach’s music, which had
been foreshadowed even during his lifetime in its two most extreme forms –
unlimited acclaim and total neglect”.8 Indeed, in his lifetime celebrated with
almost no restraint, both in highbrow scholarship intended for the Kenner
and in journalistic music criticism targeting the Liebhaber, to borrow his own
terms, shortly thereafter C. P. E. Bach was plunged into near oblivion or, at
8 Ottenberg, op. cit., 24–25.
92
best, remembered as his father’s inadequate heir or Haydn and Mozart’s in-
ferior precursor; in either case, no more than a faithful representative of an
unclassifiable period of music history that was commonly deemed barren, if
not outright decadent. Never entirely marginalized as a Kleinmeister due to
his enormous esteem and popularity up until the early 19th century, that and
the following century’s music scholarship and criticism relegated Bach to the
unenviable status of a transitory figure, a composer whose interest lies not in
his works but only in the historical niche allocated to him: that of the miss-
ing link between his celebrated father as the 19th and 20th centuries’ epitome
of musical greatness and the equally revered Viennese Classics. This missing
link, as the likes of Sir George Grove and Charles Rosen would have us be-
lieve, exemplifies and illustrates all the perceived aesthetic deficiencies of the
third quarter of the 18th century, a notoriously tough nut to crack in terms
of periodization: a “decadence” that “had to ensue” after J. S. Bach “had ex-
hausted” the aesthetic potentials of the baroque period and before the mature
Haydn and Mozart could solidify and impose a fresh stylistic paradigm. Only
in this and the final two decades of the preceding century did Emanuel Bach
retrieve some of the esteem he had lost a hundred years before, mostly thanks
to the efforts of several German and British-American musicologists. Earli-
er 20th-century scholarship, epitomized in Rosen’s The Classical Style, among
other places, had scarcely treated the composer with benevolence.
In Emanuel Bach’s own lifetime, however, things were entirely different.
“Any reference to the ‘great Bach’ in the second half of the eighteenth centu-
ry almost always meant C. P. E. Bach”, Ottenberg writes in his introductory
assessment of Bach’s reception.9 Ulrich Leisinger likewise captures the gist of
the composer’s initial fame and imminent undoing, when he writes:
With Gluck and later Haydn, he was regarded by his contemporaries as the lead-
ing representative of a specifically German musical taste […]
Developments during the 19th century made Vienna the musical capital of the
German-speaking part of Europe, even superseding Leipzig as the centre of the
music-publishing industry, and to the extent that J. S. Bach was rediscovered as
the “father” of German keyboard music, so Emanuel Bach’s reputation began to
fade.10
9 Ibid., 3.
10 Ulrich Leisinger, “Bach, §III: (9) Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach”, in: Stanley Sadie (ed.),
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, London, Macmillan, 2001, II, 398.
93
Indeed, Emanuel Bach’s music had been celebrated as the essence of all
that was good about German and North German music in particular, as op-
posed to the inferior, “deviant”, and “effeminate” Italians, French, and some-
times even Austrians and South Germans, with their slavish observance of
the decorum of the stile galant, embraced, among others, by the composer’s
own younger brother Johann Christian, “the London Bach”.
This nationalist and sometimes also chauvinist streak in the early Ger-
man veneration of Emanuel Bach has been thoroughly documented by Mary
Sue Morrow in her seminal study of 18th-century journalist music criticism
in German-speaking Europe. Whilst compelling, Morrow’s focus on incipi-
ent German nationalism in much of critical writing on music at the time is
beyond the scope of this essay; for present purposes, it will suffice to note her
general assessment of Emanuel Bach’s position in this discourse as that of the
most famous, popular, and revered authority of German modern music.11 The
importance of Morrow’s findings stems not only from the immense impact
that the German 18th-century music-journalist critical collective, as she calls
it, had on the public appraisal of art music in Germany and, consequently, on
canon formation, but also from the prominent role that some of Germany’s
most influential musical minds played within this collective. One such figure
was Johann Friedrich Reichardt, himself an accomplished composer, whose
verdict on Haydn and Bach very much sums up the two composers’ positions
in the late 18th-century public aesthetic appreciation of contemporary art mu-
sic in the German-speaking world: “Even if we only had Haydn and C. P. E.
Bach, we Germans could maintain that we have our own style, and that our
instrumental music is the most interesting of all”.12
Similar sentiments are likewise frequent in most other sources of late
th
18 -century appreciation of C. P. E. Bach’s music. Charles Burney’s account
of German and Dutch contemporary music, coming as it does from one of
the most erudite music connoisseurs of the time, is perhaps particularly re-
vealing in its unbound praise for the composer. In what is otherwise a rather
selective and succinct account of Burney’s encounters with the leading com-
posers and other musicians of his day, Emanuel Bach is allocated no fewer
than three separate chapters: “C. P. E. Bach”, “Life of C. P. E. Bach”, and “A Day
11 Mary Sue Morrow, German Music Criticism in the Late Eighteenth Century: Aesthetic
Issues in Instrumental Music, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, especially
58–65.
12 Ibid., 60.
94
with C. P. E. Bach”, comprising seven pages in total – quite a lot, given the
compactness of Burney’s narrative. Describing the musical life of Hamburg,
where C. P. E. Bach spent the final two decades of his life, Burney rightly as-
serts Bach’s central position:
Hamburg is not at present, possessed of any musical professor of great eminence,
except M. Carl Philip [sic] Emanuel Bach; but he is a legion! I had long contem-
plated, with the highest delight, his elegant and original compositions; and they
had created in me so strong a desire to see, and to hear him, that I wanted no
other musical temptation to visit this city.13
Burney then proceeds to praise the unique qualities of Bach’s highly idio-
syncratic style:
How he formed his style, where he acquired all his taste and refinement, would
be difficult to trace; he certainly neither inherited nor adopted them from his
father, who was his only master; for that venerable musician, though unequalled
in learning and contrivance, thought it so necessary to crowd into both hands all
the harmony he could grasp, that he must inevitably have sacrificed melody and
expression. Had the son however chosen a model, it would certainly have been
his father, whom he highly reverenced; but as he has ever disdained imitation, he
must have derived from nature alone, those fine feelings, that variety of new
ideas, and selection of passages, which are so manifest in his compositions.
[…]
It must be owned, that the style of this author is so uncommon, that a little habit
is necessary for the enjoyment of it.14
I quote Burney’s impressions at length not only because they faithfully
relay Emanuel Bach’s general standing in his lifetime, but also because they
already contain the germs of the imminent decline that his reputation would
undergo in the following century. Already in Burney’s juxtaposition of Se-
bastian and Emanuel, a trend in later music historiography comes into view,
one that was to condition the 19th century’s appreciation of both composers:
apparently, their respective styles were seen as so incommensurable, that em-
13 Charles Burney, An Eighteenth-century Musical Tour in Central Europe and the Neth-
erlands, London, Oxford University Press, 1959, II, 211. However, a word of caution must
be added here, given that, as Mary Oleskiewicz notes, there is “evidence that Burney was
selling Emanuel Bach’s music in London, and he thus had good reason for praising it”;
see Mary Oleskiewicz, “Like Father, Like Son? Emanuel Bach and the Writing of Biogra-
phy”, in: Schulenberg (ed.), op. cit., 25.
14 Burney, op. cit., 217–218.
95
bracing them on equal terms was simply inconceivable. Shortly after 1788, it
was Sebastian who came to command the focus of most historiographic and
aesthetic narratives, while his middle son was portrayed as an inferior and
decadent heir or, at best, a proficient keyboardist, just as his father had been in
most of his own lifetime. Some of this trend is visible as early as Ernst Ludwig
Gerber’s 1790 Historisch-biographisches Lexicon der Tonkünstler, in which,
notwithstanding the detailed and comprehensive list of Emanuel Bach’s works
that takes up most of the article on the composer, Sebastian Bach is discussed
in much more detail, both his life and the stylistic traits of his oeuvre.
Therefore, Darrell Berg’s conclusion that the end of the 18th century saw
not only Emanuel Bach’s biological death, but also his symbolic death, seems
quite compelling:
Despite his fame as a composer of original genius, he did not survive the eight-
eenth century as a composer-god. At the end of the century, he died two symbolic
deaths. The first was the loss of popularity his music suffered and its subsequent
descent into virtual oblivion. This death had much to do with the ascendancy of
the style of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, but it was also related to Bach’s bio-
logical death (1788).15
Emanuel Bach’s other symbolic death in Berg’s narrative refers to Ludwig
Rellstab’s disfiguring edition of the late composer’s works. Likewise for Otten-
berg:
In the nineteenth century, with the onset of a musical historiography orientated
towards the phenomenon of the great composer, C. P. E. Bach was either com-
pletely ignored, or else dismissed as a mere “precursor”. The importance of his
work was assessed by the extent to which it had contributed to the development
of the “golden age” of Haydn and Mozart.16
Thus the unflattering view of Emanuel Bach as the missing link between
his father and the Viennese Classics began to emerge in scholarly discourse
around 1800, which it ruled uncontested for the rest of the century, as is
clearly visible in the 1879 Grove article on the Bach family:
In this family musical talent was as it were bequeathed, and it seems almost like
a law of nature that the scattered rays of the gift should after a hundred years fi-
15 Darrell Berg, “The Death and Return of the Composer: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach as
Author of his Music”, in: Barbara Haggh (ed.), Essays on Music and Culture in Honor of
Herbert Kellman, Paris, Minerve, 2001, 463.
16 Ottenberg, op. cit., 205.
96
nally concentrate in the genius of Johann Sebastian, whose originality, depth,

and force, exhibit a climax such as only a few great spirits of any time or country
have attained. But from this climax the artistic power of the race began to dimin-
ish, and with the second generation after its great representative was entirely ex-
tinguished.
[…]
[I]t is plain that [C. P. E. Bach] stands so high because he is recognised historically
as one of the most remarkable figures in the transition period between J. S. Bach
and Haydn. In such periods a man is eminent and influential more from his gen-
eral cultivation than from proficiency in any special branch. At the particular
time at which E. Bach lived there were no great men. The gigantic days of Handel
and Bach were exchanged for a time of peruke and powder, when the highest
ideal was neatness, smoothness, and elegance. Depth, force, originality, were
gone, and “taste” was the most important word in all things. […C. P. E. Bach’s
music] is of paramount importance as a connecting link between the periods of
Handel and Bach on the one hand and Haydn and Mozart on the other.17
This gem of late 19th-century music historiography – complete with a
miniature organicist narrative of rise, peak, and fall, which is then redeemed
in the following evolutionary generation – takes us directly into the prevailing
view of Bach in the greater part of the 20th century. While the earlier 20th-cen-
tury focus on drawing unbroken music-historical narratives at all costs, in
musicology famously criticized by Leo Treitler,18 arguably took us away from
explicit aestheticist valuations, such as Maczewski’s of Emanuel Bach, aesthet-
icist bias in the notion of the “transitory figure” is never more than one step
away. To paraphrase – and counter – Carl Dahlhaus’s strange claim that no one
“had a burden to bear because Beethoven wielded authority in music” (if no
one else, Schubert and Chopin immediately come to mind),19 it would seem
that at least C. P. E. Bach had a burden to bear in his posthumous reception
because his father wielded such authority. Susan Wollenberg thus rightly notes
an urge to find a place for C. P. E. Bach in a historical scheme; and this could at
times indicate a wish to determine the label under which his work could conven-
17 A. Maczewski, “Bach”, in: George Grove (ed.), A Dictionary of Music and Musicians
(A.D. 1450–1880), by Eminent Writers, English and Foreign, London, Macmillan and Co.,
1879, I, 108–114.
18 Leo Treitler, Music and the Historical Imagination, Cambridge MA, Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1989, 157–175.

19 Carl Dahlhaus, Foundations of Music History, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1983, 9.
97
iently be packed away, dismissed perhaps to the rank of “important influences”

or “historical figures”. The very idea of writing about C. P. E. Bach under such
titles as “The Sons of Bach” or “The Bach Family”, though obviously logical and
convenient for comparative purposes, places the individual composer, not en-
tirely to advantage, in a pre-ordained collective scheme.20
David Schulenberg likewise blames the incompatibility of Emanuel
Bach’s music with our preordained schemes of periodization, whereby it fits
neither the “Baroque” nor the “Classical” style heading, for the scholarly ne-
glect and undervaluation of his oeuvre.21
However, I would argue that the Diktat of periodization in later music
historiography was not the only reason why C. P. E. Bach was so quickly mar-
ginalized in his posthumous reception. In fact, I would propose at least an-
other two factors linked with his oeuvre, which may seem counterintuitive at
first, but will be explained in what follows: the sheer originality and unique-
ness, even idiosyncrasy, of his Emfindsamer Stil or “sensitive” style, especially
in his music for Kenner, and his pursuit of abstract, free musical expression,
most notably in his 19 “free” improvisatory keyboard fantasias. I begin with
the former factor: stylistic idiosyncrasy.
That C. P. E. Bach’s music, especially the more difficult and demanding
instrumental, typically keyboard pieces he wrote, in his own designation, for
Kenner, that is, connoisseurs and himself, not for Liebhaber or amateurs, that
is, the music market at large,22 was highly original and sometimes idiosyn-
cratic to the point of being strange is, of course, a well known fact among
modern C. P. E. Bach scholars and connoisseurs of his music. “Bach’s mu-
sic sounds like no one else’s”, Richard Kramer writes concerning this body of
works; “It is radical and idiosyncratic beyond anything in the music of even
his closest contemporaries”.23 In Doris Bosworth Powers’s assessment, he was
“one of the most imaginative” composers of the late 18th century, his music
“full of unusual musical features through which he imprints his individual-
20 Susan Wollenberg, “Changing Views of C. P. E. Bach”, Music and Letters, Vol. 69, No.
4, 1988, 461.
21 David Schulenberg, “The Instrumental Music of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach”, doctoral
dissertation, Ann Arbor, UMI Research Press, 1984, 191.

22 “Bach made a distinction between music composed for the small circle of connois-
seurs – music essentially for himself – and that which was intended for sale to a less en-
dowed public”; see Kramer, op. cit., 126.
23 Ibid., 128.
98
ized and highly creative style”.24 Those unusual musical features most notably
refer to his innovative and daring use of harmony – abrupt, often enharmonic
modulations to distant keys, frequently using harmonic ellipsis – and irregu-
lar, disjointed phrasing, replete with sudden and stark contrasts in mood and
dynamics. It was for this kind of daring originality that his contemporaries,
such as Reichardt, praised him as “an original genius”25 and “an exemplary
artist of the sublime”.26 Indeed, according to Darrell Berg, Emanuel Bach’s
critical reception as a composer peaked “in the 1770s, when the concept of
‘original genius’ with its divine aspect attained great prestige”, whereupon he
was frequently praised “as a composer of originality and of more than human
inspiration”.27
However, too much stylistic originality, or excessive idiosyncrasy, could
equally be a liability, as much as an asset. That much can be gleaned even
from the final sentence of Burney’s otherwise unreserved praise of C. P. E.
Bach’s music quoted above: “It must be owned, that the style of this author is
so uncommon, that a little habit is necessary for the enjoyment of it” (emphasis
mine).28 Thus even Burney, one of Bach’s most ardent supporters (and a seller
of his music in London), sensed a danger in the sheer originality and unique-
ness of his music, in other words, that some of it may sound a bit too uncom-
mon, too strange, for most ears and minds. In fact, even in his lifetime, C. P.
E. Bach’s music was not invariably praised for its uniqueness, but also cen-
sured as “eccentric”, “bizarre”, lacking in “musical logic” or simply “illogical”.29
As such, his music, at least his most difficult works, typically the 19 “free”,
“improvisatory” keyboard fantasias, which, as Matthew Head has shown,
constitute the pinnacle of Bach’s art as the intended locus of his greatest ef-
forts and as such permeated other segments of his oeuvre as well,30 ran the
risk of swerving from the other to the abject, to borrow the title of Lawrence
24 Powers, op. cit., 1–2.

25 Ibid., 1.
26 Richards, op. cit., 152.
27 Berg, op. cit., 462.
28 Burney, op. cit., 217–218.
29 See Ottenberg, op. cit., 5 and Pamela Fox, “The Stylistic Anomalies of C. P. E. Bach’s
Nonconstancy”, in: Stephen L. Clark (ed.), C. P. E. Bach Studies, Oxford, Clarendon Press,
1988, 105.
30 Matthew Head, “Fantasy in the Instrumental Music of C. P. E. Bach”, doctoral disser-
tation, Ann Arbor, UMI Research Press, 1995.
99
Kramer’s famous essay, now almost a quarter of a century old but not for that
reason any less compelling in its analysis of the work of “othering” or “alter-
ity” in the cultural appreciation of music (among many other things).31 If it
is to be appreciated at all, the other must retain at least some vaguely recog-
nizable characteristics similar to the norm (or “the self ”), so that it might be
identified as belonging to an existing category, for instance, a style heading or
period in the history of music; otherwise, it risks being rejected, or abjected,
to borrow Kramer’s term, as simply too other. In much of early 19th-century
music criticism, German, French, and English alike, the one that ignored C. P.
E. Bach’s music, a similar fate often befell other composers who were deemed
too other for their own good, whether in terms of musical style, ethnicity,
sexuality, or even health, or any combination thereof, most notably Chopin,
as I tried to show elsewhere in more detail.32 While certainly desirable, stylis-
tic originality and uniqueness still had to be kept within certain limits – the
limits of intelligible musical logic. Like Chopin’s, it is possible that Emanuel
Bach’s harmonically and formally difficult music was simply perceived as too
other, too idiosyncratic, too abnormal.
In addition to the radical originality or stylistic idiosyncrasy of C. P. E.
Bach’s most avant-garde music, the other factor in his contemporary and
posthumous critical reception singled out above was his pursuit of free, un-
fettered musical expression, especially in his music for Kenner, most notably
his 19 “free” improvisatory keyboard fantasias. “Both in his compositional
activities and in his own playing”, Bosworth Powers writes, Bach was “in-
clined toward the free form of the fantasy and toward the art of improvisa-
tion”.33 In his lifetime, Bach was indeed praised for what was perceived as his
unbound artistic self-expression, in journalist music criticism and scholarly
discourse alike.34 This should be hardly surprising, since it coincided with the
inauguration of free, pure expression – expression for expression’s sake – as
the paradigm and main purpose of art and especially instrumental art music
in late 18th-century aesthetics, replacing mimesis, that is, morally instructive
31 Lawrence Kramer, “From the Other to the Abject: Music as Cultural Trope”, in: Clas-
sical Music and Postmodern Knowledge, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1995.
32 Žarko Cvejić, The Virtuoso as Subject: The Reception of Instrumental Virtuosity, c.
1815–c. 1850, Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016, 155–164.
33 Powers, op. cit., 2.
34 Carl Dahlhaus, The Idea of Absolute Music, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press,
1989, 52.
100
or edifying imitation or representation of nature.35 Whereas leading thinkers

of the Enlightenment, such as Rousseau, Kant, the Encyclopaedists Batteux,
D’Alembert, and Diderot, and Johann Sulzer, had expected music to imitate
or represent feelings (or affects), the following generation of thinkers around
1800 regarded expression as the main task of all art and especially of instru-
mental music – the expression of what is otherwise ineffable. Famously, ac-
cording to E. T. A. Hoffmann, music liberated from words
reveals to man an unknown realm, a world quite separate from the outer sensual
world surrounding him, a world in which he leaves behind all feelings circum-
scribed by intellect in order to embrace the inexpressible.36
The limited ability of music, and especially instrumental music, to rep-
resent (or “imitate”) specific concepts, which disqualified it in the minds of
its Enlightenment critics such as Kant and Sulzer, for whom all instrumental
music was either merely an “agreeable art” or just “pleasant nonsense”,37 now
became its greatest asset: more than any other art, (instrumental) music ap-
pears to represent and refer only to itself, rather than external objects, like the
visual arts, or concepts, like vocal music and literature. If instrumental music
communicates anything, it is something metaphysical, something that oth-
erwise could not be communicated. And if the object of its expression might
not be verbalized, but only expressed in music, so much the better for music
and its exclusivity as “the most romantic of the arts”, in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s
memorable phrase.38
35 I have written about this aesthetic paradigm shift in some detail in Cvejić, op. cit.,
50–52 and 55–56. For more detailed discussions, see John Neubauer, The Emancipation
of Music from Language: Departure from Mimesis in Eighteenth-century Aesthetics, New
Haven, Yale University Press, 1986 and Andrew Bowie, Music, Philosophy, and Moderni-
ty, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007, 53ff.
36 E. T. A. Hoffmann, “Beethoven’s Instrumental Music”, in: David Charlton (ed.), E. T.
A. Hoffmann’s Musical Writings: Kreisleriana, The Poet and the Composer, Music Criti-
cism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989, 236.
37 Immanuel Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 2000, 206. I discussed this in some detail in Žarko Cvejić, “Andrew Bowie and Mu-
sic in German Philosophy around 1800: The Case of Kant”, in: Miško Šuvaković, Žarko
Cvejić, and Andrija Filipović (eds.), European Theories in Former Yugoslavia: Trans-the-
ory Relations between Global and Local Discourses, Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge
Scholars Publishing, 2015, 5–11.
38 Hoffmann, op. cit., 96. For more detailed discussions of this shift in music aesthetics
around 1800, see any of the following sources: Bowie, op. cit. and Aesthetics and Subjec-
101
Against this aesthetic, philosophical, and ideological backdrop, one

would expect C. P. E. Bach’s music and especially his “free”, radically expres-
sive fantasias to fare rather well in their critical reception – and in his life-
time they indeed did, but, as we know, not for much longer after his death
in 1788, even though the reign of “free” expression as the paradigm of all
music aesthetics intensified, if anything, after 1800. The question is: why? In
answering, I would point to two distinct tendencies in early to mid 19th-cen-
tury music criticism: the hostility to the fantasia as a genre and to improvisa-
tion in general, coupled with a revalorization of “old”, venerable genres such
as the sonata and compositional procedures such as the sonata form. Thus,
for instance, Henri Blanchard, a leading early to mid 19th-century French
critic, dismissed the fantasia as one of the genres that “have for so long cor-
rupted and perverted musical taste and style”.39 Other critics writing for the
same journal, the Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris, France’s premier music
journal, likewise routinely disqualified the fantasia as “this bastard genre of
music”.40 Similar sentiments could be found in leading German music jour-
nals, too, for instance, in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, where Henri
Hoertel condemned the fantasia as the “scourge of art”,41 while an unsigned
reviewer in 1841 lamented that “fantasias are in abundance”, unlike “dignified
forms” such as sonatas.42
More generally, the art of improvisation, which informed much of C. P.
E. Bach’s music, not just his keyboard fantasias, was no less frowned upon in
early to mid 19th-century music criticism. In fact, some of these critics re-
served their harshest words for improvisation. An indispensable trade in the
18th century for revered German keyboard virtuosi such as C. P. E. Bach him-
self and his father, along with his venerable older German models such as Di-
etrich Buxtehude, Georg Böhm, and Johann Adam Reincken, not to mention
Mozart and Beethoven, by the 1830s improvisation had become suspect, as
a mere vehicle for self-display of “empty” virtuosity with no musical struc-
tivity: From Kant to Nietzsche, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2003 and Wayne
Bowman, Philosophical Perspectives on Music, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998.
39 Henri Blanchard, “Revue critique. Sonate de Sigismond Thalberg”, Revue et Gazette
musicale de Paris, 8 March 1846, 77.

40 [Unsigned], “Revie critique. Deuxième caprice pour le piano sur la Folle de Grisar,
par Henri Herz, op. 83”, Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris, 27 March 1836, 101.
41 Harry Hoertel, “Baillot”, Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 26 October 1842, 841–849.
42 [Unsigned], “Recensionen. Kompositionen für Pianoforte. F. Kalkbrenner“, Allge-
meine musikalische Zeitung, 2 February 1841, 95.
102
ture or “musical logic” to justify it. By contrast, as Morrow has demonstrated,

not only was Emanuel Bach in his lifetime not criticized for pursuing impro-
visation, rather, he was celebrated for it. But for C. P. E. Bach and his con-
temporaries, and for 18th-century music aesthetics in general, music was still
inseparable from musical performance, from sound, which meant that per-
formance could easily inform composition the way it did in Emanuel Bach’s
fantasias. But this was not so for most 19th-century critics. Thus we find even
otherwise lionized figures such as Liszt and Hummel upbraided merely for
including improvised items in their concert appearances. A reviewer of an
1828 recital by Hummel for the Revue musicale thus writes that “we must de-
plore the usage of improvisation by pianists today and the error in which they
fall more or less voluntarily”.43 Similarly, “E. F.”, probably Édouard Fétis, son
of major French music critic François-Joseph Fétis and an important French
critic in his own right, exhorts Liszt in an 1829 concert review not to “haunt
us with your endless improvisations!”.44
Why was improvisation, for so long a staple and arguably the main at-
traction of public concerts and public music-making in general, so roundly
condemned by early to mid 19th-century critics, so much so that after 1850 it
was all but phased out of most public concerts? A major, if not the major, rea-
son was the radical change that happened in the aesthetic and, more broadly,
philosophic conceptualization of music around 1800, between the aesthetic
and philosophy of the Enlightenment, represented by Kant, Sulzer, and other
figures mentioned above, and, a mere decade or so later, the aesthetic and
philosophy of early Romanticism championed by E. T. A. Hoffmann, likewise
cited above, as well as Schelling, Schopenhauer, and other major thinkers, for
the most part German. As shown in a large number of studies, one of them
my own,45 in much more detail than the limited scope of this paper allows,
this paradigm shift saw a re-conceptualization of music from an irreducibly
sensuous art, inseparable from and synonymous with its sonic medium –
sound – as discussed and dismissed as a merely “agreeable art” by Kant in
his Critique of Judgement, or subordinated to poetry by Hegel in his Introduc-
tory Lectures on Aesthetics on account of its reliance on a sensuous medium
43 [Unsigned], “Nouvelles étrangères, Berlin, 29 mars”, Revue musicale, April 1828, 262.
44 E. F., “Nouvelles de Paris. Soirée musicale donnée par M. Oury, dans les salons de M.
Dietz, le mardi 15 décembre”, Revue musicale, 18 December 1829, 496.
45 Cvejić, The Virtuoso as Subject, op. cit., 42–92 and the aforementioned studies by An-
drew Bowie.
103
(i.e. sound),46 to a radically disembodied, abstract, and intellectual art, entire-

ly independent from its merely corporeal and dispensable manifestation in
sound, e.g. E. T. A. Hoffmann’s “most romantic of the arts” or Schelling’s “pri-
mal rhythm of nature and of the universe itself ”47 and “an emanation from
the Absolute itself ”. Schopenhauer would even assert that music “could to a
certain extent exist if there was no world at all”.48
Concomitantly with the roughly simultaneous rise of the work concept in
music, as was most compellingly demonstrated by Lydia Goehr,49 this de-sen-
sualisation of music in European aesthetics and philosophy around 1800 also
imposed a devaluation of all musical performance in favour of composition,
which is likewise pervasive in much of European 19th-century music criti-
cism.50 Critics thus routinely asserted their “total want of enthusiasm about
mere performance”.51 For instance, James William Davison, for many years
editor-in-chief of The Musical World, Britain’s leading music periodical, as-
serted in one of his reviews that music is “something viewless and incorpore-
al”, “not the sound of instruments or voices”, but a “system of ideality which,
as pure emanation of mind, is rendered generally demonstrable by the appli-
ances of mechanism, it matters not whether vocal or instrumental” and, as
such, “may be created and remain in being without the help of playing of any
kind”.52 It is clear that all of this left little, if any, room for musical improvi-
sation, a main building block of C. P. E. Bach’s music, especially his fantasias
and other compositionally daring works he wrote: as a type of composition
irredeemably meshed with performance and, more broadly, sound, spawning
not timeless works frozen in notation but ephemeral, one-off performative
events, improvisation was essentially incompatible with the new aesthetic
of music and its hierarchies around 1800, and that included, I would argue,
46 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics, London, Pen-

guin, 1993, 94–95.
47 Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Philosophy of Art, Minneapolis, University of
Minnesota Press, 1989, 17.

48 Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, New York, Dover Publi-
cations, 1969, I, 257.

49 Lydia Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of
Music, Oxford, Clarendon Press and Oxford University Press, 1992.

50 See my discussion in The Virtuoso as Subject, op. cit., 100–106.
51 [Unsigned], “Dreyschock”, The Musical World, 18 May 1843, 172.
52 [Unsigned], “Liszt’s Pianoforte Recitals”, The Musical World, 11 June 1840, 361.
104
much of C. P. E. Bach’s music, especially his fantasias and the rest of his core
repertory of music intended for Kenner.
***
As I argued elsewhere,53 this hostility in early to mid 19th-century European
music criticism to improvisation and the fantasia as a fashionable genre of
virtuosic keyboard music could be seen as part of a larger critical backlash
against instrumental virtuosity, discussed by a number of scholars, most no-
tably Dana Gooley and Jim Samson, among others.54 While he died in 1788,
two or three decades before this backlash began in earnest, itself largely fu-
elled by the radical change in the conception of music in European aesthetics
and philosophy around 1800, described above, C. P. E. Bach was, of course,
not only a well-respected composer in his day, but also one of the most re-
nowned keyboard virtuosi of his time, with virtuosic performance, especially
improvisation, as shown by Bosworth Powers and other C. P. E. Bach schol-
ars, crucially informing much of his work as a composer, especially his 19
“free” improvisatory keyboard fantasias, the only works he wrote for him-
self, without restraining his inspiration. With all of that and the foregoing
discussion in mind, there is a strong case to be made, as I tried to do in this
paper, that C. P. E. Bach was marginalized in his posthumous reception not
only due to the increasingly overwhelming stature of his father in Western
19th-century historiography of music, but at least to a significant degree also
due to the radical shift in the aesthetic and philosophical conception of music
from a sensuous art of representation to an abstract and intellectual art of
expression. Due to the combined impact of his father’s overbearing legacy
and his own commitment to an earlier model of composition, grounded in
improvisation and virtuosity, that is, more broadly, performance, it seems as
if not even Emanuel Bach’s fame in his lifetime and pursuit of free expression
in his most avant-garde music could have saved him from oblivion only a few
decades later.
53 Cvejić, The Virtuoso as Subject, op. cit.

54 See Dana Gooley, The Virtuoso Liszt, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004
and Jim Samson, Virtuosity and the Musical Work: The Transcendental Studies of Liszt,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003.
105
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107
Summary
In his posthumous critical reception, starting almost immediately upon his death in
1788, C. P. E. Bach suffered a spectacular fall from grace, from an “original genius” and
the most renowned member of his esteemed musical family, one of Germany’s leading
composers, to an “almost great composer” and a “minor transitory figure”, a “missing
link” between the greatness of his father and that of Haydn and Mozart. Most C. P. E.
Bach scholars have attributed this to the long shadow cast by his father and the urge
of 19th- and 20th-century music historiography to periodize Europe’s musical past
around “great men” such as J. S. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. But other rea-
sons may lie in the sheer stylistic idiosyncrasy of C. P. E. Bach’s music, especially his
19 “free” improvisatory keyboard fantasias and other works he wrote für Kenner or
connoisseurs, not the general public and music market, which condemned later com-
posers such as Chopin in their own critical reception, as well as the paradigm shift that
occurred in European music aesthetics and philosophy around 1800, whereby music
was reconceived as a radically abstract, intellectual, and disembodied art of expression,
as opposed to the Enlightenment notion of music as an irreducibly sensuous, that is,
sonic art of representation or mimesis. This shift caused a devaluation of musical
performance in general and particularly of improvisation in European early to mid
19th-century music criticism, which in turn arguably made C. P. E. Bach’s music, rooted
in performance and especially in improvisation, incompatible with the new philo-
sophical, aesthetic, and ideological paradigm of music. Another important factor in
C. P. E. Bach’s posthumous fall from grace may have been his focus on the genre of
keyboard fantasia, another favourite target of censure for most major European music
critics of the early to mid 19th century. All of these factor may help explain why C. P.
E. Bach’s music was so quickly marginalized in the 19th century, despite its pursuit of
“free” expression, itself a defining feature of Romanticist music aesthetics.
108
Mitrović, R.: Improvised Music as Socially Engaged Art: Poetics of Cardew and Rzewski
Article received on September 25th 2019

UDC: 78.071.1 Кардју К.
78.071.1 Рзевски Ф.
Radoš Mitrović*
Faculty of Music
IMPROVISED MUSIC AS SOCIALLY ENGAGED ART:

POETICS OF CARDEW AND RZEWSKI1
Abstract: In the light of the social turmoil in 1968, some composers have singled out
advocating the greater involvement of musicians, i.e. music in the social movement.
Cornelius Cardew and Frederic Rzewski, among others, believed that improvised
music provides the opportunity for creating socially engaged art. However their con-
cepts differed. While Cardew stayed with the idea of controlled improvisation, imple-
mented through the Scratch Orchestra, Rzewski demanded completely free
improvisation in his Parma Manifesto. In this paper I shall problematize the relation-
ship of poetics behind the Scratch Orchestra and the Parma Manifesto in the light of
the social situation of 1968, their crucial differences and their common idea of the
democratization of avant-garde music.
Keywords: Cornelius Cardew, Frederic Rzewski, Avant-garde, the Scratch Orchestra,
Improvised Music, the Parma Manifesto
Adorno argued that music should be a reflection of reality, i.e. its structure
had to match the character of the times in which it was created. We can say
that his attitude was the opposite of socialist realism, or revolutionary roman-
ticism as it was called by Zhdanov, which included the idea of art which with
its content has to show the utopian vision of a communist world. Adorno

1 The article was delivered at the international conference Musical Legacies of State
Socialism (24–26 September 2015, in Belgrade, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts)
with the title Improvised music as a symbiosis of avant-garde experience and socialist real-
ism in the poetics of Cardew and Rzewski.
109
called socialist realism Soviet claptrap, while those who defended this artistic
expression, like Lukach, believed that Adorno “expressed only the reality of
late capitalist societies and Western imperialism: they expressed a decadent
social order in decline”.2
Both of these views of art function as belonging to the leftist political
agenda, although they are actually completely opposite. However, apart from
these two points of view about the relationship between art and social en-
gagement, a third side may be registered. It can be found in the music of John
Cage, which often with its structure and mode of organization simulates the
potential of achieving the ideal social system. Therefore, it is a symbolic rep-
resentation of an ideally perceived social order, realized in the framework of
the microstructural organization of artwork. In this context Richard Kostel-
anetz writes the following in his essay on Cage: “What makes Cage’s art spe-
cial, and to my senses politically original, is that his radical politics were ex-
pressed in decisions not of content but of form (....) in the form of his art, in
the form of performance, it is a representation of an ideal polity”.3
He finds Cage’s libertarian anarchism in his relations with the hierarchy
in music pieces, which was never centralized, but always based on democrat-
ic principles and equality. Kostelanetz believed that this can be observed in
its egalitarian relation to instruments within the ensemble or media, which
can be seen for instance, in the work Credo in US. Also, this critic mentions
Cage’s book Notations from 1968, in which various compositions of different
authors were collected non-hierarchically in a collection without the editor’s
label. Finally, Cage’s anarchism became explicit in his later work, when he
turned to Henry Thoreau and the text on civil disobedience. The basic ideas
of this philosopher exposed in his book On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
are connected with the anarchistic ideological platform. Thoreau begins his
text with the words: “I heartily accept the motto that government is best which
governs least; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and system-
atically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe – That
government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it,
that will be the kind of government which they will have”.4
2 James Hellings, Adorno and Art, Aesthetic Theory Contra Critical Theory, Basingstoke,
Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, 31.
3 Richard Kostelanetz, The Anarchist Art of John Cage: http://sterneck.net/john-cage/
kostelanetz/index.php, accessed: 24.08.2018.

4 Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper2/tho-
reau/civil.html, accessed: 24.08.2018.
110
This very passage is cited in Cage’s essay: The Future of Music. He applies
these ideas to music, suggesting that, in the future, no more will there be the
despotic rule of the composer in the music world. On the contrary, the ac-
cent will be placed on collective musicianship as the highest form of radical
democracy. Cage concludes the text with the remark: “By creating musical
situations which are analogies to desirable social circumstances which we do
not yet have, we make music suggestive and relevant to the serious questions
which face Mankind”.5
So, unlike Adorno, whoever believed that art should provide, through its
own structures, a true picture of social reality, but also unlike socialist real-
ism, which involved the creation of art that substantially provides an ideal-
ized vision of the present, Cage actually believed in a combination of the two
– music structure should reflect an ideal social order. However, it is interest-
ing that Cage, primarily under the influence of Zen, was opposed to free im-
provisation, although it represents the realization of the mentioned analogy
between the organization of music and the desired social system. In this con-
text, Cage’s reaction when he heard that Leonard Bernstein was to present his
work Atlas Eclipticalis, among the works of Morton Feldman (…Out of “Last
Pieces”) and Earle Brown (Available Forms II), with the New York Philhar-
monic in 1964, and when the conductor announced that the orchestra would
also perform the free improvisation as a comment on their compositions was
very interesting. Referring to Bernstein, Cage begged him not to improvise
on the concert. He thought that improvisation is “free play”, and that it is not
something that he is doing in his music.6
Apart from Zen philosophy and the idea of separation from the ego, as
a precondition for the creation of pure art, Cage’s attitude is associated with
the opinion that this improvised music involves a kind of artistic struggle for
power in the collective performing of music. For Cage, improvisation, espe-
cially group improvisation, is not based on communication, but also on dom-
inance and it is, therefore, not a desirable artistic means, i.e. musical form.
However, although Cage was attached to this attitude whereby he categorical-
5 Ibid., 183.
6 Cage said that: “Improvisation is not related to what the three of us are doing in our
works. It gives free play to the exercise of taste and memory, and it is exactly this that we,
in differing ways, are not doing in our music”. Acc. to: Sabine M. Feisst, John Cage and Im-
provisation – An Unresolved Relationship, http://www.hestories.info/john-cage-and-im-
provisation--an-unresolved-relationship.html, accessed: 20.08.2018.
111
ly rejected the concept of free improvisation, it is paradoxical that he would

make the greatest impact on the development of freely improvised music in
Europe. It is not about aleatoric, but about improv collectives that appeared
in the 1960s. Three such collectives are very important: the AMM, the Musica
Elettronica Viva collective (MEV), and the Scratch Orchestra, which includ-
ed two also important composers for the development of improvised music:
Cornelius Cardew and Frederic Rzewski.
The AMM collective was founded in 1965 as an ensemble based on a
non-hierarchical form of organization and was specialized in free improvi-
sation. Each performance was a product of collective engagement, with no
scores or leader. That would change with the arrival of Cornelius Cardew in
1966, who began his performance career as a pianist and cellist, changing the
way in which the ensemble functioned. As an established avant-garde com-
poser, who entered improvised music from strict serialism, Cardew became
the leader of the ensemble, writing and dedicating his own works to it. The
first work written for this ensemble was Sextet – The Tiger’s Mind. It is a prose
composition, based on two short, symbolic and anti-narrative texts: Daypiece
and Nightpiece. Almost surrealist texts are linked to a quasi-story about the
relationship between nature and mind. Cardew differentiates six characters
whose roles, in the first phase of the artistic process, the musicians need to
take on. The characters can be divided into categories of – living: Amy, the
tiger, wood; inanimate: wind; and abstract: the circle and the mind. The sug-
gestion that it is not a pointless narrative, but the dream vision of a certain
Amy, is given by Cardew himself in the score, noting that Amy is the only
character whose role cannot be doubled, i.e. the music can be represented
only by a single performer. On the other hand, the question arises about who
dreams about whom: Amy about the tiger, or the tiger about Amy – which is
shown by the composition title. The idea of such paradoxical dramatic set-
tings can be associated with Cardew’s intense interest in Chinese philosophy,
in this case specifically for Zhuang Zhou, and his parable about a man and a
butterfly. In accordance with this philosopher’s thinking that nothing is per-
manent, and that transformation is the key for each course of life, Cardew
does not build a full work. On the contrary, his work is based on the contin-
uous process of constant changing. For the first time, the work should be car-
ried out so that each performer plays the section linked to one character – in
each subsequent interpretation the rules may change. So Cardew notes:
еach musician may select his own rolе and allocatе the othеr fivе roles without
telling the other players. Alternatively, each player may selеct his own rolе and
112
allocatе thе other five in the course of playing, as requirеd by thе performancе of
his own role. Logically, after this stage it is no longer so important for there to be
six players. When there are more than six players the characters may be dupli-
cated or multiplied as often as necessary.7
Cardew, thus, from the beginning tried to bring a certain degree of or-
ganization, or control to the improvisation. Although it is an experimental
form of music-making, the presence of the poetic text, which includes the
distribution of roles within the ensemble, already makes the real stratification
within improvisation. Cardew himself remains the author of the work, and
therefore the accent was not on the free improvisation of the ensemble, but
on monitoring the composer’s ideas, no matter how elusive they may be in
the score. Cardew leaves room for the artists’ independent decision-making
about their role and the content of the performance, but essentially, the im-
provisation in The Tiger’s Mind comes down to the interpretation, which was
not the original idea of the ensemble. Another work is symptomatic in the
context of speaking about Cardew’s relation to improvised music, and it is
Treatise. It is a graphic score, which was created in the period from 1963 to
1967, and it is the result of Cardew’s graphic design experience and interest in
the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, more specifically in his text Tracta-
tus Logico-Philosophicus. Cardew was actually trying to merge Wittgenstein’s
ideas about the world and the manner of his perception into an artistic con-
cept, which actually functions on a similar principle as in the work The Tiger’s
Mind.8
Namely, as Cardew requires that performers choose roles, i.e. to ratio-
nalize and organize the seemingly surrealistic text, breaking it down to the
facts, in Treatise it means reducing the graphical score to a set of norms and
rules of improvisation in functioning. So, relying on Wittgenstein’s ideas, he
actually wants to establish order, i.e. the world, by the strict organization of
elements that constitute the totality of facts. The performers themselves have
the freedom of determining the meaning of the graphics that, in their con-
ception, acquire the role of various parameters for determining the tempo,
7 Cornelius Cardew, Sextet – The Tiger’s Mind, (score): https://www.jstor.org/sta-

ble/951366 ?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents, accessed: 24.08.2018.
8 The first few lines of Wittgenstein’s text are the key to understanding these works: “The
world is everything that is the case. 1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
1.11 The world is determined by the facts, and by these being all the facts. 1.12 For the
totality of facts determines both what is the case, and also all that is not the case”. Ludwig
Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, London, Kegan Paul, 1922, 25.
113
rhythm, dynamics, or the melodic movement. Therefore, a certain kind of

democratic organisation of interpretation is possible, based on the indepen-
dent and group determination of the interpretation’s limits. It is not about an-
archy, or total democratic order within the music, but about a strictly regulat-
ed system based on hierarchy. The system provides the freedom of decision,
as long as everything is within the set frameworks that enable the functioning
of the entire improvisation collective. Cardew’s left-oriented ideological po-
sition can already be observed in such ideas. This position was implicit until
the composition Great Learning. In Great Learning, which is based on seven
paragraphs of Confucius’ text of the same title, the composer for the first time
explicitly addresses the issue of the organization of society, which would later
become the core of his music, influenced by socialist realism. Confucius’ text
contains such maxims, for instance:
Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being
complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts
were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated.
Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being
regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed,
the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy.9
Therefore, it is not a purely metaphysical and philosophical text, but also,
in a way, a practical text on the achievement of happiness within the com-
munity, i.e. state. In the score of Cardew’s work, the author quite strictly or-
ganizes the parameters, leaving space for a specific kind of controlled impro-
visation, which is in a symbolic sense connected with the textual template.
The basis of this work, divided into seven parts related to seven paragraphs
of Confucius’ text, in musical terms, is based on the idea of the common mu-
sic-making through the interactive performers’ response. An example of this
is the seventh part written for the choir, which is based on the principle that
each performer has to choose the starting pitch, managing his own melody
line in accordance with the tones sung by his colleagues.
Each chorus member chooses his or her own note (silently) for the first line (“IF”
eight times). All enter together on the leader’s signal. For each subsequent line
choose a note that you can hear being sung by a colleague. It may be necessary to
move to within earshot of certain notes. The note, once chosen, must be carefully
retained. Time may be taken over the choice. If there is no note, or only the note
9 Confucius, The Great Learning, http://classics.mit.edu/Confucius/learning.html, ac-

cessed: 24.08.2018.
114
you have just been singing, or only a note or notes that you are unable to sing,
choose your note for the next line freely. Do not sing the same note on two con-
secutive lines.10
So, as in the two previous works, Cardew builds the composition by of-
fering its draft organization and functioning, leaving limited freedom to the
performers themselves. The aim is to achieve an order based on the principles
of mutual cooperation and rules of conduct.
The Great Learning was the first work dedicated to the newly found-
ed ensemble, the Scratch Orchestra. It is an ensemble which was created in
1968–69, with the initial role of performing the Great Learning. However, the
ensemble expanded rapidly to include new members, many of whom were
amateurs. The Scratch Orchestra quickly became very socially engaged, find-
ing itself in the position of the political left. This composition was based on
the ideas of subversion of the existing bourgeois, capitalist system, which ac-
tually was in accordance with the time of its occurrence, when the Left in
Europe became stronger. His subversiveness was reflected:
in the organization, which was destroying the hierarchy, encouraging artistic
activities of all those who were interested, even if they were self-taught artists;
in the manner of concert realization aimed at attracting a wider audience, not
just a narrow circle of fans, which was characteristic of the avant-garde;
in the social engagement of the orchestra, including performances on the oc-
casion of various social events, including those concerning the protection of
the environment, and political events, including the Chicago 8 Protest con-
cert held in support of eight arrested leaders of the anti-war protests in 1968
and the Nuclear Disarmament Rally.
Cardew formulated the functioning system of the orchestra in the Draft
Constitution in 1969 when the orchestra became a more strictly organized
structure with clear objectives and methods of social action. As in Cardew’s
compositions, this draft also emphasises the democratic organization of the
collective.11
10 Cornelius Cardew, The Great Learning, (score), https://www.newmusicnewcollege.

org/PDFs/Cardew_score.pdf, accessed: 24.08.2018.
11 In the Draft Constitution of Scratch Orchestra, Cardew noted: “The Scratch Orchestra
intends to function in the public sphere, and this function will be expressed in the form
of – for lack of a better word – concerts. In rotation (starting with the youngest), each
member will have the option of designing a concert. If the option is taken up, all details
115
Cardew also emphasises that every member of the collective must have
his own “notebook or (scratchbook) in which he notates a number of accom-
paniments, performable continuously for indefinite periods”.12 Also those
notebooks should contain sketches of individual scientific, artistic research
projects.13
In their spare time, each member had to be engaged in making their
own musical instrument, and another curiosity was the fact that members
had to make proposals for the formulation of the program of popular classi-
cal music, which would also have been performed at concerts. Known works
of classicism and romanticism, however, would not be rehearsed, but played
as they were remembered, with the possibility of additional improvisation
and deconstruction of musical material. By means of this unusual provision,
Cardew clearly wanted to bring a special kind of revolutionary energy to the
ensemble that would, by this act, actually directly exercise the subversion of
the great bourgeois musical tradition.14
of that concert are in the hands of that person or his delegates; if the option is waived the
details of the concert will be determined by random methods, or by voting (a vote deter-
mines which of these two)”. Cornelius Cardew, “A Scratch Orchestra: Draft Constitution”,
The Musical Times, Vol. 110, No. 1516 (June, 1969), 617.
12 Ibid., 617.
13 Cardew emphasised: “Research should be through direct experience rather than ac-
ademic: neglect no channels. The aim is: by direct contact, imagination, identification
and study to get as close as possible to the object of your research. Avoid the mechanical
accumulation of data; be constantly awake to the possibility of inventing new research
techniques. The record in the Scratchbook should be a record of your activity rather than
an accumulation of data. That means: the results of your research are in you, not in the
book”. Ibid., 619.
14 Rod Eley, the leader of the Communist Party of Ireland, in his study The History of
Scratch Orchestra, interpreted Cardew’s draft constitution as follows:

“The Draft Constitution was the last word in liberalism. ’Anything goes’ was the policy
and any discussion of the merits of a proposal was outlawed. However, this had a ben-
eficial aspect, for the Constitution stressed the importance of actually organising activ-
ities. This was a break with sterile and detached preoccupations, with ’criticism’, which
paralyse and degenerate most bourgeois art movements. In this atmosphere a kind of
collective confidence grew out of the common activity of work together. Instead of one
or two individuals doing everything, new and younger people were encouraged to put
their ideas into practice, and this released a lot of initiative. By encouraging the active
participation of everyone, individualism was opposed and this created fertile conditions
for the introduction of the new ideas of Marxism-Leninism. The respect for real work,
116
It is evident that the Scratch Orchestra was the start of Cardew’s intensive
study of Marxism, which would, combined with the previously mentioned
interest in Chinese philosophy, influence the composers turning to Maoism
in the early seventies, as well as to socialist realism.
If we go back to the initial thesis in which we discussed the idea of mani-
festing political views through the organization of musical structure, one can
draw a parallel between Cardew’s ways of organizing forms and Maoism. This
can be seen in the fact that the organisation of all works, including the or-
ganization of the Scratch Orchestra, was based on an order that implied a
vision of centralized democracy. This is precisely the kind of system which
Mao himself advocated. He was for “democratic centralism” thinking that it
was the way to avoid concepts of organisation that were not good for the dis-
cipline of people – mainly “ultra-democracy” and the laissez-faire system.15
Although they were associates, Frederik Rzewski, unlike Cardew, in the
sixties, before he began writing politically inspired music, promoted the prin-
ciple of completely free improvisation. The MEV collective, founded in 1966,
to which Rzewski belonged, was established as an ensemble whose work was
based on spontaneity, which is reflected in every aspect of his work: rehears-
als, performances and the organization of improvisation. Unlike Cardew,
actual leadership and for putting ideas into practice made many members receptive to
the Marxist-Leninist principle of integrating theory with practice in order to change so-
ciety, and working as a collective”. Cornelius Cardew, Stockhausen Serves Imperialism,
UBU Classics, 2004, 19.
15 In the study The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War, Mao Tse-
tung wrote: “In the present great struggle, the Chinese Communist Party demands that
all its leading bodies and all its members and cadres should give the fullest expression to
their initiative, which alone can ensure victory. This initiative must be demonstrated con-
cretely in the ability of the leading bodies, the cadres and the Party rank and file to work
creatively, in their readiness to assume responsibility, in the exuberant vigour they show
in their work, in their courage and ability to raise questions, voice opinions and criticize
defects, and in the comradely supervision that is maintained over the leading bodies and
the leading cadres. Otherwise, ’initiative’ will be an empty thing... education in democra-
cy must be carried on within the Party so that members can understand the meaning of
democratic life, the meaning of the relationship between democracy and centralism, and
the way in which democratic centralism should be put into practice. Only in this way can
we really extend democracy within the Party and at the same time avoid ultra-democra-
cy and the laissez-faire which destroys discipline”. Mao Tse-tung, The Role of the Chinese
Communist Party in the National War, 1938, https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/
mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_10.htm#p9, accessed: 24.08.2018.
117
Rzewski was more sympathetic to anarchist ideas, although they were close
friends. Rzewski was actually closer to the whole hippie movement, collabo-
rating on joint events with collectives such as the Living Theatre. Like them,
who described their events as Beautiful Non-Violent Anarchist Revolution,
Rzewski also strived to create music events which would be based on abso-
lute democracy. Emphasis was on the interaction among the members, as
well as the ensemble and the audience, where all the possible ways of play-
ing the instruments were available, as well as interventions by the listeners.
The aim was to create an egalitarian social system, even during the concert,
which would serve as a model to larger, more revolutionary system changes.
As pointed out by Rzewski:
The MEV wishes to explore a possibility for music, which Western music has
denied Itself for so long, of a new oral tradition, based on the self determination
of free individuals within a freely constituted collective. The work is a search for
the conditions which must be created ’if human beings are ever to reach the stage
of singing peace on sight, without rehearsal’.16
The MEV argued for a deconstruction of the existing relationships with-
in classical music which was the counterpart of the social order dominated by
hierarchy. Thus, they wanted to abolish the differences between the compos-
er, the performer and listener. The idea was that anyone could assume any of
the aforementioned roles, so certain artistic ideals could jointly be realized.
The artistic ideal was really the social ideal. Rzewski thought that the key idea
behind the MEV was that it had to “liberate the audience”.17
Rzewski summed up all these requirements in the so-called Parma Man-
ifesto, published in 1968, initiated by the obstruction of the city authorities
who did not allow the MEV collective and the Living Theatre’s event to take
place in Parma. This manifesto was aimed at pointing out the problems of the
capitalist system and the state, which was unable to respond with its repres-
sive apparatus and its economy to the needs of individuals. Through anti-war
16 In that sense, Rzewski wrote: “In 1968, after having liberated the performance, the
MEV set out to liberate the audience. If the composer had become one with the listener,
the player had to become one with the listener (…) Music is a creative process in which
we can all share, and the closer we can come to each other in this process, abandoning es-
oteric categories and professional elitism, the closer we can all come to the ancient ideal
of music as universal language”. Frederic Rzewski, “Musica Elettronica Viva”, The Drama
Review: TDR, 14/1, 1968, 93.
17 Ibid., 94.
118
and humanistic rhetoric, Rzewski called for the creation of alternative spac-
es for social functioning, which would be created through dialogue and in
which the artist could make a significant contribution. Artists had to create a
new form of multidirectional communication, providing freedom of thought
and action for all participants. The art form that would make this possible
had to be freed from the burden of the past.18 Finally, Rzewski add that: “Im-
provisation is the art of creating out of nothing: a lost art form. It is necessary
to rediscover this form and re-invent its rules, now. It is necessary to embark
upon a disciplined search for a new harmony. Harmony is a process in which
the speaker and listener agree to communicate”.19
Speaking of this manifesto in his later text, Rzewski clarified its position,
concluding that improvisation was an experimental form of social practice
that heralded a future utopian society based on the complete realization of
anarchy, i.e. a society without money, government or a repressive state appa-
ratus.
The seventies brought the alienation of Rzewski and Cardew from the
idea of engaged music which generates subversiveness by its very structure,
and adherence to the view that the content is more important than the musi-
cal form. Both were distanced from their own positions from the sixties. Rze-
wski still performs with MEV collective, which renounced former political
pretensions, but believes that the problem of MEV ensemble was that it was
in the sixties too influenced by the hippie movement and the artistic trend.
In the seventies, Cardew not only distanced himself from his own early
opus, but also from the former music models, writing texts: John Cage: Ghost
or Monster? or Stockhausen Serves Imperialism. He condemned his attach-
ment to Confucius, whom he accused of being the defender of a decadent and
dying system.20 In accordance with the communist attitude of self-criticism,
Cardew condemned his bourgeois manners, reflected in his participation in
the creation of improvising collectives. The first opportunity for such sharp
self-criticism presented itself to him at a symposium in Rome in 1972, which
18 Rzewski held the opinion that “[d]ecisions of this art must be born from marrying
the moment, the creative moment in which the organism approaches reality so imme-
diately that it is blessed with the perception of the highest possible future, which is its
natural course toward joy. Such an art form must be improvised, free to move in the pres-
ent without burdening itself with the dead weight of the past”. Frederic Rzewski, Parma
Manifesto, http://giorgiomagnanensi.com/parma-manifesto/, accessed: 23.08.2018.
19 Ibid.
20 See: Cornelius Cardew, Stockhausen Serves Imperialism, op. cit., 93–105.
119
was dedicated to the problems of modern musical notation. Instead of talking

about innovations he introduced into his composition Treatise with respect
to graphic notation, Cardew talked about his fall into the avant-garde trap
creating avant-garde music that is part of imperialist culture. In that sense,
talking about Stockhausen’s piece Refrain, Cardew was under the impression
that avant-garde music was
a part of the cultural superstructure of the largest scale system of human oppres-
sion and exploitation the world has ever known: imperialism. The way to attack-
ing the heart of that system is through attacking the manifestations of that system,
not only the emanations from the American war machine in Vietnam, not only
the emanations from Stockhausen’s mind, but also the infestations of this system
in our own minds, as deep-rooted wrong ideas. And we must attack them not
only at the superficial level, as physical cruelty or artistic nonsense or muddled
thinking, but also at the fundamental level for what they are: manifestations of
imperialism.21
Works cited
Cardew, Cornelius: Sextet – The Tiger’s Mind (score), taken from:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/951366?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents, accessed:
24.08.2018.
Cardew, Cornelius: The Great Learning (score),
https://www.newmusicnewcollege.org/PDFs/Cardew_score.pdf, accessed: 24.08.2018.
Cardew, Cornelius: “A Scratch Orchestra: Draft Constitution”, The Musical Times, Vol.
110, No 1516 (Jun, 1969), 617–619.
Cardew, Cornelius: Stockhausen Serves Imperialism, UBU Classics, 2004.
Confucius: The Great Learning, http://classics.mit.edu/Confucius/learning.html, ac-
cessed: 24.08.2018.
Feisst, Sabine: M, John Cage and Improvisation – An Unresolved Relationship: http://www.
hestories.info/john-cage-and-improvisation--an-unresolved-relationship.html,
accessed: 20.08.2018.
Hellings, James: Adorno and Art, Aesthetic Theory Contra Critical Theory, Basingstoke,
Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Kostelanetz, Richard: The Anarchist Art of John Cage: http://sterneck.net/john-cage/kos-
telanetz/index.php, accessed: 24.08.2018.
Rzewski, Frederic: “Musica Elettronica Viva”, The Drama Review: TDR, 14/1, 1968, 92–
97.
Rzewski, Frederic: Parma Manifesto, http://giorgiomagnanensi.com/parma-manifesto/,
accessed: 23.08.2018.
21 Ibid., 47.
120
Thoreau, Henry David: Civil Disobedience: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper2/thoreau/

civil.html, accessed: 24.08.2018.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, London, Kegan Paul, 1922.
The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War, 1938,
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/
mswv2_10.htm#p9, accessed: 24.08.2018.
Summary
In the light of the social turmoil in 1968, some composers have singled out advocating
the greater involvement of musicians, i.e. music in the social movement. Cornelius
Cardew and Frederic Rzewski, among others, believed that improvised music provides
the opportunity for creating socially engaged art. However their concepts differed.
While Cardew stayed with the idea of controlled improvisation, implemented through
the Scratch Orchestra, Rzewski demanded completely free improvisation in his Parma
Manifesto. In this paper I shall problematize the relationship of poetics behind the
Scratch Orchestra and the Parma Manifesto in the light of the social situation of 1968,
their crucial differences and their common idea of the democratization of avant-garde
music. The Parma Manifesto, written in 1968, proclaimed the creation of socially en-
gaged music based on improvisation – a form that contains the possibility for commu-
nication between the subjects: between the members of the ensemble, or between the
musicians and the audience. This type of communication through improvisation is not
supposed to be governed by any type of restraining laws or guidelines. In this context
Rzewski states that: decisions (of improvisation) cannot be governed by structures and
formulas retained from past moments of inspiration, which it is content to re-arrange
and re-interpret. He thinks that improvisation is a form of art that can free the individ-
ual of artistic, and thus, social pressure, equating all participants in this act. On the
other hand, Cornelius Cardew held that improvisation offers the possibility of creating
a non- hierarchical collective, which, however, must contain some minimum form of
self-management. In this sense, we can say that the two composers were on opposite
sides of the issue of the relationship between freedom and control, offering different
concepts of improvised music. However, their goals, inspired by the Left political
agenda, were actually the same.
121
122
NEW WORKS

UDC: 785.11:789.9
78.071.1 Огњановић И.
Ana Gnjatović*1
University of Priština
Faculty of Arts, Kosovska Mitrovica
THE HOUSE THAT IS HERE BUT IS NOT THAT:

ОN THE LONESOME SKYSCRAPER BY IVANA OGNJANOVIĆ
Abstract: This paper interprets the piece Lonesome Skyscraper for orchestra and elec-
tronics (2012) by Ivana Ognjanović, relying on the theoretical essay about the compo-
sition given by the author herself. Inspired by the fate of the tallest residential building
in Pécs, which was evacuated because of a construction error and left abandoned and
isolated for almost 30 years, I. Ognjanović creates an organic sound unity by connect-
ing various ambient (field recordings) and concrete sounds in the electronic part with
responses coming from the orchestral part. Using the time stretching technique, sus-
pending the melodic component, and avoiding the formal and motivic development,
the author builds her own version of the skyscraper, an acoustic space through which
the memory of the sonic environment is howling.
Keywords: Ivana Ognjanović, Lonesome Skyscraper, sonic environment, acoustic
space, time stretching, electroacoustic music, orchestra music
*1 Author contact information: [email protected]
123
Composition Lonesome Skyscraper for symphony orchestra and electronics

was written in 2012, and was first performed in Belgrade in February, 2019 by
the Symphonic Orchestra of Radio Television Serbia as a part of the concert
series “Premieres”. The Italian conductor Jacopo Sipari di Pescasseroli (1985)
conducted the Symphonic Orchestra, while the composer herself played the
electronic part.
As the author said about this piece, “It was inspired by the unusual fate of
an unoccupied skyscraper that is located in Pecs, in Hungary”.1 The high-rise
of Pécs (Pécsi Magasház),2 25 storeys high, was built during the 1970s. This
megalomanic modernist concrete structure had more than 800 residents. Af-
ter several years, the first signs were noticed of critical damage to the inner
structure of the building. Eventually, it was concluded that the building was
unsafe for habitation and in 1989, the building was definitively evacuated.
Subsequently, for almost three decades, all the plans for repairs, repurposing
and demolition turned out to be too expensive or unfeasible. The unstable
structure stood for all that time like an empty shell, an oversized playground
for the wind and pigeons.
In 2010, as a member of the electronic music ensemble EBE (European
Bridges Ensemble, a multimedia ensemble specialising in composition and
performance via the Internet), Ivana Ognjanović visited the town of Pécs, the
European Capital of Culture at the time. It was then that she started working
on the piece and making field recordings which she later used in the compo-
sition Lonesome Skyscraper.
The authenticity of the recordings was, however, not in the author’s focus.
This time I recorded everything I thought might help me depict this unusual
building, by combining edited sounds into a logical musical sequence, with an
awareness of what could be done with the sounds later in the mix. […] Sounds
were recorded on the ground floor of the skyscraper, in front of it, and in quite
different spaces as well. Once recorded, I later cut the sounds, shortened them,
neutralising the noise wherever it was possible…3
1 Quotes are taken form the author’s autopoetical/analytical text about the piece: Ivana
Ognjanović, Lonesome Skyscraper za simfonijski orkestar i elektroniku – prevod elektronsk-
og zvuka u akustični [Lonesome Skyscraper for symphony orchestra and electronics – trans-
lation of electronic sound into acoustic], manuscript, Belgrade, October 2012.
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-rise_of_Pécs
3 I. Ognjanović, op. cit., 3.
124
Ognjanović
Gnjatović, A.: The House that is Here but is not That: Оn the Lonesome Skyscraper...
Often, besides being a necessary procedure dictated by the aesthetic

and technical requirements of the process of creating the electronic part, the
neutralisation of background noise can, in this case, also be understood as
a metaphorical act. The removal of what fills the building in the moment of
recording (such as the wind whistling through the concrete skeleton) while
adding elements that bring it closer to what it no longer is (preverbal human
voices, traces of incomprehensible conversations, the echoes of sounds from
everyday life and things people use), is one of the methods by which the com-
poser builds an interspace which is at the same time elegiac and unsettling
– between what it once was and what it is now. Her musical imagination lives
neither in that lively environment before the first cracks, nor in the senseless-
ness of a building-monument. It is concentrated on a sad structure that one
defines by what (or who) is missing, on the awareness that it is abandoned,
unnaturally emptied, lonely.
The first sound information we get from the score is a record of space.
There is a description of the sound in the electronic part: ambient noise (sem-
pre). This humming was created by stretching the sound materials of a re-
corded conversation that was conducted in the ground floor of the skyscrap-
er. Although drastically stretched in time, in its structure one can occasion-
ally recognise the slow melody of speech, the contours of original sonority.
Time stretching allows the listener to hear the inner quality of sound, by
augmenting its gestures and stripping bare its spectrum. Elongated duration
allows the sound of a somewhat recognisable source to reverberate within
the listener’s memory, leaving enough time for distant memories and more
remote associations to surface. On the other hand, the material stretched be-
yond the level of intelligibility effectively becomes the background ambience
in relation to which we hear other sounds.
The process of stretching audio samples was done in Paul’s Extreme
Stretch software, which allows soft transitions between sections and a grainy
quality of sound, similar to the one obtained in granular synthesis. “I could
say it gives the impression of crystal dust scattered so slowly all over a space
that it seems frozen in time. This sort of musical material was the starting
point for a new understanding and the development of ideas in the evolving
music flow of this piece”. 4
The ambient noise of the electronics is joined by the string instruments,
building the continuous musical lines, “playing mostly semibreves, changing
4 Ibid., 4.
125
only the spacing and sometimes the playing technique (sul tasto, sul ponticel-
lo, tremolo…)”. By extending the electronic noise in this way, the sound of the
string corpus builds soft, slowly overlapping walls of the imaginary skyscrap-
er. The building blocks for this layer come diretly from the author’s earlier or-
chestral work The Last Ball of Margarita Nikolayevna: “[I] took a one- minute
long sample from the last section [...] – the moment of the harmonic resolv-
ing of the chord, I extended the sample by seven times, using the stretching
method, and obtained the music layer I needed”.5
Like looking carefully through a microscope lense, slowing down brings
the inner timbral characteristics of the sound to the surface. The simple,
transparent vertical, mostly made of minor chords and empty intervals of
perfects fourth and perfects fifth, is present throughout the composition. The
wealth of harmony is created by combining the impressive soundworld of
noises and many different upper harmonics that arise as a consequence of the
colour changes i.e. playing techniques.
The music unfolds through several textural layers that may be reduced to
the ambient noise of the electronics, accompanied/complemented/imitated
by the long held chords in the string instrumental parts and the occasional,
various concrete sounds in the electronic part, again accompanied/comple-
mented/imitated in the pointillistically treated wind instruments and percus-
sion. Thus, periodically emulating the sound of the first electronic layer in the
orchestra sound that was subsequently composed she combines two different
sources into an organic unity. In similar ways, very subtle counterpoints be-
tween concrete electronic noises (shattering glass, the voices of children, a
creaking door) and motives in the percussion part, or echoes of higher upper
harmonics in the strings, musically and imaginatively create rich sounds of
objects and echoes.
The short motif with held tones in the woodwind section that is repeated
and varied at the ends of phrases throughout the piece (firstly in bars 23–26),
then the simple, occasional use of the hi-hat, tympanon, bass drum, and the
repetition of isolated concrete sounds in the electronic part, all enhance “the
feeling of being frozen in the past”. The unchangeable slow tempo and grainy
noisy vertical that moves almost unnoticeably, build an object-like form6 that
5 Ibid., 6.
6 According to Ligeti, unlike the standard process forms there are object-like forms,
closed in a present moment. “Music as ’frozen’ time, as an object in imaginary space
evoked by music in our imagination, as a creation which really develops in time, but in
126
changes very gradually from one standing position and then going back, thus
gently swaying, just like the Pécs skyscraper. “They insist on empty sounding,
they give the impression of music standing still in time and in space; and we
become aware of the changes that are happening, but not of movement, not of
the exact moment when they happen”. 7
Slowing down a phonographic recording of any acoustic performance
of a musical composition brings about a change in the function of various
musical parametars of the sample. The simultaneity, or the synchronicity of
the vertical moments is lost – all the tiny, in real time completely uunnotica-
ble mismatches are amplified many times over. This way the agogical imper-
fections become the rhythm, completely unpredictable and unrecognisable;
what was once irrational is now structural. On the other hand, the rhythm is
dissolved and decomposed until its original function is lost in its entirety. The
harmonic content translates into melodic content, while the melodies in their
endless gradualism become the space. Going behind things does not mean
asking questions that are important for the essence of the course as it is, but
those questions that have the capacity of changing the perception of what the
essence of the course is.8 This is one of the effects of the use of the extreme
deceleration of recordings as the primary technical and poetic process in a
composition.
Just as a lonesome skyscraper, the space of the composition is not hu-
manised, it is not inhabited by subjects. It is inhabited by the sounds of “a
child’s voice and a woman’s laughter, allusions to the non-existant echo of
human presence in a once inhabited skyscraper”. “The woodwinds are treat-
ed pointillistically but with minimal movement, avoiding melodic lines and
rhythmical structures. Some latent melodic lines certainly exist, but they are
stretched in time”.9 The sound objects in the electronic part are not the bear-
ers of the content. Passive, like stage props, they are placed, spun and varied
through the empty, elegiac, noisy space, and then they vanish, leaving noth-
imagination it exists simultaneously in all its moments. According to: Gyoergy Ligeti,
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Schott Music, text available at: https://en.schott-music.
com/shop/konzert-no153614.html, last accessed on 11.09.2019.
7 I. Ognjanović, op. cit., 7
8 According to Ана Гњатовић, Phonation, за глас и електронику: теоријска студија
[Ana Gnjatović, Phonation, for voice and electronics: theoretical study], manuscript, Bel-
grade, 2016.
9 I. Ognjanović, op. cit.
127
ing behind. They do not affect the environment in which they exist, they do
not change it. The motifs in the orchestra are not embryos, they do not devel-
op into themes, and have no mobilising energy. Depersonalised, they are not
singable, or memorable. Different recordings of human voices move through
the preverbal, through the inarticulate, through breath or laughter. A quick
whisper, quite incomprehensible, is not speach, it does not carry meaning.
Even when human breath is the dominant sound in music, the ever more
quickened breathing with which the author builds the dramaturgical growth
of the first part of the compostion (from bar 73), is understood as a common
(musical) sign, rather than as an individual motif.10 Breathing is a very inti-
mate category, and amplified breath is always an effective dramaturgical ele-
ment. Yet, breathing is also the best known sonic manifestation of the human
body, close to everyone, universal, non-individualistic. Also, when recorded
from a single position, as in this case, it suggests the stillness of the source i.e.
of whoever is breathing. The gradually increasing rate of breathing addition-
ally draws attention to the immobility of the music that becomes the space
for internalising what is happening, for the experience rather than the event.
One can conclude that the author (circumstantially, also the listener)
builds the closest emotional relationship with the traces of speech in the sur-
roundings, according to the slow, all-pervasive voice of the space. Therefore,
Ivana Ognjanović is not intrigued by the lives inside the building, but by the
life of the building – by the sad destiny of a place for living in, which is here
but is not that. It is a space, standing idly for years without fulfilling its pur-
pose as a victim of “human stupidity and ignorance”. When writing about the
ending of the composition, full of sympathy, she distinctly sees the building
as a person: the string instruments in pianissimo fade upwards in a soft glis-
sando, while echoes of single wind instruments follow them like shadows –
“the tiny, uncontrolled tremors of a creature already dead”.11
This way, throughout the composition the author turns music time into
space, and the space of a former building into a memory of its unfulfilled role,
i.e. – into time. The creaking doors, window panes vibrating and shattering,
the elevator moving, even birds flapping their wings, various concrete sounds
in the electronic part are all sound sensations that carry the metaphore of
10 Sound example – bars 73–98, the sound of the human breath building the inner ten-
sion at the beginning of the second part – are available online at the official New Sound
YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/RT1Mr2Buk9Q
11 I. Ognjanović, op. cit., 10.
128
transiting from one place to another. “Only the sound of a radio set remains,
its dial once left at a station long gone”. 12 Even when she describes the crack-
ling of a radio, Ivana Ognjanović speaks of the resonance of two places that
no longer exist.
The Lonesome Skyscraper in Pecs was finally torn down and removed in
2016.
Works cited
Гњатовић, Ана: Phonation, за глас и електронику: теоријска студија [Ana Gnjatović,
Phonation, for voice and electronics: theoretical study], manuscript, Belgrade, 2016.
Ligeti, Gyoergy: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, (description), Schott Music Online,
https://en.schott-music.com/shop/konzert-no153614.html
Ognjanović, Ivana: Lonesome Skyscraper za simfonijski orkestar i elektroniku – prevod
elektronskog zvuka u akustični [Lonesome Skyscraper for symphony orchestra and
electronics – translation of electronic sound into acoustic], manuscript, Belgrade,
October 2012.
Internet sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-rise_of_Pécs
https://en.schott-music.com/shop/konzert-no153614.html
12 Ibid.
129
130
ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVES

UDC: 785.11:789.9
78.071.1 Михајловић М.
Miloš Zatkalik*1
University of Arts
Faculty of Music
Department of Composition
C, F-SHARP AND E-FLAT: THE TRAGIC, THE SUBLIME AND

THE OPPRESSED (WITH C-SHARP AS NEMESIS):
REFLECTIONS ON EINE KLEINE TRAUERMUSIK
BY MILAN MIHAJLOVIĆ
Abstract: In the present paper, I will discuss tonal centers and referential sonorities in
the composition Eine kleine Trauermusik (1992) by one of the leading Serbian com-
posers Milan Mihajlović. Even though its pitch structure may appear rather straight-
forward with its octatonic scale and the primary tonal center in C, and with referential
(quasi-tonic) chords derived from the harmonic series, I intend to highlight intricate
narrative trajectories and dramatic conflicts between various tonal centers (treated as
actors/characters). These narratives can be related to certain archetypal plots, with the
*1 Author contact information: [email protected]
131
conclusion that there exists ambiguity between the tragic and the ironic archetype. On
a higher plane, similar conflict/interplay/ambiguity exists between different principles
of pitch organization, i.e. the octatonic and functionally tonal. The unresolved ambi-
guities and simultaneity of conflicting interpretations are examined from the psycho-
analytic perspective, which postulates isomorphism between musical structures and
processes and the processes unfolding in the unconscious mind. Finally, the effect of
these narratives, especially the overwhelming impact induced by the excerpt from
Mozart’s piano concerto is linked with the idea of sublime as conceived by Kant, but
also including other approaches (Burke, Lyotard etc.).
Keywords: Milan Mihajlović, harmonic series, narrativity, psychoanalysis, sublime
1. A Plethora of Perspectives
There is something peculiar about my involvement with Eine Kleine Trauer-
musik by Milan Mihajlović (born 1945).1 I was deeply impressed when back in
1992 I heard its premiere. Ever since, I have used it as classroom material, and
made it the subject of several conference presentations and two more exten-
sive texts. The thread running through most of these papers is post-tonal te-
leology: the ways in which music written outside functional tonality projects
goals of musical motion, and steers the course of music toward these goals. In
my 2015 article I discussed Trauermusik in the context of broader post-tonal
teleological issues, and particularly my “completion model.”2 The second one
was part of the 2016 book on post-tonal prolongation that I co-authored with
Verica Mihajlović.3 Since prolongation is very much concerned with continu-
ity, direction, connections over longer spans and large-scale goals, prolonga-
tional analysis is a useful tool in teleological investigations. Teleology is still a
concern in this article, but in a specific sense of “rescuing meaning from tem-
1 The sound example is available online at the official New Sound YouTube channel.
Please find the playlist here: https://youtu.be/q4HlptNHYpo
2 Miloš Zatkalik, “Teleological Strategies of Non-tonal Music: The Case of Milan Miha-
jlović”, New Sound 45, I/2015, 119–137. The completion model itself was first put forward
in Miloš Zatkalik, “Reconsidering Teleological Aspects of Non-tonal Music”, in: Denis
Collins (ed.), Music Theory and its Methods: Structures, Challenges, Directions, Frankfurt
am Main, Peter Lang Publishers, 2013, 265–300.
3 Miloš Zatkalik and Verica Mihajlović, Prolongacija i strukturni nivoi u posttonalnoj
muzici, Banja Luka: Akademija umjetnosti Univerziteta u Banjoj Luci, 2016, 220–246.
132
Zatkalik, M.: C, F-Sharp and E-Flat: The Tragic, the Sublime and the Oppressed...
poral flux”.4 Indeed, the quest for meaning is a teleological process although
it will lead us beyond, into domains in which the logical ordering of events
ceases to exist, the unfolding of a process can lead into any direction, and
means are indistinguishable from the ends.
It is inevitable that I will help myself – very generously – to my previous
work. Embarking on this article, I was convinced I could still offer some nov-
el insights, and while writing it, I realized I could not make myself intelligi-
ble without copious self-quotations. For their part, these novel insights will
embrace various perspectives. They will largely incline towards a narrative
approach. Narrativity in music is, of course, a contentious issue. I will skirt
the core theoretical questions of musical narratology; I will spare little time
providing a methodological framework, and I do not intend to consistently
exploit any specific narrative theory. It will suffice that in this composition
we can easily identify certain musical events sequentially arranged according
to a logic, arousing expectations, producing emotional impact, and therefore
suitable for discussing in terms of plot, or rather several parallel or interwo-
ven plots. Certain elements are comparable to actors/characters who act or
undergo action, or perform certain functions within the plot. We can think of
narrative as, for instance, “the transvaluation of culturally meaningful differ-
ences through a sequence of actions”,5 or “a representation of temporal devel-
opment”.6 As long as we can define it in such broad terms, as long as we agree
that narrative is not so much something that exists in music as a mode of
listening and comprehending, and as long as we see it not in terms of binary
oppositions (narrative/non-narrative), but as a question of degree,7 I do not
find any further justification necessary.
Linearity and forward motion is integral to the concept of narrative.
Narrative is always experienced as being goal-oriented, as unfolding toward
a certain denouement,8 striving, in Tzvetan Todorov’s terms, toward a rees-
4 Peter Brooks, Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative, Oxford, Claren-
don Press, 1984, 90.
5 Byron Almén, A Theory of Musical Narrative, Bloomington and Indianapolis, Univer-
sity of Indiana Press, 2009, 230.

6 Vincent Meelberg, New Sounds, New Stories: Narrativity in Contemporary Music,
Leiden University Press, 2006, 39.

7 Vera Micznik, “Music and Narrative Revisited: Degrees of Narrativity in Beethoven
and Mahler”, Journal of the Royal Musical Association 126.2, 2001, 193–249.
8 Cf. “we are able to read present moments (…) as endowed with narrative meaning
only because we read them in anticipation of the structuring power of those endings that
will retrospectively give them the order and significance of plot”. Brook, op. cit., 94.
133
tablishing of equilibrium (different from the initial one). As such, it is very

appropriate for the aforestated teleological interests.
As can already be surmised from the title of this article, I have ascribed
something like character traits to certain elements of this composition. This
may seem like carrying anthropomorphism too far, and I will return to that
question later. For the time being, I will indicate that once assumed, such an
approach warrants inclusion of psychology, in the present case precisely psy-
choanalysis. This does not mean, of course, that I treat events in this compo-
sition exactly as if they were characters in a novel, nor do I make any attempt
to link this composition with the psychology of the individual who created
it. The psychology of the unconscious enters into the picture in the follow-
ing manner: there exists – as repeatedly argued in literature – isomorphism
between musical structures and processes, and the functioning of the uncon-
scious mind.9 Virtually any aspect of music – thematic process, modulation,
form – can be linked to the unconscious, primary-process mechanisms.
The title of the article refers to tragedy, and given the title of its object of
enquiry, this should be no surprise. Yet, between the Aristotelian tragedy, the
tragic topos and the narrative archetype of tragedy, this aspect offers sufficient
food for discussion. Alternatives to tragedy must also be taken into account
(irony, trauma…).
Finally, the sublime featuring in the title inevitably invokes Immanu-
el Kant, although other concepts of the sublime may prove to be even more
fruitful. Thus, in the last section of this article, we will include the notions of
“alternative sublime”, which derives its essential ideas from a number of other
sources: British eighteen-century authors such as Edmund Burke, the “post-
modern sublime” originating with Jean-François Lyotard, and more.
2. Actors and Characters

The fundamental purpose of the cyclical form, says Heinrich Schenker, is to
represent the personal fate of a motif, or several motifs simultaneously. Mo-
9 Just a few examples: Stuart Feder, “‘Promissory Notes’: Method in Music and Applied
Psychoanalysis”, in: Stuart Feder, Richard L. Karmel and George Pollock (eds.), Psycho-
analytic Explorations in Music, second series, Madison, International University Press,
1993, 3–19; Miloš Zatkalik and Aleksandar Kontić, “Is There a Wolf Lurking behind
These Notes: The Unconscious Code of Music”, in: Miloš Zatkalik, Denis Collins and
Milena Medić (eds.), Histories and Narratives of Music Analysis, Newcastle, Cambridge
Scholars Publishing, 2013, 628–644; Miloš Zatkalik and Aleksandar Kontić, “Psychoanal-
ysis and Music: Discourse about the Ineffable”, Muzikologija, 19, 2015, 127–146.
134
tifs are represented in ever changing situations in which their characters are
revealed:
Just as in a drama, where human beings are led through situations in which their
characters are tested in all their shades and grades… the life of a motif is repre-
sented in an analogous way. The motif is led through various situations. At one
time, its melodic character is tested; at another time, a harmonic peculiarity must
prove its valor in unaccustomed surroundings; a third time, again, the motif is
subjected to some rhythmic change: in other words, the motif lives through its
fate, like a personage in a drama.10
This is a typically organicist view and Schenker did carry it really far with
his Tonwille and similar concepts. While it seems to properly belong to the
nineteenth century, it is true that similar views have never completely faded
away, and with the proliferation of musical narratologies over the past few
decades, they gained considerable traction.
Another point from the above quotation that may puzzle an attentive
reader is the fact that I am talking about narrative, whereas Schenker men-
tions drama. However, the distinction between mimesis and diegesis is not
always crucial, and, as for instance Michael Klein argues, not always easy to
maintain: “…on the one hand music’s limited capacity to represent actions
and actors is a failure of mimesis, yet on the other hand music’s inability to
project a narrator is a failure of diegesis. Thus, music exits in a shadow realm
between mimesis and diegesis.”11 Replace “drama” with “story” and the gist of
Schenker’s statement will remain untouched.
In a literary work we usually have no problem identifying protagonists
and following their actions. When we talk about music, we also talk about
musical events and musical plot, and a few paragraphs back I have even as-
cribed “something like character traits” to “certain elements”. What are these
elements? Who or what performs the action?12 Consider the following, imag-
inary but plausible description of the unfolding of a piece of music. “The first
theme starts with a dominant seventh resolving into submediant. The flute
10 Heinrich Schenker, Harmony, Oswald Jonas (ed.), Elisabeth Mann Borgese (trans.),
Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1954 [1906], 12–13.
11 Michael Klein, “Chopin’s Fourth Ballade as Musical Narrative”, Music Theory
Spectrum 26.1, 2004, 24.

12 Note that I am not discussing how to construe the narrator (“who speaks”) and focal-
izer (“who sees”) in a piece of music, or whether such concepts are applicable in music at
all. Important as they are, these questions are beyond the scope of this article.
135
states the principal motive which is subsequently developed in the clarinet.

After the half cadence, the movement proceeds with a bridge section. The
music abruptly stops in bar (such-and-such) and the composer introduces
a new theme, which we will soon hear transposed to a different key.” There
are no less than six different grammatical subjects (bold, with correspond-
ing verbs), plus one passive construction (underlined): no less than five or
six agential categories. Why is the agent so elusive? Why do we feel there is
action, but can never pinpoint the agent?13 A plausible explanation is based
on the idea that the origin of music lies in the archaic psyche, ruled by un-
conscious and preverbal primary processes. One of the characteristics of
this primitive experience is the feeling of coalescing with the external world,
without clear distinction between internal and external realities. Gilbert
Rose, a musically competent psychotherapist, links music with interplay be-
tween primary and secondary processes and talks about “fusing [in music]
of subject and object”,14 echoing “the original oneness with the mother”.15
Individuation and separateness are closely associated with the development
of secondary processes, and especially the acquisition of language.16 Insofar
as music partakes of secondary (rational, verbal, reality-oriented) processes,
it will display rational organization of discrete and individualized elements.
Contrariwise, its preverbal, archaic roots will never allow the formation
of subjects that would be anything but vague and indeterminate, and any
sweeping identification of musical themes or motives with human charac-
ters will remain flawed. Yet, as Karol Berger says of arts in general, “we want
the presented world to be not just any world, but Lebenswelt, the world of
man”.17 We want to populate the sonic world of a composition with anthro-
pomorphic entities; the chain of events that we perceive is also “a series of
13 Miloš Zatkalik and Aleksandar Kontić, “Beyond Music and Beyond Words: A Psy-
choanalytic Inquiry”, Proceedings of the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, 2018, 101. The idea
of describing the course of music in such a way is borrowed from a source I am no longer
able to identify. The exact wording, however, is mine.
14 Gilbert Rose, Between Couch and Piano: Psychoanalysis, Music, Art and Neuroscience,
London, New York, Routledge, 2004, 190.

15 Ibid., 20
16 See, for instance, Marjorie McDonald, “Transitional Tunes and Musical Develop-
ment”, in: Stuart Feder, Richard Karmel and George Pollock (eds.), Psychoanalytic Explo-
rations in Music, Madison, International University Press, 1990, 79–95.
17 Karol Berger, “Diegesis and Mimesis: The Poetic Modes and the Matter of Artistic
Presentation”, Journal of Musicology, Vol. 12, No. 4, 1994, 431.
136
emotional states that account for the ways the listener unites a musical text
with human values”.18
Schenker, as we have seen, has no doubts that protagonists are motifs. A
number of authors think in similar terms, identifying sometimes the musical
actor not strictly with a motif, but more broadly with entities of the thematic
plane.19
This approach is, however, too restrictive. It excludes some other possible
plots that we can distill from a composition. It removes from analytical pur-
view certain types of music and implicitly favors functional tonality. We need
a broader framework for our definition of musical actors, and there I find
the ideas of Vincent Meelberg most helpful.20 He draws on Mieke Bal’s narra-
tology in considering the actor as the function which causes or experiences
events. A musical actor is, therefore, “the musical parameter or parameters
that cause closures”. Closure is necessary for the creation of events since:
event is not complete until it has reached some kind of closure, and it is closure
that makes the listener recognize the event. At the same time, a musical actor can
also be the musical parameter(s) that change(s) during a musical event, since an
actor not only can cause, but also can experience events [and I add: invoking the
above stated psychoanalytical considerations, we must allow for ambiguity be-
tween causing and undergoing]. In this case the musical actor consists of those
musical elements that are governed by the principle or principles by which the
sounds are grouped.21
18 Eero Tarasti, A Theory of Musical Semiotics, Bloomington, Indiana University Press,

1994, 304. This is his definition of modalities, the concept I am not using in this analysis,
but the definition itself has broader applicability.
19 Gregory Karl, “Structuralism and Musical Plot”, Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 19, No.
1, 1997, 13–34; Anthony Newcomb, “Schumann and Late Eighteenth-Century Narrative

Strategies”, 19th-Century Music, Vol. 11, No. 2, 1987, 164–174. The latter says (237): “We
do well to think of the thematic units as characters in a narrative… They interact with
each other, with the plot archetypes, with their own past guises, and with convention of
musical grammar and formal schemes analogously to the way the characters in a novel
interact with each other.”
20 Meelberg, op. cit., 83.
21 Mieke Bal makes a distinction between actor and character: an actor causes or un-
dergoes a change, whereas a character is an actor provided with distinctive character-

istics. Mieke Bal, Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, Toronto, Buffalo,
London, University of Toronto Press, 1995 [1985], 8. Meelberg, op. cit., 224, follows this
distinction, but this is not essential for my analysis.
137
Eine kleine Trauermusik has no proper themes and no motifs delineated

clearly enough for the listener/analyst to be able to follow their transforma-
tions. Rather than working with motifs and themes, Mihajlović slowly spins
and interweaves continuous melodic yarns. Pitch, however, remains the pa-
rameter whose organization is decisive for the unfolding of music, and this
meets Meelberg’s criteria for being the actor. Therefore, the two plots I am
primarily investigating concern, firstly, tonal centers, and secondly, the prin-
ciples of pitch organization. If not functionally tonal, Trauermusik displays
pitch centricity, i.e. certain pitches are projected as focal intonations. These
quasi-tonics can be conceived of as individual pitches, particularly when
placed in the lowest voice at strategic points, or they can be chords construct-
ed on these pitches according to certain principles and given the status of ref-
erential sonorities (henceforward RS). They can also be understood in a more
abstract sense as pivotal pitch-based concepts, which are assigned special te-
leological value. Admittedly, this makes them less than clearly determined,
but psychoanalysis has already prepared us for that.
In the way I have described the RS chords, they are not substantially differ-
ent from tonics in tonality. The difference is that they are not part of an exter-
nal, hierarchical, a priori given system as functional tonality is (although this
statement will later be somewhat qualified). They acquire their referential sta-
tus contextually, or through a combination of a priori and contextual factors.
The second plot that we will follow concerns interplay between the oc-
tatonic scale that governs most of the piece, and functional tonality of the
Mozart quotation.
3. Trauermusik and Pitch Centricity

Milan Mihajlović’s Eine kleine Trauermusik for flute, oboe, clarinet, piano and
percussion exemplifies perfectly the compositional procedures of its creator
as we have known them for the greater part of his career. Among them are
the octatonic scale, obsessive ostinati, melodic lines evolving over long time-
spans, quotation from a classical piece – in this case from the slow movement
of Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A major, KV488.
Of special importance is the octatonic scale, to which the composer
seems to have a life-long attachment. It does, arguably, provide some kind of
external frame of reference, although far from the (pseudo)-natural quality
of functional tonality. From the point of view of goal-directedness it poses a
problem since its symmetrical structure makes it highly entropic, with little
opportunity for creating hierarchic relationships and pitch-based patterns of
138
tension and resolution. However, as I have indicated above, there are contex-
tual means whereby a given pitch – c22 in this case – is promoted into focal in-
tonation. For roughly one third of the composition it is prominently placed in
the piano’s sonorous lowest register; it is located at the beginnings and end-
ings of major formal sections and of the entire piece (the opening c-sharp in
the clarinet is to be discussed later). This pitch, together with the RS chord
based on it, is the most frequently recurring event in the piece, hence, as Da-
vid Huron would argue,23 the event that the listener expects the most, thus
constituting the goal of musical motion.
Before I proceed with further discussion of pitch organization, an over-
view of the form will be in order.
Table 1. Trauermusik, synopsis of form24
The piece opens with an introductory solo clarinet section. The A section
beginning in bar 24, (quasi)-modulates to the tonal center A, and is followed
by its varied repetition. For reasons that will soon emerge, bars 92–155 can be
conceived of as development. The arithmetic says 37+32+64, the last addend
being nearly the sum of the previous two (the summation structure). Let it
be mentioned in passing that such a formation may impart some sense of
completion and stability: on a smaller scale, it is typical of the Schoenbergian
musical sentence; on a larger, long spans of music – entire sonata develop-
ments, for instance – are sometimes constructed in accordance with this for-
mula. Mihajlović emulates tonal procedures: well into the piece, he uses the
initial transposition of the octatonic scale, an equivalent of the home key, let
22 When a given note is considered to be the intonational pivot it is represented by up-

percase italic, individual pitches are lowercase italic.
23 David Huron, Sweet Expectation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation, Cam-
bridge, MIT Press, 2006, 138.

24 From Zatkalik, op. cit., slightly adapted.
139
us call it the “home transposition” (oct0). The development is characterized

by heightened instability (to be discussed later), as would be the case in a
tonal piece. It is within this portion of the work that the other two octatonic
transpositions rapidly succeed each other. A return to the home transposition
follows, and in a while enters the tonal Mozart episode. Predictably, the com-
position ends with a final return to the basic form of RS.
This focal intonation is presented in Example 125
Example 1
a) b. 24 (beginning of A section, first harmonic event)
b) b. 92 (beginning of development)
25 This was extensively discussed in Zatkalik, op. cit. and Zatkalik & Mihajlović, op. cit.
It was inevitable to repeat the main points, but now the emphasis is on different aspects.
140
c) end
RS appears in several variants. Reduced to the harmonic skeleton they

can be represented as in Example 2:
Example 2. Variants of RS
The makeup of this chord shows clear resemblance to the harmonic series.
The second, third and seventh partials are virtually omnipresent throughout
the composition, the fifth is somewhat less prominent (possibly to underplay
the association with the dominant seventh), whereas the ninth is foreign to
the given octatonic transposition. The emphasis is on the odd-numbered par-
tials: the even-numbered ones only duplicate lower portions of the spectrum.
In a way, harmonics reinforce the fundamental frequency, provide support
for the root.26 The lower the partial, the stronger the support, and in this case,
the support is quite robust.
The harmonic series was a major preoccupation of a number of import-
ant composers and theorists, not least Schenker himself. Most recently – and
26 This is especially noticeable when the fundamental is not present, but owing to its
harmonic spectrum, we still perceive it as the fundamental: the phenomenon known as

missing fundamental. See Richard Parncutt, “Revision of Terhardt’s Model of the Root(s)
of a Musical Chord”, Music Perception, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1988, 65–93, 70; Ernst Terhardt,
“The Concept of Musical Consonance: A Link between Music and Psychoacoustics”, Mu-
sic Perception, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1984, 276–295, 287–8.
141
drawing on extensive psychoacoustic research – Finnish theorist Olli Väisälä

demonstrates how chords approximating the harmonic series serve as con-
sonant referential sonorities and provide criteria for distinguishing between
consonance and dissonance.27 The fact that in the natural system the frequen-
cies differ from our customary equal-tempered tuning is of no particular con-
cern: research has shown that for the listener there is a margin of tolerance of
approximately 3% of the frequency.28
While the first nine harmonics are significant supporters, the eleventh
one – f-sharp in our case – is ambiguous in the sense that it can be conceived
of either as still a root-support, albeit a weak one, or too weak to be one.
Needless to say, this ambiguity proves to be a huge resource, both for com-
posers and theorists.
In Trauermusik, as in virtually all cases analyzed by Väisälä, the stable
sonorities are approximations, rather than the exact replications of the har-
monic series. Insofar as the chords can resemble the series more or less close-
ly, they can be assessed as more or less consonant, i.e. more or less stable. It
will be noted, for instance, that the proper root for B-flat – including the most
strategic occurrences of RS – should be an octave lower.29 Even the pitch-
es foreign to the harmonic series – root detractors in Väisälä’s terminology
– need not constitute a major destabilizing factor, as long as other tones pro-
vide significant support and especially if placed in the uppermost voice.
This brings our attention to the elephant in the room. It comes in the
guise of c-sharp, appearing in all instances of RS (see Example 2). Clearly
not a member of the harmonic series, it is nevertheless nearly omnipresent
throughout the piece. It is, of course, reassuring to know that a dissonance of
this kind can be easily assimilated, given the overall shape of the chord. Yet,
such an explanation does not suffice in this case. It will transpire that the sta-
tus and role(s) of this pitch is the crux, or one of two cruces of the entire anal-
ysis. I will defer any discussion thereof until later, mentioning only that I have
arbitrarily chosen the diamond shape to draw attention to its enigmatic role.
27 Olli Väisälä, “Prolongation of Harmonies Related to the Harmonic Series in Early

Post-Tonal Music”, Journal of Music Theory, Vol. 46, No. 1/2, 2002, 207–283; Olli Väisälä,
Prolongation in Early Post-tonal Music, Studia Musica 23, Helsinki, Sibelius Academy,
2004. He offers convincing analyses of works by Scriabin, Debussy, Berg etc.
28 Parncutt, loc. cit.
29 The tritone placed immediately above the fundamental as in Example 2b is typical
Scriabin’s manner. It does not occur literally in Trauermusik, but I have identified it as a
middleground event, see Zatkalik & Mihajlović, op. cit.
142
Within the given transposition of the octatonic scale, RS can be trans-

posed to A, F-sharp and E-flat; therefore, I interpret these chords as conso-
nant, and eligible for the role of tonal centers, yet subsidiary to C (Example
3). This enables a more discriminating scale of stability, a more complex hi-
erarchy. These subsidiary centers are indeed treated as such. As evident from
Table 1, sections A and A1 “modulate” to A (much like a tonal piece modulat-
ing to submediant), whereas F-sharp is the key of the Mozart quotation. The
remaining four pitches from the scale receive very little support: their entire
spectra, save for the ninth partial, fall outside the given transposition.30 Ac-
cordingly, they cannot bear the burden of referentiality, as stipulated in this
analysis.
Example 3. Transpositions of RS
It is remarkable how this pitch-based hierarchy presented above over-

rides the inherent non-hierarchism of the octatonic scale. I speculate that
these opposing forces – hierarchic and anti-hierarchic – contribute to the
overall mood: tense to the point of being oppressive.
4. Octatonic Transpositions and Tonality

Conditions for establishing hierarchy, hence stability, can be additionally cre-
ated on two higher planes. Let us make the following comparison. In tonal
music, we define a piece as being in, say, C major, and we have thereby de-
fined both the focal intonation – the tonic – and the corresponding transpo-
sition of the diatonic collection. It is not so in the octatonic. As is well known,
there are three different transpositions of this scale. Intonational focus can
shift from one pitch to another, while the transposition of the scale remains
the same. A different procedure for creating pitch centricity could have se-
30 Note that the set of supported vs. unsupported pitches corresponds to the tonic and
dominant axes, respectively in the axis system of Ernö Ledvai.
143
lected any one of the eight pitches within the scale for the role of the quasi
tonic. Both the transposition and the tonal center can be challenged inde-
pendently. On one level, by shifting the focus from C to A, the composer cre-
ates a certain degree of tension, to be resolved by the return to C. The change
of transposition can thus be saved for creating contrast on a higher level, for
heightened tension, and longer-span processes of departure and return.
Finally, a shift from the octatonic to the functionally tonal operates on
yet a higher level. All these shifts will be further discussed in due course.
So far, we have established pitch centricity, and a sufficiently complex
system of hierarchic relationships. This enables the creation of areas of sta-
bility and instability, which translates into the ubiquitous model of departure
and return, which in turn translates into the most fundamental mode of ex-
periencing music, namely, tension and release.
To sum up, the departure/return model manifests on the following levels:
• C – A, F# – C
• octatonic0 – octatonic1,2 – octatonic0
• octatonic – tonal – octatonic
The areas of stability/instability are created by the following:
• RS as opposed to RST3,6,9
• RSTx (any transposition) vs. other sonorities
• oct0 vs. oct.1,2
• instability created by the fragmentation of pitch organization: rapid suc-
cession of octatonic transpositions, absence of referential sonorities, dual
harmonies.
5. Tragic Plot and Struggle for Power

Assuming now a less technical and more hermeneutic perspective, one possi-
ble interpretation of this composition would be as struggle for power between
eligible tonal centers.31 As in any tonal piece, the home key is temporarily
overpowered by a competing key, but in the end reestablished. Ostensibly, this
is by no means remarkable, as the outline of a story it promises little beyond
what any tonal piece could accomplish, and probably with more success. Yet,
we are not talking about tonal musical language. We are not dealing with a
31 The outline of this struggle for power was laid down in Zatkalik, op. cit. Here, it is
considerably expanded.
144
consistent set of syntactic rules governing how music will move away from
the focal intonation and return to it: this system is only weekly teleological in
comparison to functional harmony. The supremacy of C is not derived from
an a priori source. Admittedly, we have attributed some kind of “natural”
quality to RS through the harmonic series, but the hierarchical system thus
produced is feeble compared to harmonic functions. C establishes its domi-
nance not so much by virtue of its consonant quality, as through its assertive-
ness. As previously mentioned, it occupies about one third of the piece, and
it is expressed through obsessive ostinato figures. It is obtrusive, aggressive
perhaps. This certainly makes it the protagonist, the central character, but its
overall “behavior pattern” makes me somewhat reluctant to call it the hero.
When the title of a composition contains the word Trauermusik, tragedy
can never be too far. Certain clarifications are, however, necessary. As By-
ron Almén cautions, we ought to distinguish between narrative and topical
signification. He enumerates certain stylistic conventions associated with the
tragic topos: minor mode, sigh figures, descending gestures, chromaticism,
expressive dissonances, funeral march, low register, exact repetition... They
create the tragic mood. For the narrative tragedy to exist, however, it is nec-
essary to have “a strategy of signification in which temporality is implicit and
full recognition requires the unfolding of the piece in its totality”.32 In our
present case, some of the above enumerated elements of the tragic topos do
exist, and they do create the tragic mood, but what would be the signs of the
tragic plot? In Greek tragedy, the downfall of the hero is brought about by ha-
martia: the tragic error or tragic flaw. While this error can be due to misper-
ception, lack of an important piece of information and so on, it often takes the
form of hubris: excessive pride, arrogance before gods, transgression of their
commands. Precisely the assertiveness, the overconfidence of C, its endeavors
to be heard all the time can be seen as its tragic error. Divine retribution fol-
lows.
Enter c-sharp. It is the initial and final tone of the introductory clarinet
solo,33 and the initial and final melodic tone of the entire composition. Not
belonging to the frequency spectrum of C, it nonetheless weighs down heav-
32 Almén, op. cit., 139.

33 Until the piano enters with RS, we can plausibly assume it to be the central pitch.
In a way, we could think of it as the false hero, in Propp’s taxonomy of functions. See
Владимир Пропп [Vladimir Propp], Морфология волшебной сказки [Morphology of
the Fairy Tale], Москва, Лабиринт, 2001 [1928].
145
ily on RS throughout the piece. It occupies a special position in the following

sense. We have seen (Example 3) that four pitches are “incapable” of carrying
RS. Out of these four, e, g and b-flat are strongly supportive of the root C.
The pitch c-sharp is not, but it does provide support to the competing tonal
centers as the seventh partial of E-flat, fifth of A and the third of F-sharp. The
strength of support is proportional to the relative strength of these competi-
tors.
The pitch c-sharp is not exactly the opponent to C. It never attempts to
establish itself in its stead. Even when conspicuously placed in the bass for
a longer stretch of time it is only to pave the way for F-sharp as its dominant
preparation. Dissonant and persistent in upper voices, it never lets C extricate
itself from its grip. C-sharp is its Nemesis.
In his analysis of myth – adapted for music by Byron Almén – James
Liszka talks about “four basic strategies used by the … narrative imagina-
tion, in playing out the tensions between the violence of a hierarchy that im-
poses order and the violence that results from its transgression”.34 The origin
of this idea is in the Jungian-influenced essay by the Canadian literary critic
Northrope Frye35 in which he classifies narrative plots into four narrative ar-
chetypes. The classification is based on the intersection of two fundamental
oppositions: victory/defeat and order/transgression, yielding four categories:
Comedy, Romance, Tragedy and Irony/Satire.
Emphasis on victory
Comedy – victory of transgression over order
Romance – victory of order over transgression
Emphasis on defeat
Tragedy – defeat of transgression by order
Irony/satire – defeat of order by transgression
The opposition innocence/experience is also involved, and thus, for ex-
ample, the tragic archetype is a transition from innocence to experience,
whereas irony is the narrative of experience. This is well suited for music.
There is no danger of extramusical “contamination”, since the notions of hier-
archy, order, transgression or transvaluation can easily be conceived of as in-
herent to music. Almén consistently applies this archetypal approach: it con-
34 James Jakob Liszka, The Semiotics of Myth, Bloomington and Indianapolis, University
of Indiana Press, 1989, 133.
35 Northrope Frye, “Archetypal Criticism: Theory of Myths”, in: Anatomy of Criticism:
Four Essays, Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2000 [1957], 131–242.
146
stitutes the narrative level of his analyses.36 These analyses are illuminating,
but for my purpose they are useful insofar as they can be taken flexibly, with-
out clear-cut boundaries between categories, and without any “obligation” on
part of the composition to adhere strictly to one single archetype.
Elements of the tragic archetype certainly exist in Trauermusik. As I
suggested above, hubris is the transgression committed by the protagonist.
Furthermore, most listeners will agree that we are left with a sense of defeat,
rather than victory. In addition, there is innocence in our initial assump-
tions about c-sharp in the opening clarinet solo. It takes the whole tragedy
to unfold before we realize its true nature of Nemesis. And we are likely to
innocently overlook the signs that point to F-sharp as a formidable opponent.
Transgression, defeat, initial innocence: so far, this works well for the tragic
plot, but what constitutes the order? The harmonic stability of RS does pro-
vide at least a semblance of order, but then, is it not precisely this order that is
defeated by the transgressing c-sharp? As the defeat of order by transgression,
this would amount to the ironic archetype. There is a subtlety in the score
that reinforces the ironic perspective. Namely, if we look at the two very last
bars, we can see that RS resonates for a second or two after the last of c-sharp
expires. Does C in its most stable form achieve a victory after all? An ironic
victory, I would say, mock victory: victory that is long overdue, long past the
moment at which it could have provided any sense of triumph.
Thus, a tragic or an ironic archetypal plot? Both, perhaps. Or shall we
say, this composition transcends such oppositions and dichotomies. After all,
we know of music’s predilection for simultaneity, for expressing many things
at once, of its “ambivalence of content which words cannot have”.37 Invoking
the psychoanalytic perspective, we can ascertain that music’s affinity with the
unconscious mind makes it free from the constraints of formal logic. Even
contradictions can exist simultaneously.
6. More Struggle for Power: A, F-sharp, E-flat

The next actor to be considered is A. Capable of being a consonant harmony,
it is the target of modulation in both A sections. With the entrance of the
36 As opposed to the agential level, where he identifies agents and their morphological
and syntactic features, and actantial level at which they interact and acquire their narra-
tological roles and functions. Almén, op. cit., following Liszka, op. cit.
37 Susanne Langer, Philosophy in a New Key, New York, The New American Library,
1954, 197.
147
alto flute, it becomes melodically emphasized, but at that point it is dissonant

against RS. “Pacified” by being displaced to the bass, it is thus promoted to a
significantly higher rank, at the price that its theater of operation is strictly
circumscribed. Music effortlessly flows in and out of it, it substitutes for C at
two specific points when the central intonation briefly retreats. Its function
within the plot is, therefore, not one of the true antagonist.38
F-sharp persistently wants to impose itself as a rival of C. It advances
strategically towards the peak of its career, the Mozart quotation, when in the
guise of F-sharp minor it takes the control over this entire section. It begins
its career quite “innocently” as the melodic climax of the introduction (Ex-
ample 4a). It is transferred to the bass in the A section, allowing us an early
glimpse at its future role as a tonal center (4b). In the repeated A section, the
tones that make up the F-sharp minor chord: c-sharp, a and (to a degree)
f-sharp are given a certain amount of melodic emphasis. In the first phase of
the development it forms the upper layer of the dual harmony (4c), where we
also get a sense of its minor-mode version. An exchange of layers then occurs
(4d), and F-sharp becomes the harmonic basis. Before it is elevated to the to-
nality of the quotation, it performs what I call a “tactical retreat”: the f-sharp
pitch withdraws to the inner voice and the f-sharp chord appears in inversion.
Example 4. Advancement of F-sharp

a)
b)
38 In Propp’s taxonomy of narrative functions it could be thought of as the helper.
148
c)
d)
e)
149
The establishing of the key F-sharp minor is not only a new focal point:
with it, the previous octatonic order is irreparably shaken. This requires anal-
ysis on a higher plane, to be presented soon.
So far, we have seen that in the home transposition, RS can be and is
transposed to C, A and F-sharp. It can be transposed to E-flat as well, but
where is E-flat?
The first attempt to establish that chord as referential fails, as it leads
to an unstable 64 chord, and thus amounts to a neighbor to the structural A
(Example 5a). E-flat asserts itself at important structural junctions, the ends
of sections A and A1, but in the upper voice: where it cannot perform the
harmonic role, not to mention that according to the criteria we have adopt-
ed for this piece, it is dissonant. The bassoon solo begins with a few bars of
an arpeggiated E-flat major, but its potential referentiality is undermined by
the piano harmony in the lower register (5b). This pitch is, shall we say, el-
oquently avoided in the bass: even the chromatic descent towards C-sharp,
bb. 110–122: f-sharp – f – e – d – d-flat (enharmonic equivalence assumed
throughout the piece) omits E-flat. Only once does it appear in the bass in the
quotation, but merely as the sixth degree of the melodic minor: unstable and
functionally weak. It is offered one last chance in the concluding ten bars of
the composition (5c): it is again part of an octatonic context, it is given some
prominence in the bass, it attempts to establish itself across three octaves, but
fails, and through voice exchange, once more ends up in the wrong place,
where it simply fades away.
Example 5. Vicissitudes of E-flat
a)
150
b)
c)
Given the above account, E-flat can be considered as an oppressed mi-

nority, whose voice is constantly being silenced, or a character too week to
incur the responsibility of being the tonal center.
7. Octatonic vs. Tonality: Struggle for Power on a Higher Plane

Three potential competitors challenge the supremacy of C, with unequal vig-
or and unequal success. The very principles of pitch organization – “musical
languages” – enter into similar competition. The octatonic and the tonal do
not simply succeed each other. The storyline of their relationships includes
the almost unbearable, suffocating atmosphere of the home transposition
(75%) and the octatonic sound in general (virtually throughout the piece);
the foreshadowing of F-sharp minor, its rise to power (as described above); its
brief reign and the enigmatic ending. Of special interest is the octatonic/tonal
ambiguity: the dominant preparation of F-sharp minor of which the listener
is unaware while it unfolds. Again, we need to focus our attention on c-sharp.
In addition to being so obtrusive in upper voices, it is also the second most
151
frequent and longest sustained pitch in the bass, after the pivotal c itself. This
becomes obvious in bb. 96–102. As the quotation approaches, it assumes the
role of the dominant pedal in bb. 122–150 (interrupted in bb. 126–136 with
pitches c and d that I interpret as the lower and upper neighbors, and bb.
148–149 as foreshadowing the tonic). Note that I am talking about the bass
only: other voices are not included, probably to prevent tonal associations
from emerging too strongly and too early. The dominant function remains
unbeknownst to the listener until the tonic arrival in b. 156 (the moment of
anagnorisis!?). While c-sharp definitely belongs to the home transposition
of the octatonic scale, it actually undermines the octatonic organization by
slowly and unobtrusively ushering functional tonality. In this Shakespearean
double plot (pitch centers and musical languages), c-sharp seems to play a
similar destructive part in both.39 And if we further speculate about the role
of c-sharp, we can also see it as the master of ceremonies, a manipulator, spir-
itus movens, a force behind the scene, grey eminence, or a puppeteer. It pre-
vents C from achieving full stability, blocks E-flat from becoming the true RS
by providing weaker support than it does to A, and maneuvers F-sharp into
the position of the true antagonist.
For the further discussion of the octatonic/tonal relationships, I cannot
help quoting an extensive portion of my previous work:
The most direct clash between the two principles of pitch organization, tonal and
octatonic, takes place immediately before the quotation. After a rather long ab-
sence, RS returns in the original C-transposition, and with greatest emphasis; the
melodic climax of the entire composition is reached at that point, with g in the
flute. We are witnessing dramatic peripeteias: at the critical point when we may
expect the implied dominant-tonic relationship to be confirmed, the whole con-
struction seems to collapse and the original RS prevails. And the next moment, it
retreats again and yields to F-sharp minor. This twofold preparation of the tonal
quotation may carry the message ‘all roads lead to Rome’. To Mozart, that is. Tonal
path, modal path, we end up with Mozart. Or do we? Even as Mozart reigns, the
octatonic figures lurk in the background. There are two parallel processes, and
they dissolve – not resolve! – together. Perhaps the ultimate statement is: tonal or
nontonal, Mozart or Milan Mihajlović, we are doomed to fade into nothingness.
The outcome is unquestionable and inexorable, as befitting a Trauermusik.40
39 If I could give myself free rein to speculate, I would say that on the “language” plane
C-sharp is to octatonicism what Iago is to Othello; on the pitch-center plane it is more
like Claudius to Hamlet. This comparison should not be taken literally: I do not intend to
attribute this type of extramusical content to this composition.
40 Zatkalik, op. cit., 133, slightly adapted.
152
8. On Ego Split, Trauma and Symmetry

Other layers of meaning are there for us to probe. I will begin with an ob-
servation that this music flows rather seamlessly, well-organized within
strict formal and tonal constraints. As the ultimate guarantee of unity and
coherence, on previous occasions we have even attempted to construct a
quasi-post-Schenkerian Ursatz.41 This notwithstanding, the composition is
divided along several fault lines. There is a split between melody and harmo-
ny, as the melodically ubiquitous c-sharp is dissonant against the referential
harmony, and also in the sense that there exists “division of labor” between
piano (harmony) and woodwinds (melody). Occasionally, harmony itself is
split into two distinct chords. There is a split between tonal centers; between
octatonic transpositions, and a “hypersplit” between centers and transposi-
tions; on top of that, octatonicism and tonality are pitted against each oth-
er. At some level of meaning, the music remains irreconcilably fragmented.
Searching for psychological meanings and relying on the premise of isomor-
phism mentioned at the beginning, we can assess the overall experience as
being closer to trauma than to tragedy. Tragedy implies catharsis – of which
I am doubtful in this case. For its part, trauma is linked with dissociation,
failure of synthesis, “splitting off ”, and generally involves overstimulation and
flooding.42 Flooding in this music comes from some of its important features,
such as oversaturation with the octatonic sound, a sense of unbearable uni-
formity of sound in the long bassoon solo, and more.
To follow psychological implications further, we need to pay attention
again to the relationship between C and F-sharp. The pitch f-sharp is the elev-
enth partial of c, but symmetrically, c is also the eleventh partial of f-sharp.
According to the Chilean-British-Italian logician-psychoanalyst Ignacio
Matte-Blanco, the logic of the unconscious is the logic of symmetrization and
reversibility.43 Namely, if a moment in time, let us label it with B, follows the
moment A, the unconscious can reverse it so that at the same time, A fol-
lows B. This collapses all temporal relations, obliterates distinctions between
past, present and future: unimaginable in everyday life, but readily found in
those mental products that are strongly informed by primary-process think-
41 Zatkalik & Mihajlović , op. cit.

42 Gilbert Rose, op. cit., 11 9–20.
43 Ignacio Matte-Blanco, Thinking, Feeling, Being: Clinical reflections on the fundamental
antinomy of human beings and world, London and New York, Routledge, 1988.
153
ing (dreams, myth; cf. Freud’s dictum that the system unconscious has no
reference to time). Likewise, if spatial relations of up and down or left and
right can be reversed, any point in space can be interchangeable with any oth-
er. Very importantly, relations between part and whole can be reversed. This
accounts for pars pro toto representation (i.e. part of the object stands for the
object as a whole): again something that frequently occurs in dreams. We can
view f-sharp as expelled from the C environment as a menacing part of the
self: a bad part of the split self, considering its “impure” intonation; and at
the same time, according to the unconscious, symmetrical logic, it is c that is
also expelled from F-sharp. They are mutually exclusive, repel each other, yet
they are caught in an inextricable grip. The true antagonist is thus not nec-
essarily an outside entity, it is precisely this bad, menacing part of one’s own
self. This brings us back to our introductory psychoanalytical view of music
as an art of fusion, permeation, of internal-external ambiguity. Briefly retrac-
ing our steps, we can now observe, first, that goal-directed processes easily
lend themselves to narrative interpretations. Narrative interpretations natu-
rally invite psychological vantage point. However, having probed the depth of
the unconscious, we are no longer certain how to distinguish between subject
and object, between past, present and future; we can no longer discern begin-
nings and ends, departures and arrivals. Teleological investigations under-
mine themselves.
Other psychological interpretations are also viable. Consider the follow-
ing: a) there exists the c-based referential sonority; b) c-sharp is foreign to RS,
yet often accompanies it; c) when the tonal center is F-sharp, whether as RST6
or as F-sharp minor, c-sharp is its very prominent element. We can take this
as a metaphorical representation of, or a process isomorphous with projective
identification, as defined by the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein: inserting parts
of oneself into an external object in order to control, possess or harm it. In
this case, c-sharp as an important component of the F-sharp spectrum, is in-
serted into C where its effects are harmful. The exigencies of space, however,
demand that we stop here.
9. The Sublime
These same exigencies apply to the last portion of this article in which I am
taking the risk of treating a profound subject in an almost cursory manner.
It is not only that the subject itself is irresistible. If we want to follow this
analysis through, complete with actors/characters and “the musical text con-
154
nected with human values”, we must not overlook the overwhelming effect
of the Mozart excerpt coupled with the surrounding musical tissue. It is true
that the emphasis now is no longer on pitch centers, but on thematicism. Yet,
the sublime experience is brought about by various factors, among which a
specific role is played by the polar relationship between C and F-sharp. Let us
examine how Mozart is ushered.
Our senses are already flooded with the octatonic uniformity, when the
strained sound of the irritatingly protracted (about ¼ of the entire compo-
sition) bassoon solo brings them to the breaking point. The melodic climax
is reached, the musical space is stretched to its maximum, but the motiv-
ic content is condensed to the repeating three-note cells. There is a strong
feeling that something momentous is about to happen. Out of this Mozart
precipitates: an event we somehow felt coming, but are shocked when it ac-
tually comes. We are transported, overwhelmed to the point of self-annihi-
lation. We stand in awe, as before something beyond our comprehension,
flooded with emotions too powerful to be appreciated as beautiful. There is
majesty and grandeur, but also the feeling of an imperious, irresistible force.
In a word, sublime. It is how the sublime was conceived by authors from
(pseudo)-Longinus to Edmund Burke to Immanuel Kant.
We have already seen how the reciprocity between C and F-sharp collaps-
es spatial relations. Thus symmetrically juxtaposed, they mirror each other,
space is expanded into infinity, and there is a sense of greatness beyond any
comparison. Despite all formal and tonal constraints the music overflows any
boundaries, becoming something boundless and immeasurable, therefore
sublime. Of course, we know that the idea of reciprocity is faulty in the sense
that it is valid only under the 12-tone equally-tempered tuning. In the nat-
ural system, polar keys are not exactly reciprocal. Therefore, C and F-sharp
see each other through a distorting mirror with us caught in between seeing,
ourselves doubly transformed. Transmogrified may be the word.
The sublime is beyond grasp. The grasp is mental and emotional, but
there may be a physical aspect to it. Not only are the extreme registers in
question: remember that the proper fundamental for b-flat in RS is an octave
below than actually sounding, and it falls outside the range of the piano. And
if the sublime is associated with immense power, with vastness and bound-
lessness, it is no wonder that it has been involved with the idea of genius.
Who could, then, be more emblematic of the idea of genius than Mozart?
Following the Kantian line further, we can identify both of his types of
the sublime. The infinity mirror and the boundless quality in general, cou-
155
pled with the feeling of an immense power: this is the mathematical vs. dy-
namic sublime.
Throughout this article we have talked about oversaturation and flooding
and linked it with trauma. We have talked about tragedy and irony, we have
even talked of shock. Obsessive repetitions readily connote some kind of su-
perhuman, mechanical monster (or perhaps a Sisyphus rolling his stone),
not to mention the strain and anguish conveyed by the very sound. Listen-
ing to Trauermusik is not a pleasurable experience. The sublime experience
involves a significant degree of unpleasure. However, as Kien Brillenburg
Wurth (henceforward KBW) interprets Kant, “subject is confronted by an ob-
ject too great for comprehension, or too mighty to be resisted, experiences a
painful ‘difficulty’ in trying to measure itself up to, or resist, this object, but
then overcomes the pain in a delightful moment of release or self-transcen-
dence”.44 This self-revelation, the awareness of our own capacities is the chief
source of pleasure: “the soul is amazed by the unexpected view of its own
surpassing power.”45
Kant, of course, could not have known of the symmetrical logic of the
unconscious. Taking this into account, in my free interpretation, the sublime
object overwhelms us, even as we overwhelm the object. Furthermore, our
unconscious mind does not require a turning point where frustration yields
to liberation and transcendence. Condensation, even the conflation of oppo-
sites, is a well-documented unconscious mechanism. Therefore, we can talk
about simultaneity of pain and pleasure: pleasure that is mediated through,
and intensified by, a displeasure. This is precisely what KBW attempts to of-
fer in her already quoted study as the “alternative sublime”, drawing both on
earlier authors, like Burke, and on the postmodern perspective derived most-
ly from Jean-François Lyotard (but not referring to psychoanalysis). She is
largely concerned with this interplay of pain and pleasure, particularly on
irresolvability. She claims that the sublime feeling “need not, as in the dom-
inant Kantian model, necessarily be framed as a narrative of overcoming,
moving from terror to relief, or frustration to elevation. Rather, it can also
be conceived as an unresolved, self-conflicting oscillation of pain and plea-
sure at once.”46 Elsewhere, she remarks on “resistance to closure typical of the
44 Kiene Brillenburg Wurth, “The Musically Sublime: Infinity, Indeterminacy, Irresolv-

ability”, Dissertation, Groningen University, 2002, vii.
45 Ibid., xvi.
46 Ibid., 74.
156
sublime feeling” and “interlocking of two conflicting intensities … opposites

intertwine [as do chords on C and F-sharp; as do Mozart and the surrounding
motifs – MZ], the one principle can here be said to be always and already at
work in the other”.47
We can see how well it resonates with our dilemma between tragedy (ca-
tharsis) and unresolved conflicts (trauma) and more broadly with questions
of indeterminacy. Vagueness, indecision, dream-like quality (the uncon-
scious again!) – this is what authors like Burke as well as KBW look for in the
sublime art, and for which they (together with Schopenhauer, Wagner and
Nietzsche) find music especially suitable. While this is a general statement on
music, there are so many analytical observations about this composition to
corroborate it. Let us recall the irreconciled splits, the indeterminacy (tonal/
octatonic), the undecidability between tragic defeat and ironic victory. Let us,
furthermore, think of the treatment of dissonance. It connotes tension and
indeterminacy.48 Admittedly, indeterminacy may not be quite true within the
laws of tonal harmony and voice leading, but with the criteria of consonance
adopted herein, we are left with salient, yet non-resolving dissonances. And
while the music – as demonstrated above – does unfold a kind of plot, the
incessantly repeating figures – in fact all that was said about repetition, uni-
formity and saturation – thwarts the progress, and prevents it from reach-
ing a final resolution. There is something life-negating about it, and it is duly
shattered by the shock of the sublime. Yes, the appearance of the Mozart ex-
cerpt is a shock, and I am not the first to make this claim.49 And if anxiety in
Trauermusik reaches the point when we feel traumatized, the very ability to
construe a narrative provides if not the means for the healing of trauma, then
at least a way of coping with it. Letting Kant have the final word: confront-
ed with the overbearing, irresistible nature – and what can be more irresist-
ible than death? – “the humanity in our person remains undemeaned even
though the human being must submit to that dominion.”50
47 Ibid., 245.
48 Ibid., 235.
49 Ana Stefanović, Milan Mihajlović Eine kleine Trauermusik, linear notes CD 201, Beo-
grad, SOKOJ, 1996.

50 Immanuel Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgement, translated by Paul Guyer and Eric
Matthews, Cambridge University Press, 2000, 145.
157
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Summary
Functional tonal music basically operates under an external, a priori given referential
system, and the authority of the tonal center may be challenged but will almost inev-
itably be reasserted. Post-tonal music may also seek to establish tonal centers and
referential sonorities, but these are to a large extent contextual, and so are the means
159
whereby they are established (or challenged). The “tonal plot” of such compositions
tends to be more intriguing. Competing tonal centers may enter into a kind of power
play the outcome of which is less predictable and more amenable to interpretation.
In the present paper, I will discuss tonal centers and referential sonorities in the com-
position Eine kleine Trauermusik (1992) by one of the leading Serbian composers
Milan Mihajlović. Even though its pitch structure may appear rather straightforward
with its primary tonal center in C (displaced by other intonational pivots, but ulti-
mately reestablished), and with referential (quasi-tonic) chords derived from the har-
monic series, I intend to highlight intricate narrative trajectories traversed by various
tonal centers (which are, accordingly, treated as actors/characters); their dramatic
conflicts; the stories of their rise to and decline from power. These narratives can be
related to certain archetypal plots, with the conclusion that there exists ambiguity
between the tragic and the ironic archetype.
A specific feature of this composition is the collaboration/interplay/conflict/ between
different principles of pitch organization, i.e. octatonic and functionally tonal. The
narrative of referential sonorities is thus projected onto the higher plane of “musical
languages,” where again we can observe “struggle for power” and ambiguity about the
outcome.
These unresolved ambiguities, simultaneity of conflicting interpretations and gener-
ally, situations involving ambivalence and indeterminacy are examined from the psy-
choanalytic perspective, which postulates isomorphism between musical structures
and processes and the processes unfolding in the unconscious mind.
Finally, the effect of these narratives, especially the overwhelming impact induced by
the excerpt from Mozart’s piano concerto is linked with the idea of sublime as con-
ceived by Kant, but also including other approaches (Burke, Lyotard’s postmodern
sublime etc.).
160
REVIEWS
Article received on May 17th 2019 lytical interpretation of traditional

Article accepted on November 28th 2019 dances. The focus of this book is oriented
UDC: 793.3:391]:325.3(=163.41)(497.113) toward the dance practice of the Serbs
(049.32) from various regions of Croatia, Bosnia
and Herzegovina and Montenegro, who
settled in the administrative region of
SELENA RAKOČEVIĆ*1 northern Serbia – Vojvodina during the
Department for Ethnomusicology 20th century in numerous organized and
Faculty of Music spontanous migrations. The term “Di-
University of Arts Belgrade naric people”, even though it is taken over
from the ideological standpoints of the
group mentalities of the older ethnologi-
Vesna Karin, Plesna praksa Dinaraca u cal writings of Jovan Cvijić and Vladimir
Vojvodini [The Dance Practice of the Dvorniković, is pragmatically used here
Dinaric People in Vojvodina], Novi to unite settlers from the wider area of
Sad: Akademija umetnosti, 2018, 421 the Dinaric mountins – Lika, Banija,
pages, ISBN 978-86-88191-74-6 20 Kordun, Bosanska Krajina (areas of
Grmeč, Una, Glamoč, Janj, Kupres and
Livno), Dalmacija, Herzegovina and
Despite a long tradition of continuous Montenegro – whose cultural traditions
development of ethnochoreology in Ser- have been recognized both by insiders
bia (since 1934), scholarly publications in and outsiders in opposition to cultural
this disciplinary field are still not fre- traditions of the autohtonous Serbian in-
quent. Vesna Karin’s book The Dance habitants in Vojvodina.
practice of the Dinaric people in Vojvo- Drawing from the anthropological
dina, based on her PhD theses defended theories regarding ethnic and national
in 2015 at the Faculty of Music, Univer- identities of Thomas Eriksen and ethnic
sity of Arts in Belgrade, therefore repre- cohesion of Dietmar Handleman, Karin
sents a valuable contribution to the ana- explicitates diverse dance and musical
traditions of the Serbs from the foremen-
*1Author contact information: selena.rako- tioned regions as cultural practices of the
[email protected] so-called ethnic categories, which have
161
been unified in a new environment (the ments in a specific context, and through
territory of present day Vojvodina) its connection to other social practices”.
through a developed network of, accord- Karin develeped all her observations
ing to the author’s formulations, ethni- regarding the dance practice of Dinaric
cally profiled associations and social people in Vojvodina from her field re-
events (organizations, festivals, concerts search that lasted more than ten years
and weddings). Applying Andriy Nah- which she started whilst a student of eth-
achewsky’s concepts of presentational nomusicology in 2001. Along with par-
and participatory dance events in the ticipatory observation as the basic
analytical narrative devoted to dance oc- method of field work, she made many of-
casions, Karin mostly focuses on the big- ficial and unoffical interviews and com-
gest festival of Dinaric dance and music pleted questionnaries with individuals
in Vojvodina “Našem rodu i potomstvu” and dance instructors (the co-called ar-
(To our People and Descendants) which tistic directors) and filmed a great nume-
has taken place in Bačka Topola annually ber of video clips which she used for no-
since 1993. As the author stresses, this is tation and analysis. The time frame for
the most important occasion in which field research and the creation of Karin’s
the dance groups of the Dinaric people, collection of video and musical record-
who are organized in cultural-artistic so- ings includes the period from 2001 to
cieties, construct and strengthen their 2015. However, the time span of her
primary regional ethnic identities in Vo- overall research of Dinaric dance and
jvodina by performing traditional rural musical practice both in their homelands
dances from their homelands in a form of and Vojvodina covers from the beginning
“reflective” activity. Contrary to this pre- of the 20th century through the inclusion
sentational context, during participatory of all the available writings and notations
dance events such as weddings and other of previous researchers, mostly ethno-
local festivities, Dinaric people mostly choreologists, inlcuding Ivan Ivančan,
perform užičko kolo as the most impor- Jelena Dopuđa, Vaso Popović, Vladimir
tant and widespread Serbian national Šoć, Olivera Vasić, Sandra Raković and
dance unambiguously positioning them- others. Therefore, the largest and the
selves within the framework of national most comprehensive material about the
identity of the country where they settled. traditional dances of Dinaric people not
The presentational and participatory only in Vojvodina but in general is gath-
dance contexts of Dinaric people in Vo- ered in this book.
jvodina are therefore unified in this book Starting from the theoretical prem-
through the concept of “dance practice”, ise that dance is an inseparable unity of
developed from Bourdieu’s and Miško dance movements and dance music,
Šuvaković’s theoretical standpoints, as “a Karin represents the collected material
process form of the creation that is ima- about individual dances in a form of ki-
nent to a man, in which the dance is not netography and musical notations (118
naturally understandable, but it is based examples in total) exploring them
on the explanation of its structural ele- through detailed individual and compar-
162
Reviews
ative structual-formal analysis. Although many other parameters are also analyzed
it is written in Serbian, the published no- in this book including: type and length of
tations as well as the conceptual and ana- the supports and gestures, pathways, me-
lytical unification of various traditions trorhythmical patterns of both kinetics
from the wider regions of the Dinara and music, tonal scales and ways of musi-
mountain make this book valuable for in- cal performances. Karin concludes that,
ternational scholars. Particularly pre- the traditional dances of each region have
cious are the detailed kinetograms which their own pecularities. However, in the
graphically describe all structural and overall plan of formal shaping, the mu-
stylistic specifities of Dinaric traditional tual non-congruency of kinetic and mu-
dance. To achieve comprehensivness in sical units is identified as the main char-
dance notation Karin developed a spe- acteristic of traditional dances of all the
cific glossary of kinetography symbols Dinaric people of Vojvodina. No matter
based on the analytical approach of rec- that gluvo kolo (also known as silent
ognized dance notators, Mária Szentpál, dance, that is dance with no musical ac-
Anne Hutchinson and János Fügedi. That companiment) is generally percieved as
is the reason why her glossary, apart from the main feature of Dinaric dance heri-
explaining details of notating Dinaric tage, Karin reveals that this type of danc-
dances, can also be used as a general ing is not present in the traditions of
manual for up-to-date kinetography in Banija, Herzegovina and Montenegro.
Serbian. What unifies traditional dance music of
The central part of the book is de- all Dinaric people is dancing accompa-
voted to the presentation of the struc- nied by singing. It is mostly performed in
tural-formal features of traditional the style of two part singing known as “na
dances of each region. The main conclu- bas”, except for people from Banija, Her-
sions which came out from her analytical zegovina and Montenegro who nurture
observations can be summarized as fol- the singing of the older tradition known
lows: The general features of dance prac- as “na glas”. People from Lika and Kor-
tice of all Dinaric people in Vojvodina are dun also dance accompanied by a four
round chain dances (closed or open cir- string tamburitza, those from Dalmatia
cle) and couple formations (couple danc- are accompanied by mouth organ (and
ing is not recorded in some regions on no other instruments), while those from
Bosanska Krajina: Grmeč, Kupres and Banija use both of those instruments.
Livno); although pathways can be versa- The book The dance practice of the
tile, moving clockwise prevails, except in Dinaric people in Vojvodina is a compre-
dances from Herzegovina and Montene- hensive and detailed study of the region-
gro, where sagittal symmetry can also ap- ally specific dances of Serbs from Croa-
pear; all dances are exclusivelly per- tia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and
formed in a distributive rhythmic system Montenegro who settled in Vojvodina
with two part metric organisation (2/4). during the 20th century. As already
Beside these general features of the struc- stressed, in a new cultural context they
tural aspects of Dinaric traditional dance, have been primarily performed on stage
163
with one of the immediate goals of keep- Culture) as well as by some wealthy indi-
ing the homeland tradition alive. Consid- viduals, but also taking into account that
ering the fact that the main social event regionaly specific Dinaric dances are no
for their performance is the festival “To longer performed in the participatory
our People and Descendants”, which is, as context of weddings and other festivities,
Karin reveals, sponsored both by the it is a question of how long this practice
Ministry of Culture and the Province of will be kept alive.
Vojvodina (Provincial Secretariat for
Article received on October 24th 2019 Musicologist and theoretician of art Bo-
Article accepted on November 28th 2019 jana Radovanović published a mono-
UDC: 81'23(049.32) graph dedicated to the problem of exper-
159.9(049.32) imental voice in contemporary theory
and practice, in 2018. She undertook the
MARIJA MAGLOV* assignment of dealing with a topic that
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, covers several ‘burning’ fields of theoreti-
Belgrade cal inquiry, both content- and methodol-
Institute of Musicology ogy-wise. As for the content of the study,
its focus on the performance aspects and
the voice itself (understood as sound, not
Bojana Radovanović, Eksperimentalni
only speech/language, which always indi-
glas: Savremena teorija i praksa
cates its connection to the body and the
[Experimental Voice: Contemporary
possibilities of its political intervention /
Theory and Practice], Belgrade: Orion
Radovanović 2018: 11/) relies on the
Art, 2018, 170 pages, ISBN 978-86-
work focused on performance, the per-
6389-073-21
formative body and the political agency
of art, produced in recent years. As for
the methodology, the study is transdi-
* Author contact information: marijama-
[email protected] cisplinary in its character, since the main
1 This review was written as part of the proj-
idea of thinking about experimental
ect “Identiteti srpske muzike od lokalnih do
voice, its agency and its theoretical un-
globalnih okvira: tradicije, promene, izazovi” derstanding ‘flows’ between the disci-
[‘Serbian Musical Identities within Local and plines of musicology, performance stud-
Global Frameworks: Traditions, Changes, ies, the theory of arts, psychology,
Challenges’] (No. 177004), funded by the philosophy, and in general – in the lim-
Ministry of Education, Science and Techno- inal zones between music, theatre and
logical Development of the Republic of Ser- poetry /Ibid., 12/. In that sense, it is no
bia.
164
Reviews
coincidence that this book has appeared chapters, as well as two appendices, a
within the series called PH – preko hu- glossary, bibliography, name index, sum-
manistike [Beyond Humanities], edited mary in English and a note on the author.
by Dr. Miodrag (Miško) Šuvaković. This In the introductory text the said coordi-
latest edition ties in with similar endeav- nates are given, and the author explains
ours the editor has carried out in the last how she hears and understands voice
four years. Although covering various (Kako čujem/razumem glas?). The first
topics, the titles published in this period chapter is titled Opšta teorija glasa [Gen-
have a common feature of exploring the eral Theory of Voice]. The pre-eminent
inter- and transdisciplinary perspectives approaches, from the positions of psy-
of contemporary humanities. choanalysis, biopolitics, theories of voice
Radovanović’s book is based on her and body, are all taken into account. The
Master’s Thesis (further broadened and objectivity of voice, its materiality, voice
developed), defended at the Faculty of as an indication of the presence of subject
Media and Communication under the and body, as well as an indication of the
mentorship of Dr. Miško Šuvaković. It subject’s political agency are presented in
could be said that the study is not orien- the following subchapters: Glas – pogled
tated towards developing one specific iz psihoanalize [Voice – view from psy-
take on the problem. Instead, the author choanalysis], Glas i politika [Voice and
offers an extensive overview of chosen politics], and “Taj glas nikako ne može
contemporary theoretical considerations poticati iz tog tela”– Glas i telo [’That
of voice in general and several case stud- voice could never emerge from that body’
ies of 20th and 21st century practices – Voice and the Body]. Among the prin-
where experimental voice was the main cipal authors whose theories (and inter-
tool of artistic and political intervention. pretation of other theoretical ideas) fig-
Bearing in mind that the literature on ure as referential points here are Mladen
(experimental) voice in the Serbian lan- Dolar, Jelena Novak, Giorgio Agamben,
guage is scarce, and that as far as the re- Adriana Cavarero, Roland Barthes, Bran-
viewer currently knows, there is no com- don LaBelle. For B. Radovanović, the
prehensive monograph in this country, chosen theoretical approaches/positions
dealing with similar problems, the deci- highlight a number of issues regarding
sion to take such an approach seems the problem of language in relation to
valuable in the sense that this study voice, and regarding the performative
serves as an introduction to possible ap- body, which accompanies her earlier
proaches and topics in our country. statement on the manner in which she
The conceptual precision and firmly understands voice. Here, they can be re-
set coordinates in which the main no- duced to the main questions of how lan-
tions are laid out are demonstrated guage can be bypassed and how this is
through the clarity of the monograph’s shown in various experimental artistic
structure. The study is divided into five practices (Ibid., 52).
chapters. In addition to the introduction Before examining these questions in
and conclusion, there are three main more detail, Radovanović gives short his-
165
tories of voice in music, poetry and the- tives on the activities and works of
atre in the second chapter, Glas/telo u Schwitters, Steve McCaffery, Antonin Ar-
izvođačkim umetnostima [Voice/Body in taud and Cathy Berberian, recognised by
the Performing Arts]. Going through the the author as ’manifest phenomena/fig-
mentioned artistic fields, as well as cor- ures/works of sound poetry, music and
responding scientific disciplines, the au- theatre’ (Ibid., 78). McCaffery’s activity is
thor presents the historically central ideas included here both because of his artistic
concerning the treatment of voice in each and theoretical practice. Between his
of those, before explaining their closeness sound poetry orientated towards the abo-
during the 20th century and the emer- lition of the sign, Schwitters’ specific
gence of performance art. The chapter combination of Merz and composition
concludes with Radovanović’s discussion (by means of the collage composing of
on Paolo Virno’s theses about virtuosity, sound), Artaud’s critique of European
work and politics. While Virno borrowed theatre given through the insistence on
the concept of virtuosity to explain the pre-linguistic and primal action, and
modes of work(ing) in Post-Fordism, Berberian’s ’new vocality’, the invention
Radovanović uses his concept to under- of new vocal performance techniques
stand the political quality of performance and playing with boundaries between
practice, and, more precisely, of experi- popular culture and avant-garde art,
mental vocal practices. Thus, she under- there is a common thread of bypassing
stands virtuosity both in the traditional the meaning of language and the sign,
sense of technical artistry and in Virno’s and instead focusing on the sound char-
sense of political virtuosity. Complemen- acteristic of voice and its affective quali-
tary to that, the experimental qualities ties. In addition, political agency of these
are comprehended both in terms of the artistic statements is underlined, which is
materiality of voice and exploring the also the case with the following case stud-
boundaries of its expression, as well as in ies, roughly recognised as the second
terms of the content of experimental group. These are examples of the contin-
vocal performances and their political ef- uation of similar ideas in the 21st century.
fects. Among them, there is political activism
These parallel lines of understand- performed through the electro-acoustic
ing concepts of virtuosity, experiment, theatre of Diamanda Gallás, her explor-
performance are shown in the central ing of the ’monstruosity’ of voice and
chapter, Eksperimentalni glas [Experi- body, but also in Laurie Anderson’s new
mental Voice]. Several case studies of dif- theatre and ’vocal drag’. Further examples
ferent artistic takes on the experiment, include early operas by Robert Wilson
voice and performance are analysed, and his relying on the phonetic qualities
starting with Kurt Schwitters’s Dadaistic of language, Moonchild project by John
experiments up to 21st century practices, Zorn, with special attention given to
concluding with that of Antonia Bär. Mike Patton’s extended vocal techniques
Among them, case studies can be seen to and theatralization of laughter as a spe-
be in two groups. First, there are narra- cific form of human communication, act-
166
Reviews
ing as the subversion of the language sys- ture can generally be seen in the light of
tem in performance Rire/Laugh/Lachen affirming Otherness. One could say
by Antonia Bär. In ’Izvođenje’ epiloga’ something similar about Adriana Cava-
[Performing’ the Epilogue], the author rero’s remark that ’woman sings, man
gives a summary of the presented thesis, thinks’ and the subsequent positioning of
concluding that ’considered experimental this thesis as a grain from which a ’pro-
voices virtuously play with the burning found discussion on the history of man-
questions of their time’, and show them- kind, gender relations, philosophy, meta-
selves as ’politically abundant and inter- physics, music and (…) voice’ can be
ventional forces’ (Ibid., 139). drawn (Ibid., 48). To a certain extent, the
Given that for readers in Serbia this striving to put forward a discussion on
study is an introduction to the topic, it is Otherness in its many forms, alternative
appropriate that, in addition to the glos- means of expression that are experimen-
sary, it also contains valuable appendices: tal in nature, and thus orientated towards
short biographies of the artists men- making interventions in culture and soci-
tioned throughout the study and the ety, as well as emphasising authors who
translation into Serbian of Cathy Berbe- placed these qualities in the forefront,
rian’s manifesto, New Vocality. Berberian’s can be seen as the underlying values of
efforts to establish her specific approach Bojana Radovanović’s study. Stressing the
to vocality, her emancipation from Luci- said qualities, as was already stated, in
ano Berio as a central avant-garde ’mu- pioneering study on the topic of experi-
sicworld’ figure (and former husband), mental voice in the context of the Serbian
her affirmative approach towards fluid language, is of itself an interesting inter-
boundaries between art and popular cul- vention in the local theoretical discourse.
167
Article received on August 27th 2019 In a thoroughly and comprehen-

Article accepted on November 28th 2019 sively written study (331 pages of text and
UDC: 7.01"19"(049.32) 103 units of bibliographic references),
7.037/.038(049.32) Ivana Bašičević Antić focuses on the con-
7.071/.072 Башичевић Д.(049.32)
cept and phenomenon of visual artwork
7.071 Бродарс М.(049.32)
in the 20th century, and on the theoretical
presentation of changes that occurred in
SANELA NIKOLIĆ*1 conceptual, morphological and phenom-
University of Arts in Belgrade enological terms in such a way that, as
Faculty of Music the author points out, the end of that cen-
Unit for General and Professional Courses tury in the field of visual arts is most
often described in the spirit of Donald
Judd’s words: “Half or more of the best
Ivana Bašičević Antić, Trijumf reči u
new work in the last few years has been
vizuelnoj umetnosti dvadesetog veka.
neither painting nor sculpture.” (p. 9) The
Dimitrije Bašičević Mangelos i Marsel
main thesis of this study is that the
Brodars [The triumph of words in
changes which took place within many
twentieth-century visual art. Dimitrije
innovative, experimental and radical
Bašičević Mangelos and
avant-garde practices led to the ’triumph’
Marcel Broodthaers],
of words in the visual arts of the mid-20th
Belgrade: Orion Art, 2018, 341 pages,
century, and to the manifestation of a
ISBN 978-86-6389-070-1
specific artistic phenomenon of word-
image. The book is organized in such a
With the book The triumph of words in way that each individual chapter and sub-
twentieth-century visual art. Dimitrije chapter stands for the proof of this thesis.
Bašičević Mangelos and Marsel Brodars Although the text is segmented into
(Orion Art, 2018), Ivana Bašičević Antić 9 chapters with numerous sub-chapters,
– who has successfully been working in two major content units of the book
the context of art for more than a decade stand out. The first section (chapters:
in the curatorial work and management Artwork in the 20th Century; New Forms
of the Illija & Mangelos Foundation – has of Artwork; Art Movements in the 20th
introduced herself to readers once again Century and the Changing Nature of the
as a theorist of 20th century visual arts. Art Object; Image and Text) outlines the
Following the monograph on Vojvodina historical trajectories of 20th century vi-
painter Emerik Feješ in 2012, the author’s sual art by selecting and presenting those
second book came from a dissertation practices of visual art that led to the phe-
defended at the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. nomenon of word-image (ready-made,
studies in art and media theory at the futurism, dada, surrealism, neo-dada). In
University of Arts in Belgrade. the second part of the book, the author
deals with the legacy of word-image in
*1Author contact information: the art of the second half of the 20th cen-
[email protected] tury and connects it with the two case
168
Reviews
studies. These are the works of the In the methodological sense, Baši-
painter Dimitrije Bašičević Mangelos and čević Antić combines a historical and
Marcel Broodthaers, as examples of vi- theoretical approach. The historical optic
sual poetics that treated the problem cir- is achieved through an effort to capture
cle of the relationship between image and and present, in the course of history, the
text, which the author first problematizes development of visual art from the initial
individually and then in a comparative avant-garde artistic achievements,
relationship (Chapters: The Legacy of the through the first half of the 20th century
Word-Image Phenomenon in the Art of to the seventies of that century, when the
the Second Half 20th century; Case Study: careers of Mangelos and Broodthaers
Dimitrije Bašičević Mangelos; Case came to an end. Thereby, the main crite-
Study: Marcel Broodthaers; Comparative rion of the historical change is the cri-
Analysis of Two Artistic Works: Brood- tique of the visual media’s autonomy, i.e.
thaers – Mangelos). Although these are the emancipation of the visual art media
quite separate phenomena of European in the direction of the increasing affirma-
proto-conceptual art, the author’s analy- tion of the word and text in the field of
sis of the works of Mangelos and Brood- visual artistic expression that had been
thaers shows that there are a number of usually understood through the concept
levels at which their artistic works, in of painting. The author uses a theoretical
very similar ways, pose problems and an- approach as the identification, explication
swer them. The choice of the works of and discussion of poetic, aesthetic and
Dimitrije Bašičević Mangelos and Marcel conceptual problems that have arisen in
Broodthaers as examples of the legacy of specific, individual artistic poetics as a re-
the word-image phenomenon in the art of sult of the radical use of words in the
the second half of the 20th century is mo- space of the image. The focus is on re-
tivated by the fact that in the case of both searching conceptual approaches in the
artists, examples are given of the radical works with words and images when art-
use of words in the field of an image. The ists use them as instruments to convey
author has singled out and explored in their worldviews. In connection with the
detail the numerous and, in some cases, artistic practices she examines and ana-
variable components of Mangelos and lyzes, Ivana Bašićević Antić recognizes
Broodthaers’ artistic opus in such a way the emergence of a new paradigm of art-
that the chapters in which she presents ists, those who intentionally emerge from
the visions, activities and artistic achieve- the field of autonomous creation and oc-
ments of the two artists are structured to cupy the position of highly educated sub-
satisfy all the conditions that a scientific jects who are informed about tendencies
monograph needs to have. These chap- both in art and society. From that posi-
ters exist as ’monographs within a mono- tion, they perform their works as complex
graph’ and in fact illustrate the thorough- sign systems that the uninitiated observer,
ness of the research approach and the with an attitude of uninterested aesthetic
multifaceted objects and problems that experience, can no longer understand as
are the focus of this study. art. In such cases, theoretical work, like
169
this study, acts as a necessary mediator of Antić deals with the practices of visual
understanding, communication and the art – in one way, as a curator, and in an-
further dissemination of art. In fact, the other, as a theorist. When considering
particular value of this book lies in the the example of the ’end’ of the museum
fact that Bašičević Antić not only presents and the institutional critique of Marcel
the results of the research of individual Broodthaers, the author theoretically
artistic poetics that have uniquely treated treats her second field of activity – cura-
the issue of the relationship between torial practices – and points out that the
image and text (Mangelos and Brood- ’triumph’ of words in visual art has had
thaers), but also sees and explores a whole significant repercussions in the realm of
set of broad, aesthetic and theoretical traditional art institutions such as the
problems that such artistic manifestations museum. This study is significant be-
carried with them, provoking and initiat- cause it theoretically delineates the his-
ing change within the great modernist tory of those visual artistic practices that
paradigm of the autonomy of art and its have been expressed as critiques of paint-
institutional presentation and under- ings as the creation and autonomous aes-
standing. Thus, the book discusses the thetic objects. Ivana Bašičević Antić has
dematerialization of an art object during realized a very specific example of theo-
the 20th century, new forms of artwork, retical insight into 20th century visual art,
changing aesthetic aspects, the changed which treats both the image and word as
position of the observer, the institutional equal components of visual artwork,
criticism of art, a new philosophy of art, points to the emancipation of the theo-
the development of hermeneutics, the in- retical and the conceptual in the field of
troduction of the term ’sign’ in the inter- artistic poetics, as well as to the penetra-
pretation of the image, the end of mimetic tion of the conceptual into the area of the
painting and the concept of the ’end’ of aesthetic as the general tendency of 20th
painting, all as the important conceptual century art. The emergence of textual
points of the whole of 20th century art. practices in the visual arts was also inter-
The above-mentioned points are impor- preted as a consequence of the develop-
tant meta-codes for understanding 20th ment of art theory and the media evolu-
century art, and the particular value of tion of artwork throughout the 20th
this book lies in the fact that they, as such, century, all of which were compounded
are theoretically presented and under- by the emergence of new media. The par-
stood in their causal relationship. ticular value of this study is that the con-
The triumph of words in twentieth- ceptual work of individual artists with
century visual art emerges as a significant the image and text has been associated
and relevant theoretical study among the with the wider development of theoreti-
not-so-numerous domestic editions that cal thought, specifically, with the mani-
are oriented toward the view of the visual festations of the ’linguistic turn’ and the
arts in a wide chronological arc. It is in- new theoretical settings that the linguis-
teresting that the last chapters of the book tics, anthropology and philosophy of the
‘close the circle’ within which Bašičević 20th century have attained.
170
Reviews
With the publication of the book tendencies of the new humanities, to en-
The triumph of words in twentieth-century gage in dialogue with approaches that are
visual art in an edition entitled “Across topical in the wider theoretical world
the Humanities”, the publisher Orion Art context and to affirm new philosophical
has once again expressed support for all and aesthetic solutions within a national
those authors who wish to present the theoretical space.
Article received on August 25th 2019 Bosnia and Herzegovina highlights what
Article accepted on November 28th 2019 every attentive reader of that publication
UDC: 781(497.6)(049.32) would surmise already from the com-
plexity of its contents, which shows an
IRA PRODANOV*1 impressive amount of research, effort,
University of Novi Sad analysis, synthesis, and a refined feeling
Academy of Arts for a sound methodological basis. For the
Department of Musicology and new book by Emeritus Prof. Ivan
Ethnomusicology Čavlović would constitute the lifework
(and possibly the fulfilment of his life-
long striving) of any major scholar – a
Ivan Čavlović, Nauka o muzici u Bosni comprehensive survey of various bran-
i Hercegovini [The Study of Music in ches of his own profession, in which he
Bosnia and Herzegovina], Sarajevo: has taken an active part throughout his
Fondacija “Čavlović”, 2019, 800 pages, working life. There is another important
ISBN 978-9926-8361-0-8 fact one should mention before offering a
more detailed insight into the publication
“This book is somewhere close to ep- that is at stake here: with his research into
ochal”, writes the author, Prof. Ivan the study of music in Bosnia and Herze-
Čavlović, Ph.D., in the Introduction to govina, Prof. Čavlović directs the atten-
his studiously written, capital publication of the entire scholarly public to the
tion, titled Nauka o muzici u Bosni i Her- significance and potential of scholarly
cegovini (“The Study of Music in Bosnia thought in the domain of music and
and Herzegovina”, 2019). Without false thereby warns the region’s responsible
modesty, with that line this renowned university and political structures against
musicologist and music theorist from the continual marginalisation of the
study of music as a “minor discipline”,
highlighting its value as essential for
*1Author contact information: every culturally and scholarly aware envi-
[email protected] ronment.
171
The book, as the author himself em- them to pursue their professional inter-
phasises, comprises three different ap- ests. The reader thus learns in detail
proaches: a scholarly-interpretative, lexi- about the institutions where music was
cographic, and bibliographic approach. cultivated: music academies, societies,
In the first part, starting from a set of music education centres, associations,
theoretical premises, the author defines music libraries, opera, theatre, as well as
the field of the study of music, buttress- media sources where music occupied the
ing his views by referring to the most sig- central position (periodicals, festivals)
nificant sources and scholars. Moving and, finally, scholarly and academic
through history chronologically, Čavlović meetings. It is interesting that the author
mentions an impressive number of did not omit even those who, acting as
names, as well as the circumstances that individuals, experts, or enthusiasts, unaf-
led to the first writings and sketches as filiated with any institution, made a con-
proto-musicological artefacts of music in siderable contribution to the study of
Bosnia and Herzegovina. Then, the ensu- music in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
ing chapters present the beginnings and In the section of the book discussing
crucial “strides” of Bosnian efforts in mu- the value criteria of research, the author
sicology, ethnomusicology, and music turns to the most significant current
theory, as well as in the domains of music trends in the scholarly treatment of music
aesthetics, the sociology of music, and and, underscoring the positive efforts of
writing on music, with detailed lists of teamwork in the past, points to its neces-
lecturers, researchers, authors, accepted sity in the future as well. Describing ex-
doctoral dissertations and other final the- amples of good practice, Čavlović then
ses, as well as sources that formed the posits the key premises for a successful
“basis” for the development of Bosnian continuation of scholarly activities in the
scholarly thinking on music. In his dis- domain of the study of music, first and
cussions, however, Čavlović invariably foremost the study of one’s own musical
retains an adequately critical approach, heritage and then drawing comparisons
demonstrating his extremely broad un- between it and its European and global
derstanding of the subject areas he dis- counterparts.
cusses. At times he thereby reveals his A large part of the book is reserved
(hidden) partiality toward some of those for a lexicographic-bibliographic list of
areas, such as music aesthetics, to which Bosnian music scholars, 72 of them in
he accords special attention, not only in total, and then a bibliography of their
terms of specific authors, but also certain writings on music in various periodicals
fundamental issues they addressed in that were not mentioned in the preceding
their work. section – the lexicon. Of course, the au-
Following his discussion of key fig- thor begins this segment of the book by
ures responsible for the establishment of laying out the criteria he followed in se-
the study of music in Bosnia and Herze- lecting the authors and their writings and
govina, the author moves to an explora- the chronological cut-off points for some
tion of the “frameworks” that allowed of the sources. The contents of this seg-
172
Reviews
ment of the book are ordered chronolog- rather elegant and clear idiom, that the
ically and then alphabetically by title and text is gender-sensitive, and the details
comprise almost a half the entire publica- almost unbelievably precise, it becomes
tion. obvious that the scholarly and wider pub-
The bibliography and an impressive lic are confronted with a source that be-
index of names at the end of the book longs among capital publications in the
suggest a meticulous researcher who gave domain of the study of music not only in
each segment of his research effort its Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also in the
rightful due. If one adds to this that the region of former Yugoslavia and even the
book is written in what is stylistically a Balkans as a whole.
Article received on July 12th 2019 ining the Yugoslav idea in/of music,
Article accepted on November 28th 2019 which in musicological terms remains an
UDC: 323.1(=163.4):78(497.1)(048.3)(049.32) under-researched and undefined cate-
78(049.32) gory. On 25–26 May 2019 Matica srpska
and the Serbian Musicological Society
MARIJANA KOKANOVIĆ held an international scholarly meeting
MARKOVIĆ*1 under the title of Jugoslovenska idea u/o
University of Novi Sad muzici (“The Yugoslav Idea in/of Music”)
Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, comprising eight panels with
Department of Music presentations by scholars from Serbia,
Croatia, Slovenia, and Great Britain: 1.
Diskursi o jugoslovenskoj muzici – muzi-
International Scholarly Conference kografija/muzikologija (“Discourses
Jugoslovenska ideja u/o muzici about Yugoslav Music: Musicography/
[The Yugoslav Idea in/of Music], Novi Musicology”), 2. Muzičko jugoslovenstvo:
Sad, Matica srpska, 25–26 May 2019 mape/teritorije/afekti (“Yugoslavism:
Maps/Territories/Affects”), 3. Muzičko
jugoslovenstvo: ideje/koncerti (“Musical
Last year saw the centenary of the found- Yugoslavism: Ideas/Concerts”), 4. Dis-
ing of the first Yugoslav state, the King- kursi o jugoslovenskoj muzici – muzikolo-
dom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, pro- gija/muzikografija (“Discourses about
viding an excellent occasion for re-exam- Yugoslav Music: Musicology/Musicogra-
phy”); 5. Jugoslovenska muzička scena –
institucije – diskografija (“Yugoslavia’s
*1Author contact information: Music Scene: Protagonists – Art Music”);
[email protected]
173
6. Jugoslovenska muzička scena – institu- The thematic block titled “Dis-

cije – diskografija (“Yugoslavia’s Music courses about Yugoslav Music” com-
Scene: Institutions – Discography”), 7. prised two panels focused on musicogra-
Jugoslovenska muzička scena: institucije – phy and musicology. In her presentation,
kulturna politika (“Yugoslavia’s Music Ideja i praksa jugoslovenstva u periodu
Scene: Institutions – Cultural Policy”), 8. 1945–1960, prema napisima u muzičkoj
Jugoslovenska muzička scena – akteri – periodici (“The Idea and Practice of Yu-
popularna muzika (“Yugoslavia’s Music goslavism between 1945 and 1960 in
Scene: Protagonists – Popular Music”). Writings in Contemporary Periodicals”),
Since the conference was based on three Melita Milin (Institute of Musicology at
main thematic blocks (“Discourses about the Serbian Academy of Sciences and
Yugoslav Music”, “Musical Yugoslavism”, Arts, Belgrade) discussed the pursuit of
and “Yugoslavia’s Music Scene”), individ- equal representation of contributions
ual contributions will be presented in the from all six republics, although in prac-
same way here. tice, self-representation prevailed. In her
The conference was inaugurated by talk, Jugoslovenska koncepcija časopisa
Dr. Mirjana Veselinović Hofman (Secre- Zvuk (“The Yugoslav Conception of the
tary of the Department of Stage Arts and Journal Zvuk”), Ivana Nožica (Academy
Music at Matica srpska), who highlighted of Arts, Novi Sad) stressed the impor-
the necessity of explorations initiated by tance of that music periodical during its
this scholarly gathering, from a factual 60 years of publication, highlighting its
and problem-based perspective, in this editors’ striving to flesh out the journal’s
day and age, when interpretations of the Yugoslav conception.
legacy of Yugoslavia are politicized in In her rather interesting presenta-
general, moving within a “nervous oscil- tion, Fluktuirajuće putanje jugoslovenskog
lation between negation and idealization”. muzičkog modernizma: Primer Jugoslov-
The keynote, titled Teze o jugoslovenskim enskog paviljona na svetskoj izložbi
idejama u/o muzici. Kritički pogled na „EXPO 58“ u Briselu (“The Fluctuating
muzičke prakse i narative od kraja XIX do Trajectories of Yugoslav Music Modern-
dvadesetih godina XX veka (“Theses ism: The Example of the Yugoslav Pavil-
about Yugoslav Ideas in/of Music: A Crit- lion at the EXPO 58 World Exhibition in
ical Survey of Musical Practices and Nar- Brussels”), Ana Kotevska (Serbian Musi-
ratives from the Late 19th Century to the cological Society, Belgrade) pointed to
1920s”) was delivered by Biljana Mila- the under-researched overall “mixed”
nović (Institute of Musicology at the Ser- content of Yugoslavia’s musical program-
bian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Bel- ming, while the second part of her talk
grade), who emphasized the importance presented the afterlife of the Yugoslav pa-
of critically grounded Yugoslav studies villion, repurposed since the exhibition
for musicological research and high- as St Paulus College in Wevelgem, and
lighted various types of links between the way its pupils learn about Yugoslav
Serbia’s musical culture and its regional and post-Yugoslav heritage. In her con-
counterparts. tribution, Aspekti nastave Istorije jugo-
174
Reviews
slovenske muzike na Fakultetu muzičke the concert activities, conductors, and

umetnosti u Beogradu (“Aspects of the repertory of that ensemble.
Yugoslav Music History Curriculum at The next panel on Yugoslavism in
the Faculty of Music in Belgrade”), Marija music (ideas/concepts) opened with a
Masnikosa (Faculty of Music, Belgrade) presentation by Ivana Vesić (Institute of
discussed the impact of the Socialist Fed- Musicology at the Serbian Academy of
eral Republic of Yugoslavia’s cultural pol- Sciences and Arts, Belgrade), Koncept ju-
icies on the curriculum of the course goslovenske integracije u javnim aktima
stated in her title, which was taught for jugoslovenskih muzičara (1918–1941)
years at the Faculty of Music by Prof. (“The Concept of Yugoslav Integration in
Vlastimir Peričić, while Miloš Marinković Public Acts by Yugoslav Musicians,
(Institute of Musicology at the Serbian 1918–1941), surveying various interpre-
Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade) tations of “real Yugoslavism” in the coun-
explored the scholarly and musicological try’s musical life from the perspective of
activities pursued at the annual confer- the activities of musicians from different
ences on modern Yugoslav music in constituent republics, especially in Bel-
Opatija (1964–1990): Naučno-muziko- grade, Zagreb, and Ljubljana. In her talk,
loški aspekti Jugoslavenske muzičke tri- Jugoslovenska ideja u solo pesmi s početka
bine/Tribine muzičkog stvaralaštva Jugo- XX veka na južnoslovenskim prostorima
slavije (“Academic-musicological Aspects (“The Yugoslav Idea in Early 20th-century
of the Yugoslav Music Forum / Forum of Lieder in the South Slavic Region”),
Yugoslav Music Creativity”). Verica Grmuša (Royal Holloway, Univer-
Yugoslavism in music was addressed sity of London) discussed the collabora-
in two panels. In the first panel, Leon Ste- tion of Petar Konjović and Miloje
fanija (Faculty of Philosophy, Ljubljana) Milojević and the sopranos Maja Strozzi-
re-examined, in his talk titled Mapiranje Pečić and Ivana Milojević, both of whom,
slavizma u slovenačkoj muzici do 1918. as she asserted, played formative roles in
godine (“The Mapping of Slavism in Slo- the creation of certain works in the oeu-
venian pre-1918 Music”), the contexts of vres of both composers.
Slovenian public debates on Slavism, The four final panels were dedicated
through a series of paradigmatic exam- to Yugoslavia’s music scene. Ispoljavanje
ples from Slovenian periodicals (1918– ideje jugoslovenstva u stvaralaštvu Vuka
1992), interpreting the later period from Kulenovića (“Manifestations of the Idea
the perspective of the project “Music and of Yugoslavism in the Oeuvre of Vuk
Ethnic Minorities: Slovenia’s (Trans)cul- Kulenović”) was the title of the presenta-
tural Dynamics since 1991”. The contri- tion by Ivana Medić (Institute of Musicol-
bution of Gordana Krajačić (independent ogy at the Serbian Academy of Sciences
scholar), Jugoslovenski sadržaji na koncer- and Arts), which highlighted various
tima Muzike Kraljeve garde između svet- manifestations of the idea of Yugoslavism
skih ratova (“Yugoslav Contents in Con- in Kulenović’s oeuvre, from his cantata
certs of the Royal Garde Orchestra Stojanka majka Knežepoljka (“Mother
between the two World Wars”), treated Stojanka from Knežepolje”) to Hymnos,
175
another cantata. In his talk titled Kosmo- (“Electroacoustic Music in the SFRY dur-
politska stilska orijentacija – Stvaralačka ing the Dissolution of the Country: The
izuzetnost Rudolfa Bručija i(li) jugoslov- Case of the Electronic Media Artists’ As-
enska umetničko-teorijska diskurzivna sociation”) offered an interesting view of
praksa (“A Cosmopolitan Stylistic Orien- the founding (1991) of one of the last ar-
tation: The Creative Exceptionalism of tistic associations that aspired to be Yugo-
Rudolf Brucci and/or Yugoslav Art-The- slav in character, highlighting the ideas
oretical Discursive Practice”), Nemanja that brought its artists together, as well as
Sovtić (Academy of Arts, Novi Sad) re- the relationship between their poetics and
examined the concept of “cosmopolitan social circumstances.
style”, Vlastimir Peričić’s characterization The seventh panel featured four pre-
of Brucci’s oeuvre, also asking to what de- sentations, focusing on institutions and
gree that concept participated in the Yu- cultural policy. In her talk, Prilog istoriji
goslav idea in/of music. Miloš Bralović izvođaštva na muzičkim scenama bivših
(Institute of Musicology at the Serbian Jugoslavija (“A Contribution to the His-
Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade) tory of Performance on the Music Scenes
offered insight into autographs left by of Former Yugoslavias”), Nadežda Mo-
Josip Slavenski, which are now held at the susova (Institute of Musicology at the
Faculty of Music in Belgrade, seeking to Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts,
highlight some lesser known aspects of Belgrade) pointed to the necessity of sur-
the composer’s poetics (Josip Slavenski: veying the general overlapping in the ac-
skice, beleške, crteži / “Josip Slavenski: tivities of protagonists on Yugoslav music
Sketches, Notes, Drawings”). scenes. Vanja Spasić (Institute of Musi-
In her contribution, Tko zna gdje se cology at the Serbian Academy of Sci-
sakrio sedmi kontinent... O glazbi i rasi na ences and Arts, Belgrade), in her talk ti-
marginama jugoslavenske diskografije tled Domaći repertoar Opere Narodnog
(“Who Knows Where the Seventh Conti- pozorišta u Beogradu (1970–1990) (The
nent is Hiding… On Music and Race on Domestic Repertoire of Belgrade Na-
the Margins of Yugoslav Discography”), tional Theatre Opera, 1970–1990),
Mojca Piškor (Academy of Music, Za- showed how that institution sought to
greb) explored African music and musi- bring art closer to the “working people”,
cians in Yugoslav discography of the latter with special focus on having “Yugoslav”
half of the 20th century, while Vesna Ivkov operas on its repertoires. In her contribu-
(Academy of Arts, Novi Sad), in her talk tion, Od zvuka ka…: Muzički program
titled “Vojvodina ton” i (post)jugosloven- SKC-a sagledan u kontekstu samouprav-
ske perspektive (“‘Vojvodina ton’ and nog socijalizma (“From Sound to…: The
(Post)Yugoslav Perspectives”) presented Music Programming of Belgrade’s Stu-
the activities of that association since its dents’ Cultural Centre Viewed in the
founding (1964) up to the present. In his Context of Self-management Socialism”),
presentation, Elektroakustička muzika u Ivana Miladinović Prica (Faculty of
SFRJ u periodu raspada zemlje: slučaj Aso- Music, Belgrade) explored the program-
cijacije umetnika elektronskih medija matic and aesthetic unity of artists gath-
176
Reviews
ered around the Students’ Cultural Cen- 1990: ‘Yugoslavism’ in Pop Music Materi-
tre in Belgrade, who, following the arrival alized at Last?”), which highlighted the
of Miroslav Savić (1978), initiated a new specifically Yugoslav type of pop song,
orientation of its programmes in music. seeking to link cultural “Yugoslavism”
Predrag Đoković (Academy of Music, with that concept’s purely musical equiv-
University of East Sarajevo) discussed the alents. In the final presentation heard in
Yugoslav music performance scene’s in- this thematic block, “Metalci, hipici i os-
terest in early European music in the tali manijaci” – metal muzika u Jugoslaviji
1960s (Pokret za ranu muziku u izvođač- (“‘Metals, Hippies, and Other Maniacs:
kom domenu šezdesetih godina prošlog Heavy Metal Music in Yugoslavia”), Bo-
veka / “The Early Music Movement in jana Radovanović discussed the emer-
Yugoslavia’s 1960s Performance Scene”). gence and development of Yugoslavia’s
In her talk titled Jugoslovenko-nemačke heavy metal music scene, bearing in
horske nedelje (“The Yugoslav-German mind the peculiar reception model of this
Choral Weeks”), Nataša Marjanović (In- genre in a socialist context.
stitute of Musicology at the Serbian At this conference, the Yugoslav idea
Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade) in/of music was surveyed from various
considered the paradigm of the Yugoslav angles and methodological approaches,
idea in relation to the repertory, partici- seeking to map out phenomena that
pant selection criteria, as well as the im- played important roles in defining Yugo-
pact of cooperation between the two slav identity in music. The meeting was
countries (1969–1991). open to the professional and general pub-
The final panel, devoted to popular lic alike and there were discussions fol-
music, opened with Marko Aleksić’s lowing each panel. We hope that this
(Faculty of Music, Belgrade) contribu- rather successful conference will prove
tion, titled Jugoslovenski predstavnici na stimulating for further explorations and
“Pesmi Evrovizije” u periodu 1981–1990: that the idea of Yugoslavisms will be sur-
konačno formirano “jugoslovenstvo” u pop veyed from beyond the historical coordi-
muzici? (“Yugoslavia’s Entries at the Eu- nates of the Yugoslav states, deeper into
rovision Song Contest between 1981 and the past.
177
Article received on November 27th 2019 Nastasijević’s creative work, the Depart-
Article accepted on November 28th 2019 ment of Musicology placed before the
UDC: 821.163.41.09 Настасијевић М.(049.32) scholarly community in the humanities
82:061(497.11)"2019"(049.32) an extremely inspiring challenge for pos-
sible interpretations, explorations, and
MILICA ALEKSIĆ* surveys of the artistic discourses of
MA student Momčilo Nastasijević and his composer
University of Arts in Belgrade brother Svetomir. The aim, which the
Faculty of Music conference did attain, was to gain,
Department of Musicology through theoretical-analytical re-exami-
nations, new insights into the idea of na-
tive melody from different aspects of the
The Native Melody of Momčilo study of music, as well as to examine the
Nastasijević: Interdisciplinary possibility of pushing the boundaries of
Reflexions, Belgrade, Faculty of Music, individual scholarly disciplines, and to
23–24 November 2019 combine various methodological proce-
dures, from the academic fields of musi-
To mark an important jubilee – 125 years cology, ethnomusicology, music theory,
since the birth of Momčilo Nastasijević theology, religious studies, literary the-
(1894–1938), the Serbian poet, play- ory, linguistics, accentology, philology,
wright, and author – the Department of psychology, philosophy, and art history.
Musicology at the Faculty of Music at the The conference opened with a key-
University of Arts in Belgrade, in coop- note lecture by Dr. Robert Hodel, Profes-
eration with the Regional Museum of sor at the Institute of Slavic Studies at the
Rudnik and Takovo in Gornji Milanovac, University of Hamburg; the title of his
organized a national significance-level talk was “Uloga muzike u Nastasijevi-
scholarly conference with international ćevom pesništvu u europskom kontek-
participation under the title of “The Na- stu” (The Role of Music in the Poetic
tive Melody of Momčilo Nastasijević: In- Oeuvre of Nastasijević in Its European
terdisciplinary Reflexions” on 23–24 No- Context). He set out from a philosophical
vember 2019 in Belgrade and Gornji
Milanovac. Adopting the concept of na- his affirmative stance on the phenomenon of
tive melody1 as the backbone of Momčilo the archetypal synthesis of speech and music,
stemming right from the people. Момчило
Настасијевић, Сабрана дела Момчила На-
* Author contact information: pticicica@ стасијевића: Есеји, белешке, мисли, (ре-
gmail.com дакција Новице Петковића), Горњи Мила-
1 The phrase матерња мелодија / maternja новац–Београд, Дечје новине–Српска
melodija (“native melody” or “mother’s mel- књижевна задруга, 1991. [Momčilo Nasta-
ody”, as in “native language” or “mother’s sijević, Sabrana dela Momčila Nastasijevića.
tongue”) was coined by Momčilo Nastasijević Eseji, beleške, misli, ed. Novica Metković,
in the title of his essay “Za maternju melod- Gornji Milanovac and Belgrade, Dečje novine
iju” (“In Favour of Native Melody”), reflecting and Srpska književna zadruga, 1991.]
178
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interpretation of the correlation between nomenal form of Svetomir’s creative ex-

language and thought, whereby these perience of the poetic-aesthetic principle
conceptual categories are not ontological of native melody, and highlighted the
givens, but the two sides of the same coin place where his folk music idiom meets
– the source of cognition. Hodel under- the ancient Greek literary and contempo-
stands Nastasijević’s poetic procedures as rary modes of expression.
gestures whereby the poet extracts the The object of Dr. Tijana Popović
primordial dimension of language, which Mlađenović’s discussion was to survey
results in a peculiar synesthetic causal Nastasijević’s concept of native melody in
operation of three categories – concept, the poetic context of the French com-
image, and voice – and a synthesis of poser Claude Debussy. In her talk titled
music and thought, which, in the wider “Moguća značenja i tumačenja fenomena
context of contemporary European cul- maternje melodije u poetici Kloda Debi-
ture, Hodel classifies as an avant-garde- sija” (Possible Meanings and Interpreta-
neo-primitivist creative stance. tions of the Phenomenon of Native Mel-
The subjects presented on at the con- ody in the Poetics of Claude Debussy),
ference by musicologists from the De- referring primarily to the peculiarities of
partment of Musicology covered a wide the vocal part (more precisely, melodic
range of topics that have been present in writing mirroring the inflections of spo-
Serbian scholarship as well as those that ken French) in Debussy’s lyrical drama
were hitherto unexplored, concerning the Pelléas et Mélisande, as well as the musi-
role and function of the artistic concept of cal source (through Debussy’s poetic lens
native melody in the oeuvres of Momčilo of “broken” melodies) of the melodies of
and Svetomir Nastasijević, surveyed from the two thematic building blocks of his
interdisciplinary perspectives in terms of orchestral work Prélude à l’après-midi
theory and methodology. Thus in her d’un faune, Dr. Popović Mlađenović
talk, titled “Monolog Antigone u isto- highlighted the relevance and far reach of
imenoj operi Svetomira Nastasijevića” Nastasijević’s creative creed, which, if in-
(The Monologue of Antigone in the terpreted beyond the categories of spatio-
Eponymous Opera by Svetomir Nasta- temporal causality, reveals the principle
sijević), Dr. Ana Stefanović directed her of “coalescence” between native language
attention to this work of music theatre, and melody, which is archetypal, origi-
unfairly neglected in Serbian scholarship, nary, cognitively not entirely defined, but
problematizing and re-examining the po- easily discernible in its implementation
sition of Serbian opera composers in the in music.
semantic gravitational field of the genre Speaking of “Direct Correspon-
of music drama, including Greek tragedy dences between the Native Melody of
as a music-functionalized literary genre. Momčilo Nastasijević and the Native
Treating the monologue as a point of in- Melody of Stevan Stojanović Mokranjac”
tersection between musical and literary (“O neposrednim saglasjima između ma-
artistic speech, Stefanović offered a com- ternje melodije Momčila Nastasijevića i
prehensive interpretation of every phe- maternje melodije Stevana Stojanovića
179
Mokranjca”), Dr. Ivana Petković Lozo, istics of Zora (“Dawn”), a poem by

Neda Kolić, and Marija Simonović, pur- Nastasijević, and several traditional
suing a sort of methodological transposi- songs. In her presentation titled “Odzvuk
tion of Nastasijević’s poetic axiom, pos- jednog karakterističnog segmenta melo-
ited as the central problem of their dijskh modela juga Srbije i susednih
discussion the mapping out of points of oblasti u Nastasijevićevoj pesmi Zora”
contact between the distinctive lines of (An Echo of a Characteristic Segment of
Mokranjac’s own garlanding [рукове- Melodic Models from Southern Serbia
дање] style with the aesthetic-philosoph- and Neighbouring Regions in Nasta-
ical postulates of Nastasijević’s creative sijević’s Poem Zora) Jovanović high-
strategy. In his presentation, titled lighted the presence of a tight formal-
“Muzika kao oživotvoravajuće duhovno melodic-intonative bond between the
načelo nastasijevićevske misli” (Music as tradition-bound melodic motion of folk
the Animating Spiritual Principle of Nas- vocal practice and the intonative form of
tasijević’s Thought), paying special atten- the repetitive final line of every verse in
tion to the syntax, vocabulary [лексика], Zora: “Stani ne mini” (Stop, don’t go).
and sonority of Nastasijević’s writing, Dr. The two presentations from the do-
Igor Radeta offered new interpretations main of music theory were thematically
referring to, among other things, Nasta- and methodologically related, since their
sijević’s modes of conceptualising music, authors discussed the characteristics of
as well as their causal reflexions on the the harmonic language of Svetomir
morphological and semantic dimension Nastasijević’s choral suites, treating the
of the written word. phrase native melody primarily as native
From the perspective of ethnomusi- melodies, as concrete musical materializa-
cology, considerations of the phenome- tions of vocal folk practice. Music theo-
non of native melody were presented in rist and conductor Dr. Miloje Nikolić fo-
two contributions. In her talk, titled “Se- cused on the idea of native harmony,
mantika intoneme u obrednom muzič- supported by Nastasijević’s composi-
kom stvaralaštvu” (The Semantics of the tional-technical and choral-orchestral
Intoneme in Ritual Music Creativity), treatment of traditional folk songs, con-
staking out her theoretical-methodologi- sequently stemming from a direct appli-
cal grounding, Dr. Mirjana Zakić re- cation of native melodies in the construc-
sorted to the prosodic definition of the tion of his choral textures. Likewise a
intoneme as a typical pattern of verbal theorist of music, Dr. Saša Božidarević,
inflection, deriving her interpretation of pointing to the closeness of Nastasijević’s
musical intonation in the context of the and Mokranjac’s artistic languages in the
sonic representation of Serbian folk ritual thematic-formal shaping of their choral
songs, using tužbalice (mourning songs), works, argued that both composers re-
dodole (rain dance songs), and kolede sorted to the compositional procedure of
(Christmas songs) as examples. Dr. Jelena arranging folk songs, but that Nastasijević
Jovanović focused on a comparative sur- was oriented to the native melody of
vey of the structural-semantic character- older folk layers.
180
Reviews
Tanja Gačić, a historian of art, Nastasijević, as well as problematized his

touched on issues relating to the overall compositional practice, not only in the
traits of the Nastasijević brothers’ collab- context of realizing the concept of native
orative artistic procedures (their operas melody, but also in terms of the charac-
Međuluško blago / “The Treasure of Me- teristics of the compositional-technical
đulužje“ and Đurađ Branković), while procedures he used. We might say that
Đorđe Đurđević discussed the use of Svetomir Nastasijević was positioned in a
theological discourse in Momčilo Nas- “musical space-time” in between the ac-
tasijević’s poetic oeuvre. complishments of the romantically and
Dr. Mina Đurić, a literary theorist, nationally leaning composers of the Bel-
approached the issue of native melody in grade school and the achievements of the
methodological-analytical terms from the representatives of the Prague school, bear-
aspect of accentology, focusing on “Inter- ing in mind the modality in his musical
vals in the Native Melody of Momčilo thinking, resorting to the archaic, as well
Nastasijević” (“Intervali maternje melo- as the presence of modernist elements in
dije Momčila Nastasijevića”). Another lit- his oeuvre.
erary theorist, Dr. Svetlana M. Rajičić Let us turn to the remaining seg-
Perić, discussed the metaphysical aspects ments of the conference. They included,
of Nastasijević’s poetry, while Dr. Petar on the first day of the conference, the
Jevremović, a clinical psychologist, in his opening of “Četiri maternja kruga” (Four
discussion titled “Duh, melodija, luk” Native Circles), an exhibition focused on
(Spirit, Melody, Character), interpreted the oeuvres of the Nastasijević brothers,
Nastasijević’s views about cultural degra- with remarks by its author, Dr. Igor
dation as a result of neglecting collective Radeta,2 and a concert, titled “Maternja
identity, as a “measuring instrument” for sazvučja braće Nastasijević” (The Native
our present social self-reconsiderations. Sonorities of the Nastasijević Brothers),
Assessing the scholarly contribution featuring works by Svetomir Nastasijević
of this conference, we may conclude that (Kolarac Foundation Gallery),3 which
its interdisciplinary programme concep-
tion allowed for encounters and re-exam- 2 Most of the exhibits – musical instruments,
inations of academic discourse concern- paintings, drawings, photographs, scores, the
ing Nastasijević’s phenomenon of native written legacy of the Nastasijević brothers –
melody, interpreted equally as an ab- are part of the collection of the Regional Mu-
stract, imaginary meta-category, preg- seum of Rudnik and Takovo, whose manage-
nant with ambivalence, as an ambiguous, ment generously loaned this valuable material
partly rationally discernible category, as to the Department of Musicology, to lend a
visual dimension to the narrative of the social
well as a concretely revealed and seman-
significance of the Nastasijević family.
tically decisively determined concept that 3 Excerpts from the opera Antigona, so-
encourages considerations in terms of prano, piano; Second Lyric Suite – U prirodi
theory and methodology, compositional (In the Wild), piano; Jesenja pesma (Autumn
technique, and style. It shed important Poem) and Večernja pesma (Evening Poem)
light on the creative oeuvre of Svetomir form Deset pesama moga brata (Ten Poems by
181
provided another opportunity to familia- programme, whose realization also in-

rise the general public with works by this cluded some of the youngest members of
composer and shed additional light on the local community as well as students
his oeuvre. of the Department of Ethnomusicology
The second day of the conference and Ethno-choreology at the Faculty of
was hosted in the foyer of the Regional Music in Belgrade.
Museum of Rudnik and Takovo in Gornji On this occasion, too, with this
Milanovac. On the second day, the work scholarly conference, a continuation of its
of the hosts – historian and senior cura- longstanding interdisciplinary explora-
tor Aleksandar Marušić and art historian tions and study of historiography, the De-
and senior curator Tanja Gačić – was partment of Musicology at the Faculty of
reflected in their Museum’s permanent Music in Belgrade once again affirmed its
exhibition as well as in their creative in- leading position as the carrier of current,
vestment in designing the concept of the contemporary trends in the development
of Serbian musicological thought.
My Brother), soprano, piano; première per-

formance of Žal za odbeglom tajnom...
(“Mourning an Escaped Secret...”) for flute,
voice, and piano, a setting of the poem Frula
(“Flute”) by Momčilo Nastasijević, specially
composed for this conference by Vladica
Mikićević, a student at the Faculty of Music in
Belgrade, whereby the interdisciplinary con-
tribution of this conference was extended to
cover the composition of a new piece of
music.
182
Defended doctoral dissertations
DEFENDED DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS
Article received on November 27th 2019 of Claude Debussy. In Search of Immedi-

Article accepted on November 28th 2019 acy of ’Correspondence’ Between the Ear
UDC: 78.071.1:929 Дебиси К.(043.3)(049.32) and the Eye – is a result of the many years
of my interest in Claude Debussy’s opus,
IVANA PETKOVIĆ LOZO* and in the specific cultural-historical mo-
ment in which the composer lived and
created. In other words, the said theme is,
Faculty of Music
on the one hand, the result of a process of
continuous discovery of Debussy’s world
of music, that is, a debussian universe,
The Musical Universe of and, metaphoricaly speaking, an explor-
Claude Debussy. atory cruising through one of the most
In Search of the Immediacy of complex musical-historical periods. The
Correspondence between period of the fin de siècle was pervaded
the Ear and the Eye1 by the need for an integral, complex and,
at the same time, critical observation of
the world. Thus, there are two pulsating
The selection of the theme for the doc- points, two agents provocateurs that stand
toral dissertation – The Musical Universe at the beginning of the doctoral diserta-
tion – Debussy’s musical universe and the
* Author contact information: ivanarpet- fin de siècle period with all of its, as Carl
[email protected] Dahlhaus pointed out, specificities and
1 Doctoral dissertation, The Musical Uni- individual rights.
verse of Claude Debussy. In Search of the Im- The main subject of the doctoral dis-
mediacy of ‘Correspondence’ between the Ear sertation The Musical Universe of Claude
and the Eye, mentored by Dr. Tijana Popović Debussy – In Search of the Immediacy of
Mladjenović, was defended June 5, 2018, at ’Correspondence’ between the Ear and the
the Faculty of Music of the University of Arts Eye is a question of the relationship be-
in Belgrade. The committee consisted of five tween Claude Debussy’s world of music
members: Dr. Tijana Popović Mladjenović,
and the cultural and historical context in
Full-time Professor of the Faculty of Music,
Dr. Marija Masnikosa, Associate Professor of which he appeared. The basic focus of the
the Faculty of Music, Dr. Mirjana Veselinović- doctoral dissertation is orientated towards
Hofman, Full-time Professor of the Faculty of the problematization of the mutual rela-
Music (retired), Dr. Dragana Stojanović- tions/correspondences between the com-
Novičić, Full-time Professor of the Faculty of poser’s opus and symbolist poetry, im-
Music and Dr. Branka Radović, Full-time Pro- pressionist painting and philosophical
fessor of the FILUM in Kragujevac.
183
endeavours, characteristic of the late 19th in theatre and Claude Debussy’s work of
and early 20th centuries, that is, towards art, ...Between Impressionist painting and
the problematization of the relationship the work of Claude Debussy’s work of art.
between the ear and the eye, and the no- Of particular interest was the search for
tions of aesthetic experience and pluriper- the immediacy of the correspondence be-
ception. In order to give scientifically rel- tween the ear and the eye that took place
evant and argumented explanations to the within the micro-universe of Debussy’s
questions arising from the above-men- Préludes for piano. The results of that
tioned problem circles, my goal is to theo- search were presented in the sub-chapter
retically argue and confront the philo- entitled ...Between the Ear and the Eye –
sophical endeavours of the fin-de-siècle Claude Debussy’s Préludes.
period, such as the efforts of Henri Berg- However, the issue of correspondence
son, Edmund Husserl, Wilhelm Dilthey, in Debussy’s music universe is not just a
Benedetto Croce, and Williams James, as matter of correspondence between the ear
well as the various cultural, artistic and and the eye. It seems to be much more
scientific achievements of this period ‒ than that. It concerns the relationship be-
from gestalt psychology to painting, po- tween the artist, his art and Nature, and,
etry, music and drama-theater symbolism, in a much wider arc, the relationship be-
that is, from cubic art to quantum physics tween Nature and the composer’s Imagi-
and the theory of relativity. It is precisely nation. These areas were problematized
the consideration of these theoretical and in the fourth chapter of the doctoral dis-
philosophical efforts that has become the sertation titled DEBUSSY’S ’CORRE-
focus of the second chapter of the doctoral SPONDENCE’ – IN SEARCH OF ’LA
dissertation entitled THE SPIRIT OF THE MUSIQUE PURE’. Also, this chapter in-
FIN DE SIÈCLE – AGENT PROVOCA- troduces the question of the musical ara-
TEUR?, and its sub-chapters: In the realm besque as a poetic paradigm of autono-
of philosophy ..., In the realm of the authen- mous (musical) formativeness, that is, the
tic plurality of the senses ..., In the realm of phenomenon ’purified’ from the non-
literature and art ... musical content and symbols. Emphasiz-
The main goal of the doctoral dis- ing that the presence of the arabesque
sertation is to find all those (in)direct principle is in some part a sign of the
connections, correspondences, points of power of the artist’s imagination in the
intersection and crossing between the face of Nature itself, fourth chapter offers
cultural and artistic aspirations that the analysis of some of Mallarmé and De-
marked the end of the 19th and the be- bussy’s works of arts that represent the
ginning of the 20th centuries and De- nature of the arabesque itself, that is, the
bussy’s aesthetic and poetic attitudes em- aforementioned arabesque principle. De-
bodied in his music. Thus, in the third bussy thus becomes a catalyst that trans-
chapter of the dissertation, titled IN lates the eternal mystery of Nature with
SEARCH OF THE IMMEDIACY OF its subtle quivering into the art form,
’CORRESPONDENCE’ ... the mysterious while his music remains music “com-
connections are interpreted: ...Between posed of colours and rhythmicized time”.
Symbolism in literature and Claude De- In other words, that is music whose time
bussy’s work of art, ...Between Symbolism is as rhythmic as natural, but in a new re-
184
ality – in the reality of the work of music. bussy, both through the recognition of
The question of new reality was in the the composer’s ’seductive’ poetics, which
focus of the concluding, fifth chapter en- counts on the active and intelligent con-
titled THE POSSIBLE RIGHTS OF THE sumer, and through the consideration of
’EXPANSION’ OF CLAUDE DEBUSSY’S the composer’s sociological discourse,
MUSICAL UNIVERSE. viewed within his overall critical position
The aim of the research was to de- in the social, cultural and artistic ambi-
termine the contextual and meaningful ance of the French fin-de-siècle.
level of the entire work of Claude De-
Article received on November 27th 2019 art, especially the experimental practice
Article accepted on November 28th 2019 of John Cage as a sort of paradigm of
UDC: 78.071.1 Кејџ Џ.(043.3)(049.32) American experimental art. The notion
of effect is introduced as a key method-
IVANA MILADINOVIĆ PRICA* ological concept for studying the many
appropriations of Cage’s concept of ex-
Faculty of Music periment in theory and art, understood
Department of Musicology in terms of creative recodings and inter-
pretations. The example of Cage’s con-
ception of experiment as an act with an
The Effects of American Experimental
uncertain outcome thus served to show
Music in the Domain of Contemporary
the polyvalence of the processes that gave
Art and Theory1
rise to the conventional experiment and
its modes of transmission within the in-
The subject of this doctoral dissertation
stitutional system of art.
is the issue of experiment in music and
In the first part of the dissertation,
* Author contact information: the experiment is discussed as a dynamic
[email protected] category spanning a wide range of mean-
1 The dissertation was supervised by Dr. ings; it is interpreted as an immanent
Mirjana Veselinović-Hofman, Professor at the quality of artistic creation; the object of
Faculty of Music in Belgrade, now retired. discussion then moves to the phenome-
The defence took place on 30 September non of experiment and various terms de-
2018; the defence committee comprised Dr.
Dragana Stojanović Novičić, Professor at the
rived from it (experimentalism, experi-
Faculty of Music in Belgrade; Dr. Miško menting, experimental, experimentality,
Šuvaković, Professor at the Faculty of Media experimental music/art) as well as its po-
and Communication of Singidunum Univer- sitions in science and art, and, finally, to
sity, Belgrade; Dr. Vesna Mikić, Professor at its concretizations in American and Eu-
the Faculty of Music in Belgrade; and Dr. Ti- ropean music. The experiment is defined
jana Popović Mladjenović, Professor at the
in two ways: as a meta-concept [надп-
Faculty of Music in Belgrade.
185
ојам] and a defining quality of avant- periment. The concept of indeterminism

garde and neo-avant-garde movements, thus emerges as a basis for Cage’s avant-
while the word “experimental” is defined garde internationalism, a cue for many
as a poetic adjective pertaining to Cage neo-avant-garde practices across the
and the ideology of aestheticity in the world that pursued a radical break with
1960s and ’70s. The dissertation pays the cultural models of high modernism.
special attention to the aesthetic and po- The second part of the dissertation
etic aspects of Cage’s concept of experi- addresses the reception of Cage’s experi-
ment, predicated on turning away from mentalism in Eastern Europe during the
the notion of a work as a complete, fin- Cold War, interpreting it as a shifting
ished structure to conceiving the work as composite or web of mutually related as
an open process. Affirming the principle well as divergent programmes/practices
of unpredictability and indeterminism in located around various “nodes”, establish-
composition puts Cage in the position of ing Cage as a key “connector” not only in
a composer-listener, while the performer his own time, but in later periods as well.
occupies the position of the “author”. The effects of Cage’s aesthetic and poetic
Cage’s approach to experimentation from innovations, such as indeterminism,
the position of a composer-witness of chance operations, and interpreting si-
sound is defined as perceptive, in order to lence, are discussed with regard to artistic
underscore its fundamental divergence phenomena in the countries behind the
from all preceding approaches, focused, “Iron Curtain”, in the art of Socialist Yugo-
as they were, on production, addressing slavia and today’s Serbia. Particular atten-
the work as a finished structure. tion is paid to the Cage-inflected oeuvres
Cage’s experimentalism is positioned of composers from former Czechoslova-
as the central juncture in the transforma- kia, Poland – authors clustered around the
tive avant-garde as a formally self-abol- Warsaw Fall festival and Polish Radio Ex-
ishing point in contemporary Western perimental Studio, as well as to “echoes”
art. The dissertation shows that an impor- of Cage’s experimentalism in Hungary
tant factor in this positioning was Cage’s and the Soviet Union. The dissertation
teaching engagement at The New School shows that in these cultural environments
for Social Research and encounters with the reception of Cage’s experimentalism
artists associated with happening and was much stronger in the domain of mov-
Fluxus art (Allan Kaprow, George Brecht, ing the artistic act away from representa-
Dick Higgins, Jackson Mac Low). The tion and toward the performative and the
claim that experimental art is a type of concept of total freedom, more so than in
contemporary creativity based on Cage’s the domain of “pure” music.
concept of experiment as an open work is On Yugoslavia’s artistic soil, Ameri-
supported by an example from American can experimentalism was especially rec-
experimental poetry. Deriving her theory ognizable from the mid 1970s to the mid
of language poetry, Joan Retallack trans- 1980s, primarily in its neo-avant-garde
poses Cage’s creative procedure based on utopian programmes, extended media,
chance operations onto the concept of ex- and music minimalism. The appropria-
186
tion of Cage’s aesthetic and poetics of ex- Article received on September 30th 2019
perimentalism on Serbian music soil is Article accepted on November 28th 2019
discussed in relation to authors clustered UDC: 78.071.1:929 Равел М.(043.3)(049.32)
around the musical programme of Bel-
grade’s Students’ Cultural Centre, in the
realization of its projects in so-called ex- IGOR RADETA*
tended music and different new music. University of Arts in Belgrade
The activities of the Ensemble for Differ- Library of the Faculty of Music
ent New Music and works by Opus 4
group of composers are used for survey-
ing the decisive impacts of Cage’s concep- The Piano Music of Maurice Ravel:
tion of music/art and for an analytical Hermeneutical Reflections of
presentation of their Yugoslav reception, Logoseme1
ranging from transpositions and re-me-
diations of Cage’s aesthetic positions and
poetic moves to identifying with them. In this doctoral dissertation, the author
Archival documentation was used to re- explores, analyses, detects, interprets, and
construct Cage’s appearances at Music constructs theoretical generalisations
Biennale Zagreb, his performances with about the complex and multilayered ef-
the Merce Cunningham Troupe at the 6th fects of the interrelations between the
BITEF festival (Belgrade), the event Sev- worlds that constitute the web of phe-
enty Years of John Cage (Zagreb), and the nomenality and meanings in the universe
multimedia installation Yugo-Cage ’82, of the French composer Maurice Ravel’s
intended to survey Cage’s impact on so- (1875–1937) music for piano. Drawing
cialist Yugoslavia’s art in general. A thor- the starting premises of his theoretical
ough implementation of Cage’s concept platform from an essentialist-shaped set
of a depersonalized creative subject, as a
phenomenon highlighting the maturing * Author contact information: igorradeta@
of receptive views of Cage in Serbian gmail.com.
music, is discussed in relation to the oeu- 1 The dissertation was successfully defended
vres of Miša Savić and Katarina Miljković. on 14 June 2019 at the Faculty of Music in
The dissertation comprises six chap- Belgrade. The supervisor was Dr. Tijana
ters and 309 pages in total. The bibliogra- Popović Mlađenović. The dissertation com-
phy section comprises 345 references to mittee comprised Dr. Ana Stefanović, full pro-
sources in the Serbian/Croatian, English, fessor at the Faculty of Music; Dr. Marija Mas-
French, Hungarian, and Polish languages, nikosa, associate professor at the Faculty of
Music; Branka Radović, full professor at the
along with eight sources from the World
Faculty of Philology and Arts at the Univer-
Wide Web, and three archival collections. sity of Kragujevac; Dr. Leon Stefanija, full pro-
fessor at the Faculty of Philosophy at the Uni-
versity of Ljubljana; and Dr. Tijana Popović
Mlađenović, full professor at the Faculty of
Music.
187
of values, the author constructs a heter- cal notion, the end, a convention, and os-
onymous and adaptable complex of tech- tinato model), the complex relations be-
niques for approaching a work of music. tween the Ravelian sonic universe and
This doctoral dissertation is meant to music history, a multilayered relating of
offer an integral view of Ravel’s piano Nature (organic narration, art nouveau
music, to generate a suitable contextual arabesques, Ondine as a representative of
ambiance for understanding works of the world of water and women) and the
music, and to provide new insights by ap- chef-d’œuvre pianistique, the ways the
plying an innovative logosemic method. fantasia principle is manifested in Mau-
The central theoretical problem dis- rice Ravel’s piano music, and, finally, the
cussed in the dissertation is the herme- different modalities of interference be-
neutic, semantic, and meaningful poten- tween the phenomenon of movement/
tial of a work of music. The subject of the play/dance and the musical peculiarities
thesis encompasses the piano music of linked with the phenomenon of automa-
Maurice Ravel, which may be considered tion (la machine infernale) and move-
paradigmatic not only of his oeuvre in ment-in-sound. There is a separate chap-
general, but also of the fin-de-siècle period ter treating the logoseme (a sign bearing
and (early) modernism. The author ap- meaning / meaningful symbol) and its
proaches the works with a combination of reflections in the tissue of Ravel’s works
methods originating from interpretation, for piano.
textual representation, semiotics, narra- The central part of the dissertation
tology, music analysis, historiography, comprises the chapters where the author
and philosophy. The dissertation offers addresses the main thematic circles of
the term/concept/method of logoseme, as Ravel’s piano oeuvre. His explanatory
a hybrid meta-theoretical plateau. discussion begins in the chapter titled
The opening segment, Introduction Tema smrt/ništavilo (“The Subject of
et allegro – teorijska razmatranja (“Intro- Death/Nothingness”), the first section of
duction et Allegro: Theoretical Consider- the dissertation where the postulates ex-
ations”) is introductory as much as po- pounded thus far are directly applied.
lemical in character. It lays out the main Ranging from Shestov’s line about the
elements of the dissertation’s context and power of Nothing to Poe’s poem A Dream
approach to the discussion. It presents an within a Dream, it offers a plural dis-
idiosyncratic understanding of the course problematizing the intangible and
French composer’s poetics and aesthetics. enigmatic subject of death as a sonorous
The research has shown that the reflection.
constitutive elements of Ravel’s character The chapter titled Tematski krug
miniatures, pieces, cycles, and collections muzika (“The Thematic Circle of Music”)
for piano may be read from five thematic offers argumentation on fundamental
circles: Death, Music, Nature, Fantasy, ideas within the framework of the subject
and Movement. The dissertation presents of music as such. Tracing the simultane-
the complex relations between Ravel’s ity of Ravel’s presence in music history
piano music and death (as a philosophi- and the history of music in the tissue of
188
his piano works, the author leads the The chapter titled Tematski krug fan-
reader down a simultaneous, diachronic, tazija (“The Thematic Circle of the Fan-
and paradigmatic itinerary through mu- tasy”) comprises a study of Maurice Rav-
sical time and space, in the optics of Rav- el’s piano cycle Miroirs under the title of
el’s eyepiece. This chapter’s theoretical “Refleksije fantazijskog i baladnog prin-
discussion and analytical practice intro- cipa u Ravelovim Ogledalima” (Reflec-
duce several concepts manifested in the tions of the Fantasy and Ballade Principle
form of musical techniques that enable a in Ravel’s Miroirs) and a shorter section
precise identification of transposition titled “Čarolije deteta za klavirom – mod-
and communication processes (echos erna bajka” (The Magic Spells of a Child
mise en scène, déjà commencé, musical at the Piano: A Modern Fairytale), which
lesprival, moment exceptionnel, multilevel complements the discussion with an
texture, meta-centric narrative, Souvenirs analysis of other piano pieces by Ravel
musicaux...). Using elements of theoreti- that the author considered important for
cal psychoanalysis, mythology, anthro- understanding the fantasy as a subject.
pology, Camille Paglia’s concept of sexual The chapter titled Metatema – pokret/
personae, and the femme fatale woman igra/ples (“A Meta-subject: Movement/
character, the author explores the ways in Play/Dance”) emphasizes that the prin-
which the nature of (psycho)sexuality is ciple of automation is simultaneously a
reflected in the sonic fabric of Ravel’s source of inspiration, techniques, the
writing for piano, focusing on Ondine main traits of the epoch, and the spirit of
from Gaspard de la nuit. the time, as well as a sort of obsession,
An interpretation of the reflections when it comes to Maurice Ravel.
of nature in the piano oeuvre of Maurice The dissertation comprises 376
Ravel takes place in the chapter titled pages of text (Times New Roman 12,
Tematski krug priroda (“The Thematic 1.5-spaced), including 93 notated exam-
Circle of Nature”). The chapter comprises ples, 13 reproductions, six tables (and an-
several segments: the introductory sec- other 12 in the appendix), and four
tion, “Pripovedanje okeana – Barka me- graphs. The bibliography contains 486
duze” (Narrating the Ocean: The Raft of units, referencing works published in
the Medusa), “Poetički, estetski i Serbian, English, French, Croatian, Rus-
umetnički potencijal arabeske iz art nou- sian, and German, 33 primary sources
veau kao izvor Ravelove klavirske (scores), 71 sources from the World Wide
muzike” (The Poetic, Aesthetic, and Ar- Web, and 15 sound sources.
tistic Potential of the Art nouveau Ara-
besque as a Source of Ravel’s Piano
Music), and “Semioza ciklusa Gaspard de
la Nuit kao narativnog teksta – slučaj
vodene nimfe Ondine” (Semiosis of the
Cycle Gaspard de la nuit as a Narrative
Text: The Case of the Water Nymph On-
dine).
189
CONTRIBUTORS TO THE ISSUE
Milica Aleksić, student of undergraduate studies at the Department of Musicol-

ogy, Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade. She completed undergradu-
ate and graduate studies at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade.
Žarko Cvejić acquired his B.A. degree in music from the University of Oxford,
United Kingdom, in 2003 and a Master of Studies degree in musicology from the
same university in 2004. He also holds an M.A. degree in musicology (2008) and
a Ph.D. degree (2011), both from Cornell University in the United States. Since
2011, Cvejić has taught at the Faculty of Media and Communication of Singidu-
num University in Belgrade, first as an assistant professor and, since 2016, as an
associate professor.
Ana Gnjatović, DMus is a Belgrade-based composer/performer/researcher of
acoustic and electro-acoustic music. She finished her PhD studies in composition
at the University of Arts in Belgrade. She is currently employed as associate pro-
fessor at the Faculty of Arts Univeristy of Kosovska Mitrovica. Her pieces have
been performed in concerts and festivals throughout Europe, in Israel, Mexico,
USA and Japan.
Marijana Kokanović Marković, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the Depart-
ment of Musicology and Ethnomusicology of the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad.
Marija Maglov is Junior Researcher at the Institute of Musicology SASA and PhD
candidate at the Department of Musicology, Faculty of Music, Belgrade. She is
collaborator with the Centre for Popular Music Research, Belgrade and secretary
of the AM: Journal of Art and Media Studies.
Ivana Miladinović Prica, Ph.D., musicologist, a Lecturer at the Department of
Musicology of the Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade, and Secretary
of the bilingual New Sound International Journal of Music.
Radoš Mitrović, Ph.D., musicologist, a Lecturer at the Department of Musicology
at the Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade.
Sanela Nikolić is an Assistant Professor of Applied Aesthetics at the Faculty of
Music, University of Arts, Belgrade; managing editor of AM Journal of Art and
Media Studies. She is the International Association for Aesthetics Delegate-at-
Large (2019–2022) and also a member of the Serbian Musicological Society.
190
Contributors to the issue
Ivana Petković Lozo, Ph.D., musicologist, a Lecturer at the Department of Musi-

cology of the Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade, and Secretary of the
Department.
Ira Prodanov, Ph.D., musicologist, is a Full-time Professor at the Academy of
Arts, University of Novi Sad, Serbia. She regularly lectures LLL courses accredited
by Serbian Institute for Advancement of Education in the field of transferring
knowledge, communication and presentation skills and popular music.
Igor Radeta, Ph.D., musicologist, librarian of the Library of the Faculty of Music,
University of Arts in Belgrade.
Selena Rakočević, еthnochoreologist and ethnomusicologist focused on diversi-
ties of multicultural and multiethnic dance and musical traditions of Serbia, au-
thor of four books devoted to traditional dance and music. Curently she is an
Associated Professor at the Department for Ethnomusicology, Faculty of Music,
Belgrade and at the Music Department at the Academy of Arts, Novi Sad, where
she teaches ethnochoreology.
Giorgos Sakallieros is an Associate Professor of historical musicology at the
School of Music Studies, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He is also
an active composer with more than 30 titles, several of them having been awarded
in national competitions.
Rūta Stanevičiūtė is a Full Professor at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and
Theatre. Her current field of interest are modernism and nationalism in 20–21-c.
music, philosophical and cultural issues in the analysis of contemporary music,
music and politics, and the studies of music reception.
Branislava Trifunović, student of the Doctoral Programme in Musicology at the
Academy of Arts in Novi Sad.
Miloš Zatkalik, composer and music theorist, is a Full-time Professor at the Fac-
ulty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade.
191
192
Музиколошко друштво Србије, Мишарска 12-14, Београд,

e-mail: [email protected], www.mds.org.rs
Конкурс за доделу
Годишње награде „Стана Ђурић-Клајн”
за изузетан допринос музикологији за 2019. годину
Музиколошко друштво Србије позива своје чланове, академске

институције и музичка удружења с територије Србије да од 1. јануара
до 30. јуна 2020. године доставе образложене предлоге за Годишњу
награду „Стана Ђурић-Клајн” за изузетан допринос музикологији.
Награда се додељује за сваку од три категорије:
а) једном аутору или групи аутора за оригиналан допринос српској
музикологији: за музиколошку публикацију (студију или моногра-
фију) објављену у штампаном и/или електронском виду 2019. го-
дине;
б) за укупан дугогодишњи допринос области српске музикологије;
в) за резултате из области примењене музикологије (заштита српске
музичке баштине, музиколошки прилози критичким издањима
нотних и звучних записа, музиколошка обрада новооткривеног
нотног или текстуалног рукописа и остале текстуалне заостав-
штине…) публиковане 2019. године.
За номиновање предлога за Награду у категоријама а и в, потребно је
да предлагач достави:
• Образложен предлог (номинацију) дужине максимално до 500 речи,
који укључује и комплетне библиографске податке предложеног
дела;
• Електронски и штампани примерак предложеног дела.
За номиновање предлога за Награду у категорији б, потребно је да
предлагач достави:
• Образложен предлог (номинацију) дужине максимално до 1500
речи;
• Целокупну библиографију кандидата.
Предлози се шаљу на званичну имејл адресу Музиколошког друштва
Србије [email protected], као и на поштанску адресу:
Музиколошко друштво Србије, Мишарска 12–14, 11 000 Београд.
193
194
New Sound
54 – II/2019
Translation:
Žarko Cvejić
Language editor and Proofreader:
Tamara Rodwell-Jovanović
Prepress:
Dušan Ćasić
Printed by:
Ton plus, Belgrade
Circulation:
400 copies
Publication of this issue was sponsored by:

The Ministry of Culture – Repulic of Serbia
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development –
Republic of Serbia
Sokoj – Serbian Music Authors' Organization
195
CIP – Katalogizacija u publikaciji

Narodna biblioteka Srbije, Beograd
78
NEW Sound : international Journal of Music / editor-in-chief Mirjana
Veselinović-Hofman. – 1993, no. 1– . – Belgrade : Department of
Musicology Faculty of Music, 1993– (Belgrade : Ton plus). – 24 cm
Dostupno i na: http://www.newsound.org.rs. – Polugodišnje. – Ima izdanje na
drugom jeziku: Нови звук = ISSN 0354-4362
ISSN 0354-818X = New Sound
COBISS.SR-ID 102800647
196

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Department of Musicology

International Journal of Music

International Journal of Music

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DEFENDED DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS

Contributors to the Issue .................................................................. 190

On the penultimate day of October, in the finishing stages of preparing

Article received on June 20th 2019

AN IMPORTANT THING THAT WESTERN

The oeuvre of Ana Sokolović (b. 1968) is a paradigmatic example of a very

*1Author contact information: [email protected]

2 According to “Portrait d’Ana Sokolovic”, an interview published in Circuit. Last ac-

1. Your creative opus is already an imposing one, encompassing some 70 works,

his pedagogical work (the Orff instrumentarium), used by every school in

2. Although we just broached a provocative subject, let us move, nonetheless, to

Working with two professors was very different.

6. Your oeuvre encompasses various genres: opera, chamber music, theatre

due to the sensory complexity it engenders, as well as to the way it combines

11. What kinds of problems do composers face today?

Article received on September 23rd 2019

BOUNCING AS A DISTINGUISHABLE

* Author contact information: [email protected]

sure long structure.5 The aspects of possible micro-structural and formal

therefore, to explore some of performance and notational aspects of stretch-

Aspects of identification of stretching and bending leg movements

Figure 1. Usual way of notating bending leg movement within the

at different speeds of many individual performances from various periods of

er tempo such as arapsko kokonješte, as well as during performances of retka

8 Metro-rhythmical patterns are ordered according to their presence in traditional

Figure 2. Most present met- Figure 3. Most present metro-rhythmical pat-

stretching and bending leg movements themselves, it should be also point-

Since terminology for dance analysis is not standardized in Serbian ethno-

9 If we want to indicate both stretching and bending movements, it should be notated in

As it is already mentioned, the usage of kinetography has a long history in

Figure 5. a) “A downward bounce” according to Hutchinson Guest (Hutchinson Guest

Mária Sentpál’s solution is accepted in contemporary kinetography by

Figure 7. Downward vertical pulsation (Fügedi 2016: 73).

Analysis of particular performances

cultural-artisic societies before he become a member of “Vila” ensemble in 2015. Miloš

In all cases, the kolo pattern is performed in a laterally symmetrical structure.

Figure 12. Metro-rhythmical patterns of bouncing of Kosta Jocić’s performance.

The segment of Miloš’s variation is quite different in selected motifs and

20 Classification of typical motifs in Serbian traditional dances is made by Olivera Vasić

and Zdravko Ranisavljević (Vasić and Ranisavljević 2011: 81−85).

Figure 14. Metro-rhythmical patterns of bouncing of Miloš Lukić’s performance.

Figure 15. Moravac, Vlastimir Pavlović Carevac

Zdravko Ranisavljević (eds.), Seminar tradicionalnih igara i pesama Mačve, Jadra

Article received on October 6th 2019

LITHUANIAN AND POLISH MUSICAL

* Author contact information: [email protected]

2 In Lithuania, the most comprehensive research on informal relationships-based net-

examine the processes of resistance and transformation in the communist

5 Padraic Kenney, op. cit., 221.

Political and cultural stagnation as an impetus for change

muzyczny, 25, 1975, 15.

Lithuanian composer Giedrius Kuprevičius brought similar impressions

10 Giedrius Kuprevičius, “Jaunųjų kūrybos pasiklausius [Upon Listening to Compos-