UDK 78(497.11):929Mokranjac S. Katarina Tomaševic Institute of Musicology, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Inštitut za muzikologijo, Srbska akademija znanosti in umetnosti Stevan Stojanovic Mokranjac and the inventing of tradition: a case study of the Song 'Cvekje Cafnalo'* Stevan Stojanovic Mokranjac in iznajdevanje tradicije: vzorčna študija pesmi »Cvekje cafnalo« Prejeto: 19. april 2010 Sprejeto: 1. maj 2010 Ključne besede: Stevan Stojanovic Mokranjac, Petar Konjovic, Predrag Miloševic, inventing of tradition Izvleček Glavni namen prispevka je v raziskavi vloge Steva-na Stojanovica Mokranjca v procesih iznajdevanja umetne tradicije v srbski glasbi moderne dobe. S tem ko sledim poti izbranega analitičnega primera, to je ljudski pesmi »Cvekje cafnalo« iz Mokranjčeve 12. rukoveti, mimo P. Konjovicevih del (Simfonija v c-molu, 1907 in Drugi godalni kvartet, 1937) ter Sonatine (1926) Predraga Miloševica, nameravam pokazati, na kakšen način je Mokranjčev opus rabil kot izhodiščni model za vpeljevanje zgodnjega modernizma v srbski (in jugoslovanski) glasbi v prvi polovici 20. stoletja. Received: 19th April 2010 Accepted: 1st May 2010 Keywords: Stevan Stojanovic Mokranjac, Petar Konjovic, Predrag Miloševic, iznajdevanje tradicije Abstract The main aim of this article is to examine Stevan Stojanovic Mokranjac's role in the processes of inventing the artistic tradition of Serbian music of modern times. By following the route of the chosen analytical sample, the folk song ""Cvekje cafnalo" from Mokranjac's Twelfth Garland, through Petar Konjovic's works (Symphony C-minor, 1907 and The Second String Quartet, 1937), finally to the piano Sonatina (1926) by Predrag Miloševic, I plan to show on which way Mokranjac's oeuvre served as a starting model for the initiation of early modernism in Serbian (and Yugoslav) music in the first half of the 20th century. This article is a result of the project Music at the Crossroads Serbian, Balkans and European Context, no. 147033, financial by Ministry of the Republic of Serbia. It represents amended and revised version of the report submitted at the international conference Composer and his Environment, organized by the Institute of Musicology of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and Matica srpska, held in Belgrade and Novi Sad in 2006 (November, 9-11), on the occasion of the 175th anniversary of Kornelije Stankovic and Stevan Stojanovic Mokranjac. The main idea of this article is to highlight Stevan Stojanovic Mokranjac's (1856-1914) role in the processes of inventing the artistic tradition of Serbian music of modern times. My starting hypothesis arises from the broadly accepted opinion that Mokranjac's creative interpretation of folk tunes highly inspired his followers. However, my intention is to go a step further, stating that Mokranjac's main contribution consisted in his construction of the new identity of Serbian artistic music. This "newly-born" understanding of artistic music, established in Mokranjac's oeuvre, served as the starting model for the music of his most gifted successors - the main representatives of early modernism in Serbian (and Yugoslav) music in the first half of the 20th century. Firstly I will draw readers' attention to selected facts from Mokranjac's biography, biographies of his widely known Western contemporaries and of his successors in Serbian music history. Briefly reviewing the notion of tradition, and particularly the notion of inventing tradition, in my next step I will introduce the theoretical premises for my final conclusions. Finally, by following the route of the chosen analytical sample, the folk song "Cvekje cafnalo" from Mokranjac's Twelfth Garland (Rukovet, 1906), through Petar Konjovic's (1883-1970) works (Symphony C-minor, 1907 and The Second String Quartet, 1937), finally to the piano Sonatina (1926) by Predrag Milosevic (1908-1982), I will examine the practical value of the proposed theoretical premises. Step 1. - Mokranjac and His Time Born in 1856, one century younger than Mozart, Stevan Stojanovic Mokranjac was only eight when another gifted young composer, pianist and melographer Kornelije Stankovic (1831-1865), the founder of the Romanticism movement in Serbian music, died prematurely. Kornelije was the first important "ambassador" of Serbian music abroad and the first to unveil the wealth and beauty of Serbian folklore heritage to Europe. His people respected and praised him to such an extent that even during his life his name became the universal synonym for a musician of that, so-called "Kornelian" epoch. His great successor, Stevan Mokranjac, grew up and developed his talent in the era that carefully preserved the idealized memory of Kornelije and of his work, important for establishing a foundation for the new music art tradition of western physiognomy, completely unknown before in Serbian cultural history. At the end of the 1870s Mokranjac went to study in Munich, leaving behind a young Serbian music culture, marked by the activities of numerous, mainly well-educated musicians of Czech origin.1 One biographical curiosity tells us that Mokranjac, during his studies in Munich with J. Rheihnberger (1879-1883), became quite familiar with Richard Wagner's music. Mokranjac was probably the first musician from this region to visit Bayreuth, and in 1883 he attended one of the August performances of Parsifal, 1 About the activities of Czech musicians see e.g.: Milica Gajic, "Doprinos čeških muzičara srpskoj muzičkoj sceni do Prvog svet-skog rata (...)" ["Contribution of Czech Musicians to the Serbian Musical Stage..."] in: Srpska muzička scena [Serbian Musical Stage], Muzikološki institut SANU, Beograd 1995, p.p. 114-128; Roksanda Pejovic, "Češki muzičari u srpskom muzičkom životu (1844-1918)" ["Czech Musicians in the Serbian Musical Life (1844-1918)", I and II, Novi Zvuk, 8, Novi Zvuk 9, Beograd 1996, 1997, p.p. 51-58; 65 -74; Katarina Tomaševic, "The Contribution of Czech Musicians to the Serbian Music in the 19th Century", Muzikološki Zbornik, XLII/1, Ljubljana 2006, p.p. 127-137. Wagner's last musical drama.2 Unfortunately, in that same year of 1883, Mokranjac reluctantly had to stop his Munich studies. Only a few months after conducting the last performance of Parsifal, Richard Wagner died in Venice. That same year, 1883 (when Mokranjac composed his First Garland: From my Native Land), saw the birth of Petar Konjovic, a consistent successor of Mokranjac's path, and the most important author of Serbian music drama in the 20th century.3 Also known as the author of the very first symphony (Symphony C-minor) and of the first symphonic variations (In the Country, 1915) in Serbian music, Petar Konjovic happens to be in the focus of our attention because these two works, as well as his Second String Quartet, are based on folk tunes from Mokranjac's Garlands. During the next year, 1884, when Mokranjac set out to compose The Second Garland (From my Native Land), another of his followers, a great figure of Serbian musical modernism, was born. This was Miloje Milojevic (1884-1946), one of the leading composers, music critics and ideologists of modern music nationalism in the period between the two world wars.4 A year later, in 1885, the third in the so-called "trefoil" of first Serbian modernists, Stevan Hristic, was born5; he later became internationally recognized as the author of the most famous national ballet, The Legend of Ohrid (1947). The two main leitmotifs of his ballet originated from Mokranjac's Tenth Garland (Songs from 2 See: K. P. Manojlovič, "Stevan Mokranjac o Vagneru i Parsifalu" ["Stevan Mokranjac on Wagner and Parsifal"], Zvuk, 4, Beograd 1933, p.p. 132-136; Stana Burič-Klajn, Mladi dani Stevana Mokranjca [Youthful Days of Stevan Mokranjac], Mokranjčevi dani, Negotin 1981, p.p. 30-32; Katarina Tomaševič, "Petar Konjovič Pro et Contra Wagner" in: Vagnerov spis "Opera i drama" danas [Wagner's Treatise "Opera and Drama" Today], Matica srpska, Novi Sad 2006, 120-122. Petar Konjovič (1883-1970) studied composition in Prague with K. Steker (1904-1906). After WW I he occupied the most responsible positions in the field of music (as director of the Opera House in Zagreb, professor and rector of Belgrade Academy of Music, and founder and first director of the Institute of Musicology of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts), and he was a member of the Academies of Sciences and Arts in Prague (since 1937) and Serbia (since 1946). Believing in pan-Slavic ideas, Konjovič saw the future of Serbian music in the Slavic circle of modern "national schools" of the XXth century (See e.g. Katarina Tomaševič, "Istok-Zapad u polemičkom kontekstu srpske muzike izmedu dva svetska rata" ["The East and the West in the Polemic Context of the Serbian Music between the Two World Wars"], Muzikologija, ČasopisMuzikološkog instituta Srpske akademije nauka i umetnosti [Musicology, Journal of the Institute of Musicology of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts], 5, Beograd 2005, pp. 119-129). As the most substantial contributor to modern Serbian music drama (Knez od Zete/The Prince of Zeta,, 1927) and Koštana (1931, performed in Brno/1932 and Prague/1935), Konjovič was inspired by the concept of the so-called "psychological realism", recognized in oeuvres of Mussorgsky and Janaček. About the stylistic profile of Konjovič's opus c.f. e.g. Nadežda Mosusova, "Stilska orijenatacija Petra Konjoviča" ["Stylistic Orientation of Petar Konjovič"] in: Život i delo Petra Konjoviča [The Life and the Work of Petar Konjovič], Muzikološki institut SANU i Odeljenje likovne i muzičke umetnosti SANU, Beograd 1989, pp. 39-44. Miloje Milojevič (1884-1946), composer, the first Serbian doctor of musicology and the leading critic of the time, had a great impact on musical life in Belgrade between the world wars. He studied composition (with Klose) and musicology at Munich University and took his doctoral degree in Prague (1925, with Zd. Nejedly). As the most influential Serbian music critic and writer, he followed the aesthetic ideas of the circle of Serbian intellectuals called "Europeans", who aimed to keep modern Serbian culture in step with European, particularly Western - French and German tendencies. On Milojevič among "Europeans" see e.g. Vlastimir Trajkovič, "Ključni opusi u stvaralaštvu Miloja Milojeviča" ["The Key Compositions of Miloje Milojevič"] and Katarina Tomaševič, "Miloje Milojevič - izmedu tradicionalnog i modernog" ["Miloje Milojevič - between Tradional and Modern"] in: Kompozitorsko stvaralaštvo Miloja Milojeviča [The Works of the Composer Miloje Milojevič], Muzikološki institut SANU, Beograd 1998, p.p. 18-30 and 4-16.) A great fighter for the idea of "national style" in his pieces inspired by folklore, he tried to make a new, modern stylistic synthesis based on the classical aesthetical values of the European tradition. Stevan Hristič (1885-1958), who studied composition and conducting in Leipzig (with Krehl, Hofmann and Nikisch), Rome, Moscow and Paris, occupied leading positions in the musical life of Belgrade after the First World War. He was the founder and the first director of Belgrade Opera and Philharmony and later professor and rector at the Academy of Music. Well educated, Hristič quite early showed an affinity for contemporary Italian and French music (his Resurrection, 1911, was the first oratorio Serbian music!). Evidence of impressionism influences marks Hristič's most significant works - the extremely popular national ballet Ohridska legenda [The Legend of Ohrid], based on a folk tale and with music inspired by folklore and by Mokranjac's famous songs from the Tenth Rukovet (Garland from Ohrid), and also his second stage opus - lyrical, intimate, one act music drama Twilight, which represents the composer's assimilation of the fin-de-si cle aesthetics. Ohrid, 1905), which was considered to be one of the highest creative achievements of the whole Mokranjac oeuvre. In 1885 (when Hristic was born), Stevan Mokranjac was in Rome, devotedly studying Palestrina's vocal style. At the same time, young Claude Debussy, the last winner of Prix de Rome, was also in Rome, studying Wagner, trying to find the key solution to the resistance he felt towards the impact and domination of Wagner on French music at the time. Mokranjac's rich and fruitful life ended in 1914, on the eve of the First World War, after which the geopolitical map of Europe was radically changed. By writing a specific music travelogue in his cycle of 15 choral Garlands6, Stevan Mokranjac seemed to have clearly anticipated one important event: after centuries of Turkish occupation, numerous migrations, and lives separated in two opposing civilizations (the Ottoman Empire and the Austrian), the Serbian people would once again, after WW I, be unified within a newly-established country - the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians (later the Kingdom Yugoslavia, and then the Socialistic Federative Republic of Yugoslavia). Just like elsewhere in Europe, during the first post-war years, the atmosphere in the newly born Kingdom was imbued with a general feeling that the whole world was about to enter a NEW AGE. In 1914 Serbian culture lost both Mokranjac and one of the leading literary historians and the most influential critics, Jovan Skerlic (1877-1914), but the representatives of the youngest generation of artists (primarily poets and writers, but visual artists and musicians as well) strongly believed that they were powerful enough to create a completely NEW ART, without deeper references to the past. However, in the case of Serbian music, without Mokranjac as the inventor of the new artistic music tradition, there was no way forward. This is one of the main theses of this paper. Step 2. - The Inventing of Tradition There is, of course, nothing new or "original" in the statement that Mokranjac showed the way to the next generation of Serbian composers. The list of writings devoted to Mokranjac's influence is almost endless. Moreover, several important studies deal expertly with the place of the tunes from Mokranjac's Garlands in the works of the first modernists.7 My paper should be understood primarily as an attempt to observe Stevan Mokranjac from a possibly different angle: on one hand as a "stylogene" figure of Serbian musical Romanticism, and on the other hand as the inventor of the new music art tradition, which served as a new starting point for his successors. In their view, this new tradition established by Mokranjac had replaced the old Kornelian one, and was treated as the new, starting model for their modernistic tendencies. In justification of the mentioned thesis, I present here several relevant interpretations and definitions of the notions of tradition and invented traditions. E.g. : VII - Songs from Old Serbia and Macedonia (1894), XI - Songs from Old Serbia (1905); VIII (1896) and XII (1906) - Songs from Kosovo, IX - Songs from Montenegro (1896), X - Songs from Ohrid (1901), XIV - Songs from Bosnia (1908), Coastal Songs (1893). See e.g. Nadezda Mosusova, "Uloga Stevana Mokranjca u stvaralastvu Petra Konjovica" ["The Role of Stevan Mokranjac in the Creative Work of Petar Konjovic"] in: Mokranjcevi dani 1967, Negotin 1969, p.p. 37-47. Following the anthological example of Thomas Elliot8, most theoreticians agree that tradition is an extremely complex and dynamic phenomenon. Although many definitions lay different emphases on important features of the phenomenon, they mostly reduce it to several basic ideas, such as: "There is no tradition without continuity"; "Tradition is based on the processes of selection from the past"; "It is impossible to artificially reconstruct tradition". On the other hand: "It is possible to create it or to construct it". A quotation from the well-known suggestion of Eric Hobsbawm is useful, too: "... invented traditions ... are responses to novel situations which take the form of reference to old situations, or which establish their own past by quasi-obligatory repetition."9 Yet another important idea of his is: "The term invented tradition includes 'traditions' actually invented, constructed and formally instituted ..., establish[ed] ... with great rapidity."10 (All italics by K.T.) One of the widely-spread opinions is that tradition, by constantly making selections from a layer of novelties, accepts only those contemporary features that are adjusted to the newly-established social norms, that is, only those that are socially suitable and acceptable. Moreover, if a specific awareness of tradition is an attitude of the present to the past, each and every coming generation builds (creates, constructs) its own specific awareness of former traditions. Finally, bearing in mind that the 'content' of the notion of tradition is constantly changed in time, let's remind ourselves "a tradition does not change itself. It contains the potentiality of being changed."11 In accordance with these arguments, we can conclude that for Mokranjac's generation, the musical oeuvre of Kornelije Stankovic had the meaning and function of a starting model. For the generation that came after Mokranjac, though, that old model was obsolete and abandoned in the processes of stylistic, but also aesthetical selection, based on values. The new music art tradition, invented or constructed by Mokranjac, turned out to be the model of the greatest development potential for the later transformation of Serbian artistic music in the first half of the 20th century. Step 3. - The Establishing of a Model - Mokranjac and "Cvekje cafnalo" I will focus now on the chosen analytical sample - the artistic transpositions of the folk song "Cvekje cafnalo". This folk song found its first creative interpretation in Mokranjac's Twelfth Garland. Composed in 1906, this newest Mokranjac choral work was titled Songs from Kosovo and had its premiere in Belgrade at the traditional (old calendar) New Year's concert of the "Belgrade Singing Society", on 13th January 1907. The title of the Garland undoubtedly suggested that the song "Cvekje cafnalo", which takes the fourth, penultimate position in the sequence of five songs, originates from Kosovo. 8 I have in mind the famous Elliot's essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent" first published, in two parts, in The Egoist (1919) and later in Eliot's first book of criticism - The Sacred Wood (1920). 9 The Inventing of Tradition. Edited by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York, Port Chester, Melbourne, Sydney 1983, p. 2. 10 Ibid, 1. 11 Edward Shils, Tradition, Faber and Faber, London, Boston 1981, p. 212. A.ldantino [il.M. ^=34-92] Example 1. Mokranjac, Twelfth Garland, Songsfrom Kosovo, 4. song - "Cvekje cafnalo"12. Surprisingly, right at beginning of my research, I came across several interesting facts related to the precise origin of the song "Cvekje cafnalo". The starting premise, that Mokranjac wrote it down during his fieldwork in Kosovo (1896),13 had to be rejected: 12 Stevan St. Mokranjac, Sabrana dela [Collected Works], volume 1, Editor Vojislav Ilic, Rukoveti [Garlands], Knjazevac-Beograd 1992, p.p. 243-244. The text of the song on English is the following: The flowers have blossomed, Mother,/ In our garden..../ How should I pluck them,/Mother dear?/When I'm both glad and sorry,/ To pluck them (Mokranjac, Collected Works, vol.1, p. 348.) N.B. There is also a version for male choir, which is longer. See in: Mokranjac, Collected Works, vol.1, p.p. 256-258. About Mokranjac's field work on Kosovo see: Petar Konjovic, "Stevan St. Mokranjac" in: StevanStojanovic Mokranjac. Zivoti delo [Stevan Stojanovic Mokranjac. Life and Work], Edited by Dejan Despic and Vlastimir Pericic (Stevan St. Mokranjac, Sabrana dela [Collected Works], volume 10), Beograd 1999, p.p. 28-32. Cf. also Djordje Peric, "Stevan Mokranjac i Kosovo (nova saznanja o boravku i melografskom radu Stevana Mokranjca na Kosovu)" ["Stevan Mokranjac and Kosovo (new findings about Mokranjac's visit and melographic work on Kosovo)"], Razvitak, 194/195, Zajecar 1995, p.p. 120-126. the song definitely does not belong to Mokranjac's notebooks from that time! The tune is written down in composer's Tenth notebook, written several years later. Dragoslav Devic marked the song as "Macedonian".14 Thanks to the precise investigation of Djordje Peric, another conclusion is reached: Mokranjac wrote the song down in Belgrade, either according to live singing or from the transcription of his friend, melographer Milojko Veselinovic, who at the time of Mokranjac's stay in Kosovo was serving as a vice-consul in Skopje.15 Without elaborating this fascinating story about the way "Cvekje cafnalo" travelled from its source to Mokranjac's notebook, we will uphold the supposition that Mokranjac became familiar with it in Belgrade at the turn of the century. The question: "Is the tune originally from Kosovo, or from Macedonia?"16 is still waiting for expert analysis by ethnomusicologists. However, the result of this brief research is quite important for a deeper understanding of the Mokranjac's creative processes in his selection of the material for his Garlands. Whether the song was, or was not originally from Kosovo, Mokranjac found it perfectly suitable for this Garland, which successfully evoked the musical atmosphere of the South Balkans', remaining for a long time in the focus of Mokranjac's numerous and the most successful followers. The next example introduces the original Mokranjac transcription. 306. UBEM U'HAJIO Y HAI1IA ITA^HHA Andante Wm J n LJiie - he u'