The young generations who were sent during the First World War to study in the Allied countries – France, England, Russia and Switzerland – where they popularised Serbian culture, played a major role in the development of cultural identity and social life in Serbia after the war. They promoted the idea of Yugoslavism, but also commemorated fighters for the freedom of the Serbian people.
The Library of the Faculty of Music houses some of the musical works written after the war, which testify to these patriotic aspirations.
The Library of the Faculty of Music houses some of the musical works written after the war, which testify to these patriotic aspirations.
Bridge, Frederick. Countepoint. London: Novello, s. a.
Manojlovic, Kosta P. By the waters of Babylon. Ивањица: аутор, 1938.
Manojlović, Kosta P., prir. Jugoslovenske narodne pesme. London: C. P. Manojlovitch, 1919.
Манојловић, Коста П. Песме наших родних страна. Београд: аутор, 1938.
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Kosta Manojlović started his music studies in Munich in 1912, but right before the beginning of the First World War he returned to Serbia, where he was assigned to work in a military hospital. Throughout the war, whenever he was not engaged in battle or recovering from illnesses, Manojlović composed, organised and conducted choirs. In 1917 he was transferred to England, in order to complete his studies in composition. The book Counterpoint, which contains Manojlović’s signature on the front page (Oxford, 1918), is valuable evidence of his Oxford studies. The score kept in the Library of FoM – a photocopy of the transcription of his graduate thesis – cantata Psalm 137 By the waters of Babylon, also bears testimony to his studies in England. Manojlović composed this work in 1918, strongly influenced by the suffering of the Serbian people, which he himself had witnessed. At the same time, Manojlović was looking to the future, as he collected and arranged folk songs of South Slavic peoples, which he published in London in 1919, with the title Jugoslav Popular Songs (Jugoslovenske narodne pesme). This edition contains song texts in Serbian, English and French languages, and is decorated with an illustration by Ivan Meštrović (1883-1962), another supporter of Yugoslavism.
Twenty years later in Belgrade, Manojlović published a selection of songs from this collection under the title Songs from Yugoslavia (Песме наших родних страна). Crvčanin, Milivoje. Beogradu 1918. Prag: M. Cvrčanin, s. a.
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To Belgrade in 1918 (Beogradu 1918.) is a song dedicated to the liberation of Belgrade in the First World War. Composer Milivoje Crvčаnin (1892-1978) wrote the music to the text of Jelisije Andrić (1894-1925), theologian and poet. After his theological studies in Belgrade were interrupted by the war, Andrić retreated through Albania with the Serbian army, spent some time in Corfu, and was then sent to complete his studies in England, at St. Stephen’s House in Oxford, together with other young Serbian seminarians. Milivoje Crvčanin had also retreated through Albania, and was recovering in Ajaccio (Corsica), where he founded and conducted a choir of Serbian refugees. Later, he spent the remainder of the war in Saint Jean in France, where he taught music to Serbian student refugees and conducted the Serbian student choir together with composer Vladimir Đorđević.
A copy of the song for male choir Beogradu 1918., published by the author, contains Crvčanin’s dedication to composer Vladimir Đorđević: "To my professor, Mr Vladimir Đorđević, from composer Milivoje Crvčanin, on September 12, 1927."
A copy of the song for male choir Beogradu 1918., published by the author, contains Crvčanin’s dedication to composer Vladimir Đorđević: "To my professor, Mr Vladimir Đorđević, from composer Milivoje Crvčanin, on September 12, 1927."
Големовић, Димитрије Ј. Прелудијум и Капричо бр. 1 (Гурбетка). Ниш: Д. Ј. Големовић, 1931.
Dimitrije J. Golemović (1887-1945), composer and music pedagogue, was an army comrade of Dragutin Pokorný, and his name can be found among the names of the performers on some of the violin parts presented in this exhibition. One of the manuscripts that our Library houses is the orchestral work Prelude and Capriccio no. 1 (Gurbetka) (Прелудијум и Капричо бр. 1 (Гурбетка)), written in Niš in 1931. The preliminary page contains a dedication of the composer to Dragutin Pokorný and the information that this is his "first orchestral composition". Incidentally, Dimitrije J. Golemović is the grandfather of the ethnomusicologist Prof. Dimitrije O. Golemović.
Бохданецки, Јосип. Подпуковник Покорни. Б. м.: б. и., б. г.
It cannot be said with certainty when the march Lieutenant Colonel Pokorný (Подпуковник Покорни) by Josip Bohdanecký was written as it is not dated. Nevertheless, this manuscript score with four parts is yet another testimony to Pokorný’s reputation and the wish of his army comrades and his orchestra members to honour him.
Рајичић, Станојло. Плава гробница. Б. м.: С. Рајичић, б. г.
The Serbian composer Stanojlo Rajičić (1910-2000), one of the students of the ‘Prague school’, was only a child during the First World War. He started composing shortly before the Second World War began. Known, among other things, for his song writing, in the late 1960s Rajičić was inspired by Milutin Bojić’s poem The Blue Tomb (Плава гробница) to write a song with the same name. All that remains of the composition are sketches and an unrevised transcript by the composer, so there is no printed edition of this score or any information on it in the literature about Rajičić.
The exhibition "Music that waged war" includes scores that were written and performed during brief respites from combat and the arduous retreat through Albania; music in the form of folk songs sung and written by soldiers during warfare, which boosted their morale and gave them strength; music in the form of scores printed across Europe in order to present the spirit and culture of the Serbian people to the Allies; music, i.e. works composed by foreigners, swept along by a wave of enthusiasm for the fighting and sacrifices of a small Balkan country.
Finally, there is the music that bears a special testimony to the character of a soldier – Dušan Stefanović (1870-1951), Army Minister during 1914 and military envoy to Paris from February 1915 until the end of the war. While holding this post, Stefanović was made general on October 21, 1918. His Diary from 1914 details events from July 23 to December 31, 1914.
Nevertheless, a small collection of nine piano opera scores kept in the Library of FoM reveals a hidden, artistic and romantic side of general Stefanović’s personality. These notes were originally in the possession of Dušan Stefanović and his wife Mara. Judging by the dedications and signatures dotting the pages of these piano scores, music must have been a constant and ennobling companion in the couple’s life, as Mara and Dušan were highly cultured music enthusiasts who would have also known how to play the piano. From the time Stefanović was stationed in Vranje (1908-1912) there are several piano opera scores (Verdi’s Il Trovatore, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Halévy’s La Juive, Massenet’s Le Jongleur de Notre-Dame) that bear dedications from husband to wife written in ornate penmanship: "To Mara from Dušan, Vranje 1911". The time spent in Paris is documented by Mara’s signatures in the scores (partly in Cyrillic): "Мара, 1918. Paris". One of the piano scores contains sketches-portraits, possibly drawn by Mara.
Dušan Stefanović’s ‘notes’ represent his fondness for art, which is why this soldier was better known as a skilful diplomat and war writer than as a determined army commander. While his battlefield was somewhat different, it nonetheless proved significant for the final outcome of the war.
Finally, there is the music that bears a special testimony to the character of a soldier – Dušan Stefanović (1870-1951), Army Minister during 1914 and military envoy to Paris from February 1915 until the end of the war. While holding this post, Stefanović was made general on October 21, 1918. His Diary from 1914 details events from July 23 to December 31, 1914.
Nevertheless, a small collection of nine piano opera scores kept in the Library of FoM reveals a hidden, artistic and romantic side of general Stefanović’s personality. These notes were originally in the possession of Dušan Stefanović and his wife Mara. Judging by the dedications and signatures dotting the pages of these piano scores, music must have been a constant and ennobling companion in the couple’s life, as Mara and Dušan were highly cultured music enthusiasts who would have also known how to play the piano. From the time Stefanović was stationed in Vranje (1908-1912) there are several piano opera scores (Verdi’s Il Trovatore, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Halévy’s La Juive, Massenet’s Le Jongleur de Notre-Dame) that bear dedications from husband to wife written in ornate penmanship: "To Mara from Dušan, Vranje 1911". The time spent in Paris is documented by Mara’s signatures in the scores (partly in Cyrillic): "Мара, 1918. Paris". One of the piano scores contains sketches-portraits, possibly drawn by Mara.
Dušan Stefanović’s ‘notes’ represent his fondness for art, which is why this soldier was better known as a skilful diplomat and war writer than as a determined army commander. While his battlefield was somewhat different, it nonetheless proved significant for the final outcome of the war.
Verdi, Giuseppe. Il Trovatore. Leipzig: Aug. Cranz, s. a.
Massenet, Jules. Le Jongleur de Notre-Dame. Paris: Heugel & Cie, s. a.
