Stevan Stojanović Mokranjac and the inventing of tradition : a case study of the Song ‘ Cvekje Cafnalo ’ *

The main aim of this article is to examine Stevan Stojanović 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 Konjović’s works (Symphony C-minor, 1907 and The Second String Quartet, 1937), finally to the piano Sonatina (1926) by Predrag Milošević, 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 20 century.

UDK 78(497.11):929MokranjacS. Katarina  The main idea of this article is to highlight Stevan Stojanović 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 20 th 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 Konjović's (1883-1970) works (Symphony C-minor, 1907 and The Second String Quartet, 1937), finally to the piano Sonatina (1926) by Predrag Milošević (1908-1982), I will examine the practical value of the proposed theoretical premises.

-Mokranjac and His Time
Born in 1856, one century younger than Mozart, Stevan Stojanović Mokranjac was only eight when another gifted young composer, pianist and melographer Kornelije Stanković (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.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 Konjović, a consistent successor of Mokranjac's path, and the most important author of Serbian music drama in the 20th century. 3Also 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 Konjović 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 Milojević (1884-1946), one of the leading composers, music critics and ideologists of modern music nationalism in the period between the two world wars. 4A year later, in 1885, the third in the so-called "trefoil" of first Serbian modernists, Stevan Hristić, was born 5 ; he later became internationally recognized as the author of the most famous national ballet, The Legend of Ohrid (1947)   Miloje Milojević (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.Nejedlý).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 Milojević among "Europeans" see e.g.Vlastimir Trajković, "Ključni opusi u stvaralaštvu Miloja Milojevića" ["The Key Compositions of Miloje Milojević"] and Katarina Tomašević, "Miloje Milojević -između tradicionalnog i modernog" ["Miloje Milojević -between Tradional and Modern"] in: Kompozitorsko stvaralaštvo Miloja Milojevića [The Works of the Composer Miloje Milojević], 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.Ohrid, 1905), which was considered to be one of the highest creative achievements of the whole Mokranjac oeuvre.In 1885 (when Hristić 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 Garlands 6 , 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 Skerlić (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. 7My 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.Following the anthological example of Thomas Elliot 8 , 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." 11n accordance with these arguments, we can conclude that for Mokranjac's generation, the musical oeuvre of Kornelije Stanković 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 20 th 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 13 th 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. 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 Dević marked the song as "Macedonian". 14Thanks to the precise investigation of Djordje Perić, 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 Veselinović, who at the time of Mokranjac's stay in Kosovo was serving as a vice-consul in Skopje. 15Without 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.

Symphony and Second Quartet
As mentioned, Mokranjac's Twelfth Garland had its premiere in January 1907.During the same year, Petar Konjović, who had just returned from his two-year studies in Prague, began and finished the first version of his Symphony in C-minor.Both main themes of the first sonata movement are based on Mokranjac's Garlands: the first theme "Lele, Stano, mori" originates from the Fifth, and the second "Cvekje cafnalo" from the most recent, the Twelfth Garland. 17We suppose that Konjović may have even been at the premiere of the Twelfth.Apart from that, during 1907 he occasionally worked in the "Serbian Music School" in Belgrade (founded in 1899 by Mokranjac himself), where he may have met Mokranjac and personally obtained either the monographic note or the choral score of The Twelfth Garland.One thing is obvious: in the new orchestral medium the tune of "Cvekje cafnalo" had already diverted significantly from the original folk sample, but its closeness to its own starting model (Mokranjac's transposition) remained tangible: 17 The theme "Cvekje cafnalo" opens the final (Largo -Allegro vivace) movement and appears again in front of its Repetition segment.
Step 5. -Neoclassical "Costume" of "Cvekje cafnalo": Sonatina by Predrag Milošević Petar Konjović's Second String Quartet and Stevan Hristić's ballet The Legend of Ohrid21 , represent the mature stage of the main, dominant stylistic course of Serbian music in the first half of the 20 th century.
In the same period, while the modification of Mokranjac's tradition was in progress in the work of the first generation of Serbian modern composers, numerous choral societies were successfully establishing the position of Stevan Mokranjac as the most important "classic" of Serbian music and Yugoslav music on the vivid concert stage.The concert repertoires of choirs between the two wars was inundated not only with Mokranjac's Garlands, but also a great number of similar works by composers who, unlikely the modernists, were not ambitious to find their own, new approaches to the folk tradition.The popularity of choral singing culminated in 1924 with the foundation of the "South Slav Singing Association", whose activities, just like in the 19 th century, even included mass contests of choirs with thousands of participants! 22There was no doubt that, at that time, Mokranjac's music gained the status of a tradition which belonged both to Serbian and to Yugoslav culture.It's worthwhile reminding oneself of the theoretical postulate that states: "Once a phenomenon gains mass popularity, it's the signal that tradition has been created!" 23 On the other hand, there is nothing strange in the fact that, at the same time, the youngest generation of future Serbian composers felt a strong and natural urge to escape from Mokranjac.Watching what was going on the dynamic literary stage at the beginning of the third decade, when avant-guard, western-oriented movements replaced each other overnight, young musicians openly expressed their readiness to participate in creating another, completely new and radically different physiognomy of Serbian contemporary music.They were soon given a good opportunity, since most of them (from the mid-1920s) got scholarships to study in Prague. 24At this point let's recall, for example, Stanojlo Rajičić's words: "We were running away from singing and choral music just as a young peasant, after coming to a large town, tries to hide his village origin by buying a new townsfolk suit." 25 That temporary "costume" of New Music, incarnated in the works of Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) and Alois Hába (1893-1973), was worn by a few young composers -Ljubica Marić, Vojislav Vučković, Dragutin Čolić -early in their student's works!Yet most who studied in Prague remained more moderate.Among their "school" opuses, there was no notion of folklore and nobody even tried to compose choral pieces.Nevertheless, traces of the old romantic forms and elements of the music language of late western and central-European Romanticism were still clearly visible in their mainly instrumental attempts to be "modern"; the most radical steps were made towards the elements of Expressionism. 26eviewing the whole youthful oeuvre of these Prague students, the era of Mokranjac might seem to have disappeared forever from the horizon of the youngest generation of Serbian composers in the period between the two wars.It was not like that, however.One prospective Prague student, the oldest in the group (born in 1904), did not intend to forget Mokranjac while studying in the Czech capital.Predrag Milošević, then an undergraduate of composition in Jaroslav Křička's (1882-1969) class, wrote an outstanding, attractive and inspiring piano Sonatina in 1926, which quickly found its way into the repertoires of numerous eminent Serbian and foreign pianists. 27In its second movement, young Milošević pays homage to Stevan Mokranjac: "Cvekje cafnalo", the beautiful folk tune from Mokranjac's Twelfth Garland, echoed in his Sonatina in a completely new, neoclassical "costume", with an impressionist spectre of nuances of harmonic colours. 28he stylistic world of those five elegant and refined miniature variations had nothing to do with the expression of Konjović's early style in his Symphony, nor with the saturated modernism of Konjović's mature Quartet.Like other components of Milošević's expression in Sonatina (as well as in his later works -String Quartet, 1928; Symphoniette, 1930), variations on the theme "Cvekje cafnalo" represented in an absolute sense a qualitative style novelty in Serbian music of the 1920s.There are serious arguments in favour of identifying Milošević's creative attitude towards Mokranjac's tradition as a pure symptom of Neo-classicism. 29Thanks to Milošević's contribution, the portrait of Serbian music modernism in the first half of the 20 th century was enriched with another, Neo-classical gesture.
Step 6. -A Paradigm We are on the threshold of the next and last step in this presentation of evidence, whose main aim was to prove the importance of Mokranjac's oeuvre as the newly invented artistic tradition for the further transformation of Serbian art music in the first half of the 20 th century.I will stop here, stating that the route of the tune "Cvekje cafnalo" from the original folk tune, through Mokranjac's Twelfth Garland, Konjović's Symphony and his Second String Quartet, to Predrag Milošević's Sonatina, can be considered as a paradigm for stylistic changes not only of Serbian, but also of any other invented or constructed music traditions.
Still, I would like to make one more final remark: at this point, where we do stop, the second part of the story about Mokranjac's role as a model in Serbian music of the late 20 th and early 21 st centuries is still going on.Bearing in mind the latest creative music productions in Serbia 30 , one can presume that the musicological discourse about Mokranjac as a model, remains, at least for the time being, a never ending story.

3
PetarKonjović (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, Konjović saw the future of Serbian music in the Slavic circle of modern "national schools" of the XXth century (See e.g.Katarina Tomašević, "Istok-Zapad u polemičkom kontekstu srpske muzike između dva svetska rata" ["The East and the West in the Polemic Context of the Serbian Music between the Two World Wars"], Muzikologija, Časopis Muzikološkog 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), Konjović was inspired by the concept of the so-called "psychological realism", recognized in oeuvres of Mussorgsky and Janáček.About the stylistic profile of Konjović's opus c.f. e.g.Nadežda Mosusova, "Stilska orijenatacija Petra Konjovića" ["Stylistic Orientation of Petar Konjović"] in: Život i delo Petra Konjovića [The Life and the Work of Petar Konjović], Muzikološki institut SANU i Odeljenje likovne i muzičke umetnosti SANU, Beograd 1989, pp.39-44. 4

5
Stevan Hristić(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, Hristić 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 Hristić'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-siècle aesthetics.

8I
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.