Miloje Milojevic

Biography

The father of Miloje Milojevic, Dimitrije, an apparel merchant, was born in the village Dedina near the town of Krusevac. His last name was in fact Dordevic, but according to the custom at the time, he adopted a surname based on his father’s first name. Dimitrije Milojevic was rather musically gifted, being self-taught in playing the flute. The mother of Miloje Milojevic, Angelina, was born in Belgrade, in the Matic clerk’s family. She was also musically gifted and took private piano lessons. Miloje Milojevic had a sister Vladislava, and brothers Vojislav, Vladislav, Branko, Milorad, and Borivoje, a renowned biologist.

Miloje Milojevic began private violin lessons at the age of five, with Karlo Mertl, an orchestra member of the National Theatre in Belgrade. His first piano teacher was his mother, Angelina. His father’s sudden death turned the family life upside-down. The changed financial situation made his mother, now a widow, move to Novi Sad where life was more affordable. The Milojevic family lived in Novi Sad for six years. Miloje began his schooling in Novi Sad in his junior year at the Serbian Orthodox High Gymnasium (graduated 1904). This school was well known for its music activities (Svetosavke besede). During his music education, Miloje Milojevic received encouragement from composer Isidor Bajic (1878–1915), his secondary school music teacher.

Milojevic matriculated at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, where he studied for three semesters (fall 1904 until spring 1906): Germanics (Milos Trivunac), comparative literature (Bogdan Popovic), Serbian language and literature (Aleksandar Belic, Pavle Popovic, and Jovan Skerlic), and philosophy (Branislav Petronijevic). He concurrently attended Serbian music school (until 1907, and also later), where he studied music theory subjects and composition with Stevan St. Mokranjac and piano with Cvetko Manojlovic.

For the next five semesters (summer 1907–08 until summer 1909–10 academic year), Milojevic continued his studies at the Munich University Philosophy Department, where he studied musicology (with Adolf Sandberger and Theodor Kroyer), literature, and philosophy disciplines. At the same time, Milojevic attended Munich Music Academy, studying composition (with Friedrich Klose), piano (Richard Meier-Gschray), and conducting with score reading (Felix Mottl). He graduated from Munich Music Academy in June 1910.

Between 1 September 1910 and 1 March 1911, Milojevic served his military duty for the Kingdom of Serbia, in the student squadron. While in military service, he was appointed a music teacher in the Fourth Belgrade Gymnasium, and the same year also started teaching in the Serbian Music School. In 1912, he founded the Serbian Music School Teachers’ Chamber Society. This event initiated the nurturing of chamber music in Belgrade on a more regular basis.

In the fall of 1912, at the onset of the First Balkan War, Milojevic was drafted as a sergeant for the Dunav Division cavalry squadron. Following the outbreak of World War I he was appointed to the Supreme Command headquarters (until 1917). He crossed Albania with the Serbian Army (Serbian army’s retreat through Albania). In 1917, Milojevic was in service for the Kingdom of Serbia Ministry of Education, during which he was sent to Paris to the Committee for Cultural Affairs. He remained in France from 1917 until mid 1919. During the entire war, he remained involved with composing; he also performed at concerts of Serbians music in Nice, Monte Carlo, Lyon, and Paris as a piano accompanist, and held a public lecture about modern Serbian music in Paris.

In 1919, Milojevic returned to Belgrade and developed an extraordinary rich music career as a composer, musicologist, music critic, folklorist, music pedagogue, conductor, and organizer of music affairs. At first, he returned to his previous teaching positions at the gymnasium and music school. Concurrently, from 1920 until the beginning of 1922 he also held the conductor position with the Academic Singing Society “Obilic”. In fall 1922 he was appointed an Assistant Professor of Music History at the Belgrade University Faculty of Philosophy. Soon afterward he turned to completing his musicology studies and earned his doctorate degree at the Charles University in Prague (1925). Upon returning to Belgrade, he was a Docent and an Associate Professor of Music History until 1939. At the same time, up until 1946 he also taught at the Music School in Belgrade—previously Serbian Music School (principal 1943–46). In 1939 he became a Professor of composition and theory disciplines at the Music Academy in Belgrade. During World War II Milojevic was arrested (1941) by fascist authorities. During the heavy ‘allied’ bombing of Belgrade by the American forces on Easter Day in 1944, his house on 16 Nemanjina Street in Belgrade was demolished, leaving him wounded. Of a diminished health condition, starting in February 1946, he was no longer able to continue teaching at the Music Academy. After the liberation, as a formality, he was appointed to the Music Academy Institute of Musicology managed at the time by musicologist and pianist Stana Duric-Klajn (now Institute of Musicology of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, SASA). Milojevic died 16 June 1946 in Belgrade.

Milojevic was married (from 1907) to a vocalist and music pedagogue Ivanka Milutinovic (1881–1975). They had one daughter, Gordana (1911–2003), a pianist and music pedagogue. Nephew Dorde (1921–1986), the son of Borivoje, was a violoncellist and a composer. The grandson of Miloje Milojevic is a composer and member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Vlastimir Trajkovic (1947), Professor of Composition and Orchestration at the Faculty of Music, University of Arts, in Belgrade.

Composer

Together with Petar Konjovic and Stevan Hristic, Miloje Milojevic represented a generation of composers who introduced modern styles and a high compositional technical level to Serbian music. In the beginning phase of his creative development, Milojevic set out from the Serbian Romanticist national school (Stevan Mokranjac and Josif Marinkovic). During his studies in Munich, he discovered German New Romanticism and became closely involved with the music of Richard Strauss. His stay in France resulted with even stronger impressions. The influence of French Impressionism was decisive in Milojevic’s stylistic development. While in Prague, working on his dissertation, he made contacts with Czech avant-garde composers. In certain works, Milojevic turned to expressionism. Throughout his life, though, he preserved his affinity toward the national style—toward folklore as a foundation of art music. Thus, the last stage of his creative work is characterized by utilizing folk melodies amidst the stylistic blend of Neo-romanticist and Impressionist elements.

Miloje Milojevic is predominantly a lyricist and a master of small forms. Two main areas of his work belong to the Lied and piano character piece, but he also significantly contributed to choral and chamber genres.

In his Lied, Milojevic used Serbian, Croat, French, German, and Japanese poetry. His interpretation of the lyrics was realized by supple melodies and rich harmonic palette of the piano part. Among his pieces for voice and piano, it is important to note the following:

Before the Magnificence of Nature (Pred velicanstvom prirode), a collection of ten songs, was conceived between 1908 and 1920. This song cycle features all the elements representative of Milojevic as a composer of this genre (Serbian romanticist Lied, influences of R. Strauss, and Impressionism). Among the most successful Lieder in this cycle are The Autumn Elegy (Jesenja elegija), The Eagle song (Pesma orla), Japan, The Nymph, and The Bells (Zvona).

About fifteen Lieder composed in France in 1917 after the lyrics by French poets were influenced by Impressionism, the most well-known among them Berceuse triste (Tuzna uspavanka). From his later period, significant are The Three songs for high voice (Tri pesme za visoki glas), the most remarkable being “A very hot day” from 1924 (“Vrlo topli dan”), composed upon German lyrics, and Haikai (Hai-kai), after the poetry of Japanese poet Matsuo Basho, from 1942. These works merge impressionistic and expressionistic elements.

A Field feast (Gozba na livadi), “a lyrical symphony for voice and orchestra” (1939) represents the first example of symphonic Lied in Serbian music.

Milojevic also wrote choral music. His activities in this genre encompass simple, unassuming music for children’s and youth choirs to complex works. The most significant include: How green is the long field (Dugo se polje zeleni) (1909), a miniature for mixed choir, after the lyrics of Vojislav Ilic; dramatic ballad Presentiment (Slutnja) (1912), marked by Neo-romanticist chromaticism and polyphony, and considered among masterpieces of Serbian choral literature; and cycle The Feast of illusions (Pir iluzija) (1924), after poetry of Miroslav Krleza (Evening decorations (Vecernje dekoracije), Triptych (Triptih), and Dark gloomy afternoon (Crno sumorno popodne)), a work of modern expression and high technical demands regarding choral texture. Milojevic’s most popular choral composition, The Fly and a Mosquito (Muha i komarac) (1930), is a humorous scherzando piece written upon folk text and utilizing tone painting. This effective work is often compared to The Goat-herd (Kozar) by S. Mokranjac. Milojevic also wrote sacred music (two liturgies, three opelos (Orthodox Requiem), a particularly successful piece being A Short Opelo in b-flat minor (Kratko Opelo u b-mollu), for men’s choir (1920).

Miloje Milojevic is one of the most significant Serbian composers of piano music. By their high artistic qualities, his Four piano pieces (Cetiri komada za klavir) (1917), marked a shift in the history of Serbian piano music. His highly successful collections Cameos (Kameje) (1937–42) and My mother (Moja majka) (1943) are characterized by the synergy of Neo-romanticism and Impressionism. His cycles entitled Melodies and rhythms from the Balkans (Melodije i ritmovi sa Balkana), The Kosovo suite (Kosovska svita), and The Povardarie suite (Povardarska svita) (all from 1942), are all based on folklore and Milojevic’s own folk transcriptions. These works feature impressionistic solutions, but also a somewhat robust use of folklore similar to Bela Bartok. His work Rhythmical grimaces (Ritmicke grimase) (1935), a stride toward Expressionism, occupies a special place in his oeuvre, whereas the piano is treated in a somewhat percussionist way, certain places are void of meter markings, and the harmonic aspect is characterized by the departure from tonality and use of tone clusters.

Milojevic was less prolific in the genre of orchestral music. Among his orchestral compositions is The Death of the Jugovic mother (Smrt majke Jugovica) (1921), with glimpses of R. Strauss’s influences. This work somewhat exhibits insufficiencies in the aspects of thematic development and orchestral sound. His suite for string orchestra, Intimacy (Intima) (1939), built on the re-la-do-mi-la motive, deems far more successful. While featuring six movements and several moods (depicted by the subtitles), this composition demonstrates coherency and rich sound colour.

Miloje Milojevic wrote a number of chamber works. He composed two string quartets (in G-major, 1905 and in c-minor, 1906), the G-major quartet being the first work of this genre in Serbian music. He also composed two sonatas for violin and piano (in b-minor, 1924 and in d-minor 1943), Sonata for flute and piano in f-sharp minor (1944) and Sonata in g for viola solo (1944). The most substantial among these works is Sonata for violin and piano in b-minor, a piece of sturdy structure and great expressivity ranging from discrete lyricism to passionate drama.

One of Milojevic’s most distinct works belongs to stage music — Le balai du valet (Sobareva metla) (1923), a ballett grotesque upon a surrealist text by Marko Ristic.

Miloje Milojevic is represented in the Anthology of Serbian piano music (vol. 1, no. 1, selection by Dejan Despic, Vlastimir Pericic, Dusan Trbojevic, and Marija Kovac; editing: Vlastimir Trajkovic; Belgrade: Composers’ Association of Serbia, CAS, 2005, pp. 30–96), with Four piano pieces, op. 23, Cameos, impressions for piano, op. 51, and Visions, op. 65. He is also represented in the Anthology of Serbian Lied (no. 1, selection and foreword by Ana Stefanovic, Belgrade: CAS, 2008, p. 49–101) with “The Nymph” (“Nimfa”), op. 9, no. 1 form the cycle Before the Magnificence of Nature; “The Autumn elegy” (“Jesenja elegija”), op. 5, no. 1; “The Prayer of the Jugovic mother to the Evening star” (“Molitva majke Jugovica zvezdi Danici”), op. 31, no. 1; L’heure exquise (Zanosni cas), op. 21, no. 1; Vigil (Bdenje), op. 22, no.1; Do you remember, too? (Dal’ se secas i ti?), op. 46, no. 1; Two Quatrains of Al-Ghazali (Dva Al-Gazalijeva katrena), op. 46, no. 2; Two blue legends of Jovan Ducic (Dve Duciceve Plave legende), op. 34 (“A Little princess” (“Mala princeza”) and “Love” (“Ljubav”)); “A Very hot day,” op. 67, no. 1, from the cycle Three songs for high voice and piano, op. 67; La flute de jade, op. 39, for tenor, soprano, flute, violin, and piano (“Since she left” (“Od kada je otisla”) and “In the shade of an orange leaf” (“U senci narandzina lista”); and “Spring rain,” (“Prolecna kisa”), op. 45, no. 2.

Most significant compositions

Solo Lied and Symphonic Lied:

Piano and Chamber Music:

Choral and Sacred Works:

Stage Works:

Orchestral Works :

Musicologist, music critic, folklorist, and music promoter

Milojevic was the first Serbian to hold a doctorate in musicology. His dissertation, defended at the Charles University in Prague and entitled Smetana’s harmonic style addressed issues of systematic musicology (Belgrade: Graficki Institut “Narodna misao,” A. D, 1926). His monograph Smetana—life and works, a pioneer work in thematic and genre terms in Serbian musicology, occupies a notable place among his musicological studies (Belgrade: S. B. Cvijanovic, 1924). In his study entitled Music and Orthodox Church (Muzika i Pravoslavna crkva), he opened up the research of Serbian church music toward comparative disciplines such as music Byzantology and Oriental studies (Sremski Karlovci: “An annual and calendar of Serbian Orthodox Patriarchy for simple 1933,” 1932, pp. 115–135).

His pedagogical work in musicology was also very important. He taught history and theory of music at the Belgrade University School of Philosophy from 1922–39 (Assistant Professor since 1922, Docent since 1927, and Associate Professor since 1934). These were the pioneering and until present day the only lectures in those disciplines at that institution. Milojevic did not hold an independent office; his courses belonged to the Department for Classical Archeology and Art History, and then Department for Comparative Literature and Literature Theory, and finally the Department for Serbian Literature. Music history was at the time studied as a minor course at the departments for general history, and comparative literature and literature theory. Attempts to open a musicology department were not materialized. By the act of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia Education Minister, on 4 April 1930 a Seminar for Musicology was founded at the School of Philosophy and Milojevic became its first director. However, the degree granting possibility in musicology has never existed at the School where Miloje Milojevic worked.

Milojevic’s university courses were thematically and chronologically rather diverse and attracted a large number of attendants. He was an extraordinary speaker and lecturer.

The Belgrade Faculty of Music Library stores his unfinished textbook on music history. This was the first comprehensive work on music history by a Serbian author since the textbook entitled A History of Music (1921) by Ljubomir Bosnjakovic. Another voluminous material in manuscript form, A History of Music by Bozidar Joksimovic, completed in 1926 (400 pages), still unpublished is kept at the Archives of the SASA Institute of Musicology in Belgrade.

Miloje Milojevic was also a Serbian music critic and essayist of the first half of the 20th century, and one among the most significant music critics and writers in the history of Serbian music. He published over a thousand critiques, studies, essays, treatises, reviews, obituaries and notes in a large number of various daily papers, and literary and other periodicals. He was a music critic of the most relevant Serbian literary periodical during the first half of the 20th century, the “Serbian Literary Herald,” from 1908–41. He was also a music critic for “Politika,” the most influential daily paper in Serbia, from 1921–41. The significance of his writings on music is multifold. In his essays and critiques, he provided for Serbian and Yugoslav audiences critical information about a number or events, personalities, phenomena, and issues on older and newer European music. A luminary and communicator of art music and its history, Milojevic exceeded his duties of a disseminator of knowledge and information, and in his writings always presented a certain critical position.

In his numerous evaluations of national composers’ contemporary output, he offered objective assessments, later largely adopted in Serbian musicology. A passionate proponent of the Slavophil and Yugoslav ideology, he nonetheless did not allow ideology to rule over aesthetics. Thus, the autonomy of art and primacy of aesthetic values were never questioned in his writings.

His breadth of education, exceptional awareness of developments in European music, including the avant-garde, and knowledge of German, French, Czech, and English musicology literature, enabled Milojevic to exercise an ardent, invigorating writing style, without neglecting factual and expertise layers in his writings. The Serbian postwar musicology did not approvingly view the stylistic aspect of his writings. Consequently, after his death, he was to a degree, and certainly unjustifiably underrated, and his writings were by all means insufficiently read. That was in any way, also the case in the relationship of Serbian postwar musicology toward the history of writing about music, as a branch of research and exploration in musicology. This discipline was deeply overshadowed by composition analysis, the priority of our musicology at the time. Only recently, primarily in the works by Roksanda Pejovic, Slobodan Turlakov, and Aleksandar Vasic, are the writings of Miloje Milojevic being thoroughly examined and undertaking work on his bibliography and minute analysis of his texts being suggested.

In Milojevic’s writings, noticeable is a friction between tradition and innovation, most apparent in his writings on contemporary music. His views on contemporary music were not straightforward, but rather vacillating, particularly in accepting radical avant-garde practices. At the same time, he did not withhold from his audience information on events he personally did not endorse. A worthy example was his as early as 1912 text on Arnold Schoenberg in the “Serbian Literary Herald.” He, however remained faithful to the ideas of national style in music and modernized music Romanticism.

Milojevic was also one of the editors of periodical the “Music” (Belgrade, January 1928 – March 1929). Among the most superior music periodicals in Serbia and Yugoslavia prior to WWI, the “Music” had a decisive role in critical presentation of European music to the internal readers’ audience. This was especially corroborated by thematic volumes dedicated to Czech music, Franz Schubert, achievements of Polish and English music, and Ludwig van Beethoven. “Music” offered discussions on national style, and critically recorded events in Yugoslav, Slavic, and Western European art music cultures. During the interwar period, Milojevic’s textbook on the basics of music theory (Basics of musical art I–II, 1922–27; later under a new title The Basic theory of music, thirteen editions, until 1940) was in use for a long time, as well as his handout course package in harmony, assembled from the well known textbook entitled The Study of Harmony (Harmonielehre) by Rudolf Luis and Ludwig Thuille.

Milojevic translated opera librettos for Eugene Onegin by A. S. Pushkin/P. I. Tchaikovsky (1920), The Tales of Hoffman by Jules Barbie – Michel Carre/Jacques Offenbach (1921), and Manon by Henry Meilhak – Philippe Jules/Jules Massenet (1924).

The selected writings of Miloje Milojevic were published in three volumes entitled Music studies and essays (Belgrade: Geza Kohn (Geca Kon) publishing, I, 1926; II, 1933; Belgrade: edited by Gordana Trajkovic-Milojevic, author’s publication, III, 1953).

Milojevic’s treatise The Artistic ideology of Stevan St. Mokranjac, published in 1938 in the “Serbian Literary Herald” is included in the anthology of Serbian music essayism entitled Essays on Art, edited by Jovan Cirilov (drama), Stana Duric-Klajn (music), and Lazar Trifunovic (visual arts), published in 1966 (pp. 251–262).

In 1925–26 together with the group of University faculty, Milojevic founded a University chamber music association “Collegium musicum” that played a major role in Belgrade interwar life. Between 21 April 1926 and 15 March 1940, “Collegium musicum” held sixty-seven concerts and performed 417 compositions ranging from Baroque and Rococo pieces to the works of Paul Hindemith and Igor Stravinsky. Milojevic took part in these concerts as an organizer, lecturer, conductor, and piano accompanist. Within the auspices of the association, he started and edited sheet music publishing, an activity of extraordinary importance. Beside Milojevic’s compositions, “Collegium musicum” published a number of works by Serbian, Slovenian, and Croatian composers (chronologically): Predrag Milosevic, Slavko Osterc, Lucijan Marija Skerjanc, Anton Neffat, Jakov Gotovac, Petar Konjovic, Bozidar Sirola, Milenko Zivkovic, Bogomir-Bogo Leskovac, and Vojislav Vuckovic. In regard to such endeavor, Konjovic remarked: “Through the activities of Miloje Milojevic, ‘Collegium musicum’ by its selections, editorship, print and technical appearance, represented a big step toward Europization of Serbian and Yugoslav music culture” (compare with P. Konjovic, Miloje Milojevic, composer and music writer, Belgrade: SASA, 1954, 177).

Milojevic was a regular piano accompanist at concerts of his wife, the first Serbian concert singer, Ivanka Milojevic.

As a folklorist, he explored, transcribed, and interpreted musical folklore of Kosovo and Metohija, Macedonia, and Monte Negro. He produced a number of works in this field and transcribed nearly 900 melodies and dances. He was attracted to folklore, both as a researcher and a composer, thus was also fond of the idea of composing art music upon folk tunes. His folk transcriptions entitled Folk songs and dances from Kosovo and Metohija were published recently, edited by Dragoslav Devic (Belgrade: Zavod za udzbenike—Karic fondacija, 2004).

The music school in Kragujevac bears the name of Miloje Milojevic.

His legacy, classified and catalogued is kept in the family archives of Milojevic’s grandson, academician Vlastimir Trajkovic, composer and Professor of Composition and Orchestration at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade.

Sheet music (selection)

Selected recordings

Literature