Sonja Cvetković

THE EUROPEAN TRADITION IN THE CHAMBER WORKS OF PETAR STOJANOVIĆ ¹

A sizable body of writing on Serbian music between the two world wars has still not given a complete insight into the opus of composer, violinist and pedagogue Petar Stojanović, and this fact, as well as personal interest in the period in which he had created, has offered sufficient grounds for the choice of topic.

The first part of the paper (the introduction and the first two chapters) was envisioned as an integral historical overview of Stojanović’s compositional work. Along with presenting the overall concept and methodology used, the introduction also contains the positioning of the artist’s entire oeuvre within the dynamic period of Serbian music history between the world wars.

In the first chapter The opus of Petar Stojanović in music criticism and historiography, the listed references and the previous research results are aimed towards shedding light on Stojanović’s life and artistic direction, along with a review of the reception of his works in the music life of Budapest, Vienna, and Belgrade.

The second chapter, The historical coordinates of the age of Petar Stojanović, was divided into two subchapters (1. Petar Stojanović in the circle of his Vienna contemporaries and 2. The chamber opus of Petar Stojanović in the context of Jugendstyle and fin-de-siecle art) and represents a framework for a clearer viewing of Stojanović's artistic development.

Directing attention towards Stojanović's chamber compositions demanded that he be situated into a broader context of development of European and Serbian chamber music in the third paragraph – The development tendency of European and Serbian chamber music in the 19^th and the first half of the 20^th century (1. Aspects of the traditional in European chamber music in the 19^th and first half of the 20^th century and 2. The place of the chamber opus of Petar Stojanović in the development of Serbian chamber music).

In the central, fourth, chapter, The chamber music of Petar Stojanović – the meeting place of various stylistic tendencies, after an exposition of the general characteristics of Stojanovic's chamber opus, an analysis was carried out of cyclical compositions in the aim of defining their most significant compositional-technical traits (1. The vitality of classical and baroque tradition in profiling the chamber style, 2. The romantic transformation of traditional sonneticity, and 3. The elements of impressionism and expressionism in the function of the modernization of romantic contents).

The results put forward lead to the conclusion that Stojanović’s chamber music offers an interesting presentation of a quest for a personal style and represents one of the numerous examples for reviewing a creative exchange of influences between European, i.e. Austrian music, and the artists of Serbian origin who had resided in this area.

Translated by Elizabeta Holt