Czech musicians who walked with Mokranjac

During the 1800s, Serbia lacked both the economy and the stable cultural footing needed to foster a rich musical scene. The nation had spent centuries under foreign rule and endured repeated wars, migrations, and hardship. By the time nationalist movements emerged and a middle class began to form, music in Serbia still depended heavily on individual effort rather than institutional support.

Into this environment came a steady stream of Czech musicians. Many arrived looking for work, not necessarily motivated by Pan-Slavic ideals. Regardless of their reasons, these Czechs brought technical training, often from the Prague Conservatory, and they helped raise the standard of performance and education throughout Serbian music. Stevan Mokranjac recognised their value and chose several as close collaborators.

The following account traces Mokranjac's connections with these musicians in three areas where he left his deepest mark: chamber performance, music education, and choral work.

The Belgrade String Quartet

Mokranjac helped found the first professional string quartet in Serbia in September 1889. Until then, instrumental music in the country had been dominated by amateur efforts, while vocal music claimed nearly all the attention. The new ensemble aimed to change that.

The founding members were Ferdinand Melcher (first violin), Stevan Mokranjac (second violin), Stevan Šram (viola), and the Czech cellist Josef Svoboda. The charter they signed declared an ambitious mission: to perform classical and Slavic repertoire, cultivate refined musical taste in the capital, and fill a void that had long been felt. Each member pledged to rehearse regularly, study his part conscientiously, and do everything possible to bring the quartet up to the standard of similar groups in more prosperous cities.

The charter laid out five goals:

• to practise chamber music diligently and regularly
• to give concerts and help noble musical taste take root
• to build a library of chamber music
• to support Serbs who wished to compose in that medium
• to stand together and defend the society's purpose against any attack

The quartet rehearsed and performed mainly at the Građanska Kasina social club. Their first public concert took place on 12 November 1889. While precise records of the group's end are lost, it seems they remained active for roughly four seasons. They billed themselves as four serious musicians fully aware of the weight of their task.

The quartet planned a cycle of six concerts each season. Their programs featured works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Dvořák, Svendsen, Volkmann, and Svoboda's own Piano Quartet on Folk Tunes alongside other trios, sonatas, and chamber pieces. In 1891 they dedicated an entire evening to Mozart on the centenary of his death. Guest performers frequently joined them, among them the pianist Sidonija Ilić, the soprano Ana Šram, and the composer Stanislav Binički.

The Czech musician Josef Svoboda

Beyond his role in the quartet, Josef Svoboda pursued his own active career. The Czech society Lumír, an entertainment and cultural association founded in Belgrade in 1888, regularly reported back to publications in Bohemia. These reports, published here for the first time in Serbian context, show that on 6 July 1888 the society held a grand evening celebrating the memory of Jan Hus. Svoboda composed a medley of Czech folk songs for cello on that occasion titled Memories of the Homeland. A later report notes that after the society opened a new building on Slavija Square, Svoboda served as choirmaster and counted seventy members in the association.

Serbian Music School

Mokranjac understood that lasting progress required proper training. In 1899 he founded the Serbian Music School, the first regular music institution in the country. It later passed through several name changes — Belgrade Music School in 1916, Music School in Belgrade in 1919, and finally Mokranjac Music School in 1944 — but its founding purpose remained steady.

The school appeared at a moment when Serbian cultural life was just beginning to blossom. The intelligentsia grew more aware of the need for professional education, and the young institution, modest at first, advanced day by day through diligent work rather than publicity. According to Mokranjac himself, the school became a genuine necessity, an organic part of the nation's cultural goals.

Czech music teachers worked not only at the Serbian Music School but also in many general secondary schools across Serbia. Their contribution to music education cannot be overstated — they brought rigorous pedagogy and a working knowledge of European repertoire. Not everyone welcomed them. Some critics argued that they imported a German-influenced system that poorly suited the local musical mentality. Still, the concrete results they achieved overshadow such objections.

Belgrade Choral Society

Choral singing held a special place in Mokranjac's career and in Serbian musical life generally. Before instrumental ensembles took root, choirs were the primary organisers of public musical events. Mokranjac served as conductor of the Belgrade Choral Society for many years, and here too he worked alongside Czech associates. Singers, pianists, and various ensemble members — many of them Czech by birth — collaborated regularly on the society's concert evenings. Contemporary newspapers carried frequent reports of these performances, noting the involvement of the Belgrade String Quartet and of Mokranjac's Czech colleagues in the programme.

One such joint event took place in March 1891, when the quartet appeared as guests at a concert organised by the Choral Society. The era's press culture both in Serbia and among Czech communities abroad carefully tracked these mixed ensembles, treating them as evidence of a lively and increasingly professional musical scene.

First Belgrade Gymnasium

Mokranjac also taught at the First Belgrade Gymnasium, where his Czech fellow instructors reinforced his efforts. These teachers helped standardise music classes within the regular school curriculum, something that had been rare until then. The combination of school-based training with the new specialised music school meant that for the first time Belgrade youngsters could receive a sustained, progressive musical education from primary through advanced levels.

Conclusion

The Czech musicians who made Serbia their home during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries became essential partners in Mokranjac's plans. They helped establish the country's first professional string quartet, worked alongside him in the Serbian Music School, supported the choral movement, and brought Prague-trained standards to the classroom. Without their knowledge, dedication, and loyalty — whatever their original motivations for leaving Bohemia — the professionalisation of Serbian music would have taken a slower and harder road. Mokranjac recognised them as equals in a common cause, and the record of their cooperation stands as one of the stronger chapters in the history of the region's musical development.

Beogradskom pevačkom društvu [Choral Society], Škola je otvorena krajem 19. veka, na dan 21. septembra 1899, koji pada na rođenje Presvete Bogorodice. Početkom rada imenovan je školski odbor i uspostavljena su pravila studiranja i finansiranja. U prvom trenutku zaposlena su samo četiri nastavnika, među kojima je bio i Čeh Jovan Ružička, koji je podučavao violinu. Tokom školske 1900/01 godine kupljen je violončelo, a za prvog profesora tog instrumenta izabran je Vićeslav Rendla (Vít ězslav Rendla).

Osnivanjem Srpske muzičke škole u Beogradu muzičko obrazovanje u Srbiji prvi put je steklo profesionalno stabilan temelj i otpočeo je njegov postojan razvoj. Delujući kao direktor, Stevan Mokranjac je, čini se, uneo u školu evropski duh. Škola nije bila samo jedina ustanova za školovanje budućih stručnih muzičara, već i aktivni organizator koncerata u Beogradu. Činjenica je da su Stevan Mokranjac i njegovi saradnici uspehe svojih učenika prvenstveno pripisivali samoj Školi. Njihovi nastavni metodi oslanjali su se na strana, uglavnom zapadnoevropska iskustva, jer su nacrt i program rada sledili vodeće evropske konzervatorijume iz tog razdoblja.

Prvu generaciju od 20 đaka podučavao je prvi nastavni tim, od kojih nekoliko Čeha. Violinu je predavao Jovan Ružička (1876–1945). O njemu je danas poznato samo da je bio učenik Jozefa Helmesbergera i bivši koncertmajstor Budimske opere. Ubrzo im se pridružio Vićeslav Rendla (1868–1933), violončelista, muzički pedagog i dirigent. Pozvan je da u Školi predaje violončelo, kontrabas i flautu, a te dužnosti obavljao je do smrti. Osim toga, rukovodio je i školskim orkestrom. Bio je Čeh koji je osnovnu muzičku naobrazbu stekao od oca i u Beograd je pristigao još 1890. kao orkestralni i komorni muzičar. Od 1899. bio je član Beogradskog vojnog orkestra [Belgrade Military Band], kapelnik 6. puka, te violončelista u pozorišnom orkestru i Mertlovom salonskom orkestru. Bio je tipičan češki muzičar, visokouk obrazovan i bogatih iskustava stečenih radom u Parizu i SAD. Do kraja života u Školi je radio i kao profesor flaute, dirigent đačkog orkestra i rukovodilac komornog ansambla. Komponovao je veliki broj marševa, uvertira i drugih lakših dela, pri čemu je koristio motive iz srpske narodne muzike.

Emil Sachs (1884–1968) primljen je kao treći profesor violine u Školi. Ovaj Čeh, koji je stuio na dužnost nakon angažmana u pozorišnim orkestrima u Novom Sadu i Novom Sadu, vremenom će postati poznat kao Milan Saks, izvanredan simfonijski i operni dirigent, rukovodilac opernih kuća u Zagrebu i Brnu. Dodajmo da je ova darovita ličnost u Beogradu od 1907. do 1910. obavljala funkciju koncertmajstora pozorišnog orkestra i učitelja u muzičkoj školi u Novom Sadu (1910–1911). Zatim je prvo postao koncertmajstor i klavirski pratilac u zagrebačkom operni, a posle toga i dirigent i direktor te iste ustanove.

Prva beogradska gimnazija

Od 1887. do 1900. godine Stevan Mokranjac je predavao muziku u Prvoj beogradskoj gimnaziji [The First Belgrade Gymnasium]. Nakon dovršetka studija u Lajpcigu 1887, vratio se u Beograd i nedugo zatim postava, uz ostalo bio dirigent, horovođa i nastavnik u Beogradskom pevačkom društvu, koje je vodio do svoga kraja. Istovremeno je avgusta iste 1887. radio i kao učitelj muzike u Prvoj beogradskoj gimnaziji. Mokranjac je u ovoj ustanovi takođe delovao kao pionir muzičke pedagogije, kulture i kreativnosti, primenjujući zapadnoevropske standarde nastave muzike koji su prilagođeni tadašnjim prilikama. Gimnazija se u to doba zvala Gimnazija Aleksandra I [Alexander the First Gymnasium], a Mokranjac, njen bivši učenik, predavao je muzičko vaspitanje.

Časovi pevanja koje je držao delili su se na teorijski i praktični deo. U ono vreme profesori muzike su imali obavezu da uče đake violini, pa je stoga angažovan Jozef Svoboda (1856–1898), o kome je bilo reči pri opisu Gudačkog kvartlea. Instrumentalista, pedagog i kompozitor češkog porekla, studirao je kontrabas na Praškom konzervatorijumu 1870–1876. Pored gornjeg pedagoškog rada, 1894. osnovao je sopstvenu privatnu muzičku školu, gde je većinu vremena predavao violinu deci. Među njegove đake spadao je i srpski vladar Aleksandar Obrenović. Svestrannim angažmanom doprinosio je i mnogim drugim granama muzičke delatnosti.

Kamerni orkestar Akademskog muzičkog društva [Chamber Orchestra of the Academic Music Society], sastavljen od profesionalaca i amatera, imao je kratku koncertnu aktivnost u Beogradu devedesetih godina 19. stoleća; njegove poduhvate treba pripisati rukovodiocu Jozefu Svobodi. Dobitnik je Ordena Svetog Save 1883. Stvorio je i skladbe u srpskom nacionalnom stilu – za orkestar, klavirski trio i soli klavir, većina delima počivanju na motivima srpskih narodnih melodija: dve zbirke, Srpske narodne i omiljene pesme i igre [Serbian Folk and Popular Songs and Dances] klavirska, i Srbijanka (štampana u Češkoj) za klavir na četiri ruke; jedan Divertismentino za klavirski trio, i niz kompozicijâ ď[vrstio je set of partitures]. Sastavio je dve publikovane dve zavičajne knjige: Teoriju muzike [Music Theory] i Školu za violinu [School of Violin Playing].

Prvo beogradsko pevačko društvo

Od 1887. do smrti, Stevan Mokranjac je bio zborovođa Beogradskog pevačkom društvu [Belgrade Choral Society]. Tokom vremenskog toka delanja hora se beleži brojne kooperacije ansambla i Mokranjca sa češkom muzikom i češkim muzikantima. Ovom prilikom velać̀emo specificirati samo one detalje koji su za aktuelnu obradu naročito važni: podaci o dodiru Mokranjca sa nekolicinom muzičarâ iz Čehije koji su pomagali i nameli pod znanje delanju ove orguljaške ustanove.

God. 1877. Ferdinand Melher zvono je u ste i zdu godine j urednik melna: da i smisalj uz zajeno postitod niknoriti dogača, dom se gaje zapadan dvata godlniki). Kasni jo bude u ranij leti 1879.) god z opst. Mersevit, 1880 z [MS]. Let ova je.

Štenno maneme sumprimo plać na okilnd nojno… Koad suji izbornavali u i uzemljat: posevet ćtenje, Horovođa Mokilanj un utic ve. i ž još stce red zams so doshu.

there is another interesting detail: “Miloje Milojević, in accordance with Mokranjac’s wish, was hired as a conductor. He failed to show assiduousness before the Society’s tour of Trieste, Sušak, and Zagreb, and thus Hinko Maržinec was employed. After the tour and acrimonious disputes, Milojević resigned,”

from 30 June 1928 to 17 May 1929 he served in the Drina region, where he remained until retirement. He received the Order of Saint Sava of the Fifth Class in 1920 and the Order of the Yugoslav Crown of the Fifth Class in 1938. Cf. Gordana Krajačić, Vojna muzika i muzičari 1831–1945 [Military Bands and Musicians 1831–1945], Belgrade, Novinsko-izdavački centar Vojska, 2003, 116.

“Miss Sofija Predić sang her part with a good understanding of the music, with as much voice as she could muster and with as much training as one can get in our country. Mr Mijat Mijatović has that good trait of a true singer: to take matters seriously and pronounce the text nicely and articulately. The choir was good, though they sang without much nuance – everything was forte. The choir and the orchestra were together most of the time, though not constantly, which can be explained by the small number of rehearsals and the inexperience of our choirs in singing with orchestras. We can congratulate Mr Stevan Mokranjac, the conductor of the concert, for this success with his excellent choir.” Dušan Skovran, “Koncertni život pre pola veka u Beogradu” [“Concert Life in Belgrade Half a Century Ago”], Pro musica, 1965, 4, 5.

Ibid., 76.

Similarities and Differences, Influences and Inducements

A considerable number of Czech musicians engaged with our folk music in highly varied ways. In this area, they sometimes approached Stevan Mokranjac’s work rather closely. A widespread activity at the time involved compiling collections of folk songs – mostly not artistic in intent, because they had different purposes and goals; these collections were most often produced by foreign musicians, especially Czechs. Foreigners, predominately Czechs, exploited this genre most heavily. Ludvík Kuba (1863–1956) left a distinct individual stamp on this domain. He stood among the first to study, archive, and publish it, and even to compose from his own transcriptions. This Czech – folklorist, musicologist, and painter – gathered 2,673 songs on numerous field trips and published significant theoretical works in that field. Many composers borrowed folk songs from his Collections for their own needs, and even Mokranjac apparently took some of Kuba’s choral songs from his records. Mokranjac’s Ninth Choral Garland includes arrangements that can be found in nearly identical form in Kuba’s collection of 70 Montenegrin folk songs arranged for piano and choir. This collection was printed in Prague in 1890, after Kuba completed his melographic work, but also three years before Mokranjac’s journey to Cetinje in 1893, and six years before Mokranjac wrote and published his Ninth Garland (Songs from Montenegro). Similarities between Kuba’s work and the arrangements in this collection are difficult to overlook.

[The Ninth Garland. It includes four songs from Montenegro – the melodious Poljem se njija, while the others are austerely terse, with their short tunes and narrow melodic ranges, which is typical of this area’s folk music. They are intense in their condensed expressivity, calling for simple arrangements, but also unusual harmonic solutions… In U Ivana gospodara – whose melodic range does not exceed a third – Mokranjac appropriated the harmonization of the same song made by Czech melographer Ludvík Kuba in his collection of Montenegrin songs.]

The chain of arrangements and revisions of other people’s compositions relevant to Stevan Mokranjac’s oeuvre was initiated, in a way, by Slavoljub Lžičar personally. He first rewrote works by Alois Kalauz, while Lžičar’s Primorski napjevi were rearranged, or rather recomposed, by Stevan Mokranjac, who was dissatisfied with Lžičar’s efforts. These occupy a special position among Mokranjac’s works: they are woven from lyric folk melodies of the Croatian coastline, representing a brilliant, remarkably “polyphonized” transcription of Slavoljub Lžičar’s simple composition for male choir. By writing the arrangement for a large mixed choir, Mokranjac – initially under the pen name “Ljubisav Istinski,” to stress the seriousness of his work against Lžičar’s – produced a score that, in its freshness, original sound, and technique, stands shoulder to shoulder with the best of his Garlands. Meanwhile, the pun behind Mokranjac’s pen name was not very successful, speaking rather of his insufficient command of Czech. In Czech, “Lžičář” does not mean a liar or something fake (as opposed to something true, “Istinski”). Instead, the surname derives from the word “lžica” – spoon – so the composer’s last name might be translated as “Spoonmaker” rather than “Liar.” Thus, despite many professional objections justified against Lžičar’s composition, Mokranjac’s penname was perhaps linguistically inadequate when his composition was written and performed.

it became the Garland from the Croatian Parts – after the eponymous composition for male choir by Slavoljub Lžičar (Eduard František Lžičář, 1832–1901), a Czech musician who worked in Croatian and Serbian lands from 1860. For a time, these two works and their authors’ disagreements formed the subject of a significant study, from which I quote the still-relevant core parts: “And today, when we confront Lžičar’s Primorski napjevi with Mokranjac’s, it is by its overall texture and form that Mokranjac’s work surpasses its model. Because even if we briefly put aside Lžičar’s many truly dilettante harmonic solutions, the fact remains that his simple harmonies, reduced mostly to tonal degrees, are by their simplicity actually better suited to the character and latent harmonic basis of the selected folk songs, far more than Mokranjac’s far richer and more delicate harmonization, which essentially approaches West European music of early Romanticism… In Lžičar’s hands, the folk melodies remained pasted together into a mosaic, a superficial salon potpourri, a mere medley; they simply went on as a series of sweet ditties. In Mokranjac’s hands, the same series of melodies grew into a solid organism, into a dense, full-blooded, and logically chiseled entity, into a new work that excites by the directness and freshness of its discourse, the richness of its nuances, its profound dramaturgy, and psychologically guided gradation. Thus, from Lžičar’s material, Mokranjac built a work of art that lives on today, while the model was condemned to quick oblivion, together with the disappearance of a generation of sentimental bourgeois demoiselles and third-grade dilettante choral societies.”

Mokranjac’s Primorski napjevi premiered on 16/28 October 1893 at a concert of the Belgrade Choral Society.

In 1900, after a surgery in Vienna, Stevan Mokranjac underwent several medical and recovery treatments in Karlsbad – the German name for the Czech spa Karlovy Vary – where he had traveled regularly since 1897. He went there in 1898 with Uroš Predić, the well-known Serbian painter and paternal uncle of Mokranjac’s wife Mica, as well as in 1909. At those times they attended spa concerts, which Mokranjac described personally in preserved written documents. In one letter, he wrote about such a concert: “The programme was interesting and very nice. Some things I heard for the first time: Glazunov’s Poème lyrique and Dvořák’s symphony From the New World. I listened as musicians usually do, dissecting part by part and evaluating… I won’t write to you a full report on the concert, because that would be completely uninteresting, but you'll allow me to say what was the most beautiful thing at this concert – it was the Finale. That Finale was so soulful and full of love…”

In one report, Stevan Mokranjac is mentioned as the reviewer of Crkvene pesme u notnom sistemu [Notated Church Songs] by Živko S. Braković, cantor and priest, and Vojtěch Šístek, transcriber. Apart from this note, however, I have not been able to locate the review itself.

Let us also reference a testimony, most likely oral, from Václav Vedral, a long-time teacher at Stanković Music School in Belgrade. At some point early in the 20th century, he took Mokranjac’s Liturgy from Serbia and showed it to Antonín Dvořák, who went through it and, according to the account, exclaimed enthusiastically more than once: “This matches up to Bach himself!”

I will add the following speculation: “Mokranjac may have met Janáček in Russia in 1896, when he toured Nizhny Novgorod with the Belgrade Choral Society, and Janáček was there on a private visit with his brother to see the All-Russian Exhibition of Economy and the Arts.”

Finally, one should note that some of Mokranjac’s Garlands, thanks to Czech conductor Alois Buchta (1841–1898), were also performed in Vienna. For instance, the Slavonic Choral Society together with the Zora [Dawn] society, conducted by Buchta (their long-serving Czech choirmaster), performed one of the garlands from the cycle From My Country, likely in late 1892 and early 1893, at a concert of the Zora Society and Medo Pucić’s (1821–1882) anniversary. In 1894, also under Buchta’s direction, the Zora Society performed the Sixth Garland.

Appendix 1

Appendix 2