Miloje Milojević - 4 Morceaux for Piano Op 23 (1917)

Описание: Andreja Preger - Piano
00:00 Vieux Conte
02:09 Soir mélancolique
04:56 III - Au crépuscule le lys révait
10:15 IV - Dans le jardin
Miloje Milojević (1884-1946) was a Serbian Composer. He attended Serbian music school (until 1907, and also later), where he studied music theory subjects and composition with Stevan St. Mokranjac (father of composer Vasilije Mokranjac) and piano with Cvetko Manojlović. Later Milojević attended Munich Music Academy, studying composition (with Friedrich Klose), piano (Richard Meier-Gschray), and conducting with score reading (Felix Mottl).
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, Milojević 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, Milojević 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.
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).
In 1939 he became a Professor of composition and theory disciplines at the Music Academy in Belgrade. During World War II Milojević was arrested (1941) by fascist authorities. During the heavy 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.

Together with Petar Konjović and Stevan Hristić, Miloje Milojević 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 Marinković). 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 Milojević's stylistic development. While in Prague, working on his dissertation, he made contacts with Czech avant-garde composers. In certain works, Milojević 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.

The most prominent areas of his output are lieds and character pieces for the piano, but he also wrote choral and chamber works.
Miloje Milojević is one of the most significant Serbian composers of piano music. By their high artistic qualities, his Four piano pieces (Četiri komada za klavir) (1917), marked a shift in the history of Serbian piano music.
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 Milojević's own folk transcriptions. These works feature impressionistic solutions, but also a somewhat robust use of folklore similar to Béla Bartók. His work Rhythmical grimaces (Ritmičke 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.
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.