An unintended dialogue between “materialists” and “idealists”. The essays on west European art music in the "Zvuk" magazine (1932-1936)
Authors: Vasic Aleksandar 
Published: February 2014

The Zvuk magazine, one of the best Serbian and Yugoslav music reviews, was
published in Belgrade from 1932 to 1936. It was founded and edited by a
pianist, music historian and music critic Stana Ribnikar (1908-1986). Her
closest collaborators in the magazine were leftist musicians. Nevertheless,
the editorial board was open for collaboration with writers who had different
ideas on the relationship between art and society. This article deals with
numerous essays on the nineteenth-century West European art music in the Zvuk
magazine. Their topics are very diverse: some of the essays deal with
individual composers, historical issues, various problems of writing music,
and related subjects. Others tend to provide information and present art
music in a popular manner. A significant feature of the Zvuk magazine was the
parallel presence of essays written by Marxist musicians and those written by
other music writers, who did not believe in the social function of art, even
though these two groups of authors did not engage in polemics. Pavao
Markovac, a musicologist from Zagreb, was very critical towards Richard
Wagner`s views on art and society. The Belgrade musicologist Vojislav
Vuckovic shared his point of view. In his essays on the historical
significance of baroque music, Vuckovic opposed the idea of absolute autonomy
of art. Both Markovac and Vuckovic believed that art and society were
inseparable and they evaluated music accordingly. Other prominent Serbian
music writers, such as Miloje Milojevic, also voiced their opinions on the
pages of the Zvuk magazine. Milojevic published essays on Johannes Brahms and
Richard Strauss. He was also in favour of evaluating music within the given
social context, but he advocated the ideas of Hyppolyte Taine. Zvuk remains
the only Serbian music magazine that published articles on ancient Greek
music. Milos Djuric, a classical philologist, philosopher and literary
translator, wrote on music in ancient Boeotia and Lesbos. This subject has
remained untackled in Serbian musicology to this very day. In order to
address the wider audience, the Zvuk magazine also featured contributions
concerning the boundary areas between music and other disciplines. As many as
three articles on Friedrich Nietzsche's attitude towards music were published
by Yuri Arbatsky and Matija Bravnicar. Notwithstanding its professional profi
le, this magazine was also open for popular articles for wider intellectual
audience. The essays on West European art music in the Zvuk magazine
contributed to widening the scope of knowledge and public interest. The
policy of the editorial board was to bring together writers of different
ideological standpoints, by publishing their essays side by side. In this
way, the public was presented with different ideas and beliefs, but also with
professional information. It was clear that one-sidedness was not the policy
of this magazine. On the contrary, the editors proved that it was possible
for writers who thought differently to engage in a dialogue, even if they had
no prior intention of doing so.