page_title: Music of Serbia
section_title: Classical music
hierarchical_section_title: Music of Serbia / Classical music
caption_attribution_description: Стеван Стојановић Мокрањац, en:Stevan Stojanović Mokranjac, シュテファン・モクラーニャッツ(January 9, 1856 - 1914). Serbian composer and music educator.
context_page_description: Music of Serbia has a variety of traditional music, which is part of the wider Balkan tradition, with its own distinctive sound and characteristics.
context_section_description: Composer and musicologist Stevan Stojanović Mokranjac is considered one of the most important founders of modern Serbian music. Born in 1856, Mokranjac taught music, collected Serbian traditional songs and did the first scholarly research on Serbian music. He was also the director of the first Serbian music school and one of the founders of the Union of Singing Societies. His most famous works are the Song Wreaths, also known as Garlands.
  During the 19th and 20th centuries numerous bands, both military and civilian, contributed to the development of music culture in Belgrade and other Serbian cities and towns. Prior to Mokranjac's era, Serbia's representatives of the Romantic period were world-renowned violinist Dragomir Krancevic (1847–1929), pianist Sidonija Ilic, pianist and composer Jovanka Stojković and opera singer Sofija Sedmakov who achieved success performing in opera houses of Germany in the 1890s. For example, the promenade concert tradition was first established by The Serbian Prince Band founded in 1831, and its first conductor was Joseph Shlezinger, who composed music for the band based on traditional Serbian songs. This was a period when the first choral societies, then mostly sung in German and Italian language, were being organized. Later, the first Serbian language works for choirs were written by Kornelije Stanković.
  The Serbian composers Petar Konjović, Stevan Hristić and Miloje Milojević, all born in the 1880s, were the most eminent composers of their generation. They maintained the national expression and modernized the romanticism into the direction of impressionism.
  The best-known composers born around 1910 studied in Europe, mostly in Prague. Ljubica Marić, Stanojlo Rajicić, Milan Ristić took influence from Schoenberg, Hindemith and Haba, rejecting the "conservative" work of prior Serbian composers, seeing it as outdated and the wish for national expression was outside their interest.
  Other famous classical Serbian composers include Isidor Bajić, Stanislav Binički and Josif Marinković.
  Several notable composers used motifs from Serbian folk music and composed works inspired by Serbian history or culture, such as: Johannes Brahms, Franz Liszt, Arthur Rubinstein, Antonín Dvořák, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Franz Schubert, Hans Huber and other. In 1788, just before the start of the Habsburg–Ottoman War, a classical period composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed the La Bataille K. 535  (also known as “Die Belagerung Belgrads” - “The Siege of Belgrade”), which was most likely inspired by previous sieges of Belgrade, while some scholars state that the composition was used to support the war effort. Thanks to Miloš Obrenović's good contacts during his stay in Vienna, Johann Strauss II composed the Serben-Quadrille intended for Serbian balls. During the Serbian–Turkish Wars, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky composed the Marche slave, which was based od several Serbian folk songs. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov used some Serbian folk tunes to compose the Fantasy on Serbian Themes (1867).
caption: Stevan Stojanović Mokranjac
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