Page 248 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2026 Skladateljska društva nekoč in danes.../Composers’ Societies Past and Present...

Skladateljska društva nekoč in danes | Composers’ Societies Past and Present
Analytical overview of Škerl’s Sarajevo opus
The following analytical overview of Škerl’s Sarajevo opus focuses on three
works from different genres: Pet skladb [Five Pieces] for clarinet and string
25
24
orchestra (1961), Symphony No. 2 (1963) and Bagatele [Bagatelles] for pi-
26
ano (1968), aiming to understand not only Škerl’s stylistic plurality, but
also his contribution to the inauguration of contemporary art ideas at this
crucial moment in time for Bosnian compositional practice in terms of
continuity, identity and progress. This is because the decade of Škerl’s activ-
ity in Sarajevo represents a kind of crossroads where the activities of com-
27
posers of three generations intersected. Their creativity, in the search for
an individual style within a stylistic pluralism, which was characteristic not
only of Bosnian, but also of European composition of the time, was the re-
sult of the friction that occurred among three stylistic trends, as noted by
28
the Bosnian musicologist Zija Kučukalić. The first of these is national real-
ism, anachronistically based on the aesthetics of the national schools of the
19th century. The second one blends late romanticism and impressionism
24 Pet skladb was written in 1961 (Rijavec, Slovenska glasbena dela, 316). However, its
score, used for this research, was published in 1969 by the Association of Compos-
ers of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dane Škerl, Pet skladb. Za klarinet i gudala (Saraje-
vo: Udruženje kompozitora Bosne i Hercegovine, 1969).
25 Dane Škerl, Bagatele. Za klavir (Sarajevo: Udruženje kompozitora Bosne i Hercego-
vine, 1968).
26 Dane Škerl, Druga simfonija – Monotematika. Za godala – per archi (Sarajevo: Edici-
ja Udruženja kompozitora BiH, s.a.).
27 Čavlović classifies composers into four generational groups, whose composition-
al practices experienced their full potential after World War II. The first genera-
tion of composers were born ca. 1900–1915: Beluš Jungić (1892–1968), Vlado Mi-
lošević (1901–1990), Milan Prebanda (1907–1979), Cvjetko Rihtman (1902–1989),
Alfred Tuček (1904–1987), Ivan Demeter (1906–1990), Miroslav Špiler (1906–1982),
Mladen Pozajić (1906–1979), Gabriel Gavro Jakešević (1911–1985), Artur Klemen-
ti (1909–1985), Frano Povia (1912–?), and Mladen Stahuljak (1914–1996); the second
generation (ca. 1916–1930) consists of Avdo Smailović (1917–1984), Branko Grković
(1920–1982), Nada Ludvig Pečar (1929–2008) and Dragoje Đenader (1930–1986); the
third one (ca. 1931–1945) includes Vojin Komadina (1933–1997), Milan Jeličanin, Jo-
sip Magdić (1937–2020), Anđelka Bego-Šimunić (1941–2022), and Rada Nuić (1942);
and the fourth one is represented by Asim Horozić (1958–2023), Valentina Cvijetić
(1966), Ališer Sijarić (1969), Dino Rešidbegović (1975), and Jasmin Osmić (1982). In
addition, there are also “those composers who voluntarily or due to other circumstanc-
es came to Bosnia and Herzegovina, stayed there for a short time, and then left it and
continued their artistic careers abroad,” which includes names such as the already
mentioned Boris Papandopulo, Ivan Brkanović, Božidar Trudić, Dane Škerl and An-
ton Lavrin.
28 Zija Kučukalić, “Contemporary Trends in Yugoslav Music,” International Review of
the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 2, no. 2 (1971): 273.

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