Early Electronic Music Tendencies in Yugoslavia

In the period following the Second World War, during which Yugoslav composers were obligated to write music of a traditional and national character as mandated by socialist realism, the rest of Europe and the US were undergoing a significant musical shift by embracing new technologies and adopting avant-garde techniques, such as integral serialism, aleatory, micropolyphony, and musique concrète. For instance, Pierre Schaeffer was already actively experimenting with creative radiophonic methods in 1942. He started recording the sound of trains, which he planned to turn into music with the technologies available at the Studio d’Essai in Paris.Footnote ¹ These experimentations culminated in Schaeffer’s six “noise études,”Footnote ² and the first one, Étude aux Chemins de Fer – a “collage” of recorded sounds – represents the earliest example of musique concrète.Footnote ³

Experimentations in radiophony and musique concrète quickly spread throughout Europe and the US, accelerated by the emergence of new electronic music studios during the 1950s and 1960s, fueled by the Cold War and wartime technologies. The first such studio was the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) Electronic Music Studio in Cologne, founded in 1951, which hosted the world premiere of the first German electronic music at the Neues Musikfest Köln in May 1953.Footnote ⁴ Soon after, many other studios appeared, most notably the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) in Paris, Radio Audizioni Italiane (RAI) in Milan, Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Electronic Music Studio (EMS) in London, Institute for Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music (IPEM) in Ghent, Helsinki Electronic Music Studio, Polish Radio Experimental Studio (PRES) in Warsaw, and the Experimental Music Studio of Czechoslovak Radio Plzeň.

Meanwhile, in Yugoslavia, composers genuinely interested in electronic music during the 1950s could only read about tape music and other technologies in magazines from abroad or festival reports written by a handful of Yugoslav composers who managed to travel abroad during the period of cultural isolation.Footnote ⁵ Thus, for most Yugoslav composers, the first and most meaningful exposure to electronic (and, in general, contemporary) musical trends was the inaugural Music Biennale Zagreb in 1961, nearly two decades after Pierre Schaeffer’s first ventures into this domain.

“I Longed to Compose Electronic Music … ”

Vladan Radovanović, Serbia’s most celebrated avant-gardist and founder of the Electronic Studio Radio Belgrade, vividly remembers the challenges he and other Yugoslav composers faced while trying to access the technologies in the early postwar decades:

The pieces Radovanović refers to in his recollections are Inventions (1960–1961), one of the earliest examples of tape music in Yugoslavia, and certainly in Serbia, which he created using the Telefunken Model 77 Magnetophon Tape Recorder – a four-tube, four-track stereo recorder. Three years later, he completed Sferoön (1960–1964) – a radiophonic work in which the sound source is derived from mixed choir, recitative choir, filtered piano, and electric organ. Radovanović was not the only composer in Yugoslavia writing electroacoustic music in the early 1960s. Several others created electroacoustic compositions – mainly in the domain of tape music – in private studios in Belgrade, Novi Sad (Serbia), and Zagreb. Most notably, Sakač wrote Tri sintetske poeme [Three synthetic poems] in 1959, the first concrete music piece in Yugoslavia, and Jahači apokalipse [The riders of the Apocalypse] (1962); Ernö Király wrote Poema o zori [A poem about dawn] (1960) and Nebo [Sky] (1962); Josip Kalčič composed Improvisations for Organ (1962), Anagram for orchestra, choir, and tape (1964), and Phonochronia for symphony orchestra and tape (1964); Darijan Božić wrote Trije dnevi Anne Frank [Three days of Anne Frank] (1963); Aleksandar Obradović wrote Epitaph X (1965) and Microsymphony (1967); Natko Devčić composed Columbia 68 in 1968.

Specializations at Electronic Music Studios Abroad

With limited means of using reel-to-reel cassette recorders and no access to radio studios, Yugoslav composers quickly exhausted all possibilities of what was musically achievable on their own in the domain of electronic music (i.e., tape cutting and splicing) at the time. The next logical step was to find ways to attend workshops specializing in the use of new technologies at one of the newly established electronic music centers that were flourishing around Europe and the US.

The Formation of the Electronic Studio Radio Belgrade

It was during his residency at PRES that Vladan Radovanović realized that it was absolutely necessary to establish an electronic studio in Yugoslavia that would afford Yugoslav composers the place and the means to create works in this new electroacoustic medium. Promptly upon his return from Warsaw, Radovanović took the initiative of securing the funds for this mission. In 1972, he cofounded the Electronic Studio of the Third Program of Radio Belgrade (henceforth EMS Radio Belgrade) with Aleksandar Acković (editor-in-chief of the Third Program of Radio Belgrade) and Paul Pignon.Footnote ³⁷ Radovanović served as the Studio’s director until his retirement in 1999.

Toward the end of his studies at the PRES, Radovanović had already begun to develop concrete plans about establishing a similar type of electronic studio in Belgrade, outlining four primary objectives. First, Radovanović deemed it essential to create a space for Yugoslav composers where they could realize projects in the domain of electronic music without having to go abroad.Footnote ³⁸ Radovanović also emphasized that some of the composers who specialized at the music centers in other countries did not necessarily have a good experience:

Radovanović’s second objective concerns the different ways it is possible to structure the sound material for electronic music, without imitating the manner in which the vocal-instrumental music structures are built. Third, Radovanović believed that it was necessary to allow and enable composers to be thoroughly trained so that they could realize their electronic works without the aid of sound engineers:

Lastly, influenced by American composer Arthur Maddox, Radovanović believed that the computer was the future of electroacoustic music, so he envisioned establishing a computer studio in Belgrade. But that goal proved impossible to achieve in Yugoslavia at that time, due to high costs.

With these specific criteria in mind, Radovanović set out to find an institution that would agree to fund the creation of such a studio in Belgrade. He first approached the Composers’ Association in Serbia and the Association of Yugoslav Composers, both of which turned him down. Next, he went to the Music Academy, where Obradović was on the composition faculty and was politically well connected (which, at that time, meant that he was a member of the Yugoslav Communist Party). Even though just a few years prior Obradović himself had gone to New York to study electronic music, he had since abandoned all avant-garde tendencies, conforming to the demands of socialist realism and “moderated modernism.” Thus, Obradović, too, turned down Radovanović’s proposal, deeming it unrealistic and unfeasible, stating that no such funds existed in Yugoslavia, no means, no faculty, and, in his opinion, no demand for such music in Serbia.

This attitude was not unexpected – Radovanović had anticipated that he would encounter resistance both from the composers’ unions and the ultratraditional Music Academy. After all, the avant-garde had been scrutinized in Yugoslavia ever since the end of the war, and during this postwar period nearly all Yugoslav composers, and in Serbia all except Radovanović, had abandoned writing in the electroacoustic medium since their return from abroad. However, Yugoslavia was investing in the rebuilding of the country after the war, not only in its infrastructure but also in its social and cultural programs. This nation-building was the essence of Tito’s model that he wanted to portray as successful to the rest of the world – self-governed communism. Thus, while funds were available, they were still quite limited, and no institution was willing to invest in something that, in their view, had no prospect for profitability.

Nonetheless, firmly believing that electronic music was the future of the field, Radovanović continued to pursue his vision. He was also acutely aware that Yugoslav composers had already been severely hindered by the country’s traditional institutions and by those who blindly followed the socialist doctrine, so time was of the essence. Radovanović’s last resort was the Third Program of Radio Belgrade. Dedicated exclusively to contemporary and experimental music, this studio was founded in 1965 as the fourth of the so-called third radio programs in Europe and the first one in the Balkan region, as Hristina Medić notes.Footnote ⁴¹ Although it was modeled after the third programs of BBC Radio and WDR, the first editor-in-chief, Aleksandar Acković, managed to offer a distinctive and interesting concept.Footnote ⁴² To Radovanović’s pleasant surprise, Acković was enthusiastic about his proposal and vision, and by 1970 he had secured some modest funds for the creation of an electronic studio. Radovanović recalls, “The funds were secured for an adequate studio, definitely not for the state-of-the-art facility.”Footnote ⁴³ Acković recommended that Radovanović should first visit several centers in Europe and survey their technology before making any decisions. Radovanović agreed to visit the GRM in Paris and the Electronic Music Studio in Stockholm and suggested that Paul Pignon visit the EMS in London.

Radovanović first went to the GRM, where he met with his expatriate colleague Malec. At the meeting, Radovanović showed him the score of his Electronic Study that he completed at the PRES, which Malec programmed in the upcoming GRM “Cycle acousmatique” concert series in Paris. Malec was so impressed with Radovanović that he even inquired about the possibility of him staying to work at the Paris studio (which Radovanović declined). After this visit, it was clear to Radovanović that building a studio in Belgrade on par with the GRM was unrealistic. Next, Radovanović continued to Sweden to visit Tamas Ungvary’s EMS Stockholm. Knowing beforehand that Yugoslavia could not possibly afford such a state-of-the-art computerized studio, Radovanović went there just to see “the world’s most advanced hybrid studio” in person.Footnote ⁴⁴ Radovanović describes his impressions:

Meanwhile, Paul Pignon was still in London, where he met with Peter Zinovieff, a British composer and engineer, whose Electronic Music Studios created the Voltage Controlled Studio 3 (VCS3) synthesizer, with circuitry by David Cockerell, case design by Tristram Cary, and input from Zinovieff. The VCS3 was designed as an affordable, small, modular, and portable, yet powerful and versatile electronic music studio, rather than an electronic instrument. Zinovieff gifted the VCS3 to Pignon, who brought it to Belgrade. Radovanović recalls seeing the device for the first time:

The machine was delivered to Belgrade in July 1971. It was the Synthi 100, the first customized device that the EMS London had created.Footnote ⁴⁷

The Incredible Story of the EMS Radio Belgrade Synthi 100

The Electronic Music Studios (London) built and sold only thirty-one Synthi 100 devices, and quite incredibly, EMS Radio Belgrade managed to secure one model (Figure 4.1). For the Belgrade Studio, it was an ideal solution – the Third Program had ample budget to support Pignon and Radovanović’s specifications, and EMS London had the technology that they had already developed for the VCS3 with the capabilities to expand it further.Footnote ⁴⁸ Radovanović confirms, “We received a remarkable version of Synthi 100. It was incredibly large – the size of a chiffonier, and we could barely manage to move it inside our studio room. It had two patch panels and a lot of elements.”Footnote ⁴⁹

Figure 4.1(a)

Vladan Radovanović (left) and Paul Pignon at EMS Radio Belgrade with the Synthi 100, 1971 (RTS Treći program Radio Beograda [The Third Program of Radio Beograd]).

Figure 4.1a Long description

Vladan Radovanović, photographed left, wearing a light suit, shirt, a tie, and his thick, dark-framed glasses, and Paul Pignon in the center, wearing a dark long-sleeved shirt and jeans, at EMS Radio Belgrade with the Synthi 100. The photograph dates from 1971. They are standing over Synthi 100, working. Radovanović is taking notes with his right hand, while pressing some buttons on the control panel with his left hand.

Figure 4.1(b)

EMS Radio Belgrade’s Synthi 100 and other equipment, ca. 1972–1973 (RTS Treći program Radio Beograda [The Third Program of Radio Belgrade]).

The Synthi 100 is a hybrid analog and digital synthesizer. Its design includes multiple VCS3 modular systems with eight voltage-controlled oscillators, twelve voltage-controlled filters, two monophonic keyboards, digital sequencer cards, and a computer interface, as well as an additional Vocoder 5000 that could also be procured for it. Pignon sums up the many (and relatively inexpensive) advantages of the Synthi 100 in one word: flexibility. He elaborates, “This [flexibility] is achieved especially by the well-designed patching system … which allows series and parallel combinations of any number of any devices, and by the sequences and the way it is integrated into the system as a whole (with convenient keyboard control or data input.”Footnote ⁵⁰ Further, the VCS3 can be linked up with the Synthi 100, providing various extra modules it requires.

Unfortunately, without the necessary funds for the Synthi 100’s maintenance, barely ten years had elapsed before EMS Radio Belgrade would become obsolete. By the start of the Yugoslav Wars (in the 1990s), the then-director of Radio Belgrade ordered the defunct Synthi 100 to be discarded. Miroslav Savić, a composer who, as a student, defected from the Music Academy due to its resistance to modernism and flocked to the Electronic Studio to study with Radovanović, recalls:

Although the Synthi survived its demise at Radio Belgrade, it remained inoperable until September 2017, when Pignon returned to Belgrade and, together with Svetlana Maraš, the Studio’s composer-in-residence at the time, repaired it.Footnote ⁵² Savić recalls, “For many years, the Synthi 100 and Electronic Studio Radio Belgrade functioned as a museum.” Maraš explains that after the wars, while the Synthi was still inoperable, “the analog synthesizer was protected by [the] Museum of Science and Technology as the ‘cultural heritage’ of Serbia, and [its] historical importance is immense.”Footnote ⁵³ The Studio celebrated its reopening with a live concert on March 2, 2018, which featured compositions by Pignon, Maraš, and an Italian artist, Nicola Ratti.

The Operations and Collaborations at the Electronic Studio Radio Belgrade

The EMS London delivered the Synthi 100 in July 1971, designing the synthesizer according to Pignon’s and Radovanović’s specifications. EMS Radio Belgrade became operational in December of that year, officially opening its doors in January 1972. Radovanović was appointed the head of the Studio while Pignon, with his expertise in the field of physics, which was a great asset to the Studio, served as a composer and an instructor, a role he maintained until the late 1980s. In addition to Radovanović and Pignon, the Studio also employed two engineers – Milan Orlić, who stayed quite briefly in this role, and Zorana Hrašovec, who remained until the studio became defunct.

Since most of the composers who were coming to work at the Studio were either past or current students at the traditionally oriented Music Academy, and the structure of the Studio’s Synthi 100 was rather complex, Radovanović had to model the process of realizations of composers’ works after PRES. He viewed this process as necessary in order for composers to master electronic media and be able to realize their electronic compositions. Since the Academy was not adequately preparing its students in the domain of technology, it was Radovanović, Pignon, and Hrašovec who taught and worked with the new generation of composers in Yugoslavia. Radovanović explains the process at the beginning:

Thus, composers working at the EMS Radio Belgrade were introduced to a new (and collaborative) process of composing: from the idea (concept) to sketching the project (music score) to the sounding of the project (realization and real manifestation) to the performance of the piece. Through this process, the composer became the performer, conductor, and listener.

Pignon explains the technical aspects of the teaching activities in more detail, offering a glimpse of the inner workings of the Studio. He writes:

EMS Radio Belgrade quickly gained popularity. Composers across Yugoslavia were coming to Belgrade to be trained by the Studio’s staff and to realize their works. Some of the first-generation composers included Vojin Komadina, Kalčič, Frajt, Dušan Radić, Srđan Hofman, Lojzet Lebič, Jakob Jež, Sakač, Devčić, Davorin Kempf, and Josip Magdić. The success of the Belgrade Studio curriculum, its model for collaboration, and the opportunity to work on the Synthi 100 spread beyond the borders of Yugoslavia. Composers from France, Belgium, Spain, Poland, and Italy, including Nicole Lachartre, Iván Pequeño Andrade, Peter Beyls, Georg Katzer, Zoltán Pongrácz, and Iván Patachich, among others, were also flocking to Belgrade to create electroacoustic music.Footnote ⁵⁶

As musicologist Luca Cossettini observes, just looking at the CD released on the thirtieth anniversary of the Electronic Studio Radio Belgrade, it is striking to see Radovanović’s name on nearly every track, either as the author or the coauthor.Footnote ⁵⁷ For Cossettini, this acknowledgment is revealing about the production system at the Studio – it confirms Radovanović’s role, as well as his expertise and knowledge of the technology.Footnote ⁵⁸ Further, it informs about the process of composing electronic music during this period – that the process of composing and realizing electronic music was a collaborative task.

With the interest in the Studio rapidly increasing, Pignon and Radovanović added more advanced courses to enable composers to achieve true independence. But as Pignon notes, this new training program went beyond just realizing a composer’s current needs; rather, it recognized the potential of networking and the continuous shaping of the Studio. He explains:

The Studio was more than just a workshop or “a factory” for electronic music; rather, it provided the space for composers to think about electronic music in new ways, which allowed the field to develop and grow. Savić posits that what sets the EMS Radio Belgrade apart from other studios is that it was open and accessible to everyone: “It wasn’t reserved just for the elite, no committee decided who could or could not come. Everyone had access and equal opportunity. It was truly an incredible privilege.”Footnote ⁶⁰

Indeed, Radovanović and Pignon welcomed into their Studio anyone who showed any interest in the electronic music medium of any style. Radovanović elaborates on their open-access policy:

By 1987, the Studio’s Synthi 100 was becoming outdated and virtually nonoperable due to the lack of funds for its maintenance. Further, Radovanović was looking for means to modernize the studio by computerizing it. Only after Radio Belgrade appointed a new director was Radovanović finally able to secure the necessary funds to purchase the Studio’s first computer. He recalls:

The conditions at the Studio were worsening as the Yugoslav Wars were looming. From 1991 until 1997, everything seemed to be falling apart – no composers from outside Serbia were coming to the Studio, and consequently, all activities, including lectures and concerts, were canceled. The first guest to visit the Studio after a long pause was Thomas Wells from Columbus, Ohio, in 1997, and by personal invitation from Radovanović. Before his departure back to the US, Wells gifted the Studio his personal NeXT computer. Finally, the Studio acquired an Apple computer, fulfilling Radovanović’s lifelong dream.

The Legacy of the Electronic Studio Radio Belgrade

The Electronic Studio Radio Belgrade was the first electronic music studio in Yugoslavia and the Balkan region and home to the legendary Synthi 100. Despite its incredible history, it remains virtually unknown to scholars outside of Serbia, excluded from the historiographies of electronic music.Footnote ⁶³ Nonetheless, its legacy is indisputable and invaluable. Resisting the pressures of socialist realism and moderated modernism, Radovanović pressed on with his vision and, with support from Aleksandar Acković, Zorana Hrašovec, and Paul Pignon, achieved his goal of establishing a modern, “third-generation” electronic music studio in Yugoslavia. The delay in founding the EMS Radio Belgrade was actually in some ways advantageous – while nearly all other studios across Europe had only analog equipment at the time they opened, the Belgrade Studio was able to incorporate the new, third-generation digital-analog technology, making it one of the most advanced studios in Europe.

The “state-of-the-art” facility in Belgrade’s Studio granted composers from all around the country an opportunity to gain knowledge and expertise in the domain of electronic music and realize their innovative projects in all types of electroacoustic music – concrete, electronic, synthetic, live electronics, mixed electronics, computer, multimedia creations with electroacoustic music and mental sound works.Footnote ⁶⁴ Thus, Radovanović’s vision, drafted during his residency in Poland, was one of the principal factors that led to the creation of new generations of avant-garde and electronic music composers in the country. Looking back on this momentous feat, Radovanović recalls:

Over the relatively short period of some thirty years – from the Studio’s founding in 1971 until the US/NATO-led bombing of Serbia in 1999 – EMS Radio Belgrade was home to some thirty Yugoslav composers and ten international composers. Seventy-seven works of independent electroacoustic music were realized, twenty-three radiophonic, mentalistic,Footnote ⁶⁶ and sound-poetic works, and over ninety examples of functional music. The works created in the Studio boasted thirteen national and international awards. When taking into account the context under which the Studio operated – as Radovanović puts it, how slow, time-consuming, and arduous the production of electronic works was in the precomputer era – these achievements are even more remarkable.Footnote ⁶⁷ A sample of such achievements by two prolific composers – Radovanović and Frajt – will be examined in the following chapter.

Introduction

While Yugoslav composers of electroacoustic music were pursuing the same interests and trends in the 1960s as were current in Europe and the US, they had limited means to develop their skills. Constrained by the lack of access to professional facilities and technologies, postwar economic hardships, and Yugoslavia’s cultural isolation of the 1950s, all experimentations in electronic music during this period, of which there were very few, were in the domain of tape music. Thus, when innovations in electronic music in Yugoslavia are examined within the broader context of explorations taking place in other countries, Yugoslav composers lagged behind Europe and the US. Yet, within the context of the Yugoslav music scene alone, these tape compositions were considered the most extreme kind of avant-garde. These early electronic composers were not necessarily “shocking” or “avant-garde” due to their sound, medium, or techniques, but rather because they challenged the widely accepted currents of traditionalism and neoclassicism. Mirjana Veselinović-Hofman defines this phenomenon as a “local type of avant-garde,” a movement that changes the musical environment in which it appears due to local musical, psychological, and social contexts.Footnote ¹ Because of the new medium’s perceived “shock effect,” the traditionalists objected to electronic music, associating it with concepts of alienation and dehumanization.Footnote ²

During the 1960s, Yugoslav composers were still under the political pressure imposed by the lingering ramifications of a socialist doctrine and overall resistance toward any modern trends in the arts. For instance, while Rajko Maksimović was interested in electronic and avant-garde music in the 1960s, after returning to Belgrade from his residency at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, he completely abandoned the electroacoustic medium and, eventually, all avant-garde tendencies. He conformed to the conservativism of the Music Academy, where he was on the composition faculty, which, like all art institutions in the country, was heavily traditionally oriented. He was convinced that it was impossible to convey any musical ideas in electroacoustic or avant-garde styles, affirming that “in electronic music, there is no communication!”Footnote ³ Maksimović’s stance accurately aligns with the attitudes of music critics and most Yugoslav composers at the time.

However, from the 1960s onward, Yugoslavia was culturally opening up toward European and American currents through radio broadcasts of experimental and avant-garde music on the Third Program of Radio Belgrade (founded in 1965) from festivals at Darmstadt, Paris, Warsaw, and Yugoslavia’s own successful Music Biennale Zagreb. At last, with access to the newest compositional trends from abroad, conditions in Yugoslavia were improving for the acceptance of electroacoustic music. A small number of Yugoslav composers, dedicated to originality and innovation in music, maintained the course of explorations of modern techniques and various media. Among them, two pioneers of electronic music notably stand out: Ludmila Frajt, Yugoslavia’s first woman composer in this medium, and Vladan Radovanović, a visionary and a leading figure in the Yugoslav avant-garde music and art scene, founder of the Electronic Music Studio in Belgrade,Footnote ⁴ and one of the earliest Yugoslav electronic music composers.

Ludmila Frajt

Ludmila Frajt (1919–1999), a Serbian composer of Czech descent, came from a prominent musical family. Most notably, her grandfather, Václav Frajt, played the bassoon in the theater orchestra in Plzeň under Bedřich Smetana and the National Theater Orchestra alongside Antonin Dvořák.Footnote ⁵ Her father, Jovan (Jan) Frajt, who settled in Belgrade in 1903, was an active violinist, conductor, composer, and organist and the founder of the first music publishing house in the Balkan region, Edition Frajt. Her brother, Vojteh, was an internationally renowned violinist.Footnote ⁶ Ludmila Frajt acquired her first musical experiences at home, often participating in musical events at the family residence, which featured performances by her family members as well as Czech musicians who lived in Belgrade. They played music in a variety of genres and styles, from classical and jazz to Czech, Serbian, Macedonian, and Dalmatian folk music.Footnote ⁷ These early childhood musical experiences served as a foundation for Frajt’s affinity toward folk idioms, and, as Jelena Novak notes, her “vivid preoccupation with the contemporaneousness of the sound experiences she lived with” pushed the limits of how she understood musical sound, free of stereotypes.Footnote ⁸ Frajt’s affinities toward folklore were further affirmed during her studies at the Music Academy in Belgrade with Miloje Milojević and Josip Štolcer-Slavenski, both of whom meticulously wrote down and kept a record of folk songs, which they often incorporated into their music.Footnote ⁹

Frajt started her official music studies in composition, piano, and conducting in 1938 at the Music Academy in Belgrade, which was founded in 1937, making her one of the first composers trained in the country, and certainly the first woman to matriculate with a professional music degree. Her professors at the Academy were the most prominent composers in Yugoslavia at the time, who were educated in Prague: Petar Konjović, Stevan Hristić, and Kosta Manojlović, in addition to Milojević and Slavenski. Even though all her professors at the Academy composed in a traditional, neoclassical style, they knew contemporary techniques, which they had learned abroad. Frajt’s exposure to modernist techniques during her formative years was critical to her pursuit of and curiosity toward new sounds.

Immediately after graduating from the Music Academy in 1946, Frajt was appointed chair of the Music Department at Avala Film, the first Yugoslav postwar film production company, where she remained until 1952.Footnote ¹⁰ As a member of the Communist Party, Frajt held powerful positions in the music and film industries. From 1952 until 1958, she became deputy editor-in-chief of Radio Belgrade, and from 1958 until her retirement in 1972, she was secretary of the Music Commission at the Yugoslav Radio Television. Her experience working for film and radio allowed her to experiment with unusual musical ensembles. For instance, she added the sound of silver spoons to her string quartet Silver Sounds (1972), children’s toys in a Lullaby (1971), and prerecorded taped sounds to the choral piece Bells (1981).

Frajt’s achievements represent some of the many firsts for women composers in Yugoslavia (and the Balkan region). She was the first woman to graduate from a university with a degree in composition. Self-taught in the genre of film music, Frajt was the first woman in Yugoslavia to write soundtracks and elaborate film scores, comprising thirty-five collaborations, one long-motion picture soundtrack, and eleven documentary film scores.Footnote ¹¹ While newer scholarship is finally starting to recognize the role women played in the creation and shaping of the first electronic music centers in the 1950s and 1960s – such as the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center – Frajt was the first woman in the Balkan region to write electroacoustic music, and one of the first composers in the country to study at Darmstadt.

Even though Frajt was a member of the Communist Party, her expressions and experimentations were not driven by the demands of the Party and its doctrine. That is, no composition in Frajt’s oeuvre bears any characteristics or influences of the pressures of socialist realism – as Ivana Medić notes, these types of compositions aggrandized Tito, communism, the National Liberation War, or the reconstruction of Yugoslavia.Footnote ¹² Rather, Frajt’s use of Serbian folk elements in her music, for instance, is born out of her sincere affinity toward folklore, a style to which she was exposed as a child, especially the vocal tradition. Frajt organically adopted these traditions as part of her contemporary musical expression, as evident in Tužbalica [Lamentation] (1973), Kres [Bonfire] (1973), and Ekloga [Eclogue] (1974).

Frajt was driven to push the limits of musical sound and broaden the medium of her musical expression. It is this curiosity (with support from the Yugoslav Radio Television) that led Frajt to study at Darmstadt in the early 1960s and then at the Experimental Music Studio of Czechoslovak Radio Plzeň in 1967. Although Frajt never moved within any avant-garde music circles, she applied certain avant-garde techniques to her works. She was particularly drawn to Lutosławski’s aleatory textures, Penderecki’s use of clusters and nonstandard treatment of instruments, and Ligeti’s micro-polyphony. Thus, Frajt’s music is imbued with both modernist and folk techniques. For instance, in her works, the harmony is dissonant (closer to expressionist sound, but also modal and polymodal), with a prominence of the major second, a characteristic of Serbian vocal folk music. Her music often features clusters and micropolyphony, but unlike Ligeti’s mass sound, Frajt’s clusters are based on the heterophonic treatment of melodies, which she derives from the vocal folk idiom. Frequent metrical changes in her works are characteristic of both folk and modernist tendencies. Also, her application of aleatory techniques, such as the use of an untampered harmonic system and heterophony, also derives from Balkan folk music.

Frajt is primarily known for her works based on folk idioms, music for children, and film scores. She is somewhat recognized in Serbia for her remarkable ability to combine avant-garde techniques with her lyrical and intimate style, use of folklore, and the expansion of sound sonorities. Nonetheless, her contribution to electroacoustic music remains mainly unexplored.

Nokturno (1975)

After her studies in Plzeň, where she composed her first electroacoustic piece, Asteroids (1967),Footnote ¹³ Frajt realized three other electroacoustic works at the Electronic Studio (EMS) Radio Belgrade: Nokturno (1975), Figure u pokretu [Figures in motion] (1979), and Zvona [Bells, for choir and tape] (1981). All three works mirror postserial structures in electronic media, whereas Nokturno and Figures also evoke “pointillist techniques.”Footnote ¹⁴

Nokturno is the first work composed by a woman using the Synthi 100 at the EMS Radio Belgrade. Very little is known about this work, other than a general observation that it evokes a “nocturnal” atmosphere, as implied by the title of the work, an effect that Frajt sought in several of her other works, such as Pesme noći [Songs of the night] (1970), Silver Sounds (1972), and Three Nocturnes (1982).Footnote ¹⁵ The review of Nokturno by Pavle Stefanović, following its performance on the Third Program of Radio Belgrade in 1976, illustrates how little even the most prominent critics and writers of new music understood electronic music.Footnote ¹⁶ Without discussing any technical aspects, Stefanović rather describes a vivid picture these electronic sounds evoked in his mind:

Suddenly, on the last night of the Festival, Lida [Ludmila] Frajt presents her electronically recorded Nokturno. While she does not write programmatic music, she nonetheless invites me, the listener, to a faraway Asian jungle. On a hot evening, monkeys, always scared, grin from the tree tops high above, frightened birds chirp, insects buzz, the beasts growl, and imaginary night fairies rustle their legendary wings. The night of dreams and silence is full of noise. Here I am, suddenly, thanks to Lida, in the mystery of the night, in the eternal poetry of our human, living world, which will one day cease to exist, which will die out. Thus, suddenly, here is tenderness and comfort for all the pain in the world, an authentic human tenderness [realized] through notoriously “inhumane” electronic music!Footnote ¹⁷

Stefanović’s vivid (and absurd) imagery tells us absolutely nothing about the piece or Frajt’s innovative techniques. Hristina Medić offers a bit more detail about this work, noting that the four-tone clusters that form the foundation of the piece flow throughout the entire work and change their color. Various spatially dispersed events appear on top of the continuous cluster, evoking the atmosphere of the night with its “visions, dreams, and pronounced emotional tone.”Footnote ¹⁸ Some of the sounds are purely electronic, while others are recognizable sounds from nature, such as a bird screech or a thunderstorm (although some of these are also electronically derived).

While very few documents pertaining to Nokturno survive, three pages from Frajt’s autograph documents shed some light on the composer’s creative process. On page two, starting at the 1’30” mark of the roughly nine-minute piece (Example 5.1), we observe Frajt’s use of electronically simulated sounds, a technique that is, as Svetlana Maraš notes, “aesthetically, if not technically linked to the sound world of musique concrète.”Footnote ¹⁹ On the top of the page, Frajt inscribes “light breathing” [lagano disanje] for the male voice [m. glas], while the female voice [ž. glas] (third system), produces “a light whisper” [lagan šapat]. A few seconds later, another male voice enters with an annotation, “a bit faster breathing” [malo brže disanje]. All three voices are layered on top of continuous electronic clusters produced by the tape [traka]. Events emerge and disappear in various instruments, all evoking nocturnal sounds – effects that are either quiet or muted with such designations, or sounds one would hear at night, such as the muffled cry of a bird, the fluttering of the wings, a child crying, and rain with thunder.

Example 5.1

Ludmila Frajt, Nokturno (1975), autograph score, p. 2.

Example 5.1 Long description

The notation on this 18-stave paper is sparse, with only three notated pitches and rests and a handful of non-pitched noteheads. The page features verbal annotations, as well as dynamics, crescendo, and decrescendo annotations, and dotted and wavy lines.

Nokturno was only Frajt’s second electronic work, and with it she already demonstrated a clear departure from her rudimentary Asteroids by greatly expanding the sound palette of electronically produced sounds (both musique concrète and pure electronics) that evoke the aesthetic of the nocturnal.Footnote ²⁰

Figures in Motion (1978)

Figures in Motion is Frajt’s electroacoustic composition in which she incorporates repeated patterns and aleatory elements. The drastic departure from her previous works in this medium is apparent just by looking at the score (Example 5.2) – unlike in Asteroids and Nokturno, the score for Figures lacks any conventional musical notation.Footnote ²¹ Instead, the score is entirely characterized by visual drawings of shapes, that is, “figures” that represent a variety of melodic and timbral patterns we hear in this work. The annotations “L” (for levo, Serbian for left), “D” (desno for right), and “S” (sredina for “middle”) illustrate how the figures “move” in various directions as the piece progresses, giving a sense of “organized chaos.” The repetitive patterns in Figures, recorded on eight channels (indicated by numbers 1 through 8 on the score), change in timbre, rhythm, melodic range, sound density, and dynamics.

Example 5.2

Ludmila Frajt, Figure u pokretu [Figures in motion] (1978), autograph score, p. 1.

Example 5.2 Long description

Drawn on a grid paper, it shows different shapes for each effect, such as dots, pebbles, small Xs, squiggly lines, oval lines, wave lines, square lines, and so on.

Figures in Motion is characterized by an interplay between aleatory and control – the changes in the repeating patterns are sometimes achieved by applying aleatory techniques, and at other times, they are preprocessed. While the use of the machine (computer) may contradict the notion of indeterminacy, Frajt explores the concept of randomness in machine realizations. The steadiest pattern in the work occurs at the very beginning, indicated by a small, oval “pebble” figure (second system, bearing the annotation “S”); here, the simulated sound of the piano plays a repeating pitch, B₃, at a steady interval of four seconds. The last occurrence of this regularity, or any other display of steadiness or (predetermined) control, occurs about three minutes into the piece, evoking a sense of randomness.

Figures in Motion exemplifies how Frajt effectively assimilated many techniques of the Western avant-garde, including aleatory, Klangmusik, and electronic medium.Footnote ²² More specifically, by incorporating both determinacy and indeterminacy in carefully constructed pattern changes, Frajt illustrated her full control of each event. Unlike musique concrète works,Footnote ²³ which by nature imply a precise control over each individual event, composers at the EMS Radio Belgrade could achieve works like Figures in Motion only after Radovanović’s Elektra (1974) – the first electronic composition realized at the Belgrade studio.

Vladan Radovanović

Vladan Radovanović (1932–2023) occupies a truly unique position in the Yugoslav artistic sphere. A pioneer of electronic music and polymedia art, and overall a leading figure in the country’s avant-garde music and art scene, he was always driven by the need “to express himself by doing what no one else has done before,”Footnote ²⁶ never succumbing to the restrictions and demands of socialist realism.

Radovanović’s oeuvre, spanning seven decades, pushed the outermost limits of numerous art forms most innovatively and comprehensively, as Melita Milin suggests.Footnote ²⁷ That is, in addition to his original compositional technique of hyper-polyphony and advances in the domains of electronic, electroacoustic, and computer music, Radovanović pursued many interests in other arts and media, as well as in their syntheses. An award-winning poet and an accomplished artist, Radovanović started synthesizing various parameters of music, painting, figurative drawings and abstract structures, transparent pictures, photography, literature, and poetry.Footnote ²⁸ His research in the domain of the vocovisualFootnote ²⁹ – a synthesis of the poetic and the visual – first resulted in works that synthesize word, sound, and image in a two-dimensional space, such as Portret-pejzaž [Portrait-landscape] (1954), which invites the observer to rotate the work by 180 degrees to read it, and the book Pustolina [Wasteland] (1968),Footnote ³⁰ which combines the visual, spatial, and tactile features with the acoustic sphere.Footnote ³¹ Pustolina led to Radovanović’s three-dimensional creations in the vocovisual domain, including Poliedar [Polyhedron, 1968] and Kugla s tekstom [A sphere with text, 1971–1974]. In his other works, Radovanović also incorporated kinetic parameters, created conceptual projects (such as stream of consciousness, visions, improvisations, projects of events that examine their own creation), syntheses that entail word-picture, word-gesture, and polymedia. He also devised working with the body as an object, tactile, plastic, and meta-art, as well as transmedia, transmodalism, and metamusical projects.Footnote ³² Most of these innovations were created before they could even be achieved, performed, or understood in Yugoslavia.Footnote ³³

Radovanović’s Art Synthesis

By the early 1990s, Radovanović started applying the term “art synthesis” to his polymedia works, in an effort to emphasize the individuality, interdependence, and determinacy between the various media components. In postwar Yugoslavia, most of Radovanović’s radically innovative and complex avant-garde projects could not be performed (or understood even if they were) at the time they were conceived. As Ivana Medić remarks, these projects were created at the “right” time but in the “wrong” place; that is, Medić speculates that had Radovanović developed these concepts in one of the big European centers rather than in postwar communist and socialist Yugoslavia, he would have undoubtedly had a much greater public presence and a wider international recognition.Footnote ⁴⁹

In addition to visual art media, Radovanović’s synthesis projects also employ light, kinetics, sound, and tactility, whose interaction exploits both complementary and oppositional relations of each element. Radovanović’s earliest art synthesis project is Taktizon–pokret–zvuk [Tactility–movement–sound], which, although created in 1957, remains unrealized.Footnote ⁵⁰ As the title of the work implies, it involves three media elements: tactile, kinetic, and musical. For this project, Radovanović envisioned a partially lit, irregularly shaped winding tunnel with photocells on its walls. The participants would move through the tunnel (by crawling, walking, tumbling, sliding, etc.) and in the process activate the sound via photocells. Once they had reached a spherical chamber at the end of the tunnel, they would be able to listen to a fugue on a subject generated by the sounds they activated while moving through the tunnel (Example 5.3).Footnote ⁵¹

Example 5.3

Vladan Radovanović, Taktizon–pokret–zvuk [Tactility–movement–sound] (1957).

Example 5.3 Long description

This page of the score contains two components. On top is a drawing of a tunnel that first curves upwards, then downwards and across, then upwards and across with five zig-zagging compartments, before a steep drop straight down in the center. Above each component of the tunnel are individual staves with a single whole note on them, outlining the theme of a fugue. Below the drawing is a music score. The top staff features the theme of a fugue, and below it, the theme is developed into a two-part and three-part counterpoint.

Several other unrealized polymedia works followed: Mali zvučni taktizon [Small sound tactility] (1963), Putanje [Trajectories] or Polim 2 (1969), Polim 3 (1971), and Elektrovideaudio (1976–1980). For instance, Polim 2 applies the visual, kinetic, and musical elements. The project involves four performers, each carrying a cassette player that emits precomposed electronic music. The performers move around an area of seven by seven meters and follow a path that is lit by spotlights (in four colors – red, yellow, blue, and green). The spotlights, installed on the ceiling or the floor, are controlled by operators who follow a visual score – a drawing of a participant’s trajectory path and a general duration of each light beam.Footnote ⁵²

Radovanović’s ensuing projects illustrate the composer’s unceasing innovative thinking, searching for ways to incorporate new media components and the ways in which they can interact. For instance, in Lažno ogledalo [A false mirror] (1986), in addition to music, image, and movement, Radovanović adds gesture as another element. The music component itself is complex, comprising a live quintet, a prerecorded performance by the quintet, and prerecorded electronic music. The visual-kinetic element, likewise, involves multiple layers: five performers, who play, sing, walk around, and make certain gestures, both live and while being transmitted on the screen as a prerecorded video. At first, the movements of live performers replicate the movements on the screen, before they gradually begin to diverge. It is this gesture that represents the metaphor of the mirror – a reflection that presents an altered image of what it reflects.

Radovanović includes the medium of the video (i.e., a moving image) in his Varijacije za TV [Variations for TV], composed in 1977 and realized (broadcast on TV) in 1985. The music medium in this project comprises music written for three performers (flute, saxophone, and double bass), and altered music for the same three instruments, plus electronics and speech. On the right side of the audio-video score, Radovanović shows the notated parts with verbal directions. The top system is for the live performers, the middle is for the electronically produced altered parts for the three instruments, and the bottom is for electronic music (Example 5.4). The theme of variations is based on a twelve-tone series, which is then altered through nineteen variations according to various principles of imitation, inversion, fragmentation, and so on. Radovanović also explores the notion of imitation in the spoken text – for instance, in the word “muzika” [music], Radovanović removes certain letters to derive new words and symbolic meanings, such as “muka” [pain] and “muk” [silence], playing out the relation between sound, silence, and image.Footnote ⁵³

Example 5.4

Vladan Radovanović, Varijacije za TV [Variations for TV] (1977, realized in 1985), a page from the audio-visual score.

Example 5.4 Long description

On the left side of the page are three rows of drawings of a TV screen with three performers inside each, a bassist, a saxophonist, and a flutist, one for each variation, six, seven, and eight. Next to each TV screen is a text with instructions written in English. The top screen in Variation 6 says, The order of performers changes. The double bass player is to the left and begins to play first, the saxophone player second, and the flutist last. On the right is a music score for each instrumentalist with further directions, The double bass performs first, but performs the part for flute, the saxophone performs its own part, while the flute plays the part of the double bass. The middle screen, depicting Variation 7, reads, The picture simmers. The shimmering amplitude increases and decreases. On the right, next to the music score, the instructions read, Electronically produced parts for flute, saxophone, and double bass, with vibrato. The bottom screen, showing Variation 8, instructs, When the flutist brings the flute to his mouth, the picture of the performers suddenly turns into a vibrating drawing on paper. On the right, the composer indicates, Electronically produced parts for the instruments with the effects of vibrating paper.

Radovanović continued to create innovative and remarkable art synthesis projects throughout his career, each one notably different from the other, with this last project, A Galaksija odasvud sija [Galaxy A beams from everywhere], completed and realized in 2022, shortly before his death in 2023 at the age of ninety.Footnote ⁵⁴

Conclusion

It is bewildering that some of the greatest and most original innovators of the postwar Yugoslav avant-garde have been neglected by scholars (even within the region) and shunned by critics, audiences, and institutions. Despite Frajt’s incredible achievements in the fields of electroacoustic and film music, there is virtually no scholarship on her oeuvre, even in her native Serbia. Aside from the four studies cited in this chapter, all in Serbian – Varsaković’s article about the ritual and nocturnal elements in Frajt’s music, Adžić’s analysis of Eclogue (1975), Ćirić’s article on Frajt’s film music, and Ivana Medić’s overview of Frajt’s catalog, only the latter one written in English – the noteworthy achievements by this remarkable woman remain unexplored, even within the borders of former Yugoslavia.Footnote ⁵⁵ A principal reason for this omission, during the existence of Yugoslavia, is that there was a stark lack of interest and a strong disapproval of this type of music in socialist Yugoslavia. Consequently, peers and audiences lacked any understanding of the genre, and critics were unprepared to intelligently and cohesively write about it. Many composers of the older prewar generation, who now held prominent positions in universities and programming committees, shared the view of Dragutin Gostuški, a composer and music critic, who despised any avant-garde tendencies in music. In his 1959 article, he comments on the unpreparedness of the Yugoslav music scene to receive and understand new music (both serial and electronic):

While political and historical context offers explanations for why Yugoslav avant-gardists were ignored and rejected at the time, it in no way justifies such neglect in the scholarly community today. Radovanović’s creative force was not adequately recognized until Mirjana Veselinović’s 1991 monograph on his musical output.Footnote ⁵⁷ Art historian Borka Božović most accurately sums up the general reasons for the neglect of Radovanović’s work in scholarship: “the lack of information, indifference, ignorance, fascination with foreign artists and with the latest fads, misunderstanding.”Footnote ⁵⁸ Božović continues to marvel at the level of exclusion Radovanović faced:

As Ivana Medić remarks, while it is striking in itself that a remarkable avant-garde oeuvre such as Radovanović’s emerged in the conservative environment of postwar Yugoslavia, it is even more fascinating that even in such an environment, Radovanović persevered.Footnote ⁶⁰ Serbian philosopher Milorad Belančić employs the term nesuđena avangarda (“nesuđena” translating to something that is just not meant to be) to describe Radovanović’s artistic will, drive, and calling.Footnote ⁶¹ Medić further adds three additional terms (i.e., factors) to describe the “impossibility” of Radovanović’s avant-garde in Yugoslavia: (1) “the unrecognized avant-garde,” referring to the fact that Radovanović’s truly innovative oeuvre was at complete odds with the social and cultural environment in Yugoslavia at a time when the country did not yet possess institutional or discursive tools necessary to acknowledge and validate his poetics; (2) “the invisible avant-garde,” concerning Radovanović’s “too abstract” avant-garde output, which did not and could not express the desired ideological values of socialist realism; and (3) “the irrelevant avant-garde,” implying that by living and creating his work in a culturally isolated socialist Yugoslavia, it was impossible for Radovanović to make his mark in any significant way.Footnote ⁶² But Radovanović’s intention was never to “make his mark” in history books nor to create a political statement by not adhering to socialist values and resisting the pressure from his conservative peers. Rather, his extraordinary oeuvre is the result of his continuous drive and persistence to create something new and push the boundaries of what is already there.

Within the borders of Yugoslavia, Radovanović’s works were groundbreaking. But even when viewed within a wider international context, his originality is remarkable. For instance, Dejan Đorić notes that Radovanović’s Pričinjavanja [Seemingness] from 1955 and Ležanje [Reclining] from 1957, and other projects that work with the idea as a material, accentuating the mental, or self-reflective, precede Henry Flynt’s “concept art” (1961) and Joseph Kosuth’s “conceptual art” (1965). Further, Đorić continues, Pravljenje svoga tela [The making of one’s body], created in 1957, two years after Kazuo Shiraga’s Challenging Mud (1955), is one of the earliest examples of physical art.Footnote ⁶³ In the domain of visual arts, Đorđe Savić observes that Radovanović was the first artist who photographed a photograph of photographic paper and exhibited it.Footnote ⁶⁴ Milin argues that Radovanović’s works in the domain of art synthesis constitute “a worthy complement to the oeuvres of artists who, from the 1950s onward, started to reflect on different ways of achieving a synthesis of the arts.”Footnote ⁶⁵ As a case in point, Milin points out that although Radovanović may have been unaware of Edgard Varèse’s multimedia work Poème électronique (1958) or the architect Le Corbusier,Footnote ⁶⁶ he was moving in the same direction independently with his own projects, most notably in Taktizon–pokret–zvuk (1957), which precedes Poème électronique. Whether we evaluate Radovanović’s creative output retrospectively or currently, both within Yugoslav and in broader contexts, it cannot be denied that he was a true visionary.

The 1980s ushered in a new era of electronic music in Yugoslavia, a trend that has heavily permeated all spheres of music, not only art but also popular and film music. Although Yugoslavia, as a nonaligned country, welcomed influences from the West even in the earliest decades of the Cold War, after the death of President Tito on May 4, 1980, and the subsequent decline of communist ideals, Western technologies and trends infiltrated mainstream popular culture much more prominently. This was, perhaps, most evident in Yugoslavia’s vibrant, experimental, and internationally acclaimed new wave music scene of the late 1970s and 1980s, characterized by the sound of electronics. The earliest notable example is Oliver Mandić’s (b. 1953) track, “Šuma” [Forest] (1978), an electroacoustic musique concrète experimentation that combines layers of manipulated electronic sounds.Footnote ¹ A year later, notable film composer Zoran Simjanović (1946–2021) composed the theme for the nightly news program Dnevnik 2, which aired in Yugoslavia from 1979 to 1992. This iconic electronic theme, synchronized with a digital figure of a rotating globe, illustrated the extent to which digital technologies were infiltrating the cultural life in the country.Footnote ² The League of Communists of Yugoslavia recognized that technology and the implementation of personal computers symbolized progress, the image of Yugoslavia as a progressive nation that the Party wished to project internationally.Footnote ³ For its 1990 Congress, which would be the country’s last,Footnote ⁴ the Party promoted its assembly on a postage stamp that featured an image of the hammer and sickle – a communist symbol representing proletarian solidarity between agricultural and industrial workers – displayed on a computer screen, effectively blending the image of traditional communist values and innovation (Figure 6.1).

Figure 6.1

A postage stamp promoting the XIV Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia [Savez komunista Jugoslavije, SKJ], 1990. Design by Jakša Vlahović.

Figure 6.1 Long description

The postage shows a computer with a monitor on top of it and a keyboard in front of it, in black and white. The monitor’s black screen displays a communist symbol in yellow, a hammer and sickle. The background of the stamp is in gradient purple color, white on the bottom, and purple on top. On the top right corner, in white letters, says, The 14th extraordinary congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in Cyrillic. On the bottom left is the value of the stamp in Yugoslav dinars, 50000. Across the bottom is written, Yugoslavia.

New generations of composers at the Faculty of Music of the University of Arts in Belgrade (FMU; formerly the Music Academy) had already been flocking to the Electronic Studio Radio Belgrade since its opening in 1972 to study with Vladan Radovanović and Paul Pignon. Witnessing the success and popularity of the studio, as well as the remarkable achievements of composers writing music in that medium – presenting their works internationally and receiving awards and other accolades – FMU finally understood the potential in supporting a studio of their own. Under the new leadership of Srđan Hofman (1944–2021), who at this time served as Dean of the Faculty of Music and Chair of Composition, and Vice-Dean Zoran Erić (1950–2024), the young composers took a radical step in transforming the once conservative department.

Unlike the traditionalists at FMU who vehemently opposed all forms of modernism (such as Rajko Maksimović, Aleksandar Obradović, and especially Stanojlo Rajičić), Hofman and Erić, who themselves took classes at the EMS Radio Belgrade in the 1980s and composed in the medium, recognized that electronic music was vital to the future of their field (Figure 6.2).Footnote ⁵ When asked about his colleagues’ opposition and resistance toward electronic music well into the 2010s,Footnote ⁶ Hofman explained:

Figure 6.2

The composition faculty at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, 1987. From left to right, back row: Zoran Erić, Vlastimir Trajković, and Srđan Hofman; front row: Rajko Maksimović and Aleksandar Obradović.

Figure 6.2 Long description

From left to right, back row, standing are Zoran Erić, wearing a dark sweater with a white collar, Vlastimir Trajković in a casual suit, and Srđan Hofman in a casual suit. Seated in the front row are Rajko Maksimović wearing a more casual dark sweater and Aleksandar Obradović in a more formal suit with a tie, with his hands crossed in his lap, looking very stern, while his other colleagues are smiling.

However, at FMU, the issue was not only that older-generation composers on faculty refused to write modern music and use new technological advances; they imposed their own aesthetic values and preferences onto all their students by refusing to accept modernist tendencies within the curriculum. Hofman further elucidates:

Embracing their visionary stand, Hofman and Erić founded the electronic music studio at FMU in 1986 – Tonski studio [Sound Studio], which remained under Hofman’s direction until 2002. While only some fifteen years earlier Obradović turned down Radovanović’s request for FMU to support the founding of an electronic studio in Belgrade, arguing that it would be too expensive, too avant-garde for a traditional institution, and that no one would use it, now the very same institution was home to the first computer-based electronic studio in the country. Such a bold move by Hofman and Erić allowed a new generation of composers to access the newest technologies and techniques and finally to keep up with innovations and trends in the West. As a result, the Faculty of Music suddenly became the producer of progressive and innovative composers in Yugoslavia, among them Nataša Bogojević [Natasha Bogojevich], Vladimir Jovanović, Isidora Žebeljan (1967–2020), Milica Paranosić (b. 1968), and Tatjana Milošević (b. 1970).

Yugoslav composers, and even some from abroad, showcased their new approach to composition, one developed using the personal computer, at the First Festival of Computer Music in Yugoslavia, “Lična muzika” [Personal Music], which took place on June 1–5, 1987, at the Student Cultural Center in Belgrade, organized by the young composer, Miroslav Savić. In 1991, the “Kompjuterska umetnost” [Computer Art] exhibition, held May 8–23 at the Gallery of the Association of Fine Artists of Serbia [Udruženje likovnih umetnika Srbije], displayed the application of the computer and technology across all spheres of the arts.

Tonski Studio and the Transformation of Electronic Music in Yugoslavia

Tonski Studio reshaped the trajectory of electronic music in Yugoslavia. While Radovanović, the founder of the Electronic Studio Radio Belgrade (EMS), already knew many years earlier that the future of electroacoustic music was computerization, realizing such a prospect in the 1970s was too expensive for Yugoslavia. The EMS Radio Belgrade would not receive its first computer until 1987 – an Atari Mega ST2 with synthesizer modules by Yamaha TX816, running on Notator SL. This machine allowed for the creation of algorithmic works based on stochastic principles, as evident in Muzika vatre [Music of fire] (1985–1988) and Saturnalije II (1988) by Marjan Šijanec, a Slovenian composer, engineer, and programmer with prior experience at the National Institute of Chemistry in Ljubljana (Slovenia) and the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Science (Serbia). In addition to developing his own programming language necessary to realize his compositions, Šijanec also introduced a new concept of using the computer as both a musical score and a conductor, and treating the computer, with all its analog and digital segments, as an instrument.Footnote ⁹

Tonski Studio, on the other hand, was a fully computerized state-of-the-art facility. The year it was founded, in 1986, it started as a modest analog studio with a Yamaha DX7 keyboard, a mixer, an amplifier, and microphones. The following year, the Studio acquired the leading equipment for analog tape recording: three Studer magnetophons (models A 807 and A 810) and a 24-channel mixer. In 1988, Tonski Studio was completely computerized with the acquisition of 32-bit Apple Macintosh II machines with a 24-bit Sound Accelerator soundcard, allowing for analog-digital conversion, working with sound on two channels, and producing CD-quality recordings.Footnote ¹⁰ Musicologist Ivana Janković observes that at this time, Tonski Studio was one of the very few Macintosh-equipped studios in Europe, and that while Macs were becoming standard in the US, European studios still preferred a more affordable Atari with a MIDI interface.Footnote ¹¹ Hence, Erić’s vision of and insistence on equipping the Tonski Studio with Macs made the facility the center of Apple-operated machines in Yugoslavia.Footnote ¹²

Tonski Studio had two primary roles: It introduced new coursework in electronic and computerized music and sound production in its composition curriculum, and it also served as a recording and production studio for classical music that serviced both the FMU faculty and students. The first courses on electronic music at FMU were offered during the 1986–1987 academic year, taught by Hofman and Erić, and then in the 1990s by a new generation of composers and teaching assistants at the FMU – Paranosić, Bogojević, Goran Kapetanović, Svetlana Savić (née Kresić), and Milošević. Đorđe Petrović, a producer of popular music at the Production of Gramophone Records Department of Radio Television Belgrade (PGP–RTB), a major record label in Yugoslavia at the time, was hired as a sound engineer in the Studio. The Faculty of Music also established a guest residency program with composers from abroad, the first one taking place in 1992 with a week-long residency by Neil Rolnick from the US and later by Hans Ulrich Humpert from Germany.Footnote ¹³

According to Hofman, computerized music, as understood in the 1980s, had wide applications that concerned two genres of composition. First, it applied to vocal, instrumental, and vocal-instrumental compositions that were created as a result of an interactive compositional process employing an algorithm and a statistical model to calculate the values of musical parameters and make decisions for any given work. Second, it assumed a subgenre of electronic music in which compositions are created through interactive compositional process, in which the computer, with an algorithmic program and a statistical model, makes some decisions and calculates values about parameters of music structures and sound synthesis.Footnote ¹⁴ Thus, in Hofman’s understanding, computer music does not just participate in generating electronic sounds; rather, the computer has an active role in the compositional process of a work.Footnote ¹⁵ This realization shifted the focus of the computer from a means of sound synthesis and sampling to an instrument for real-time performance.

Equipped with advanced computer technology on par with Western Europe and the United States at that time, and with skilled engineers and programmers, a new generation of Yugoslav composers once again flocked to Belgrade, now to Tonski Studio, eager to learn these new technologies and techniques, something that the EMS Radio Belgrade could no longer provide on its obsolete machines. Hence, Tonski Studio of FMU brought Yugoslavia on a level with the newest compositional trends, such as digitalization, sonification, and sampling and allowed the composers to finally “catch up” to the rest of the world in “real time.”

A New Generation of Electronic and Computer Music in Yugoslavia

The beginnings of computer music in Yugoslavia can be traced to avant-gardist Radovanović, who in 1976 envisioned composing a piece using the computer. Unable to realize his vision in Yugoslavia, Radovanović went to the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht (the Netherlands), where he completed his piece Kompjutorija [Computoria] in 1977, using an 18-bit minicomputer PDP-15/20 and POD6 software – an interactive markup language developed by Barry Truax. Computoria, based on a discrete probability distribution, is Stochastic in nature.Footnote ¹⁶ Pioneered by Iannis Xenakis two decades earlier (in 1954), Stochastic process in music composition employed probability theory (with mathematical models, such as Markov chain) to introduce randomness and unpredictability into the musical structure that determines various musical parameters, like pitch, duration, and dynamics.Footnote ¹⁷ The work was performed on October 17, 1977, in Utrecht.

Radovanović continued to produce computer music projects, completing Undina (1985) for the Talking Back to Media music festival in Amsterdam and Timbral (1987), commissioned by the Mafilm Studios in Budapest. Both are purely electronic music works based only on electronically generated sounds that combine analog Synthi 100 and digital Yamaha DX 7 digital audio signals that were recorded on different technologies, both in Belgrade and abroad. Because Radovanović did not use a sequencer for Undina, he acted both as composer and performer; he performed all sound material in real time while recording it, channel by channel, on a multichannel magnetophon. Timbral manipulation is a dominant feature of both works. In Undina, named after the word in Serbian folklore that refers to a mythical water nymph, Radovanović explored the timbre of female voices and their wave-like motion. In Timbral, more explicitly, Radovanović mixed sound sources vertically rather than horizontally, to make each new timbral event stand out. Here, timbre is not just a musical parameter but a principal structural element.

Once EMS Radio Belgrade had obtained its first computer, Radovanović began to use it in most of his sampled-sound compositions, such as Fluks (1989) and Miks (1991), in which he treated sounds originating from other sources in an electronic medium. In addition to his compositions, Radovanović fully embraced the computer in all spheres of his creative output, including a visual graphic, “Svemir je kompjuter” [The universe is a computer] from 1989 (Figure 6.3). In this graphic, Radovanović makes a clear statement on the role of digital technology and the capabilities of a computer – the computer is a universe on its own, but also a means of connecting our (human) universe to that of the computer. On a metaphysical level, Radovanović explains the meaning of this work: “It should be noted that this flow is two-way: As much as the earthly computer produces the assumption of the universe as a computer, so the universe produces the assumption of the computer’s assumption of the universe as a computer.”Footnote ¹⁸ Musicologist Milan Milojković speculates that the graphic symbolizes “the position of a man, who is caught between the limits of tradition and the cosmic infinity.”Footnote ¹⁹

Figure 6.3

Vladan Radovanović, Svemir je kompjuter [The universe is a computer], computer graphic realized on Amiga and using Photoshop software, 1989.

Figure 6.3 Long description

On the bottom left side of the drawing is a computer screen, out of which a long and thin printout of slides in a sequence leads upwards towards the mouth of a woman, in the top right corner of the drawing. The printout is in color, set against the black background. It depicts five images. In the first, the text reading, The Universe is a computer, is written in black ink in the Serbian Latin alphabet. The next image shows a woman from behind, walking with a daughter on each side, holding their hands. They are wearing blue and green dresses. The next slide shows a satellite. The next slide depicts a galaxy, and the last slide depicts a solar system.

Following Radovanović’s creations in the domain of computerized music abroad and the arrival of computers in Tonski Studio (as well as in other private music studios around the country), Yugoslav composers began mastering the new technology during the 1980s, using new methods for sonification, such as employing a joystick to send and activate sound and applying the technique of sampling.

Electronic Music and Sampling at the Tonski Studio

As the first computerized studio in Yugoslavia, Tonski Studio drew a new generation of composers who collectively embraced an expansion of compositional possibilities with new technologies. One key feature of these new compositions was the technique of sampling analog sounds and their processing to generate different types of sonorities. The founders of the studio, Hofman and Erić, and their protégés, a new generation of women composers at the Faculty of Music – Bogojević, Paranosić, Svetlana Savić, and Milošević – defined the new sound of this era.Footnote ²⁰

Like his peers, Hofman belongs to the generation of Yugoslav composers whose initial compositional development was grounded in predominantly neoclassical aesthetics but who were also exposed to diverse modernist phenomena. As Mirjana Veselinović-Hofman observes, Hofman first participated in “propounding,” then “overcoming,” and finally “contesting” the “neoclassical logic in Serbian music.”Footnote ²¹ Hofman showed an interest in musical modernism in the 1960s, and by 1974 he was attending seminars at Darmstadt and in 1975 in Cologne. His music is characterized by complex, simultaneous, and interwoven processes, which show the influence of both European serialism and extended digital techniques. His Rebus 1 (1988), Rebus 2 (1989), and Uzorci [Samples] (1991), some of the earliest works created at Tonski Studio, exhibit Hofman’s complex synthesis of these influences.Footnote ²²

Rebus 1 (for electronics) is based on the principle of integral serialism, with Hofman controlling the melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, and timbral parameters of the piece. The work starts with an “explosion” of a cluster from which eight formations (i.e., sound formulas) emerge – eight motives, each comprising identical eight-note configurations, C, E♭, G, B, G♯, E, D, F. Each configuration features a statement and repetitions of the initial “formula” before splitting into two motives sounding simultaneously. Every time a motive splits, a new timbre is added to the initial one. The introduction of each configuration is signaled by the sound of the “exploding” cluster, but the spectral quality in motivic layering is different in each and the repetitions become shorter until the work dissolves into a whirl, both sonically and visually, as depicted in the score that features all eight formulas, eventually reducing to the basic eight-note motive at the center of the diagram (Example 6.1).

Example 6.1

Srđan Hofman, Rebus 1 (1988), the ending.

Example 6.1 Long description

The music staff curves in the shape of an octagon. Each side of the octagon shows eight filled in noteheads with pitches of the row, C, E flat, G, B, G sharp, E, D, F, written in treble clef. Curved lines indicate the rotation of the row: the C of the first octagon maps onto the next pitch, E flat, in the next octagon, which then maps onto the next pitch, G, and so on. Inside this octagon is a smaller one, with each side containing one whole note, one side for each pitch of the row, now written in bass clef.

In the context of Yugoslav music, Rebus 1 was quite avant-garde – no other composer was using integral serialist techniques, let alone in combination with electronic/computer media. The work also draws on traditional elements (such as the thirds relations in the eight-note theme, which, when superimposed, creates triadic sonorities) and minimalist-style repetitions.Footnote ²³

Hofman’s Uzorci [Samples] for flute, clarinet, AKAI 1000HD sampler, and Apple Macintosh computer is based, as the title implies, on several recorded musical samples. Specifically, Hofman used nine folk tunes from the Istria region of Croatia and the Homolje region of eastern Serbia, which he copied into the sampler (i.e., he digitized it) from vinyl records and magnetic tape. The folk tunes are sampled as literal musical quotations, hence recognizable, but also subjected to electronic transformations, rendering them unrecognizable. Veselinović-Hofman notes that Hofman selected these samples based on their internal acoustic qualities – melodies whose elements can be spectrally modified to yield a rich array of sonorities, and thus “defolklorizing” selected samples – stripping them of their national identity.Footnote ²⁴

Hofman’s works from this period reflect the general inclinations of Yugoslav composers toward a postmodernist aesthetic that often evokes the past, characterized by the incorporation of musical quotations and folk motives. Postmodernist trends are evident in Erić’s compositions created at the Tonski Studio (and even more so in his works from the 1990s onward). Erić created two notable works at the Studio – Velika crvena mrlja Jupitera [The Great Red Spot of Jupiter] (1990) for amplified harpsichord, percussion, and live electronics, and Abnormalni udarci Dogona [The abnormal beats of the Dogon] (1991) for bass clarinet, prepared piano, computer, and percussion. Both works are from his five-part cycle, Slike haosa [Images of chaos], created between 1990 and 1997.

Erić’s Abnormalni udarci Dogona is also imbued with folk motives, featuring eighteen folk fragments whose manipulation yields eighteen “models.” However, his use of samples differs from Hofman’s approach, since no original material is actually present in Erić’s work. That is, Erić does not use original quotations of any of his samples; rather, he manipulates them into an already “interpreted quotation.”Footnote ²⁵ As such, his composition is based on models of interpreted samples, abstracted from their original context.

Erić adds another level of originality in his two compositions – both works, created on Macintosh II and a computer-controlled MIDI, also use Design Studio and Adobe Photoshop software to produce a graphic notation score (Example 6.2). Thus, with the addition of computer graphics, Erić conveys to the live performers how to execute certain gestures. In the excerpt in Example 6.2, the page is divided into four columns, one for each instrument. On the left (mark 138), the percussionist is instructed to play “free abnormal cassa [bass drum] beats.” The bass clarinetist is asked to improvise, without a mouthpiece, sounds that evoke the images of various creatures – Jam-Due, inneu gammurugu (men with horns), inneu dullogu (men with tails). The third column denotes the computer part, while the last column is the score for the prepared piano.

Example 6.2

Zoran Erić, Abnormalni udarci Dogona [The abnormal beats of the Dogon] (1991), graphic score, 138–161.

Example 6.2 Long description

The score has four columns and two rows. In the top, the leftmost column is narrow, and has a free-hand drawing of a drumhead (or perhaps a gong) with hand-written words, Free ABNORMAL Cassa Beats! The next column is wide, and features words in different fonts and shapes written across it. Some words are in regular type print, like directions on top that read, Improvisation without mouthpiece, while other words gradually increase in size and change angles and direction. The third column only contains initials P.G., denoting the computer music software part. The last column contains a single staff for the prepared piano part. On the bottom of the score, across the entire length, is a thick dark line indicating the computer part.

Erić’s works are among the earliest examples of live-electronics computer music in Yugoslavia that employ digital communication during the compositional process (such as mapping the MIDI to samples) but also during the performance of the work. The final sound of the composition depends not only on the manner the computer recalls and live-transforms samples but also on the performers’ interpretation of the graphic score and their interaction with the electronics. Milojković remarks that with these two works, Erić introduced a significant level of originality to Serbian (and Yugoslav) compositional practice – by using the computer as an instrument, necessary for the realization and performance of these works.Footnote ²⁶ Erić presented his Abnormalni udarci Dogona and the novel approach to computer composition at the Music Biennale Zagreb in 1991. Occurring only two months before the beginning of the Yugoslav Wars, it would be the final edition of the festival before the disintegration of Yugoslavia, and certainly the last one for Serbian composers for decades to come.Footnote ²⁷

Computer Music Festivals

The year 1991 was significant for Yugoslav composers – it was the last year of national and international collaborations before the collapse of the political state. The “Kompjuterska umetnost” [Computer Art] exhibition took place on May 8–23, 1991, at the Gallery of the Association of Fine Artists of Serbia (ULUS), just one month before the start of the war. It featured a concert of electronic music alongside visual exhibits, animations, and installations. The exhibition initiated the creation of the short-lived Association of Artists of Electronic Media in Yugoslavia, with a large representation of Slovenian composers who at the time resided in Serbia – Franc Curk, Marjan Šijanec, and Slavko Šuklar – and the MGM composer collective comprising Gordana Novaković, Šijanec, and Miroslav Savić. The event was organized by Predrag Šiđanin, who, for his work VirEvropeBeograd, participated from Novi Sad via a telefax projection alongside ten performers from different parts of the world. Other composers featured at this show were Erić (Abnormalni udarci Dogona and Velika crvena mrlja Jupitera), Hofman (Rebus 1 and Rebus 2), Radovanović (Miks and five computer graphics, including Svemir je kompjuter), Milimir Drašković, Boris Kovač, Miroslav Štatkić, Vojin Tišma, and Vladimir Tošić.Footnote ²⁸

The exhibition featured other innovative approaches to computer composition. Šijanec incorporated twelve algorithms for his piece, Muzika kosmičkih modela [Music of cosmic models] (1988–1989), each generating a distinct piece based on one “cosmic model.” Savić’s audiovisual work Glas anđela [The voice of an angel] (1991) comprised a two-dimensional display of a computer-generated graphic of a renowned Serbian fresco, Anđeo na grobu Hristovom (Beli Anđeo) [Angel at the tomb of Christ (The White Angel)] (Figure 6.4). The synthesis of the audio and visual elements is realized with the colors of the fresco that correspond to a musical interval.Footnote ²⁹

Figure 6.4

Miroslav Savić, Glas anđela [The voice of an angel] (1991). A computer-generated two-dimensional rendering of the White Angel (Angel at the Tomb of Christ).

On May 23, 1991, the same day the art exhibition ended, a three-day “Festival Muzika u Srbiji: elektroakustička muzika” [The Festival of Musics in Serbia: Electroacoustic Music] was held at the Belgrade International Theater Festival (BITEF), coorganized by the Composers’ Association of Serbia. It was the first time that the composers from two different (and rival) schools of electronic music in Serbia – EMS Radio Belgrade and Tonski Studio of the FMU – jointly presented their works at an all-electronic music event. As such, the festival featured compositions created during the 1970s and 1980s at the EMS, as well as the newest realizations from the Tonski Studio.

However, a few years before either of these festivals took place, and, remarkably, even before the computerization of the Tonski Studio, Miroslav Savić organized the first festival of computer music in Yugoslavia in 1987. Titled “Lična muzika” [Personal Music] to reflect the concept of creating music on personal computers, the event took place on June 1–5, 1987, at the Student Cultural Center in Belgrade (SKC). The SKC report from 1987 notes that the electronic music festival was particularly noteworthy for presenting the newest musical creations on the latest technology, and especially for attracting artists from across Yugoslavia (Đorđe Ilijin, Radovanović, Savić, and Šijanec) and from abroad. Most notably, Lars Gunnar Bodin from EMS Stockholm, a Swedish pioneer in the field of electronic music, and Luuk Trip from the CEM Studio (the Netherlands) gave lectures. Other composers in attendance whose works were also programmed were Serge Verstockt (Belgium), Werner Kaegi (Switzerland), and Larry Austin (US).

Miroslav Savić was one of the most active computer music composers in Serbia in the late 1980s. As editor-in-chief of music programming at the SKC and possessing a keen talent for national and international collaborations, he organized numerous festivals and thus played a pivotal role in the presentation of the newest electronic and multimedia techniques and technologies from abroad to Belgrade audiences. His efforts also allowed Yugoslav composers to be a visible and viable part of the (Western) European network of new, experimental, electronic, and multimedia music.Footnote ³⁰

Conclusion

Musicologist Vesna Mikić postulates that Yugoslavia went through three periods of technological development in music. The first period, taking place between the two world wars, was characterized by the development of electronic musical instruments for use in the arts. The second period was marked by the founding of electronic music studios in Yugoslavia, starting with EMS Radio Belgrade in 1971–1972, as well as by the use of live electronics in the mid 1980s. The third period was signaled in 1986 with the introduction of the computer as an instrument for both the creation and performance of music.Footnote ³¹

However, just as computer music was gaining momentum in Yugoslavia – with the state-of-the-art computerization of the Tonski Studio and its newest Apple Macintosh machines and cutting-edge music and graphic software, soon followed by the computerization of studios at the EMS Radio Belgrade and other private studios around the country – in June 1991 the brutal decade-long Yugoslav Wars began, resulting in the total disintegration of the country. The wars ended in 2001, following severe economic sanctions imposed on Serbia by the United Nations (which lasted from 1991 until 2000) and the US/NATO-led bombing of Serbia in 1999, leading to yet another period of political, economic, and cultural isolation for Serbia. Unable to maintain the hardware and software technologies, both the Electronic Studio Radio Belgrade and Tonski Studio became dilapidated, and electronic music innovations in the country stalled. The transnational artistic connections that were nurtured through international collaborations and festivals were abruptly cut by the war. With no guest artists coming to Serbia (or the wider region) and thousands of others leaving to escape the ravages of war, the country was drained not only of its economic but also its intellectual power. It would take another decade for the country to recover, but the music scene in Belgrade (as well as in the rest of the country) would never recapture the glory of the prewar period. The most radical music scene in Yugoslavia emerged simultaneously with its technological innovations in the mid 1970s and 1980s – the new avant-gardes – as discussed in the following chapters.