New age in Serbia, Zoran Simjanović: New ideas symphony

Abstract

'New age' was a trend which appeared in the music of the 1980's, bringing a new dimension to art music in general, especially in its reception. At first its development was stimulated by technological inventions, 'the technological craze', by new carriers of sound, simultaneously globalizing art and making it widely accessible. This new trend includes quite disparate categories. It does not distance itself from subculture, and in art music it gravitates towards cosmopolitism while being permeated with other musical trends such as pop, rock, jazz and other phenomena of show business and popular art. This trend was originally found in the large number of occult writing which flooded book markets all over the world, to which Umberto Eco gave an important base (Foucault's Pendulum and others). In his essay on the music of the eighties, Peter Niklas Wilson, one of the most significant theoreticians of this movement, researches into all elements of those novelties, not hesitating to call this art eclectic, commercial and the like. Examples of Serbian music get into such style directives. The New Ideas Symphony by film score composer Zoran Simjanović, was performed in the open air at Kalemegdan fortress in 2006, before an audience of about one thousand people. Since then the recording has often been broadcast on television and radio channels. In its combination of folklore and film models, traces of rock, pop, and jazz can also be found, in a score with all symphonic characteristics. This attempt is a fascinating item for research as well as a pleasure to be listened to.

U novijim delima srpske muzike uočavaju se pojave srodne pokretu New age u evropskoj i američkoj muzici. Kompozitor filmske i pozorišne muzike, Zoran Simjanović (1946) napisao je svoju prvu simfoniju, koja se formom, idejom i sadržinom ne uklapa u poznata formalno-stilska i jezička objašnjenja žanra stila i vremena. Kako je premijeru dela pratilo preko hiljadu ljudi, na otvorenoj sceni Kalemegdana, smatrali smo da je neophodan pokušaj analiziranja ovog muzičkog ostvarenja sa više aspekata. Došli smo do zaključka da je to prva vokalna džez-simfonija u srpskoj muzici i da, bez obzira na moguće otpore, nerazumevanja ili oduševljenja, ona zavređuje da se ispita i kao zvuk i kao pojava. Pored problema stilske i jezičke klasifikacije, sam metod pristupa je drugačiji nego kod ostalih ostvarenja koja se u svom nazivu pozivaju na žanr simfonije. U prožimanju žanrova rodova, graničnih pojava između umetnosti, ali i između umetnosti i vanumetničkih polja - vidimo jedan od mogućih puteva razvoja umetnosti posebno muzike. U interakciji različitih idioma, serioznog i džez-rokerskog različitih aparata, vokalnog i orkestarskog, a sve to duboko uronjeno u folklor Balkana i Srbije - sagledavamo pokušaje novog viđenja i novog otkrivanja večitih umetničkih postulata.