Page 416 - Weiss, Jernej, ur. 2017. Glasbene migracije: stičišče evropske glasbene raznolikosti - Musical Migrations: Crossroads of European Musical Diversity. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 1
P. 416
glasbene migracije: stičišče evropske glasbene raznolikosti
al skills and first-hand knowledge of modern compositional procedures,
something that would have been much harder to get had he stayed in Bel-
grade. Maybe, paradoxically, he didn’t follow any current avant-garde trend
of French music, although he was attracted by spectralism for some time.
As a composer, he felt more inclined to the musical worlds of Lutosławski,
Scelsi and Ligeti, whose influence can be detected in his works. However,
the crucial moment for Damnianovitch seems to have been the discovery
of Serbian traditional music during a festival of traditional polyphonic mu-
sic in Corsica at the end of the 1990s. He then composed Folksongs based on
Serbian and Italian traditional songs and, soon after, followed it with Nativ-
ity, in which traditional Serbian church and folk music were used as its ba-
sis. Damnianovitch’s interest in Byzantine and, more generally, orthodox
Christian music, which had been awoken much earlier, at a time when he
was still living in Belgrade, was replaced for some time by other musical ex-
periences, and then re-emerged from the depths of his musical being, prob-
ably as a result of his turn towards Serbian musical heritage in general and
his wish to maintain his connection with his country of birth. It could be
asserted, therefore, that Damnianovitch, who was neither an economic nor
a political emigrant, moved to France essentially searching for a true defi-
nition of his identity as an individual and as a composer. It turned out that
it was not an easy enterprise and that, although he began a promising ca-
reer in France, something important was missing, which he finally found
in the preserved treasury of Serbian traditional music.
In her book The Future of Nostalgia, Svetlana Boym26 writes about
“concrete” and “metaphorical homes”. Like so many other people today,
Damnianovitch has two “concrete” homes, one where he spent his child-
hood and early adolescence, and another in the country where he has spent
all his mature life. His “metaphorical” home could be designated as his mu-
sic, in which he connects the cultures of his two concrete “homes” or coun-
tries. Instead of a closer assimilation into the French environment, he opts
for preserving his national identity (through introducing non-Western el-
ements, such as the musical traditions of the Orthodox Church and Serbi-
an folk music, into his works) because he finds that, in that way, he keeps
alive his links with his country of origin while at the same time maintain-
ing strong links with the cosmopolitan tradition in France. Richness in di-
26 Svetlana Bojm, Budućnost nostalgije [The Future of Nostalgia] (Beograd: Geopoeti-
ka, 2005), 379. First time published in English in New York, 2001, by Basic Books
414
al skills and first-hand knowledge of modern compositional procedures,
something that would have been much harder to get had he stayed in Bel-
grade. Maybe, paradoxically, he didn’t follow any current avant-garde trend
of French music, although he was attracted by spectralism for some time.
As a composer, he felt more inclined to the musical worlds of Lutosławski,
Scelsi and Ligeti, whose influence can be detected in his works. However,
the crucial moment for Damnianovitch seems to have been the discovery
of Serbian traditional music during a festival of traditional polyphonic mu-
sic in Corsica at the end of the 1990s. He then composed Folksongs based on
Serbian and Italian traditional songs and, soon after, followed it with Nativ-
ity, in which traditional Serbian church and folk music were used as its ba-
sis. Damnianovitch’s interest in Byzantine and, more generally, orthodox
Christian music, which had been awoken much earlier, at a time when he
was still living in Belgrade, was replaced for some time by other musical ex-
periences, and then re-emerged from the depths of his musical being, prob-
ably as a result of his turn towards Serbian musical heritage in general and
his wish to maintain his connection with his country of birth. It could be
asserted, therefore, that Damnianovitch, who was neither an economic nor
a political emigrant, moved to France essentially searching for a true defi-
nition of his identity as an individual and as a composer. It turned out that
it was not an easy enterprise and that, although he began a promising ca-
reer in France, something important was missing, which he finally found
in the preserved treasury of Serbian traditional music.
In her book The Future of Nostalgia, Svetlana Boym26 writes about
“concrete” and “metaphorical homes”. Like so many other people today,
Damnianovitch has two “concrete” homes, one where he spent his child-
hood and early adolescence, and another in the country where he has spent
all his mature life. His “metaphorical” home could be designated as his mu-
sic, in which he connects the cultures of his two concrete “homes” or coun-
tries. Instead of a closer assimilation into the French environment, he opts
for preserving his national identity (through introducing non-Western el-
ements, such as the musical traditions of the Orthodox Church and Serbi-
an folk music, into his works) because he finds that, in that way, he keeps
alive his links with his country of origin while at the same time maintain-
ing strong links with the cosmopolitan tradition in France. Richness in di-
26 Svetlana Bojm, Budućnost nostalgije [The Future of Nostalgia] (Beograd: Geopoeti-
ka, 2005), 379. First time published in English in New York, 2001, by Basic Books
414
