Concert of film music “The Sounds of History”

The concert entitled “The Sounds of History”(“Zvuci istorije”) was conceived as a collage of songs from documentary films that have attracted the attention of the general public over the recent years: “At the Crossroads of History”(“Na raskršćima istorije”), “The Century of theBrave”(“Vek odvažnih”), “MilunkaSavić  - Hero of the Great War”(“Milunka Savić  – heroina Velikog rata”), “Serbia in the Great War”(“Srbija u Velikom ratu”), “Serbs in Corfu”(“Srbi na Krfu”), “Crime without Punishment”(“Zločin bez kazne”), “The Forgotten Admiral”(“Zaboravljeni admiral”), “Diana’s Children”(“Dijanina deca”), “Creation of the Kingdom of SCS”(“Stvaranje kraljevine SHS”), “War Stories from Košare”(“Ratne priče sa Košara”) and “War Stories from Paštrik”(“Ratne priče sa Paštrika”).

 
Welcoming the audience, Professor Vladimir Tošićthanked the Artistic Ensemble of the Ministry of Defense “Stanislav Binički” for cooperation and understanding of his compositional work that followed the film stories about the greatest sufferings of the Serbian people throughout the last century, stressing that the tracks to be performed represent a kind of cross-section of everything composed in that field of creativity. He emphasized that he was particularly proud to have been part of the large projects of the RTS and the Ministry of Defense, which, after many years of suffering, became a permanent testimony about the heroes from Košare and Paštrik.

The ensemble was conducted by RadePejčić, and the program included tracks from the mentioned documentaries. Thus, the audience could hear the compositions: “Homeland” (“Zavičaj”), “Sofia’s waltz” (“Sofijin valcer”), “Milunka’s waltz” (“Milunka valcer” -Milunka Savić), “The Way to the East” (“Put za istok”), “The Secret” (“Tajna”)(Na raskršćima istorije - At the Crossroads of History), “Flight 1” (“Let 1”), “The Riders of Heaven”(“Nebeski jahači”) (“Veliki rat” – “The Great War”), “The Forgotten Admiral”, “Corfu” (“Krf”) (“The Forgotten Admiral”), Hope” (“Nada”) (“The Forgotten Admiral”), “Fight” (“Borba”) (“Diana’s Children”), “Sorrow” (“Tuga”) (“Crime Without Punishment”), “Košare” (“War Stories from Košare”) and “The Echo” (“Odjek”) (“Creation of the Kingdom of SCS”), performed by Katarina Tošić.

Although Professor Tošić, as a composer of absolute music, has long ago established his own style and manner of expression, which are recognizable, music performed at this concert required a different approach. Namely, the author of film music has to adapt to the story, to underline it or to enhance it, without exposinghimself too much, which is not an easy task for the composer.

According to Professor Tošić, this “charm of impossibility”adds a new quality and breadth in the artistic expression that the author would not otherwise have introducedhad he only kept to his decided and defined route. The audience in the Main Hall of the Kolarac Endowment recognized this value and fully enjoyed the music that accompanied the touching and startling film stories about our past and the great historical distressesembeddedfor all eternity in the memory of our people. “The Riders of Heaven” was played encore.

Vladimir Tošić is a composer, multimedia artist and full professor at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, who, with his composition Mélange (1975), laid the foundations of a reductionist and minimalistic approach in Serbian music and to this day has remained one of the most consistent advocates of this direction, recognizable worldwide by his style.