The documented musical history of the Serbs can be traced back to the medieval era. Church music was performed throughout Serbia by choirs or individual singers, led by a conductor. The songs performed at the time were derived from the Osmoglasnik, a collection of religious songs dedicated to Jesus. These songs were repeated over the course of eight weeks in a cyclical fashion. Composers from this era include Stefan Srbin, Isaija Srbin, and Nikola Srbin.
Aside from church music, the medieval era in Serbia included folk music, about which little is known, and court music. During the Nemanjic dynasty, musicians played an important role in the royal court, and were known as sviralnici, glumci and praskavnici. Other rulers known for the musical patronage included Stefan Dušan, Stefan Lazarević, and Đurađ Branković.
With the Ottoman Empire came instruments that would further flourish the Serbian music.
Medieval musical instruments included horns, trumpets, lutes, psalteries, drums and cymbals. Traditional folk instruments include gajde, kaval, dajre, diple, tamburitza, gusle, tapan, sargija, kemence, zurla, and frula among others.
Stevan Mokranjac was an important Serbian composer and musicologist, considered one of the most important founders of modern Serbian music . Born in 1856, Mokranjac taught music, collected Serbian folk songs and did the first scholarly research on Serbian music. He was also the director of the first Serbian School of Music and one of the founders of the Union of Singing Societies. His most famous works are the Song Wreaths.
Just prior to Mokranjac's era, a musician named Josip Slezinger came to Serbia and founded the Prince's Band, composing music for the band based on folk songs. Around the same time came the first choiral societies, which mostly sung in German or Italian. Later, the first Serbian language works for choirs were written by Kornelije Stanković (1831 - 1865). Other famous Classical Serbian composers include Stevan Hristić, Isidor Bajić, Stanislav Binički, and Josif Marinković.
The Serbian composers Petar Konjović, Stevan Hristić and Miloje Milojević, all born in the 1880s, were the most eminent composers of their generation. They maintained the national expression and modernized the romanticism into the direction of impressionism. The most known composers born around 1910 studied in Europe, mostly in Prague. Ljubica Marić, Stanojlo Rajicić, Milan Ristić took influence from Schoenberg, Hindemith and Haba, rejecting the "conservative" work of prior Serbian composers, seeing it as outdated and the wish for national expression was outside their interest
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