The Polish School, Johann Sebastian Bach, and The Gospel According to St. John in an Avant-Garde Synergy: Music of Becoming (1965) by Serbian Composer Rajko Maksimović

Abstract

In his orchestral composition, Musique de devenir [Music of Becoming, 1965], Serbian composer Rajko Maksimović (b. 1935) established a musical style he formed after hearing the works of Witold Lutosławski and other Polish composers at the first Music Biennale Zagreb (Yugoslavia, 1961). Maksimović believed that the novelties of the Polish school were much more interesting than (m)any of the achievements of the avant-garde Darmstadt circle or American experimental music. Thus, he structured Music of Becoming on clusters and applied aleatory principles to rhythm and pitch. As a support to this avant-garde ‘announcement’, Maksimović used selected lines from The Gospel According to St. John; just as the Gospel accounts for the genesis of the wor(l)d, Maksimović’s improvisation on Bach’s name (B–A–C–H) suggests the procreation of new music that is based on aleatoric principles and clusters.