Branko Perović (musician)

Branko Perović (born February 23, 1944 in Brankov do in the Rudine von Nikšić ) is a Montenegrin gusla player . Branko Perović is considered to be the most important Guslar of his generation in Yugoslavia. Perović is the most important innovator in traditional folklore Guslenspiel who influenced a new generation of Guslaren. He sang in the tenor register and had an absolutely unique singing talent among Guslen players, which, in addition to the interpretation of heroic epics, came into play in songs with a ballad-like profile.

Life

Perović grew up in a Montenegrin village in the karst wasteland of the Rudine plateau. He stayed here all his life. The Gusle game was widespread in the family and the wider area. His father died when Perović was a toddler. A gusle was first brought by a friend of the family. Perović did not learn the instrument within his family, but from people in the neighborhood.

He made his first public appearances as a child and made his first sound recordings as a 20-year-old. In 1971 he won the first national Guslen competition, which was held after the Second World War. The victories in the national Yugoslav Guslen championships in 1971 in Sarajevo and 1974 in Nikšić brought his breakthrough to become the most important Gusla player of the post-war generation.

National Guslen Competition 1971

In socialist Yugoslavia, the pre-war tradition of popular national Guslaren competitions was not resumed until 1971. They were held for the first time in Ališin Most near Sarajevo in 1924 , in Belgrade in 1927 , in Skopje in 1929 and again in Belgrade in 1933. The event attracted not only national but also international attention; the jury from 1933 was chaired by King Alexander I (Yugoslavia) as president and special promoter of Guslen art. Slavists and linguists around Gerhard Gesemann in Berlin and Prague invited Branko and also the winner of the 1924 competition Tanasije Vučić to Berlin to make recordings. This was a first step in the exploration of the epic tradition of the Slavs of the Balkans and gave the real impetus to clarify the Homeric question in the early 1930s with in situ recordings by Milman Parry and Albert Bates Lord .

The continuation of the competitions in the socialist country meant that all folkloric traditions were given the epithet "village backwardness" and the musical instrument gusle, as a nationally colored cultural asset and "Serbian medium", was banned from the public and competitions were only taken up again in 1971 were. In the first decades of the post-war period, it was important not to endanger the cohesion in the multi-ethnic and multi-denominational state (due to the antipathy between Serbs and Muslims). Thus, holding the competition near Sarajevo in 1971 was also a politically sensitive act; the selection of the epic songs, which mostly deal with Muslim-Christian confrontation, was a main focus. Motifs on topics related to the People's Liberation War were particularly welcome in addition to traditional topics by the jury. The jury consisted of three academicians, a general and five professors, including three musicologists and two guslars. 180 Guslaren were registered, 143 entered the competition, 21 made it to the final. This event in the Dom "Đuro Đaković" cultural center was a great public success, and Radio Sarajevo then broadcast the cycle Umetnost gusala (German: The Art of Gusle) in prime time from 1971 to 1974 , the first breakfast break for factory workers. The winner of the competition, Branko Perović, stepped out of anonymity as a result of the competition and his first prize. He was not only the winner of the national competition, but also became a key figure in the further development of the casting tradition in the second half of the 20th century.

Career and style

In the more than forty year career of Branko Perović, his repertoire and his skill have constantly changed and developed. At the beginning he had especially recorded modern songs with themes from the People's War, in the course of his development he was able to select texts that were closer to him emotionally. The highlight of his interpretive and singing art is the recording of the modern song of a family tragedy from Kolašin - "Svatovski vijenac" (German: Funeral wreath for the wedding day), which was written as "osmerac" (German: Octosyllabus ), which with the time of its greatest success and its vocal High point in the 1970s. A special feature of Perović's interpretation is the sensitivity to the poetic content. Due to his temperament typical of the region of the highlands of Montenegro, his interpretation of the heroic epic is outstanding. However, he also had a special feeling for the tragic portrayal, such as the interpretation of the epic "Mother of the Jugoviči" requires. Perović's voice, which was characterized by a special power and volume - he had a lung volume of 7.8 l - determined the expressive potential of this absolutely extraordinary Guslar. Perović was able to put his audience in an ecstatic state in the interpretation of heroic epic. During the lecture, he managed to really heat up the atmosphere in interaction with the audience. In particular, his lyrical passages and songs with a ballad-like profile are particularly impressive, where he was able to combine epic chants and lamentations in melodic components, voices. Perovićs has contributed a lot to the further development of the Guslen game among the younger generation with his individual and innovative style.

Discography and Media

Recordings by Branko Perović from 1974 to 1989 as LP and cassette were released on the Yugoslav major label Jugoton, PGP-RTB (Radio Televizija Beograd, today: RTS). As a guslen player to Njegoš's poems, he was seen in several episodes of the RTB television documentary - Iskra ukomu - dedicated to Petar Petrović Njegoš - from 1980, also in the television anthology of Serbian Epic Poetry ( Posveta prahu oca Srbije - Antologija srpskih junackih pjesama uz gusle i staro srpsko pojanje).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Данка Лајић-Михајловић 2007: Гуслар: Индивидуални идентитет и традиција. (Danka Lajić-Mihajlović: The ′ Guslar ′: Individual identity and tradition ) Musicology 2007 vol. 7, 135–156 (abstract: English)
2. ↑ Данка Лајић-Михајловић 2007: Гуслар: Индивидуални идентитет и традиција. P. 145
3. ↑ Danica Lajić-Mihajlović: Competitions as a form of public gusle playing performance . Musicology, 11, 2011, Belgrade, (PDF) Here p. 192.
4. ↑ Данка Лајић-Михајловић 2007: Гуслар: Индивидуални идентитет и традиција. P. 146
5. ↑ Данка Лајић-Михајловић 2007: Гуслар: Индивидуални идентитет и традиција. P. 146
6. ↑ Branko Perovic
7. ↑ RTS, Trezor Trezor