Milan Mihajlović (1945, Serbia), retired professor of composition at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, a co-founder of the Review of Composers, its director of many years and president of the Composers’ Association of Serbia, secretary and chair of the Theory Department and Dean of the Faculty of Music. Mihajlović has won all of Serbia’s music composition awards (the Mokranjac, October, and April Awards) and his pieces have been performed by the best orchestras of former Yugoslavia as well as Jena and Brussels Philharmonics, and numerous ensembles and soloists, in the most prominent halls of Europe, America, and Australia.

Last year (2014), he was a visiting composer at the International Festival of Chamber Music in Kempten (Germany – www.fuerstensaal-classix.de). Apart from his work Melanholija (Melancholy), which was specially commissioned for the festival, another four of his works were performed to much acclaim. This year (2015) will see the printing of his works and release of his single-author CD. Concerts featuring his most recent works are being prepared in Germany and Belgium. For 2016, he has been invited to Dijon (France) as a visiting professor, where, along with the commissioned new piece, another three of his works will be performed.

Melanholija – the interval of a descending minor third (B flat – G) forms the basis of the piece. That motive drives all of the themes, keeps recurring in various guises, and underpins everything – much like thoughts of a melancholy person. The central section of the piece, along with resistance to the basic mood, appears to offer a glimmer of hope. However, in that section, too, everything revolves around the same obsessive ideas, without any solutions, of course. However, in that section, too, everything revolves around the same obsessive ideas, of course, with no solutions. Finally, only Melancholy remains.
(BG is the official abbreviation for Belgrade.)

The piece was commissioned by the International Festival of Chamber Music in Kempten, Germany, where it was premièred, to much acclaim, in September 2014.