Pavle Aksentijević - Church music discography

Web:
www.myspace.com/pavleaksentijevic
www.pavleizapis.com

1987 — Muzika stare Srbije CD 320 kbps
1989 — Srbljak LP 192 kbps
1990 — Psalmi LP/CD 320 kbps

artwork scans for all three releases in separate file

First part of Dragoslav-Pavle Aksentijević career was dedicated to ancient spiritual and secular music-serbian and byzantine.He chants on the basic of transcriptions from neumes and on basis on his own records based on living oral tradition.
Second part of his career started in 2000, Dragoslav Pavle Aksentijevic and four young musicians gather round a group "Zapis" (Inscription). The group's programme is based on secular melographic iscriptions originating from the areas of east and south Serbia and Kosmet. That part of his career will be covered next time.

1987 — Muzika stare Srbije CD 320 kbps

1989 — Srbljak LP 192 kbps

Tracklist:
01. Prezrevshi niznje
02. Istache chudesa
03. Um okrilativshi — Kratima
04. Aliluja
05. Srpska velika crkva
06. Zapade sav, raduj se
07. Ko da te ne blazi — kratima

1990 — Psalmi CD/LP 320 kbps

Dragoslav Pavle Aksentijevic was born in Belgrade 1942.He graduated,and later took his M.A.degree of the Academy of Arts in Belgrade.Beside painting he is intersted in ancient spiritual and secular music-serbian and byzantine.He chants on the basic of transcriptions from neumes and on basis on his own records based on living oral tradition.He chanted in former Yugoslavia(Belgrade,Dubrovnik,Budva,Nis,Ohrid,Negotin etc.)and abroad (France,Austria,Germany,Greece,U.S.A.,Russia,Finland,Belgium,Sweden,Canada,Switzerland etc.)
In 2000, Dragoslav Pavle Aksentijevic and four young musicians gathered round a group, Zapis . The group's programme is based on secular melographic inscriptions originating from the areas of east and south Serbia and Kosmet. The group uses authentic traditional instruments. From the Press: “Human voice is a wonder, word cannot grasp it. Voice, that secret both heard and unheard, passes through our existence through this light, through the matter and breath of all the living beings. Whenever I listen to Pavle's voice a heavenly feeling is roused in me! It's a preciousness that brings to life the inscriptions of a forgotten tradition... He was that natural, self-made, beautiful tenor voice of a rare, clear chanting beauty, painted with ancient hailing.” (Enriko Josif) “With his remarkable concert performances Aksentijevic presented himself as a serious researcher – the restorer of medieval sound. He chants with ease in a specific voice technique that these melodies demand with regard to breath, intonation and melodious ornamentation. He wants to seize, as he himself says, 'the simplicity and beauty of chanting of a plain monk from Sveta Gora'.” (Milena Pesic)

Awards
* September 1988- the first award for the interpretation of byzantine melodies at the International choir festival in Kardica, Greece
* January 1990- the only award at the International festival in Moscow
* 1989 — the award from the Fund For Culture Of the City Of Belgrade
* 1990 — the golden medal from the Serbian Society for Culture and Education
* 1990 — the award from radio Insbruck
* 2000 — anual award from the Serbian Association Of Music Artists

SRBLJAK marks a collection of the entire medieval Serbian Church poetry dedicaled to Serbian Saints. For a long time there was a desire to collect all services about Serbian Saints in one place. In 1714 hieromonk Maximus of Rakovica was the first to have collected the largest number of them, and placed them together in one book — SRBLJAK. Serbian medieval Church poetry presents one finished and completed whole, which has been written and chanted in the Serbo-Slavonic language almost until the middle of the 18th century.
With the first service books translated from the Greek language, the Serbs have become acquainted with and have adopted the forms of Church poetry. That medieval artistic poetry has its own laws of creation, so that it does not accept the forms and solutions of popular, oral poetry. A common folk singer and a medieval poet can start from the same vision, but their respective poetics and languages will lead them in separate direcitions. The same happened with the old Serbian Church poetry which through its language and personal poetic strivings achieved its particularities, and through following the laws of medieval poetics entered into European literature. This poetry is born in the light of hagiographies. The poet already has in front of him the character of the saint epically formed in his hagiography, and only then does he begin to write a service about him.
That poetry has been written for chanting, and poetic creation itself has been understood as chanting. Therefore, only through the harmony of words and sound can illuminations of old Serbian poets be discovered. Not only Serbian but also entire Eastern Christian religious poetry fully realises its essence and form only in chanting. Serbian Church poetry is not written in verse simply because it is the chanting and not the versification which should have adorned the service.
In the general medieval grading of virtues, Love is understood to be the higest and utmost of them and the strongest driving force in our deeds. The heroes of the Church poetry have been moved in the first place by Love towards beauties above the mind. Love can give wings to the ascetics and drive them towards victory. With the flame of spiritual love the saints follow an ascetic life, separate themselves from the material world, and undergo snffering and death. In this poetry the spiritual merits of the oldest ancestors with which they show the spiritual way to posterity are praised; ascetic separation from the earthly and obtaining a higher kingdom are glorified; and peace and calm for the entire universe are prayed for.