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Artist
Kir Stefan Srbin
10+ albums
early musicmedieval musicMedieval manuscriptsslavic musicearly music of serbia
about
Previous research has shown that Kir Stefan the Serb lived in the XV century. Traces of his existence are found in the monastery in Kumanovo, in todays Macedonia, in a monastery in Romania, but also in the court of Despot Lazar Branković in Smederevo, where he served as domestic — choir conductor and dijak — clerk. A number of Stefan's texts and scripts are preserved in foreign libraries. However, his collection of church songs — Psaltikija — is of most importance for our medieval music culture. The original handwriting of Psaltikije was kept in the National Library in Belgrade, unfortunately it perished 6th April 1941, when the entire National library burned down after the bombardment. Only twelve photocopies were saved, which beside Greek songs contain nine Serbian songs, of which the most precious are "Ninja sili nebesnije" and "Vkusite i vidite", because both had a signature of the author "Tvorenije domestika kir Stefana Srbina". Psaltikija was written in late Byzantine neumska notation with church Slavic and Greek text. Of interest is that it offers theoretic interpretations in addition to melody — papadiku with old Slavic music terminology. Instructions are mainly related to the pace (the speed) and dynamics (strength, design of music phrase). The margins of this manuscript indicate that it was used by domestic priests and monks, and on one of the pages an admirer of these songs writes: "Blissful is the man that wrote this divine book". Even though the existence of P
