Isidor Bajić

Who was Isidor Bajić?

Isidor Bajic was a Serbian composer, pedagogue, and publisher.

He was born in Kula. A pupil of Hans von Koessler in Budapest, he taught at the Novi Sad High School, where he founded a music school and initiated the publication of the Serbian Music Magazine and the Serbian Music Library. He was also interested in the melograph. He died at Novi Sad.

His most important work is a romantic national opera Knez Ivo od Semberije, based on folklore, the subject matter being from the Serbian Uprising against the Turks at the beginning of the 19th century. In addition, he wrote a large number of plays and songs, and light operas as well, a symphony Miloš Obilić, an overture Mena, piano pieces, songs with piano, choral music, and music for tamburica bands. Being romantically sentimental, melodically inventive, frequently almost identical with folk music, these works made him extremely popular within the region of his origin in his day.

Also, many poems by Milorad M. Petrović that were set to music by Isidor Bajić became classics in their own right more than a century later.