The most ambitious of all (ten songs), the Fifth Garland (1892, first performed on May 4,1893) is the first high point in Mokranjac’s secular music. Despite the diversity of material it seems quite compact owing to the broadly conceived elaboration of individual songs, thus obtaining thematically homogeneous sections, and variation of stanzas, mostly in gradual progression. Again we have the interweaving of songs (the first two – What Is Stirring There? and Why Did You? – and the last two – O Dear Maiden andCherry-tree). In order to suggest conversation there is a dialogue between soloists (soprano and tenor in the third song Your Horse Is Saddled) or choral groups (the pastoral seventh song In the Forest with nice polyphonic details and a sprightly, thematically rich finale Come, Lass developed into an effective coda). Progression by variation of the choral structure was also used in the fourth song Jela Is Leading which, after the elegiac My Sweetheart Means to Travel, was repeated more vigorously in the sixth - Alas, Stana; in six stanzas the song mounts from a soft unison beginning to a dramatic culmination in the finale, a powerful six-part chorus singing one of the most impressive movements in the Garlands.
V Garland Verses