From 1921 he was a conductor in the Orchestra of the Royal Guard and an officer of the Ministry of the Military where he was successful in improving the material status of army musicians.
Also he left several orchestral pieces composed in 1909–11 (e.g. Serenade, Romance, Ouverture The Death of Jugović’s Mother) and one four-mouvement symphonic suite from 1921.
This fact caused him to become close to the spiritual climate which denoted early expressionist impulses in Serbian literature around World War I.
His musical art is rooted in late Romantic tradition of the German type, including the elements of the same but younger, Modernistic heritage.
Composer omitted choruses and ensembles, and based the structure on dialogues and monologues, carefully organised leitmotiv and a densely symphonic orchestral texture, with the harmonic language closest to Der fliegende Holläder.
Composer writes his own programme discourse and turned himself to the philosophical topics of his other works, that he kept returning to, thinking about destiny, alienation, love and peace under the general umbrella of nature.
Paunović creates a type of non-standard, three-part symphonic cycle with the final movement signed by the folk character the dance kolo.
Like Mahler, he uses stereotypical illustrative elements (imitations of the cuckoo) in his first symphony and turns these into abstract musical material that is given the role of a monothematic nucleus, incorporating it thus into the very structure of the work.