Page 220 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2023. Glasbena društva v dolgem 19. stoletju: med ljubiteljsko in profesionalno kulturo ▪︎ Music societies in the long 19th century: Between amateur and professional culture. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 6
P. 220
glasbena društva v dolgem 19. stoletju: med ljubiteljsko in profesionalno kulturo
as 1702. Wherefrom the seemingly different (reinforced) self-understand-
ing of the authors of the Society’s Statutes in 1849 of the Society’s continu-
ing longevity? Where and who-by was the ‘interpolation’ on the year 1702
and how solid were the potential sources upon which the claim about the
year 1702 in 1849 was made? Or, was it a mere coincidence that the claim
to 1702 as the founding year of the Society was added in the year 1849 and
then remained part of the standard formulation and historic self-identity
ever since?
The second quote is taken from the most prominent history of Vien-
na Philharmonic, Demokratie der Könige, in which Clemens Hellsberg in-
sightfully and with all the necessary authority demonstrated that contrary
not only to the prevailing public opinion at time,10 but to the tacit suppo-
sition even in the historiography on the orchestra written afterwards,11 the
Vienna Philharmonic had not become an association in the eye of the law
the self-referential remark, that they were a mere Nachdruck from the 1802 version)
from the Bildarchiv und Grafiksammlung of the Österreichsiche Nationalbibliothek
in Vienna (Statuten der Philharmonischen Gesellscahft in Laibach. Neu gedruckt im
Jahre 1817. Laibach: Joseph Sassenberg). Sig. 38317–B. In the small booklet, a copy
of a letter by Ludwig van Beethoven to the Philharmonic Society from 4 May 1819,
thanking the Society for having elected him as its honorary member, is inserted (An
die Philharmonische Gesellschaft in Laibach). A further find not known to me be-
fore in such an elaborate form, were the Statues from 1854 in the Austrian State Ar-
chives. With its sumptuous deep red cover pages, inserted in a larger dossier, they
contain the documents, needed for the successful application for the prolonging the
Society’s legal life after the adoption of the Associations’ Act in 1852. The inner page
of the last cover page contains the signature of the Minister of the Interior at the
time, of Alexander von Bach himself, whereby the Society’s application was official-
ly granted. Cf. picture 1. In the literature, the authors also refer to the Statues from
1794 and 1796, as if the full text were readily available, but with no direct citation.
Cf. Kuret, Ljubljanska filharmonična družba, 23–7. Given the tragic fact of the loss of
the Society’s Archives through skartierung, the most detailed and the oldest surviv-
ing description of the Statutes from 1796, with the title Statuten der musikalischen
Gesellschaft zu Laibach. Gedruckt bei Johann Friedrich Eger. Laibach 1796) already
in printed version, remains to my knowledge the one by Society’s historian Frie-
drich Keesbacher, Die Philharmonische Gesellschaft in Laibach seit dem Jahre ihr
er Gründung 1702 bis zu ihrer letzten Umgestaltung 1862. Eine geschichtliche Skizze
(Laibach: Kleinmayr und Bamberg, 1862), 15, http://www.dlib.si/?URN=URN:N-
BN:SI:DOC-RE4KNLTL.
10 A prevailing common supposition of the period among the public, very nicely re-
flected in the wording of the testament of Rudolf Putz. HA/Wph, A-Pr-015-44/3 (Ru-
dolf Putz setzt testamentarisch die Gesellschaft der WPh zu seiner Erbin). Cf. Hells-
berg, Demokratie, 368.
11 For a more recent history on the Orchestra, where the author never questions the or-
ganisational form under the name Gesellschaft, though he does mention the 1908 as
the year of its formal inception as such, cf. Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz, A sound
218
as 1702. Wherefrom the seemingly different (reinforced) self-understand-
ing of the authors of the Society’s Statutes in 1849 of the Society’s continu-
ing longevity? Where and who-by was the ‘interpolation’ on the year 1702
and how solid were the potential sources upon which the claim about the
year 1702 in 1849 was made? Or, was it a mere coincidence that the claim
to 1702 as the founding year of the Society was added in the year 1849 and
then remained part of the standard formulation and historic self-identity
ever since?
The second quote is taken from the most prominent history of Vien-
na Philharmonic, Demokratie der Könige, in which Clemens Hellsberg in-
sightfully and with all the necessary authority demonstrated that contrary
not only to the prevailing public opinion at time,10 but to the tacit suppo-
sition even in the historiography on the orchestra written afterwards,11 the
Vienna Philharmonic had not become an association in the eye of the law
the self-referential remark, that they were a mere Nachdruck from the 1802 version)
from the Bildarchiv und Grafiksammlung of the Österreichsiche Nationalbibliothek
in Vienna (Statuten der Philharmonischen Gesellscahft in Laibach. Neu gedruckt im
Jahre 1817. Laibach: Joseph Sassenberg). Sig. 38317–B. In the small booklet, a copy
of a letter by Ludwig van Beethoven to the Philharmonic Society from 4 May 1819,
thanking the Society for having elected him as its honorary member, is inserted (An
die Philharmonische Gesellschaft in Laibach). A further find not known to me be-
fore in such an elaborate form, were the Statues from 1854 in the Austrian State Ar-
chives. With its sumptuous deep red cover pages, inserted in a larger dossier, they
contain the documents, needed for the successful application for the prolonging the
Society’s legal life after the adoption of the Associations’ Act in 1852. The inner page
of the last cover page contains the signature of the Minister of the Interior at the
time, of Alexander von Bach himself, whereby the Society’s application was official-
ly granted. Cf. picture 1. In the literature, the authors also refer to the Statues from
1794 and 1796, as if the full text were readily available, but with no direct citation.
Cf. Kuret, Ljubljanska filharmonična družba, 23–7. Given the tragic fact of the loss of
the Society’s Archives through skartierung, the most detailed and the oldest surviv-
ing description of the Statutes from 1796, with the title Statuten der musikalischen
Gesellschaft zu Laibach. Gedruckt bei Johann Friedrich Eger. Laibach 1796) already
in printed version, remains to my knowledge the one by Society’s historian Frie-
drich Keesbacher, Die Philharmonische Gesellschaft in Laibach seit dem Jahre ihr
er Gründung 1702 bis zu ihrer letzten Umgestaltung 1862. Eine geschichtliche Skizze
(Laibach: Kleinmayr und Bamberg, 1862), 15, http://www.dlib.si/?URN=URN:N-
BN:SI:DOC-RE4KNLTL.
10 A prevailing common supposition of the period among the public, very nicely re-
flected in the wording of the testament of Rudolf Putz. HA/Wph, A-Pr-015-44/3 (Ru-
dolf Putz setzt testamentarisch die Gesellschaft der WPh zu seiner Erbin). Cf. Hells-
berg, Demokratie, 368.
11 For a more recent history on the Orchestra, where the author never questions the or-
ganisational form under the name Gesellschaft, though he does mention the 1908 as
the year of its formal inception as such, cf. Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz, A sound
218
