Page 228 - 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. 228
glasbena društva v dolgem 19. stoletju: med ljubiteljsko in profesionalno kulturo
for example, a medieval organisational form under such a name (collegia or
corpora) that matched the above five basic traits.
All that said, there cannot be much doubt, that the direct predecessors
of the music associations post 1867 in the Habsburg Empire – many with
an unbroken continuity, albeit in the following decades slowly transformed
– are clearly those founded in more or less two decades around the turn of
the 18th century.32 In the standard work on Austrian Music History, Gernot
Gruber summed them under the name of Musikvereine. Still largely associ-
ations of nobles and citizenry of higher status, their common traits accord-
ing to Gruber were the division of their respective membership into musi
zierende and zuhörende, and the founding of Conservatories, albeit their
respective orchestras continued to consist of amateurs (Dilettanten).33
After having explained the key statutory change in 1867 and intro-
duced the basic traits of the notion of ‘association’ in theory of the time in
the shortage of any overreaching statutory definition, I will now turn to the
five cases, introduced in the beginning.
My first one tentatively touches on the history of the Philharmonic
Society in Ljubljana, or more to the point, to the history of its identity and
self-perception. In the scientific literature the Society is not only widely ac-
cepted as the first of its kind among the above-mentioned Musikvereine,34
with its formal year of founding being 1794, also its alleged self-perception
shares the same status.35
However, my reading of the preserved Philharmonic Society’s Statutes
led me to the question, why are the first Society’s Statutes that in fact in
their opening article on the aim of the Society refer to the year 1702 those
from 1849? I have introduced it in my first quotation at the very beginning.
Why is it that the Society’s Statutes from 1801, which on its cover page con-
tain a self-reference to 1794 (Nach den Statuten vom Jahre 1794. umgearbe
itet, und festgesetzt im Jahre 1801.) do not? Further, if Friedrich Keesbacher
32 Cf. for example archival material on the music society in Gorica/Goriza/Görtz.
AT-OeStA/AVA, Inneres Mdl Allgemein A188.17 Philharmonischer-Verein Görz,
1855.
33 Rudolf Flotzinger and Gernot Gruber, eds., Musikgeschichte Österreichs. Band 2
(Vom Barrock zum Vormärz), 2. überarbeitete und stark erweiterte Auflage (Wien,
Köln, Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 1995), 203.
34 Ibid.
35 Gernot Gruber cursory refers to the Society’s self-perception as spanning back to the
year 1701. Ibid.
226
for example, a medieval organisational form under such a name (collegia or
corpora) that matched the above five basic traits.
All that said, there cannot be much doubt, that the direct predecessors
of the music associations post 1867 in the Habsburg Empire – many with
an unbroken continuity, albeit in the following decades slowly transformed
– are clearly those founded in more or less two decades around the turn of
the 18th century.32 In the standard work on Austrian Music History, Gernot
Gruber summed them under the name of Musikvereine. Still largely associ-
ations of nobles and citizenry of higher status, their common traits accord-
ing to Gruber were the division of their respective membership into musi
zierende and zuhörende, and the founding of Conservatories, albeit their
respective orchestras continued to consist of amateurs (Dilettanten).33
After having explained the key statutory change in 1867 and intro-
duced the basic traits of the notion of ‘association’ in theory of the time in
the shortage of any overreaching statutory definition, I will now turn to the
five cases, introduced in the beginning.
My first one tentatively touches on the history of the Philharmonic
Society in Ljubljana, or more to the point, to the history of its identity and
self-perception. In the scientific literature the Society is not only widely ac-
cepted as the first of its kind among the above-mentioned Musikvereine,34
with its formal year of founding being 1794, also its alleged self-perception
shares the same status.35
However, my reading of the preserved Philharmonic Society’s Statutes
led me to the question, why are the first Society’s Statutes that in fact in
their opening article on the aim of the Society refer to the year 1702 those
from 1849? I have introduced it in my first quotation at the very beginning.
Why is it that the Society’s Statutes from 1801, which on its cover page con-
tain a self-reference to 1794 (Nach den Statuten vom Jahre 1794. umgearbe
itet, und festgesetzt im Jahre 1801.) do not? Further, if Friedrich Keesbacher
32 Cf. for example archival material on the music society in Gorica/Goriza/Görtz.
AT-OeStA/AVA, Inneres Mdl Allgemein A188.17 Philharmonischer-Verein Görz,
1855.
33 Rudolf Flotzinger and Gernot Gruber, eds., Musikgeschichte Österreichs. Band 2
(Vom Barrock zum Vormärz), 2. überarbeitete und stark erweiterte Auflage (Wien,
Köln, Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 1995), 203.
34 Ibid.
35 Gernot Gruber cursory refers to the Society’s self-perception as spanning back to the
year 1701. Ibid.
226
