Page 244 - 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. 244
glasbena društva v dolgem 19. stoletju: med ljubiteljsko in profesionalno kulturo
to come to Ljubljana: in order to contribute to the renewal of the Slovenian
Philharmonic (see picture 7).
This begs at least one further research question. Why did Vladimir
Ravnihar in 1921/22 consent to the formal dissolution of the association
of the (first) Slovenian Philharmonic despite both of the driving forc-
es behind the Orkestralno društvo, Karel Jeraj and Ivan Karlin69 clear-
ly envisaged the renewal of the orchestra under the same name as early as
1919? Was Ravnihar perhaps not persuaded that the new orchestra could
ever meet the expectations and hopes he himself cherished back in 1913
by keeping the form of association legally alive after all members of the
orchestra have departed? Have such talks and plans ever taken place? Or
were there much more trivial or even mundane interest-driven reasons for
such a course of events?
After having presented four cases from the legal life of music corpora
from different perspectives, relevant to the organisational form of an asso-
ciation, I would like to conclude with a reversed perspective, i. e. from the
point of view of an association’s member. I will do so by expanding just a
little bit further on lesser-known facts from the life of Karel Jeraj. Omitting
Jeraj’s early couple of years as an employee of the music association par ex
cellence in Ljubljana, i. e. of Glasbena matica,70 and his membership of sev-
eral Slavic music associations in Vienna afterwards, in which in his own
words he took a special pride,71 – something that still awaits further re-
search –, I would like to concentrate on a couple of facts from his life as a
member of the association of Vienna Philharmonic. I would like to thank
Clemens Hellsberg and Raimund Lissy, in their roles as Directors of the
Historical Archives of the Vienna Philharmonic, and above all Silvia Kargl,
the Archives’ spiritus agens, for facilitating me the access. In turn, I thought
it was appropriate to gather and hand over to the Archives the copies of
the sources and literature on Jeraj known to me at the time. They includ-
ed Jeraj’s short and rather humorous Erinnerungen eines Philharmonikers,
known to the wider Slovenian public only in Slovenian, though originally
69 On the very scarce information from the life of Ivan Karlin, Pernuš, Ustanovitev, 19,
f. 34.
70 On the circumstances of his disengagement after only two years compare the min-
utes of the session by the Main Committee from February 14, 1895. Zapisniki odbor-
ovih sej Glasbene Matice v Ljubljani [Minutes of the sessions by the Main Commit-
tee] (from September 30, 1885, until July 1901).
71 Jeraj, “[a short autobiography],” 13.
242
to come to Ljubljana: in order to contribute to the renewal of the Slovenian
Philharmonic (see picture 7).
This begs at least one further research question. Why did Vladimir
Ravnihar in 1921/22 consent to the formal dissolution of the association
of the (first) Slovenian Philharmonic despite both of the driving forc-
es behind the Orkestralno društvo, Karel Jeraj and Ivan Karlin69 clear-
ly envisaged the renewal of the orchestra under the same name as early as
1919? Was Ravnihar perhaps not persuaded that the new orchestra could
ever meet the expectations and hopes he himself cherished back in 1913
by keeping the form of association legally alive after all members of the
orchestra have departed? Have such talks and plans ever taken place? Or
were there much more trivial or even mundane interest-driven reasons for
such a course of events?
After having presented four cases from the legal life of music corpora
from different perspectives, relevant to the organisational form of an asso-
ciation, I would like to conclude with a reversed perspective, i. e. from the
point of view of an association’s member. I will do so by expanding just a
little bit further on lesser-known facts from the life of Karel Jeraj. Omitting
Jeraj’s early couple of years as an employee of the music association par ex
cellence in Ljubljana, i. e. of Glasbena matica,70 and his membership of sev-
eral Slavic music associations in Vienna afterwards, in which in his own
words he took a special pride,71 – something that still awaits further re-
search –, I would like to concentrate on a couple of facts from his life as a
member of the association of Vienna Philharmonic. I would like to thank
Clemens Hellsberg and Raimund Lissy, in their roles as Directors of the
Historical Archives of the Vienna Philharmonic, and above all Silvia Kargl,
the Archives’ spiritus agens, for facilitating me the access. In turn, I thought
it was appropriate to gather and hand over to the Archives the copies of
the sources and literature on Jeraj known to me at the time. They includ-
ed Jeraj’s short and rather humorous Erinnerungen eines Philharmonikers,
known to the wider Slovenian public only in Slovenian, though originally
69 On the very scarce information from the life of Ivan Karlin, Pernuš, Ustanovitev, 19,
f. 34.
70 On the circumstances of his disengagement after only two years compare the min-
utes of the session by the Main Committee from February 14, 1895. Zapisniki odbor-
ovih sej Glasbene Matice v Ljubljani [Minutes of the sessions by the Main Commit-
tee] (from September 30, 1885, until July 1901).
71 Jeraj, “[a short autobiography],” 13.
242
