Page 246 - 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
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glasbena društva v dolgem 19. stoletju: med ljubiteljsko in profesionalno kulturo
inducements from his wife and from his colleague Matej Hubad76 to leave
Vienna for Ljubljana together with his family for good. There was little
doubt in Hellsberg’s mind that that must have been so.77 However, for the
purpose of our topic, in my final remarks on Jeraj, I would like to adhere to
a perspective of an association’s long-standing member. His chilling expe-
rience reminds us that not only are the associations as small-scale commu-
nities with their respective common goals and self-management, spaces for
the realisation of committed individuals, under general conditions free to
join and especially free to leave. For those among them, with different out-
looks on the matters and free-spoken, they can also present an environ-
ment of damming Gleichschaltung.
All in all, I would like to nevertheless argue, that even though nev-
er concertmaster of Vienna Philharmonic,78 something that in the Slove-
nian literature took deep roots for reasons yet to be researched, Karel Jer-
aj with his talent, commitment, spirit, vision and hard relentless work to
organise and steer the Orkestralno društvo in pursuit of the grand phil-
harmonic idea in less than grand circumstances in post-1918 Ljubljana,
cannot better exemplify the metaphoric description of an association by
Rudolf Andrejka. In his short but valuable work on the nature of associa-
tions published in 1928, Rudolf Andrejka, professor of administrative law
at the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Law and a former high official in
the Austrian Administration, certainly also a member of Slovenian elite in
Vienna before the break-up of the Monarchy, contributed a succinct met-
aphor. I have introduced it as the last of the five initial quotations, but it is
worth repeating it by way of reconnecting to the profound idea behind it.
Andrejka maintained that an association could be viewed upon in fact as
“a reinforced person.”79
76 Vida Jeraj, Večerna sonata (Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1992), 38. Cf. also her draft
for it, preserved in NUK, Music Collection, Kronika (Vida Jeraj).
77 Hellsberg, Demokratie, 387. Only Jeraj, did not return to Prag, but to Ljubljana.
78 For the obvious archival data to the contrary, cf. supra Picture 4 (Namenliste), where
his signature is among the II violinen and not only for the saison 1901, but also for all
the subsequent ones.
79 In the past three years, more and more details about Jeraj have come to life, thanks
to the rich and rewarding collaboration with Jernej Weiss and Klemen Hvala, and
together with our Viennese colleagues, the above-mentioned Silvia Kargl, Raimund
Lissy and Clemens Hellsberg. To honour Jeraj’s work not only as a dedicated member
of several music associations in Vienna and Ljubljana, in the roles of a violinist or a
conductor, but also as a composer, in the scope of the 35th Edition of Slovenian Mu-
sic days, Jernej Weiss decided to dedicate the accompanying concert to his memory.
Together with Klemen Hvala, a cellist and founder of the ensemble Dissonance, they
244
inducements from his wife and from his colleague Matej Hubad76 to leave
Vienna for Ljubljana together with his family for good. There was little
doubt in Hellsberg’s mind that that must have been so.77 However, for the
purpose of our topic, in my final remarks on Jeraj, I would like to adhere to
a perspective of an association’s long-standing member. His chilling expe-
rience reminds us that not only are the associations as small-scale commu-
nities with their respective common goals and self-management, spaces for
the realisation of committed individuals, under general conditions free to
join and especially free to leave. For those among them, with different out-
looks on the matters and free-spoken, they can also present an environ-
ment of damming Gleichschaltung.
All in all, I would like to nevertheless argue, that even though nev-
er concertmaster of Vienna Philharmonic,78 something that in the Slove-
nian literature took deep roots for reasons yet to be researched, Karel Jer-
aj with his talent, commitment, spirit, vision and hard relentless work to
organise and steer the Orkestralno društvo in pursuit of the grand phil-
harmonic idea in less than grand circumstances in post-1918 Ljubljana,
cannot better exemplify the metaphoric description of an association by
Rudolf Andrejka. In his short but valuable work on the nature of associa-
tions published in 1928, Rudolf Andrejka, professor of administrative law
at the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Law and a former high official in
the Austrian Administration, certainly also a member of Slovenian elite in
Vienna before the break-up of the Monarchy, contributed a succinct met-
aphor. I have introduced it as the last of the five initial quotations, but it is
worth repeating it by way of reconnecting to the profound idea behind it.
Andrejka maintained that an association could be viewed upon in fact as
“a reinforced person.”79
76 Vida Jeraj, Večerna sonata (Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1992), 38. Cf. also her draft
for it, preserved in NUK, Music Collection, Kronika (Vida Jeraj).
77 Hellsberg, Demokratie, 387. Only Jeraj, did not return to Prag, but to Ljubljana.
78 For the obvious archival data to the contrary, cf. supra Picture 4 (Namenliste), where
his signature is among the II violinen and not only for the saison 1901, but also for all
the subsequent ones.
79 In the past three years, more and more details about Jeraj have come to life, thanks
to the rich and rewarding collaboration with Jernej Weiss and Klemen Hvala, and
together with our Viennese colleagues, the above-mentioned Silvia Kargl, Raimund
Lissy and Clemens Hellsberg. To honour Jeraj’s work not only as a dedicated member
of several music associations in Vienna and Ljubljana, in the roles of a violinist or a
conductor, but also as a composer, in the scope of the 35th Edition of Slovenian Mu-
sic days, Jernej Weiss decided to dedicate the accompanying concert to his memory.
Together with Klemen Hvala, a cellist and founder of the ensemble Dissonance, they
244
