Page 19 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2024. Glasbena kritika – nekoč in danes ▪︎ Music Criticism – Yesterday and Today. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 7
P. 19
music criticism – yesterday and today
in Ireland at three distinct points in its history. It focuses on the emergence
of Irish music criticism in the mid-nineteenth century; on music criticism
in the latter part of the twentieth century, a period marked above all by
the critical activity of the aforementioned Charles Acton; and on the im-
pact of the digital revolution on music criticism in the twenty-first centu-
ry. Dr Lucija Konfic of the Department for the History of Croatian Music at
the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts presents an extremely rich pic-
ture of music criticism in the local press of the Croatian city of Karlovac in
the nineteenth century, a subject that has not previously been researched.
The final contribution from the highly diverse range of foreign authors that
characterises Studia musicologica Labacensia is an article jointly written by
Luba Kyanovska, a professor at the University of Lviv, and Lidiya Melnyk,
an academic associate at the University of Vienna’s Institute of Musicolo-
gy. The article is an attempt at a theoretical discussion of music criticism
and music journalism from the point of view of general theories of media,
theories of journalism and journalistic activity. In it, the authors illustrate
various strategies in music journalism and, on the basis of the predomi-
nant characteristics of an individual style, formulate an original typolo-
gy of music critical writing (with categories named after Hanslick, Rellstab
and Beckmesser).
A profoundly analytical approach to research also characterises the
papers by the four Slovene authors whose articles have been chosen for pub-
lication in the present collection. The first of these comes from Darja Kot-
er, a professor at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana and one of the leading
connoisseurs of Slovenia’s musical past. Her article touches on the criti-
cal endeavours of one of the most influential figures in twentieth-centu-
ry Slovene music, Lucijan Marija Škerjanc, whose critical writings spanned
his entire life from his secondary school years right up until his death and
appeared in practically every Slovene magazine and newspaper of signif-
icance from the point of view of music journalism. With more than 700
published pieces to his name, Škerjanc was one of the most prolific Slovene
music journalists of the twentieth century. The article focuses in particu-
lar on Škerjanc’s pre-war music criticism in the daily newspaper Jutro. Next
comes an article by the editor of the present publication dedicated to one of
the rare public attempts at imposing discipline on Slovene music criticism
in the new cultural and political reality that followed the Second World
War. Elements of the ruling cultural circle used the “incident in the Union
Hall” that occurred at the premiere performance of Matija Tomc’s cantata
19
in Ireland at three distinct points in its history. It focuses on the emergence
of Irish music criticism in the mid-nineteenth century; on music criticism
in the latter part of the twentieth century, a period marked above all by
the critical activity of the aforementioned Charles Acton; and on the im-
pact of the digital revolution on music criticism in the twenty-first centu-
ry. Dr Lucija Konfic of the Department for the History of Croatian Music at
the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts presents an extremely rich pic-
ture of music criticism in the local press of the Croatian city of Karlovac in
the nineteenth century, a subject that has not previously been researched.
The final contribution from the highly diverse range of foreign authors that
characterises Studia musicologica Labacensia is an article jointly written by
Luba Kyanovska, a professor at the University of Lviv, and Lidiya Melnyk,
an academic associate at the University of Vienna’s Institute of Musicolo-
gy. The article is an attempt at a theoretical discussion of music criticism
and music journalism from the point of view of general theories of media,
theories of journalism and journalistic activity. In it, the authors illustrate
various strategies in music journalism and, on the basis of the predomi-
nant characteristics of an individual style, formulate an original typolo-
gy of music critical writing (with categories named after Hanslick, Rellstab
and Beckmesser).
A profoundly analytical approach to research also characterises the
papers by the four Slovene authors whose articles have been chosen for pub-
lication in the present collection. The first of these comes from Darja Kot-
er, a professor at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana and one of the leading
connoisseurs of Slovenia’s musical past. Her article touches on the criti-
cal endeavours of one of the most influential figures in twentieth-centu-
ry Slovene music, Lucijan Marija Škerjanc, whose critical writings spanned
his entire life from his secondary school years right up until his death and
appeared in practically every Slovene magazine and newspaper of signif-
icance from the point of view of music journalism. With more than 700
published pieces to his name, Škerjanc was one of the most prolific Slovene
music journalists of the twentieth century. The article focuses in particu-
lar on Škerjanc’s pre-war music criticism in the daily newspaper Jutro. Next
comes an article by the editor of the present publication dedicated to one of
the rare public attempts at imposing discipline on Slovene music criticism
in the new cultural and political reality that followed the Second World
War. Elements of the ruling cultural circle used the “incident in the Union
Hall” that occurred at the premiere performance of Matija Tomc’s cantata
19
