Page 220 - 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. 220
glasbena kritika – nekoč in danes | music criticism – yesterday and today
[T]hese are songs that can give the listener a fairly good idea of the cal-
ibre of art music in this English-speaking nation, which is currently at
about the same level that Volarič, Foerster, etc., were at in this country
some time ago, only that the songs are more refined and have a better
technical foundation. Light melodies that are easy to understand and
somewhat banal and cheap, harmonies that are unoriginal and unexcit-
ing: the prototype of placid, pre-war bourgeois life. [...] In this country
we are indeed already far beyond this type of sentimentality.21
Let us now look at Škerjanc’s comment on a concert evening dedicated
to the chamber music of Slavko Osterc, which Škerjanc considered, in the
first place, a courageous act, since this type of public exposure was not yet
common among Slovene composers:
In this regard, Slavko Osterc has taken the courageous step forward
from conventionality and it is to be hoped that his example (of which I
would like to see a continuation) will also encourage others.22
He was also full of praise for Osterc’s compositions and the perfor-
mances of the young musicians, writing:
His Štiri šaljivke [“Four humorous songs”] for voice and two clarinets
are successful little compositions in which Osterc’s special talent for the
grotesque and caricature, something we have already seen in his one-
act Iz komične opere [“From the comic opera”], is particularly evident.
The most successful part of the evening was the cycle of four settings of
poems by Gradnik for voice and string quartet. This combination (mas-
terfully presented in recent times by A. Schoenberg) is a particularly fe-
licitous one, in that the voice takes on much more warmth than when
accompanied by the piano. The compositions themselves represent for
me the highlight of the evening and of Osterc’s oeuvre to date, at least
that part of it with which I am familiar. The composer has found here a
technique that combines theoretical advances with depth and warmth
of expression – two elements which Osterc (perhaps deliberately) is oth-
erwise eliminating from his composition.23
Having completed the secondary level at the Prague Conservatoire,
Slavko Osterc was in this period already working as a teacher at the State
21 L. M. Š., “Koncert ge. Pavle Lovšetove v Ljubljani,” Jutro 10, no. 108 (10 May 1929): 5,
http://www.dlib.si/?URN=URN:NBN:SI:doc-UKI7KJWM.
22 L. M. Š., “Osterčev komorni večer v Ljubljani,” Jutro 11, no. 35 (12 February 1930): 3,
http://www.dlib.si/?URN=URN:NBN:SI:doc-QYD9MKTT.
23 Ibid.
220
[T]hese are songs that can give the listener a fairly good idea of the cal-
ibre of art music in this English-speaking nation, which is currently at
about the same level that Volarič, Foerster, etc., were at in this country
some time ago, only that the songs are more refined and have a better
technical foundation. Light melodies that are easy to understand and
somewhat banal and cheap, harmonies that are unoriginal and unexcit-
ing: the prototype of placid, pre-war bourgeois life. [...] In this country
we are indeed already far beyond this type of sentimentality.21
Let us now look at Škerjanc’s comment on a concert evening dedicated
to the chamber music of Slavko Osterc, which Škerjanc considered, in the
first place, a courageous act, since this type of public exposure was not yet
common among Slovene composers:
In this regard, Slavko Osterc has taken the courageous step forward
from conventionality and it is to be hoped that his example (of which I
would like to see a continuation) will also encourage others.22
He was also full of praise for Osterc’s compositions and the perfor-
mances of the young musicians, writing:
His Štiri šaljivke [“Four humorous songs”] for voice and two clarinets
are successful little compositions in which Osterc’s special talent for the
grotesque and caricature, something we have already seen in his one-
act Iz komične opere [“From the comic opera”], is particularly evident.
The most successful part of the evening was the cycle of four settings of
poems by Gradnik for voice and string quartet. This combination (mas-
terfully presented in recent times by A. Schoenberg) is a particularly fe-
licitous one, in that the voice takes on much more warmth than when
accompanied by the piano. The compositions themselves represent for
me the highlight of the evening and of Osterc’s oeuvre to date, at least
that part of it with which I am familiar. The composer has found here a
technique that combines theoretical advances with depth and warmth
of expression – two elements which Osterc (perhaps deliberately) is oth-
erwise eliminating from his composition.23
Having completed the secondary level at the Prague Conservatoire,
Slavko Osterc was in this period already working as a teacher at the State
21 L. M. Š., “Koncert ge. Pavle Lovšetove v Ljubljani,” Jutro 10, no. 108 (10 May 1929): 5,
http://www.dlib.si/?URN=URN:NBN:SI:doc-UKI7KJWM.
22 L. M. Š., “Osterčev komorni večer v Ljubljani,” Jutro 11, no. 35 (12 February 1930): 3,
http://www.dlib.si/?URN=URN:NBN:SI:doc-QYD9MKTT.
23 Ibid.
220
