Page 229 - 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
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“a cr itique of cr iticism”: an attempt to outline “mor e appropr iate” ...
as publications, and with them also music criticism, failed to reach the lev-
el they had attained at the beginning of the century.7
The decline of church music after the Second World War
Alongside operetta and jazz, the most marginalised musical genre was,
without a doubt, church music, which before the Second World War had
enjoyed what could even be called a dominant role in Slovenia. As part of
the bourgeois tradition of the recent past, church music had already seen
its presence in Slovenia greatly limited by the dissolution of the Glasbe-
na Matica, the principal Slovenian music society at the turn of the 19th to
the 20th century. Contributing to its almost total marginalisation in the
most oppressive Agitprop years immediately after the end of the Second
World War were the abolition of what was then the country’s only school of
church music – the Organ School in Ljubljana – and the closure of the old-
est music periodical in the Slovenian language, Cerkveni glasbenik (“The
Church Musician”).8 Performing artists also only exceptionally performed
church compositions. Among notable such events we find a concert in sup-
port of the Red Cross held on 4 November 1946, when the violinist Zlatko
Baloković played Schubert’s Ave Maria as a supplement; Ode on St. Cecil-
ia‘s Day 1692 by Purcell, played by the Ljubljana Radio Orchestra at the con-
cert on 11 February 1947, conducted by Alan Bush at the Union Hall; a con-
cert dedicated to J. S. Bach on 30 March 1950, where the conductor Danilo
Švara performed two of the composer’s airs with the Academy of Music or-
chestra (one was from St. Matthew Passion), and solemn concerts dedicated
to Jacobus Handl Gallus, held from 7 to 12 November 1950, where the some
of his motets were performed.9
Evidence that the presence not only of church music but, more broad-
ly, of a Catholic mentality was indeed undesirable in public life is provid-
7 For example, the editorial board of one of the central music magazines of the time,
Naši zbori (“Our Choirs”) was deeply concerned about the state of Slovenian mu-
sic culture after the Second World War, as neither the production nor the quality of
p ost-war choral creativity reached the pre-war level. Two of the main composers at
the time, Karol Pahor and Janko Ravnik, saw the causes of this in the lack of com-
positional training and the shift towards instrumental music. However, it seems li-
kely that the causes may also lie in the ideological exposure of the genre in question,
which is most unambiguous in the text. Karol Pahor, “Kriza v naši zborovski glasbi,”
Naši zbori 7, no. 3 (1952): 6–8. See also: Janko Ravnik, “Še nekaj besed o krizi v zbo-
rovski glasbi,” Naši zbori 8, no. 1–2 (1953): 2–3.
8 The Church Musician began to be published again only in 1976.
9 Stefanija, “Totalitarnost režima in glasba,” 140.
229
as publications, and with them also music criticism, failed to reach the lev-
el they had attained at the beginning of the century.7
The decline of church music after the Second World War
Alongside operetta and jazz, the most marginalised musical genre was,
without a doubt, church music, which before the Second World War had
enjoyed what could even be called a dominant role in Slovenia. As part of
the bourgeois tradition of the recent past, church music had already seen
its presence in Slovenia greatly limited by the dissolution of the Glasbe-
na Matica, the principal Slovenian music society at the turn of the 19th to
the 20th century. Contributing to its almost total marginalisation in the
most oppressive Agitprop years immediately after the end of the Second
World War were the abolition of what was then the country’s only school of
church music – the Organ School in Ljubljana – and the closure of the old-
est music periodical in the Slovenian language, Cerkveni glasbenik (“The
Church Musician”).8 Performing artists also only exceptionally performed
church compositions. Among notable such events we find a concert in sup-
port of the Red Cross held on 4 November 1946, when the violinist Zlatko
Baloković played Schubert’s Ave Maria as a supplement; Ode on St. Cecil-
ia‘s Day 1692 by Purcell, played by the Ljubljana Radio Orchestra at the con-
cert on 11 February 1947, conducted by Alan Bush at the Union Hall; a con-
cert dedicated to J. S. Bach on 30 March 1950, where the conductor Danilo
Švara performed two of the composer’s airs with the Academy of Music or-
chestra (one was from St. Matthew Passion), and solemn concerts dedicated
to Jacobus Handl Gallus, held from 7 to 12 November 1950, where the some
of his motets were performed.9
Evidence that the presence not only of church music but, more broad-
ly, of a Catholic mentality was indeed undesirable in public life is provid-
7 For example, the editorial board of one of the central music magazines of the time,
Naši zbori (“Our Choirs”) was deeply concerned about the state of Slovenian mu-
sic culture after the Second World War, as neither the production nor the quality of
p ost-war choral creativity reached the pre-war level. Two of the main composers at
the time, Karol Pahor and Janko Ravnik, saw the causes of this in the lack of com-
positional training and the shift towards instrumental music. However, it seems li-
kely that the causes may also lie in the ideological exposure of the genre in question,
which is most unambiguous in the text. Karol Pahor, “Kriza v naši zborovski glasbi,”
Naši zbori 7, no. 3 (1952): 6–8. See also: Janko Ravnik, “Še nekaj besed o krizi v zbo-
rovski glasbi,” Naši zbori 8, no. 1–2 (1953): 2–3.
8 The Church Musician began to be published again only in 1976.
9 Stefanija, “Totalitarnost režima in glasba,” 140.
229
