Page 232 - 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. 232
glasbena kritika – nekoč in danes | music criticism – yesterday and today
the work, as “no choir, even if it were financially well off, could take an or-
chestra with it on tours to other cities, least of all a student choir.”18
The ten-part poem symbolises the heroic epic of the Slovenian and
Croatian peasant revolts, which reached their tragic culmination with the
“coronation” of Matija Gubec in Zagreb. Gubec was the leader of a peasant
revolt that united Slovenian and Croatian peasants and was violently sup-
pressed in 1573. On 15 February of that year, Gubec was crowned with a red-
hot iron crown in a mock coronation – a gesture intended to ridicule the
rebels – and then quartered like a common brigand in Zagreb’s St Mark’s
Square.
Regarding his chosen form of musical expression, the composer wrote
that he wished to “combine Aškerc’s healthy realism with a form of musical
expression that is modern, but not exaggeratedly so.”19 The work, in fact, con-
tains no radically modern approaches to compositional technique. Tomc
commented as follows:
Surely it would not be a good idea to go back seventy years to the time
when the poem Stara pravda was written, that is to the age of reading
societies. However, it was not appropriate to set a composition intended
for the widest possible audience in the confines of a contemporary ex-
treme – let’s call it atonality.20
From a musical point of view, then, it could not have excited controver-
sy even among the keenest advocates of the popular and simple in music.
Not only that, but in its magnificent choral passages the work is occasion-
ally reminiscent of the mass songs from Partisan celebrations that could
be heard everywhere in that period. The work received numerous plaudits
from Tomc’s fellow composers. Marijan Lipovšek, for example, ranked it
among “by far the most important vocal-instrumental works we have, along-
side Škerjanc and Lajovic.”21
The view of the critics before the concert
How, then, did the critics or journalists of the day view the preparations for
the jubilee concert, in a period that was hardly well-disposed towards the
Catholic cultural community? Before the event, a number of critics (includ-
18 Tomc, Uglasbitev stare pravde.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 Lipovšek, “Koncertna sezona 1955/56,” 15.
232
the work, as “no choir, even if it were financially well off, could take an or-
chestra with it on tours to other cities, least of all a student choir.”18
The ten-part poem symbolises the heroic epic of the Slovenian and
Croatian peasant revolts, which reached their tragic culmination with the
“coronation” of Matija Gubec in Zagreb. Gubec was the leader of a peasant
revolt that united Slovenian and Croatian peasants and was violently sup-
pressed in 1573. On 15 February of that year, Gubec was crowned with a red-
hot iron crown in a mock coronation – a gesture intended to ridicule the
rebels – and then quartered like a common brigand in Zagreb’s St Mark’s
Square.
Regarding his chosen form of musical expression, the composer wrote
that he wished to “combine Aškerc’s healthy realism with a form of musical
expression that is modern, but not exaggeratedly so.”19 The work, in fact, con-
tains no radically modern approaches to compositional technique. Tomc
commented as follows:
Surely it would not be a good idea to go back seventy years to the time
when the poem Stara pravda was written, that is to the age of reading
societies. However, it was not appropriate to set a composition intended
for the widest possible audience in the confines of a contemporary ex-
treme – let’s call it atonality.20
From a musical point of view, then, it could not have excited controver-
sy even among the keenest advocates of the popular and simple in music.
Not only that, but in its magnificent choral passages the work is occasion-
ally reminiscent of the mass songs from Partisan celebrations that could
be heard everywhere in that period. The work received numerous plaudits
from Tomc’s fellow composers. Marijan Lipovšek, for example, ranked it
among “by far the most important vocal-instrumental works we have, along-
side Škerjanc and Lajovic.”21
The view of the critics before the concert
How, then, did the critics or journalists of the day view the preparations for
the jubilee concert, in a period that was hardly well-disposed towards the
Catholic cultural community? Before the event, a number of critics (includ-
18 Tomc, Uglasbitev stare pravde.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 Lipovšek, “Koncertna sezona 1955/56,” 15.
232
