Page 156 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2025. Glasbena interpretacija: med umetniškim in znanstvenim┊Music Interpretation: Between the Artistic and the Scientific. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 8

glasbena interpretacija ... | music interpretation ...
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a decade earlier. The newspaper Jutro marked the occasion by publishing
an interview with Matačić, in which he reveals his views on repertoire pol-
icy and the achievements of the musical avant-garde in Yugoslavia at that
time. He was content, he said, that the Ljubljana Philharmonic had proved
itself to be well-disposed towards modernism, since he himself was drawn
to contemporary works. He also described his own attitude to new works
and his awareness of the danger of excessive commitment to a particular
style and specific composers:

Reproductive artists do not have the right to prejudice the question of
whether something is good or not. . . . I am no friend of anything that
leads to unidirectionality . . . beauty lies in discovering the new. 30

The programme of Matačić’s second concert with the Ljubljana Phil-
harmonic in November 1938 included Bach’s Passacaglia, Mozart’s Sym-
phony No. 40 and Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky, as well
as the premiere performance of the symphonic poem Dance of the Witch-
es and two movements of the symphony Duma – both works by Blaž Arnič
(1901–1970), a Slovene composer of symphonic works in a late Romantic
style. Critics particularly praised the performances of the Mussorgsky and
Arnič works and highlighted Matačić’s close familiarity with the scores and
his Slav temperament as factors contributing to his convincing interpreta-
31
tion. Matačić’s attraction to Arnič’s work can perhaps be explained by the
music’s highly expressive, narrative and mystical qualities – all of which
spoke directly to Matačić and stimulated his visual, symbolic perceptions.
He concluded his interwar activities in Ljubljana in November 1940 with
a concert by the Belgrade Philharmonic. On this occasion, too, he per-
32
formed works by Yugoslav composers and also Beethoven’s Third Sym-
phony (“Eroica”), for what was only the second time, although it later be-
came one of the signature works of his repertoire, just like Bruckner’s Third
Symphony, which he performed for the first time in Ljubljana at his very
first symphonic concert – at the Union Hall in November 1922 with the or-
chestra of the Union of Musicians.
29 Urška Šramel Vučina, “Ljubljanska filharmonija,” Muzikološki zbornik 44, No. 2
(2008): 54–5, https://journals.uni-lj.si/MuzikoloskiZbornik/article/view/3113/2830.
30 Anon., “Lovro Matačić pripoveduje …,” Jutro 16, No. 250 (27 October 1935): 5,
http://www.dlib.si/?URN=URN:NBN:SI:DOC-NP6LNRSC.
31 Dr. B., “Koncert Ljubljanske filharmonije,” Jutro 19, No. 239 (1 December 1938): 11,
http://www.dlib.si/?URN=URN:NBN:SI:DOC-JRBBN50B.
32 Košir, Kuret, Bedjanič, Lovro Matačić v Sloveniji, 76–7.

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