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Skladateljska društva nekoč in danes | Composers’ Societies Past and Present
ing with Vatroslav Lisinski, and publishing new statutes. These defined
the society’s purpose as “to promote and develop the art of music throughout
the homeland in general and to awaken a love for this art, with special regard
56
for the character of South Slavic music”. This clearly reflected a desire to re-
organise and establish the Zagreb Music Institute as a national conservato-
ry. However, perhaps more decisive was the financial crisis of 1848, which
brought the Music Institute to the brink of dissolution. Ladislav Šaban iden-
tified the causes of the financial crisis as a decrease in the number of mem-
bers and a decline in their financial capacity – including among the society’s
57
most generous patrons (such as Haulik). In an effort to improve the situ-
ation, the Institute’s leadership took specific action at the highest levels. In
1848, the then-president of the Institute, Bishop Ivan Kralj (1792–1878, pres-
ident from 1847 to 1854), petitioned the Ban’s Council for the integration of
the Institute’s music school with the organ class of the teacher’s school. In
1849, he further appealed for the inclusion of the Institute within the frame-
work of the highest national educational and cultural institutions (such as
the museum, the Matrix croatica, library, theatre, and opera). At the invita-
tion of the Ban’s Council, a plan was drawn up to organise the Institute as
a conservatory, modelled on the Prague Conservatory. Although Ban Josip
Jelačić, who personally favoured the proposal, supported the idea, he was ul-
timately forced to reject it due to a lack of funds in the state treasury. Moreo-
ver, the immediate political circumstances – namely, the introduction of ab-
solutism – temporarily postponed the full realisation of these plans.
Although earlier literature often portrayed the 1850s as a period of
near-total interruption in concert life in Croatia – largely due to the ab-
sence of comprehensive research into concert activities and repertoire –
more recent studies (e.g. Kos, Miklaušić-Ćeran) emphasise the continuity
of musical practice during this decade. With regard to civic associations
58
in the field of musical art, the 1850s saw the emergence of male vocal en-
sembles known as Liedertafeln. These included the Warasdiner Männerg-

56 Pravila Družtva prijateljah muzike u Zagrebu [Rules of the Society of Friends of Mu-
sic in Zagreb] (Zagreb: Berzotiskom narodne tiskarnice dra Ljudevita Gaja, 1852), 1.
57 Šaban, 150 godina Hrvatskog glazbenog zavoda, 71–3.
58 Koraljka Kos, “Hrvatska glazba u razdoblju romantizma,” in Hrvatska i Europa: kul-
tura, znanost i umjetnost. Sv. IV: Moderna hrvatska kultura od preporoda do mo-
der ne (XIX. stoljeće) [Croatia and Europe: Culture, Science and Art. Vol. IV: Mod-
ern Croatian Culture from the Revival to Modernity (19 century)], ed. Mislav Ježić
th
(Zagreb: Školska knjiga, 2006), 633–47; Snježana Miklaušić-Ćeran, “Odrazi koncert-
noga života Zagreba između 1826. i 1858. u zagrebačkim novinama i časopisima”
(PhD thesis, Muzička akademija Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, 2012).

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