Page 193 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2026 Skladateljska društva nekoč in danes.../Composers’ Societies Past and Present...

Between Music and Politics: The Role of Composers in Musical Societies …
He served as director and principal conductor of the newly established
opera until 1889, and as director and teacher at the Zagreb Music Insti-
tute until his retirement in 1908. Zajc’s compositional output – over 1,200
works – was both prolific and adapted to the needs of the local music scene.
He wrote operas, operettas, choral works (including dedicatory pieces for
nearly every choral society of the time), songs, instrumental music, and
numerous sacred compositions. Many works were written for pedagogical
purposes.
Although he cannot be compared to Zajc in terms of composition,
Franjo Ksaver Kuhač (1834–1911) also stands out for his overall influence on
97
musical culture and associations. His ideas, rooted in the Illyrian move-
ment, and published in both books and periodicals, profoundly shaped
public discourse about music and musical culture in Croatia during the
second half of the 19 century.
th
By the end of that century and at the turn of the 20 , one more com-
th
98
poser must be mentioned: Franjo Serafin Vilhar-Kalski (1852–1928). He
had been active in Croatia since 1881, serving as director of the Music Insti-
tute in Karlovac (1881–84), choirmaster in Sisak (1884–86), Split (1886–89),
and Gospić (1889–91), and from 1891 onwards as regens chori at St Mark’s
Church in Zagreb. He is regarded as the most prominent Croatian compos-
er of non-Croatian origin at the turn of the century. Vilhar-Kalski com-
posed over 300 works, including solo songs, choral pieces, instrumental
compositions (for piano, string quartet, and orchestra), as well as operas
and operettas. In his compositions, he frequently drew upon elements of
Croatian folk melodies, integrating them into his musical language.

97 Grozdana Marošević and Sanja Majer-Bobetko, “Kuhač, Franjo Ksaver,” in Hrvat-
ski biografski leksikon, online edition, 2013, https://hbl.lzmk.hr/clanak/kuhac-franjo
-ksaver; Vjera Katalinić and Stanislav Tuksar, eds., Franjo Ksaver Kuhač (1834–1911):
glazbena historiografija i identitet / Musical Historiography and Identity (Zagreb:
Croatian Musicological Society, 2013); Jerko Bezić, ed., Zbornik radova sa znanstve-
nog skupa održanog u povodu 150. obljetnice rođenja Franje Ksavera Kuhača (1834–
1911), Zagreb, 20–21. studenoga 1984. (Zagreb: JAZU, Razred za muzičku umjetnost,
Muzikološki zavod Muzičke akademije, 1984).
98 Anon., “Franjo Vilhar,” Sv. Cecilija 6, no. 9 (1912): 82–3; Sanja Majer-Bobetko, “Djelova-
nje stranih (osobito čeških) glazbenika u drugoj polovici 19. stoljeća u našim krajevima
[Activities by Foreign (Especially Czech) Musicians in the Second Half of the 19 Cen-
th
tury in the Croatian Lands],” Rad HAZU, Book 7= Book 455 (2005): 195–201.

193