Page 321 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2026 Skladateljska društva nekoč in danes.../Composers’ Societies Past and Present...

The Slavko Osterc Ensemble (1961–1981): The Principal Promoter of the Creativity …
the DSS at the Slovenian Philharmonic Hall on 13 July 1961, with a per-
formance of Slavko Osterc’s Nonet. 4
The latter is one of the most important works of Slovene musical Expres-
sionism, a piece composed in 1937 for the Czech Nonet. A year after this per-
formance, the Ensemble named itself after Slavko Osterc, the most impor-
tant Slovene modernist. Following this inaugural performance, just over a
5
year would pass before the Ensemble performed again, this time at the Musi-
ca nova festival in Opatija, Croatia, on 19 October 1962, in its first appearance
in front of a wider Yugoslav audience. This is the festival that in 1963 became
known as the Jugoslovenska muzička tribina (today the festival takes place in
Osijek). Alongside the Music Biennale Zagreb, founded in 1961, this was the
leading festival of contemporary music in the former Yugoslavia. 6
The group appeared for the first time as the Slavko Osterc Ensemble on
13 May 1963 at the second Zagreb Biennale. Following their premiere per-
formance in Zagreb, a Croatian music critic wrote: “The Slavko Osterc En-
semble from Ljubljana is a noteworthy group of excellent soloists led by the
talented and capable conductor Ivo Petrić.” 7

First performances outside Yugoslavia
The Ensemble gave its first foreign performance in Poland in 1963, when it
appeared at the Warsaw Autumn festival, in what was the first appearance
8
by any Yugoslav ensemble at this festival. It was invited by the festival’s
4 Ibid.
5 Despite the strong creative personalities within Osterc’s circle, none of the compo-
sitional techniques and aesthetics that established themselves internationally at that
time prevailed among Slovene composers. The most important works are still consid-
ered to be those of composers who had already found their path before the war. Lojze
Lebič, “Glasovi časov (II), O slovenski glasbeni ustvarjalnosti,” Naši zbori 45, no. 5–6
(1993): 114. In his own reminiscences of the activities of the Slavko Osterc Ensemble,
Ivo Petrić mentions that the naming of the ensemble was “initially criticised by Milko
Kelemen, who said it smacked of cultural and artistic socialist associations.” Ivo Petrić,
Spomini na delovanje ansambla Slavka Osterca (Ljubljana: typescript, 1998), 3.
6 Miloš Marinković, “Muzički festivali kao odraz kulturne politike tokom hladnog
rata – od Varšavske jeseni do Muzičkog bijenala Zagreb,” Kultura, no. 162 (2019):
306–20.
7 Pavle Stefanović, “Reč priznanja festivalu savremene kamerne muzike,” Knjižne
novine, September 1965. See also: Ivo Petrić, “Po drugem Bienalu sodobne glasbe v
Zagrebu,” Sodobnost, no. 7 (1963): 652–7.
8 Miloš Marinković, 14 International Symposium “Music in Society”, Book of Ab-
th
stracts (Sarajevo: Muzikološko društvo Federacije Bosne i Hercegovine, Univerzitet
u Sarajevu, Muzička akademija, 2024), 93–4. See also: Ivo Petrić, “Varšavska jesen
1963,” Sodobnost, no. 12 (1963): 1145–7.

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