Page 327 - 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 …
Petrić notes, a consequence of the fact that the Ensemble was not a perma-
nent group. Instead, the great majority of musicians only appeared with
20
it a few times. This was largely a consequence of the Ensemble’s inten-
sive activities abroad, where, as Petrić writes, “at festivals they would re-
quest performances by really incredible ensembles, with the result that we
found ourselves inviting various soloists, including foreigners, to work with
21
us.” Despite this, the Ensemble had a “permanent nucleus” of mainly Slo-
vene musicians. Since the Ensemble was not a professional orchestra but an
ad hoc group of musicians, most of its “core” players were employed by one
of Ljubljana’s two symphony orchestras (the Slovenian Philharmonic Or-
chestra and the RTV Ljubljana Symphony Orchestra). The majority of the
Ensemble’s performances and recordings only involved around 30 of its to-
22
tal 110 members. Only in this way, as Petrić explains, were they able to
“succeed in mastering the ‘standard’ repertoire or foreign and domestic com-
posers” that the Ensemble was able to offer at a moment’s notice. 23

The creation of new Slovene compositions

There is no doubt that the Ensemble’s activities encouraged the creation of
numerous new Slovene compositions and, in this way, decisively affected
the situation at Edicije DSS. Over the course of two decades, it gave nearly
170 concerts, made 140 recordings for national and international radio and
24
television stations and took part in nearly 40 television broadcasts. Re-
cordings usually took place a day or two before individual concerts. t1
The table shows the number of appearances by individual years. The
highest numbers of concerts and recordings by the Ensemble (more than
25 and sometimes as many as 35 in a year) are in the period 1966–1970. The
decade from 1965 to 1975 was the period of Petrić’s most intensive work
with the Ensemble. The latter succeeded in bringing new Slovene music to
some of the most important festivals and concert halls in other countries.
It is interesting to note that the Ensemble’s most active period abroad co-
incides almost entirely with the period of constitutional changes in Yugo-
slavia (1966–74). This was a period in which, as Sonja Kralj notes, culture
largely succeeded in “breaking free from the grip of politics” following the

20 Štular, Glasbeno delo Ansambla Slavko Osterc, 15.
21 Ibid., 16.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid., 87.

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