Page 179 - Weiss, Jernej, ur. 2018. Nova glasba v “novi” Evropi med obema svetovnima vojnama ?? New Music in the “New” Europe Between the Two World Wars. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 2
P. 179
slavko osterc’s compositional jour ney and his assimilation of new techniques
courage technically and stylistically. Thus his influence operated on a num-
ber of different levels.
One of his pupils, the distinguished musicologist, Dragotin Cvetko
(1911–1993), held Osterc in very high regard, pointing to the great signifi-
cance of his compositions which dated from the last years of the 1920s in
comparison with those of his contemporary Marij Kogoj (1892–1956):
“During the last years of the third decade of the 20th century, it was
Osterc who changed Slovene music, rather than Kogoj. Drawing in-
tensively away from tradition in his ideas, he revolutionized the
music of his time, though within the Slovene space and scale, not
the European one. This is demonstrated by his works written dur-
ing the years 1927-1930, which are different from those of his con-
temporaries and even from those of Kogoj, whose modernist incli-
nation lay elsewhere. Even the first works written by the former [i.e.
Osterc] foretold an even more radical grasp of the new style when
compared to those by Kogoj.”6
An examination of some of the music of these years is the key to the full
understanding of the meaning of Cvetko’s remarks. Osterc’s main achieve-
ments in 1927–30 were in the fields of chamber music and opera. Much of
the chamber music is small-scale in conception, with works divided into a
number of separate short movements, often written for wind instruments.
Štiri karikature (‘Four Caricatures’) for piccolo, clarinet and bassoon uses
the widely spaced registers of the chosen instruments for clarity of texture,
particularly in contrapuntal passages and in the sharply etched rhythms.
There is an affinity with some music of Stravinsky in the clear colours of the
Preludio, while the Fughetta finale is one of Osterc’s distinctive character
pieces of this period, with its playful contrapuntal character. Overall there
is a feeling of humour and parody, especially in the Valse movement, with
its sense of pastiche, precise rhythms and the use of widely differing wind
instruments to mark out the clear-cut melodic lines. One finds the use of
traditional dance forms from the baroque in his Silhuete (‘Silhouettes’) for
string quartet of 1928. The longest of these five pieces is barely two minutes
in duration while the shortest lasts a mere 30 seconds. The epigrammatic
forms embrace a range of harmonic tension and discord that is rare in Slo-
vene music of the period. Of the works using miniature forms, the delight-
6 Dragotin Cvetko, Fragment glasbene moderne iz pisem Slavku Ostercu – A Fragment
of Musical Modernism from Letters to Slavko Osterc (Ljubljana: Slovenska akademija
znanosti in umetnosti, 1988), 12
177
courage technically and stylistically. Thus his influence operated on a num-
ber of different levels.
One of his pupils, the distinguished musicologist, Dragotin Cvetko
(1911–1993), held Osterc in very high regard, pointing to the great signifi-
cance of his compositions which dated from the last years of the 1920s in
comparison with those of his contemporary Marij Kogoj (1892–1956):
“During the last years of the third decade of the 20th century, it was
Osterc who changed Slovene music, rather than Kogoj. Drawing in-
tensively away from tradition in his ideas, he revolutionized the
music of his time, though within the Slovene space and scale, not
the European one. This is demonstrated by his works written dur-
ing the years 1927-1930, which are different from those of his con-
temporaries and even from those of Kogoj, whose modernist incli-
nation lay elsewhere. Even the first works written by the former [i.e.
Osterc] foretold an even more radical grasp of the new style when
compared to those by Kogoj.”6
An examination of some of the music of these years is the key to the full
understanding of the meaning of Cvetko’s remarks. Osterc’s main achieve-
ments in 1927–30 were in the fields of chamber music and opera. Much of
the chamber music is small-scale in conception, with works divided into a
number of separate short movements, often written for wind instruments.
Štiri karikature (‘Four Caricatures’) for piccolo, clarinet and bassoon uses
the widely spaced registers of the chosen instruments for clarity of texture,
particularly in contrapuntal passages and in the sharply etched rhythms.
There is an affinity with some music of Stravinsky in the clear colours of the
Preludio, while the Fughetta finale is one of Osterc’s distinctive character
pieces of this period, with its playful contrapuntal character. Overall there
is a feeling of humour and parody, especially in the Valse movement, with
its sense of pastiche, precise rhythms and the use of widely differing wind
instruments to mark out the clear-cut melodic lines. One finds the use of
traditional dance forms from the baroque in his Silhuete (‘Silhouettes’) for
string quartet of 1928. The longest of these five pieces is barely two minutes
in duration while the shortest lasts a mere 30 seconds. The epigrammatic
forms embrace a range of harmonic tension and discord that is rare in Slo-
vene music of the period. Of the works using miniature forms, the delight-
6 Dragotin Cvetko, Fragment glasbene moderne iz pisem Slavku Ostercu – A Fragment
of Musical Modernism from Letters to Slavko Osterc (Ljubljana: Slovenska akademija
znanosti in umetnosti, 1988), 12
177
