Page 213 - 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. 213
alois hába and slovene students of composition ...
tion, and only realised with the help of compositional technique as a craft
and a mental process.
Hába’s views were presented more comprehensively to the Slovene
public in 1935 by Ivan Pučnik, at that time a student of Hába’s, in a special
interview with the composer published in the newspaper Jutro (Morning).35
He portrayed Hába as an advocate of the radically new and, at the same
time, as a sensitive artist who, as such, was aware of his special task. Almost
entirely overlooked in writings on the history of Slovene music, Pučnik is
today better known as an agitator than as a composer. Unlike his fellow
composers in Prague, Pučnik had received no formal musical training, and
was thus unable to enrol in Osterc’s composition class. Having enrolled as
a law student in Prague in 1934, he later studied composition with Alois
Hába, who had previously prepared him privately for the conservatory en-
trance exam. As he writes in one of his letters to Šturm: “I tell you frank-
ly that I hate all schools and the only thing that is keeping me in Prague
and at the conservatory is Hába, who gives me something immense with
every lesson.”36 During his years in Prague he formed close friendships with
Franc Šturm and Demetrij Žebre, both of whom were studying there in the
same period. Despite the reverence he had for Osterc, he believed that the
time had come for radical changes. Together with Šturm he even planned
to found an independent group of composers that would mark a new direc-
tion and stir up the Slovene music scene.
Pučnik completed several compositions while studying in Prague,
including settings of three poems from Kocbek’s first poetry collection
Zemlja (Earth). In 1936 he completed a fantasia for chamber orchestra en-
titled Živim z zemljo (I live with the Earth) in a more or less consistently
atonal style. He is also believed to have written his Četrttonski kvartet s so-
pranom (Quarter-tone Quartet with soprano) and Šestinotonska fantazi-
ja za solo violo (Sixth-tone Fantasia for solo viola) in this period.37 Unfor-
tunately, the fate of the remainder of the composer’s legacy is unknown.
The years of Pučnik’s big musical plans and revolutionary ideas were even-
tually substituted, at the instigation of his parents, by medical studies in
Zagreb, after which he enjoyed an enviable career as a pulmonologist at
Golnik Hospital.
35 Ivan Pučnik, “Alois Hába,” Jutro, no. 135 (13. 6. 1935): 7.
36 Katarina Bedina, “Nova najdba iz pisem Francu Šturmu,” Muzikološki zbornik 21
(1985): 93.
37 Ibid., 90, 92.
211
tion, and only realised with the help of compositional technique as a craft
and a mental process.
Hába’s views were presented more comprehensively to the Slovene
public in 1935 by Ivan Pučnik, at that time a student of Hába’s, in a special
interview with the composer published in the newspaper Jutro (Morning).35
He portrayed Hába as an advocate of the radically new and, at the same
time, as a sensitive artist who, as such, was aware of his special task. Almost
entirely overlooked in writings on the history of Slovene music, Pučnik is
today better known as an agitator than as a composer. Unlike his fellow
composers in Prague, Pučnik had received no formal musical training, and
was thus unable to enrol in Osterc’s composition class. Having enrolled as
a law student in Prague in 1934, he later studied composition with Alois
Hába, who had previously prepared him privately for the conservatory en-
trance exam. As he writes in one of his letters to Šturm: “I tell you frank-
ly that I hate all schools and the only thing that is keeping me in Prague
and at the conservatory is Hába, who gives me something immense with
every lesson.”36 During his years in Prague he formed close friendships with
Franc Šturm and Demetrij Žebre, both of whom were studying there in the
same period. Despite the reverence he had for Osterc, he believed that the
time had come for radical changes. Together with Šturm he even planned
to found an independent group of composers that would mark a new direc-
tion and stir up the Slovene music scene.
Pučnik completed several compositions while studying in Prague,
including settings of three poems from Kocbek’s first poetry collection
Zemlja (Earth). In 1936 he completed a fantasia for chamber orchestra en-
titled Živim z zemljo (I live with the Earth) in a more or less consistently
atonal style. He is also believed to have written his Četrttonski kvartet s so-
pranom (Quarter-tone Quartet with soprano) and Šestinotonska fantazi-
ja za solo violo (Sixth-tone Fantasia for solo viola) in this period.37 Unfor-
tunately, the fate of the remainder of the composer’s legacy is unknown.
The years of Pučnik’s big musical plans and revolutionary ideas were even-
tually substituted, at the instigation of his parents, by medical studies in
Zagreb, after which he enjoyed an enviable career as a pulmonologist at
Golnik Hospital.
35 Ivan Pučnik, “Alois Hába,” Jutro, no. 135 (13. 6. 1935): 7.
36 Katarina Bedina, “Nova najdba iz pisem Francu Šturmu,” Muzikološki zbornik 21
(1985): 93.
37 Ibid., 90, 92.
211
