Bibliography On Slavko Osterc

Abstract

The centenary of the birth of Slavko Osterc, the pioneer of the Slovene musical 'moderna' (modern period), is an appropriate moment to try and as far as possible to present a bibliographic survey of everything that has so far been written about him. Such a survey should be instrumental in further research of his life and creativeness and will also indicate what here remains to be done. Apart from this, it will clearly reveal the extraordinary significance and the penetrating power of our composer who surprisingly succeeded in reaching out beyond domestic horizons and to establish himself in the broader world. In this way we shall be all the more aware of how Osterc's music was of topical value already in his lifetime and of how intensively it continues to live on during the decades following his untimely death. Osterc represents the cornerstone of everything that is progressive and truly European in our musical development in the 20th century and therefore, as it is evident from the bibliography, any discussion of the 'moderna' or rather of the current Slovene music in one way or another touches upon Osterc. In view of the comparatively short period of time available here for completing the extensive and demanding task and also considering the limited opportunities at the moment the present bibliography cannot pretend to the completeness desired. All the same I hope that it will prove useful at least as a fairly firm basis for the preparation of a subsequent more complete bibliography, which in its realization will be more unified and more consistent as well as entirely following the demands of the bibliographic discipline. Since Osterc's music was fairly strongly present outside the Slovene and the former Yugoslav area and since it met with a well-nigh surprising response abroad, it would be necessary to examine a considerable part of foreign daily and periodical press, for in this way only one could obtain an adequate picture of the appreciation that our master received abroad.
The entire bibliographical material is classified into the following groups:
I Full-length publications
II Discussions and papers
III Seminar and diploma works
IV Articles, commentaries, reports, notes, reminiscences
V Reviews
VI Treatments and mentions in other publications, discussions, and articles
VII Guides, lexicons and encyclopedias
As a separate and wholly self-contained thematic unit appears the bibliography of writings and articles published by S. Osterc. Bibliographic units in individual divisions are classified in the alphabetic order of the surnames of the authors or of titles, resp., only the reviews are arranged chronologically, hence in the sequence in which they in fact accompanied Osterc's creativeness or the execution of individual compositions. The data referring to the bibliographic information on books, discussions, articles, reviews, commentaries etc. are mostly the result of surveying the material (books, annual volumes, periodicals, concert programmes and leaflets, and newspapers) in the National and University Library, in the libraries of the Department of Musicology the Department of the Slavonic Languages and Literatures at the Faculty of Philosophy, and of the Musicological Institute of the Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts as well as of the archives of the Slovene Philharmonic Society the Society of Slovene Composers and of the Radio-Television of Ljubljana, as well but in part they are taken from various bibliographies and catalogues giving alphabetic order of names. Valuable, if incomplete data referring to foreign daily press have been obtained from both of Osterc's files kept in the National and University Library (musical, and manuscript departments) and from the archival file of the Slavko Osterc Ensemble, which was kindly offered to me for perusal by its artistic leader Ivo Petrić. In order to complete the available information in this direction it would be clearly necessary to engage in further research in libraries abroad.