Original scientific paper

Invaluable Cultural Heritage or the Fading Image of the Past: The State of Historical Organs in the Territory of Present-Day Slovenia through the Example of the Organs of Joannes Franciscus Janechek

Katarina Trček ; Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Institute of Musicology, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Abstract

The territory of present-day Slovenia is rich in historical musical instruments, predominantly organs. Such a vast number of preserved historical organs may be att ributed to their monumentality, which turned the purchase of a new musical instrument into a major financial venture. This is the reason that the old musical instrument was often subject to modernisation and preserved to date in a more or less authentic form. The trend of modernising old organs subsided in the second half of the 20th century and was superseded by the tendency to preserve the authenticity of historical organs as primary sources for studying the organ landscape. Slovenia’s current organ landscape comprises musical instruments built by organ masters who either worked or visited this territory. The musical instruments have a high artistic value and are an important element of Slovenian cultural history. These also include the organ built by an organ master of Bohemian descent, Joannes Franciscus Janechek, who in the 1720s founded in Celje the first organ workshop in present-day Slovenian Styria. He built musical instruments for important procurers in the territory of present-day Slovenia, including the Styrian nobleman and patron Ignac Marija Count Attems. In 1725 Count Attems procured an organ from him for the Church of St Mary at Zagorje pri Pilštajnu. The one-manual organ with ten stops was Janechek’s first work and the oldest preserved musical instrument of this organ master in Slovenia. Today the only witnesses to the artistic value of the organ of Zagorje are the organ chest and Janechek’s signature in the organ windchest. Professionally unregulated restorations that completely disregard the cultural and historical significance of these musical instruments by merely following contemporary organ building trends undermine the legacy of organ masters working in or visiting the territory of present-day Slovenia and blight the image of Slovenia’s organ landscape. Will the awareness of the importance of historical musical instruments for Slovenian cultural history and the preservation of their authenticity prevail over the desire to satisfy contemporary standards?

Keywords

historical organs in Slovenia; organ Kozje/St. Mary; Joannes Franciscus Janechek (Janez Frančišek Janeček/Ivan Franjo Janeček); Church of St. Mary at Zagorje pri Pilštajnu; Ignac Marija Count Attems I

Hrčak ID:

173162

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/173162

Publication date:

27.1.2017.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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