The Institute of Musicology is one of the eighteen research institutes of the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Founded in 1980, the Institute is the only independent research group specialising in musicology in Slovenia, primarily dedicated to studying early musical heritage in the geographical area of the present-day Republic of Slovenia. The researchers study and systematically catalogue musical sources, classifying them into broader conceptual contexts, and regularly publishing the Institute’s research findings. The Institute promotes lesser-known but compelling musical works by organising a concert series, Harmonia concertans – Early Music, in Ljubljana’s New Square.
The Institute’s Monumenta artis musicae Sloveniae series is intended to produce and issue critically analytical editions of musical works by composers, either national musicians or those active in Slovenia, from earlier historical periods. The Institute participates in international musicological projects Répertoire international des sources musicales and Répertoire international de littérature musicale, compiling a database of musical sources (RISM) and a bibliography of musicological literature (RILM), respectively.
To date, over 6000 early music works in manuscript transcriptions or as autographs have survived in Slovenia. These, together with the numerous preserved printed music works dating back to before the 18th century, constitute the Republic of Slovenia’s holdings of early music heritage. The originals, manuscripts or printed works, are kept in thirty-three archives and libraries throughout Slovenia. In 1993, the Institute of Musicology joined a documentation project of the Répertoire international des sources musicales RISM, cataloguing music manuscripts dating from 1600–1850 that are included in the Inventory of Musical Sources’ A/II series.
Since 1984, the inventory of current Slovenian musicological literature has been updated in cooperation with RILM (Répertoire international de littérature musicale) in New York; a national committee for Slovenia, based at the Institute of Musicology, was established in 1991.
The Institute of Musicology researchers publish their findings in international scholarly journals, in conference volumes of abstracts or other types of proceedings, and publicly present them by delivering independent papers at national and international scientific meetings. They organise international scientific conferences, hold educational exhibitions and present concerts. Since 2005, the Institute of Musicology has published a new scholarly journal, De musica disserenda.
The Institute’s publications include Izbrana dela iz Hrenovih kornih knjig 1 (Selected Works from the Hren Choirbooks I), which comprises two double-choir masses from the turn of the 16th century, Umetnost glasbe v času od Monteverdija do Bacha (The Art of Music in the Period from Monteverdi to Bach), which is an introduction to the history of European baroque music, and Srednjeveški koral v kartuziji Žiče. Pogled skozi oči najstarejšega samostanskega antifonarja (Medieval Gregorian Chants in the Žiče Chartreuse. A Look at the Oldest Preserved Monastic Antiphonary). Further information on the Institute’s publications is available HERE.
