Društveni, politički i ideologijski kontekst stvaralaštva Vatroslava Lisinskoga na području zborske glazbe.
The social, political and ideological context of Vatroslav Lisinski’s work in the field of choral music

Summary/Abstract: Choral song or song written for choirs consisting of multiple voices (singers) is an important music genre that is also representative of the artistic development of Vatroslav Lisinski. The choral opus of Lisinski with 50 pieces represents the largest group in his oeuvre after songs for a solo voice. While the author was certainly partial to this genre of music, his work in this area was also inspired by practical as well as ideological reasons. By establishing programmatic foundations of the contemporary Croatian music, Ljudevit Gaj had already set down the path of the development of choral song. He expressed his ideological and political thoughts on the continuity of the Croatian ethnicity in his allegorical song Još Horvatska ni propala (‘Croatia has not yet fallen’). Lisinski too wrote part of his choral opus inspired by the cultural-ideological efforts of the Croatian ‘natives’. Especially his first piece – the above-mentioned patriotic song – made an impact in 1841 when the opponents of the Illyrian Movement and the linguistic reforms of Ljudevit Gaj came together in the Croatian-Hungarian Party, the goal of which was to introduce Hungarian as the official language in Croatia.With regard to the reception of the choral music at the time of their production, and looking at the sources describing their performances, it may be concluded that no more than 15 choir songs were performed during the composer’s lifetime. Out of these 15, eight were songs that had originally been written for choirs. All in all, Lisinski’s choral music was either performed relatively infrequently or no traces of the performances, in the contemporary press, concert programmes and announcements, have survived. The increase in the performance of choral music from the 1860s onwards coincided with the establishment of many choirs. The Croatian Choral Society Kolo layed a key role in the revival of interest in the choral opus of Vatroslav Lisinski. The archives of Kolo have also preserved most of Lisinski’s choral work. Furthermore, the 40-year inaccessibility of the original music scores that were in the possession of Albert Ognjan pl. Štriga were followed by the greater promotion of Lisinski’s choral music in public, especially after its publication (and in particular from the 1860s onwards) and late orchestration of the piano accompaniment of some of the songs.

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