Songs That Have Withstood Time

The concert Songs That Have Withstood Time recalls two remarkable documents of Slovene musical and radio heritage: a recording of a 1938 concert by the Nightingale of Trbovlje children’s choir that was also the first live transatlantic broadcast from the studios of Radio Ljubljana, and a partially preserved recording of a 1941 performance by the Academic Choir conducted by France Marolt in the grand hall of Ljubljana’s Hotel Union. Both recordings are priceless treasures of Slovene national identity, imbued with a powerful emotional charge and standing as testimony to the exceptional quality of home-grown performers at a time when the airwaves were offering a platform to Slovene music for the first time. Their recreation on the concert stage offers a rare insight into two fleeting but decisive moments in Slovenia’s cultural history.

The first part of the evening features the voices of the RTV Slovenia Youth Choir conducted by Alenka Podpečan and accompanied by pianist Klemen Golner, with a recreation of the programme of the legendary Nightingale of Trbovlje – the children’s choir founded in 1930 by Avgust Šuligoj that within a few short years had conquered stages across Europe, in 1936 became “the best children’s choir in the world”, and in 1938 gave the first transatlantic radio broadcast from Slovenia. This part of the concert includes arrangements by Emil Adamič alongside others by Marko Tajčević and Stevan Stojanović Mokranjac, two composers who wove Slovene and other South Slavic folk melodies into artistic form.

The second part dates back to 1941 and recreates a famous concert by the Academic Choir, founded in 1926 by France Marolt, who, with the high professional standards and artistic breadth that characterised him, turned it into one of Slovenia’s finest vocal ensembles. The choir, whose famous 1941 performance was also its last public appearance before the enforced cultural silence that lasted until the end of the Second World War, is recreated for the occasion by the men of the University of Ljubljana’s Tone Tomšič Academic Choir, conducted by Rahela Durič, and the men of the Slovenian Philharmonic Choir, conducted by Sebastjan Vrhovnik, together with soloist Barbara Potočnik. The programme consists of arrangements by France Marolt, Matija Tomc, Marko Bajuk and Oskar Dev of folk songs and melodies from different parts of Slovenia (present-day Gorenjska, Primorska, Bela Krajina, Koroška and Štajerska), along with an original song by the Romantic composer Davorin Jenko. The conclusion of the evening is thus not only a homage to two historic recordings but an encounter with valuable heritage that was once introduced to listeners over the airwaves.