Exhibition 2003–2005

In 2003–2005 Metoda Kokole, Alenka Bagarič and Darja Frelih of the Institute of Musicology of the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts prepared in collaboration with the Diocesan Archives, Koper/Capodistria exhibition titled The Musical Heritage of the Slovenian Coastal Towns up to the 19th Century.
The present-day Slovenian coastal towns of Koper, Piran and Izola were from the end of the 13th to the end of the 18th century part of the Republic of Venice. Koper was the seat of the diocese and the capital and administrative centre of Venetian Istria. Extant music materials (ranging from the earliest parchment codices with liturgical chants, through valuable early prints of the 16th century and some unique music prints of the 17th century, to almost 800 listed manuscript items) bear witness to the rich music culture in Istria in the period of the Serenissima, when the music performed in the region was at the highest European level. The “golden age” enjoyed by the coastal towns in the 15th and 16th centuries was followed by the first signs of a decline that began in the 1730s as a result of various disasters, e.g. a plague epidemic and the subsequent famine. The real decline, however, started in the mid-18th century, with the beginning of the rise of Trieste.
The exhibition also provides a glimpse into the 19th century by presenting two major music collections preserved from that time, but it mostly concentrates on a chronological outline of the remains of the Venetian era. Special emphasis is placed on the surviving music materials and on those composers who through their work contributed most significantly to the local musical culture of Istrian towns (in particular, the composer Gabriello Puliti, active in Koper during the second and third decades of the 17th century). The exhibition refers also to Giuseppe Tartini, but only to his childhood in Istria, and presents documents that either show the links between the famous violinist, theorist and composer with his family and his town of birth or have been preserved in Piran. All the preserved music materials are clearly the products of practical circumstances, i.e. they were acquired, copied or composed for practical use. The exhibition is rounded off by a board illustrating music in the liturgy from the end of the 16th century, which is a logical continuation of the first board illustrating music codices, and presents the uninterrupted tradition of plainchant all the way up to the 19th century.

PANNELS:
I. Parchment Codices and Early Prints of Liturgical Music
II. Documents on Music in the 16th Century
III. Gabriello Puliti – the First Istrian Monodist
IV. Rare 17th-Century Music Prints
V. Preserved 17th-Century Music Manuscripts
VI. Antonio Tarsia – Organist at the Cathedral in Koper and Composer
VII. Giuseppe Tartini, Born in 1692 in Piran
VIII. 18th-Century Music Materials in Piran
IX. The Repertory of Koper Cathedral in the 18th Century
X. The Musical Collections of Giacomo Genzo and Carlo Bomman
XI. Music in the Liturgy up to the 19th Century

On the occation of the exhibition the author published also a CATALOGUE in Slovenian and Italian languages that brings reproductions of all exhibited documents with additional explanations.