PESMI, KI SO PREMAGALE ČAS

Choral music

Format: Digitalno

Code: 120145

EAN: 3838898120145

At ZKP RTV Slovenia, in cooperation with Radio Slovenia – Program Ars, we are releasing the digital album Pesmi, ki so premagale čas (Songs That Defied Time), performed by the Academic Choir under the direction of France Marolt in 1941. The recording of the choir’s final concert before the cultural silence was donated to Program Ars in 2023 by engineer and innovator Emilija Soklič. “Among the cultural events of the first year of the occupation, the concert of the Academic Choir at Union Hall on December 12, 1941, conducted by France Marolt, stood out. The idea behind the concert and the selection of songs were strongly patriotic. At a time when it was not possible to legally express opposition to the occupation or the desire for national freedom, Marolt and the singers sought to pay tribute to Slovenian identity and express the rebellious spirit of the nation. The program, which Italian censorship only reluctantly approved, consisted exclusively of Slovenian songs, and informally the event was intended only for Slovenian listeners. A complication arose when a letter arrived from the High Commissioner’s office stating that the High Commissioner expected an invitation to the concert. The organizers did send an invitation to Grazioli—but only after the concert had taken place. The highlight of the event was the song Lipa zelenela je, which carried the core national and spiritual message of the concert. Both the performance and the lyrics expressed pain, anger, and the will to resist the occupation. Rudi Omota secretly recorded this and several other songs on magnetic tape, provided by activists of the Liberation Front (OF), thus creating one of the most vivid documents of wartime Ljubljana’s resistance,” wrote historian and curator of contemporary history, as well as head of curatorial departments at the Ljubljana City Museum, Dr. Blaž Vurnik, in the album’s foreword. The concert recording, made secretly with a microphone hidden in a chandelier in Union Hall in Ljubljana, is a unique artifact of global significance. Program Ars has therefore already initiated procedures to have it included on UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage.