CROATIAN MUSIC - JOSIP ANDREIS

Josip Andreis Professional and a broad spectrum of other activities undertaken by the academic Josip Andreis (Split, March 19, 1909 – Zagreb, January 16, 1982) even in an contemporary analyses represent an exceptional and specific phenomenon in reference to a context. It simply would not be fair to leave out Andreis’ engagement in many fields of work – he was a musician, writer, essayist, music critic, pedagogue, historian; however first and foremost Andreis was a founder of the Croatian contemporary science of music – musicology – humanist and enthusiast. He left Split already in 1927 in order to enrol in the program of studies of Romance languages in Zagreb and later on in Rome. He was awarded a Bachelor’s degree in Italian and French in 1931, and had taken a job as a secondary school teacher in Šibenik, Split, Herceg-Novi and from 1941 in Zagreb. A process of Andreis’ shaping of his own personality and developing an attitude towards the art of music is led first of all by an ideological enthusiasm of a music fan reaching out to the borders of a scientific professionalism. He was originally introduced to music through private lessons he took from Ivo Parać (Split, 1890 – Split, 1954). Thanks to his ongoing effort and persevering work invested in the study of music as the employee of the Croatian National and University Library (1944 – 1945), he laid foundation for the future music collection and as the author of numerous music reviews, a booklet Introduction to the Aesthetics of Music (1944), short, however exceptionally modern studies on contemporary authors, Mile Cipra and Božidar Kunc, but above all as the author of the first History of Music (1942) written in Croatian, Andreis in 1945 was appointed a teacher at the Conservatory of Music (today the Music Academy) in Zagreb, and two years later was awarded a Bachelor of Music degree at the former Music Education Department. Andreis founded at the Conservatory of Music a History Department, which later on developed into the Musicology and Music Journalism Department, and the Institute for Systematic Musicology, which precisely under his leadership experienced its most successful period of activity. He was one of the originators of Arti musicesa, presently the only Croatian Musicological Journal, first editor of the Music Encyclopaedia, author and editor of numerous musicological studies and collections. Andreis’ permanent engagement in historiography matters is reflected in the exceptional editions of: History of Music (three volumes, 1951 – 1954), Musical Art Development in Croatia (in: Historical Musical Culture Development in Yugoslavia, 1962), History of Music (four volumes, 1974 – 1976), Music in Croatia (1974), and particularly in this filed of activity he realised his most influential and fundamental contribution to the Croatian musicology.