The idea about the issuing of works of composers who were creating in the distant past and came from the Slovene area — were born here and were of Slovene, and in some cases also of non-Slovene origin, naturalized inhabitants of Slovenia, or in some other way connected with this territory — had sprung up quite some time ago. For the first time it was being realized, but not on a broader basis, in the publishing programme of the Slovenska matica, in the 1960s with the publishing of selections of compositions by J. Gallus, G. Plavec and J. K. Dolar (Gallus-Plautzius-Dolar and Their Work, 1963) and of Gallus' secular choral works (Harmoniae morales, 1966; Moralia, 1968).
In the 1970s and immediately afterwards this idea was continued. It led to the conclusion that it could be adequately realized only by a carefully designed and consistently directed project and within the framework of an institution which is fully competent for bringing out such editions — what is common practice also in other countries. The first fruits of these endeavours are at this moment coming forth with the collection MONUMENTA ARTIS MUSICAE SLOVENIAE as an edition of the Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts, specifically of the Musicological Institute within its Scientific Research Centre.
The concept is clear: the collection will comprise all the authors from the 16th until the beginning of the 19th cent. so far known. Later on these will be possibly joined by others about whom we as yet do not know enough or are not known to us at all. The researchers are endeavouring to discover them or to learn more about them so that they might present their creative work to the musical public.
The realizations in the collection Monumenta artis musicae Sloveniae will follow the general principles as observed in international editions of older musical production. But the realizations will also take into account the demands of the contemporary performing practice — for which indeed they are intended. As such the original of the composer's individual works is preserved and with the help of the revision reports their reconstruction is made possible. Their purpose is thus twofold: the historical and the modern function. They will be truly useful to the researcher interested in the musical past as well as to the modern performer. The one or the other will hence be enabled on this basis to form an adequate judgement about the stylistic orientation and of the artistic value of the older, in one way or another with Slovenia associated, musical creativity as well as of the then current situation in the musical field in Slovenia as compared to that in the rest of the Central European and in Western Europe.
We shall do our best that the collection Monumenta will be present with its volumes every year, but the volumes will not be appearing in a strict chronological sequence. As regards this, the volumes will be coming out according to the material available, but will eventually cover everything known to have been written from Gallus onwards (or a little earlier) until the beginning of the 19th cent.
The Monumenta series begins with the present volume which contains five sonatas a tre by Amandus Ivančič, whose compositional output stems from the middle of the 18th cent. Although his national provenience is as yet not perfectly clear, it is certain that he was of-South Slavic origin. From his material it is evident that his work was present also in Slovenia.
Dragotin Cvetko