Oskár Elschek

Prof. PhDr. Oskár Elschek, DrSc. is a Slovak musicologist, ethnomusicologist, organizer of a wide range of cultural events, publicist and pedagogue. He studied musicology and aesthetics at Comenius University in Bratislava and worked almost all his life at the Institute of Musicology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

The scientific and research interest of Oskar Elschek is defined by two distinct areas, namely ethnomusicology, to which he has been inclined since his beginnings, and systematic musicology. He has also paid special attention to musical organology, or ethnoorganology.

Oskár Elschek contributed to the development of the ethnomusicological department of the Institute of Music of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. He organised extensive field research, under his supervision a large amount of sound material was collected and its analysis began to be aided by computers. Thanks to these advances, "the department achieved a prominent position in European ethnomusicological institutional contexts, and Elschek's name and, through him, Slovak musicology began to be taken seriously" (Hudobný život, 2001).

In addition to his research, Oskár Elschek also devoted himself to editorial activities in order to make folk music accessible to the widest possible audience. In collaboration with his wife Alice, he published three synthetic monographs on Slovak folk song and in 1959 he prepared for publication the first volume of Béla Bartók's collection of Slovak Folk Songs. Elschek's knowledge of Slovak folk instrumental music resulted in two gramoanthologies and two book publications. Die slowakischen Volksinstrumente (1983) reports on our instrumental and playing tradition, and Slovenské ľudové píšťaly a ďalšie aerofóny (1991) deals with the most typical group of folk instruments in our country - the aerofóns. He led several domestic and foreign editorial series, mentioning Musikethnologische Jahresbibliographie Europas, Musicologica Slovaca (et Europea), Seminarium ethnologicum, Abstracts in Ethnomusicology and Musicologica actualis. In 1996, his seminal synthetic work History of Slovak Music was published. In total, he has published 13 book and 7 audiovisual monographs and more than 200 scientific studies in scientific proceedings and publications, more than half of which have been published abroad.

He was deeply involved in the systematics of musicology and presented his insights at Czech and Slovak musicological forums and in foreign periodicals. The most important work in this field is his monograph Hudobná veda súčasnosti (1984), where his concept of systematic musicology is summarised. It has also established itself as a basic textbook abroad (the German version was published in 1992).

Thanks to his linguistic skills, Elschek established extensive contacts with leading institutions abroad, especially with the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) at UNESCO, where he also served as chairman of the study group on analysis and systematics, with the International Society for Musicology, and with ethnomusicological departments in various countries in Europe and around the world. He organized domestic ethnomusicological seminars with international attendance and in 1997 he participated in the realization of the ITCM World Congress in Nitra. He was also involved in the organisation of folklore festivals, radio recording competitions, and worked as a dramaturg in SĽUK.

Not only professional, but also human qualities were proved by Oskár Elschek as the editor-in-chief of the monthly Slovak Music. He was expelled from the Union of Slovak Composers for his remarks in the article Man-Music-Society (1971, No. 10), with subsequent sanctions. However, he continued to develop his scientific activity.

As a teacher, he worked especially since the 1980s at several universities not only in Slovakia but also abroad. As a visiting professor he taught at the Franz Liszt University of Music in Budapest, at the University of Hamburg and in 1988 he was habilitated at the University of Vienna. After 1989 he headed the Department of Musicology at the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University in Bratislava and recently he also worked at the Department of Ethnology of the University of St. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava.