Ernest Zavarský

Ernest Zavarský was a Slovak musicologist, music life organizer, and organologist. He is considered a prominent figure of the older generation of Slovak musicologists.

“It can be said that Ernest Zavarský is one of the founders of modern Slovak music historiography. He enriched this scientific discipline not only with many new and critically important findings but, together with Prof. Kresánek, elevated it from ad hoc amateurism to the level of European scientific thought of the 20th century...” — Richard Rybarič, in Hudobný život (Musical Life), 26.9.1983

After completing his studies at the Real Gymnasium in Kláštor pod Znievom (1933, alternating with Ružomberok), Ernest Zavarský went abroad to study theology (Munich, Innsbruck, Krakow). At the same time, he also pursued musical education, and eventually, due to health problems, gave up his theological calling.

Since childhood, he played the piano and organ. In Innsbruck, he received education in fine arts, sociology, and composition under Fritz Weidlich, and in musicology under Walter Senn. In Krakow, he studied composition with Prof. Peters, piano with Prof. Stelfová, and also took private piano lessons at the conservatory with Władysław Żeleński.

Later, he supplemented his musicological education (he also completed organ studies) at Masaryk University in Brno under Ján Racek and Bohumír Štědroň, where in 1951 he defended his dissertation Vývoj realizmu a harmonického myslenia v tvorbe Eugena Suchoňa (The Development of Realism and Harmonic Thinking in the Work of Eugen Suchoň, 1951). He also studied composition at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts (JAMU), graduating in 1953. He studied psychology and art history at the Faculty of Arts of Comenius University in Bratislava. He took piano and organ lessons with Štefan Németh-Šamorínsky.

From 1941 to 1945, he worked as a dramaturge at the Slovak Folk Theatre in Nitra and simultaneously as an editor at Slovak Radio. Even during this period, he actively wrote theatre, music, and art criticism.

Ernest Zavarský often had to change jobs due to political or health reasons, but whether employed or working independently, he devoted himself to musicology.

He worked at the Slovak Church Cooperative as an organologist, served as director of the Music Chamber in Bratislava, an archivist at the Union of Slovak Composers, and head of the Music Information Centre at the Slovak Music Fund.

He devoted himself intensely to scholarly work from 1948, when he was granted a partial disability pension. His primary domain was Slovak music (both contemporary and historical). 

“[...] Zavarský was not the type of cabinet scholar; his knowledge grew out of his work as an organizer, dramaturge, and editor — in close contact with practice.” — Ľubomír Chalupka, in Hudobný život (Musical Life), 22.9.1993

The pinnacle of his musicological work is considered to be the nearly 500-page monograph Ján Levoslav Bella. Život a dielo. (1955) and the equally extensive publication Johann Sebastian Bach (1970). The latter received international recognition and in 1971 won the Slovak Music Fund Prize. It was translated into several languages.

He dedicated an extensive study to the history of music in Kremnica – Príspevok k dejinám hudby v Kremnici od najstarších až po r. 1800 (A Contribution to the History of Music in Kremnica from the Earliest Times until 1800), which was first published in German in three volumes of Musik des Ostens, and in Slovak in the anthology of Matica slovenská (Hudobný archív in 1977 and 1981). He wrote Všeobecná náuka o hudbe (General Theory of Music, 1946), the first comprehensive analytical and evaluative overview of the compositional work of the Slovak musical modernist generation Súčasná slovenská hudba (Contemporary Slovak Music, 1947), a textbook titled Prehľad dejín slovenskej hudby (Overview of the History of Slovak Music, 1956), and works on the life and work of Eugen Suchoň (1955) and Maurice Ravel (1963).

He also wrote entries on Slovak music for the German encyclopedia Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, published in 15 volumes between 1958 and 1979. Together with Jozef Šamko, they were the only Slovak contributors. He was also part of the editorial team for the Yugoslav music encyclopedia (Jugoslovenska muzička enciklopedija).

Throughout his life, he published many scholarly articles and studies on Ján Levoslav Bella, Eugen Suchoň, other Slovak composers, Johann Sebastian Bach, and organology in both domestic and international journals and anthologies (Ľudová tvorivosť, Hudobný život, Slovenská hudba, Ruch muzyczny, Musik-Forschung, Bach Jahrbuch, and others).

Zavarský continuously worked as an organologist and organ builder, even after the dissolution of the Slovak Church Cooperative. He contributed to the restoration of approximately one hundred Slovak organs and designed around fifty organ projects (including their disposition, visual design, and pipe scaling). He was the author of a significant organ reform in Slovakia.

Thanks to his connections and frequent research trips abroad, by the end of the 1960s, he became the only member of the New Bach Society in Leipzig from outside German-speaking countries. From 1970, he was a member of its board of directors, and in 1979, he founded a Slovak branch of the society, which, however, operated for only one year.

Ernest Zavarský was the initiator of the Bach Festival in Bratislava, a member of the Society for Music Research in Kassel, and the Society for Musicology in Basel, Switzerland. He lectured at universities in Leipzig, Berlin, Warsaw, Dresden, Cologne, and others.