The music-score archive of the Slovenian Philharmonic holds over 2000 first editions, rare sheet-music specimens of classicistic and romantic works, as well as manuscript copies of symphonies, serenades, concertos, chamber music and operas. Especially noteworthy among the collection’s special items are original sheet-music editions dating to the era of the Philharmonic Society – the forerunner of the Slovenian Philharmonic – established in 1794 and dedicated to enriching Ljubljana’s concert life for over a hundred years. The Philharmonic Society included eminent foreign honorary members: Haydn, Beethoven, Paganini and, later on, Brahms. Haydn and Beethoven donated works to the Society; a gift from the latter was a transcription of his Symphony No. 6, with the composer’s personal corrections and annotations. Beethoven’s score, as well as transcripts of instrumental and vocal parts of two Haydn’s masses made by the composer’s copyist Johann Elssler, today form part of Ljubljana National and University Library’s musical collection.
A letter by Beethoven, which used to be held in the Philharmonic Society’s archive, is today kept in the Beethoven House Museum in Bonn.
Apart from sheet music, the Slovenian Philharmonic archive contains all concert programmes and programme notes that accompanied the Slovenian Philharmonic’s concerts after 1947.
