An exhibition within the “Object of the Month” campaign on the occasion of the centennial of Zagreb City Museum
Exhibition concept: Zrinka Jelčić
The Rudolf and Margita Matz Collection is one of the most valuable donations made to Zagreb City Museum in its hundred-year history.
Rudolf Matz (Zagreb, 1901 – Zagreb, 1988), an important figure in the musical life of Zagreb in the 20th century, was a composer, cellist, teacher, conductor and choir master. He worked in music for more than six decades – from 1920 right up to his death, and associated with musicians, eminent professionals as well as amateurs, while his wife Margita was a pianist, harpsichordist and keyboard teacher.
Matz was professor of cello at the Zagreb Music Academy (1940/41 and 1950-72), achieving international renown for his cello-teaching methods, which he brought together in a great compendium entitled First Years of the Cello in 32 volumes (1948-1962). He would be invited to take part in the work of juries in the most prestigious cello competitions, in Moscow and Florence.
Rudolf and Margita Matz donated their long-time home in the second floor flat at 15 Mesnicka Street to Zagreb City Museum, together with their invaluable effects. The Margita and Rudolf Matz Memorial Collection will be set up in the apartment, once famed for its encounters with musicians and its intimate concerts (in 1967, for instance, Matz was visited here by celebrated cellist Mstislav Rostropovich).
It contains, in addition to the cello, piano and harpsichord on which they practised and performed in public, a real music archive.
According to Matz, his instrument was played a century earlier by the first cello teacher in Zagreb, Ivan Oertl, who taught in the Music Institute school from 1852 to 1889.
Zrinka Jelčić
Pictures from the exhibition
photo Miljenko Gregl, ZCM
