Josip Ipavec (1873-1921), the youngest of the composers that came from the famous Ipavec family of doctors and musicians, began composing music as a secondary school pupil. As a student, he devoted himself mostly to solo song, while the last of his works was an operetta, called Prinzessin Tollkopf.

During his life, only five of his compositions were printed. With his pantomime Hampelmännchen, the piano version of which contained stage directions, was given both Slovenian and German covers, and was printed in 1901 in Ljubljana by publisher Schwentner, Josip Ipavec became known as the composer of the first Slovenian ballet. The other four compositions were published in the magazine Novi akordi. Out of the four, the men’s chorus Imel sem ljubi dve became especially popular and has thus been reprinted in many songbooks. Other compositions of Josip Ipavec were initially left as manuscripts. Many of them were unfortunately lost.

In 2021, the year dedicated to Josip Ipavec, we decided to establish a digital collection consisting of the composer’s handwritten music, study notes, and the original libretto for his operetta, as well as the many transcriptions of his compositions, coming from different sources. It should be added that the composer’s manuscripts in the digital collection were sourced from his legacy, obtained by the National and University Library in the years 1964 and 1991.