SUMMARY
The tenor of the article is the rather tricky problem of national traits in music. The point in question is brought into focus through the fact that the author of the essay confines himself to instrumental music only. Proceeding from intuitive epitheta as used when characterizing respective elements of Slovene instrumental output as well as from Leonard B. Meyer's idea that »music may be meaningful because it refers to things outside itself, evoking associations and connotations relative to the world of ideas, sentiments and physical objects«, the inquiry tries to detect those traits, qualities or rather elements – ranging from the choice of titles down to formal and textural niceties – which might be regarded as reflections of national characteristics. These are persued through approximately the last hundred years in the course of which many a trait has no equivalent in music and therefore a complete topographic map of Slovene stereotypes cannot be unfolded by means of (instrumental) music. Which was not, in the last instance, the aim of this essayistic consideration.