During the reign of Maria Theresia and her son Emperor Joseph II, Trieste was completely rebuilt and became an attractive freetax port of the Habsburg Empire. From the beginning of the eighteenth ...century to the first decade of the twentieth century, the population of Trieste increased from 5,000 to 230,000 inhabitants with an incredible number of migrants coming from Central Europe and the Mediterranean coastal areas. The multiethnic middle class obtained a series of privileges never granted before to the nobility, and its status is recognisable through the passion for chamber music and symphonies of Wiener Klassik, played both in private and public concerts. With the help of Czech intellectuals and musicians, during the 1860s the native Slovenes established a group of societies in which Romantic music and national anthems or Lieder were played. This trend culminated in the foundation of the Narodni dom (National House) and the Glasbena matica (Slovene Music Society). At the same time, the Italian nationalists maintained partial control of the Opera house, and the German minority reacted with the Schillerverein, in which Julius Heller spent his energies in spreading the music of Romantic and late-Romantic authors. Despite the political clash, the three groups gave significant impulse to instrumental music, which has marked the culture of Trieste.
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