Behind the stage: some thoughts on the Codex Speciálník and the reception of polyphony in late 15th-century Prague (original) (raw)
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Hudební věda, 2020
The music manuscript CZ-Pu VI C 20a, known as Racek's collection (after the Czech humanist Jan Racek z Chotěřiny/Johannes Rodericus a Chotěřina), belongs to the main corpus of Bohemian Utraquist sources. It contains a miscellaneous selection of plainchant, cantiones, and polyphony, but precise dating of this source is still lacking. This study presents new findings based on a codicological analysis of the manuscript. The dating of the paper points to four principal stages in the creation CZ-Pu VI C 20a: ca. 1450 (XV), ca. 1460 (VII-X), after 1490 - ca. 1510 (II, IX, XIII-XIV) and ca. 1520 - 1530s (I, III-VI, with later additions up to ca. 1550). The third chronological layer of the manuscript is contemporary with gatherings in the Speciálník Codex (CZ-HKm II A 7) written by the scribe B in the 1490s. Both manuscripts share twelve compositions as well as the same layout and a specific style of black and white initials. The collection was most likely connected with the school at the church of St Nicholas in the Lesser Town of Prague. This hypothesis is supported not only by the local context of some compositions shared with the Speciálník Codex - Patrem malostranské (Lesser Town Patrem) and Patrem Motyčkovo (Motyčka's Patrem) - but also by the close connection between the probable last scribe of CZ-Pu VI C 20a and Jan Racek. Racek was employed as a school rector in 1540 and served as a city scribe in the Lesser Town from 1542. The manuscript, known to scholars already in the nineteenth century but neglected in research, is an important source for understanding the musical culture of the Bohemian lands in the period between ca. 1450 and 1550.
The Music Collection of the Brno St. James Regenschori Matthaeus Rusmann and its Inventory from 1763
Musicologica Brunensia, 2018
The study deals with the music inventory of the St. James parish church in Brno from 1763 in relation to the music collection of regenschori Matthaeus Rusmann. It includes a detailed inventory description and analysis of its content. Attention is also paid to comparing the inventory with the current state of the collection and the identification of recorded music sheets. Keywords St. James parish church in Brno, music collection, choirmaster Matthaeus Rusmann, inventory The article came into being as part of the project "Hudební inventáře raného novověku v českých zemích" supported by the Grantová agentura České republiky (project no. GA16-17615S).
Traces of Polyphonic Music in the Late-medieval Republic of Dubrovnik
in: Glazba, migracije i europska kultura. Svečani zbornik za Vjeru Katalinić / Music, Migration and European Culture. Essays in Honour on Vjera Katalinić, eds. Ivano Cavallini, Jolanta Guzy-Pasiak, Harry White, Zagreb, 2020
We know very little about polyphonic practices in the Republic of Dubrovnik. In spite of the descriptions of many musical situations in the work of Philipus de Diversis (1440), and information about the city ensemble made up of shawms and slide trumpets (or trombones), to date it has only been possible to discover two sources containing polyphony. Both are preserved in the Musical Archive of the Franciscans in Dubrovnik (Glazbeni Arhiv Male Braće), and one of them – manuscript Nr. 14 with the two-part "Fructiferis meritis" – has not as yet been a focus of research. The author gives a detailed analysis of this manuscript regarding its palaeographic and repertorial features, drawing attention to the Marian votive masses and the chants for the dead. One of the elements of the prayer for the dead was "Fructiferis meritis", belonging to the genre of "cantio". The article makes the suggestion that manuscript Nr. 14 may have been used at the church of Holy Mary of Grace on the Danče peninsula near Dubrovnik. It functioned as a local Marian sanctuary and, since it was connected with an lazaret, liturgy for the dead was also celebrated there. A visual symbol of the church was a painting by Lovro Dobričević, depicting the Mother of God; one of the miniatures in the manuscript may have been modelled on that painting. In an appendix the author publishes an edition of "Fructiferis meritis", as well as another polyphonic piece from the Republic of Dubrovnik, "In medio ecclesie". These are the oldest examples of polyphony in Croatia, preceded only by the Sanctus from the Benedictine cartulary from Zadar.
Clavibus unitis 8, No. 1, pp. 91–100, 2019
The music inventory of the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star from 1737 belongs to the paradigmatic sources both within research of “the musical culture of eighteenth-century Bohemia” (to cite the title of Barbara Ann Renton’s dissertation) and the exploring of rich terrain of music inventories from Czech lands started with the Jiří Fukač’s founding work about this immense source discovered by him. Paradoxically, Fukač’s edition of the Knights of the Cross inventory remains unpublished, while all subsequent studies drew from his typescript rather from the original source. What picture does the inventory provide of music culture in Prague of the time? And what place does Jan Dismas Zelenka and his compositions occupy in this context? The article aims to search for possible answers to these questions by analysing data from the column “Productio”, which has received minimum attention since Fukač’s effort.
Musicalia, 2022
The article deals with the oldest music-related documents from the Morawetz collection (most of which come from the collection of Friedrich Donebauer), which the Czech Museum of Music obtained in 2003 and 2008. Specifically, this involves letters of musicians from Bohemia who were working in German-speaking countries around the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th (Jiří Antonín Benda, Leopold Koželuh, Antonín František Bečvařovský, and Jan Václav Hugo Voříšek). The study presents a critical edition of six letters and one receipt and their translations into Czech and English. On that basis, there is an examination of context within the framework of the lives of the individual musicians and of the period musical milieu. The letters document cultural exchange, tastes, and the stylistic orientation of the period as well as of the music business in Europe at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th. Voříšek’s letter documents the period reception of a Ma...
Musical Gifts. Dedications in Silesian Music Manuscripts of Monastic Provenance
The University of Warsaw Library Music Collection includes music manuscripts from Silesian monasteries. Of particular interest among these sources are manuscripts with dedications from the following monasteries, convents and friaries: of Canons and Canonesses Regular of St. Augustine on Piasek Isle (Sandinsel) in Wrocław (Breslau); of the Poor Clares and Knights of the Cross with the Red Star in Wrocław; of the Cistercian Nuns in Trzebnica (Trebnitz), and of the Franciscans in Głogów (Glogau). These dedications provide otherwise unknown types of information, such as the names of prioresses and nuns at the Convent of Canonesses Regular (Marien-Closter auf dem Sande), as well as facts of special importance to an understanding of the musical culture of this convent, such as the participation of nuns in the convent ensemble as instrumentalists and singers. An analysis of music sources demonstrates that the dedications have many features in common with the phenomenon of music patronage. The manuscripts are addressed to superiors; they testify to the habit of composers themselves offering their music; they reveal the circumstances of the dedication, as well as characteristic customs. The manuscripts also shed light on the network of interrelations between the religious houses and other centres of sacred music. || W Gabinecie Zbiorów Muzycznych BUW znajdują się rękopisy muzyczne, pochodzące ze śląskich klasztorów. Wśród nich szczególnie interesujące są rękopisy dedykacyjne, pochodzące z następujących klasztorów: kanoników i kanoniczek regularnych św. Augustyna na Wyspie Piaskowej we Wrocławiu, klarysek oraz krzyżowców z czerwoną gwiazdą we Wrocławiu, cysterek w Trzebnicy i franciszkanów w Głogowie. Ujawniają one istotne, nieznane bliżej wiadomości, np. imiona przeorysz i zakonnic z klasztoru kanoniczek regularnych, a także fakty szczególnie ważne dla poznania kultury muzycznej tego klasztoru, takie jak udział zakonnic w grze instrumentalnej i śpiewie w klasztornej kapeli. Analiza źródeł muzycznych ujawnia także zbieżność dedykacji ze zjawiskiem patronatu muzycznego: dedykowanie rękopisów przełożonym, zwyczaj ofiarowywania muzyki przez kompozytorów; odsłania okoliczności dedykacji i charakterystyczne zwyczaje. Dedykacje ukazują także klasztory w sieci powiązań z innymi ośrodkami muzyki religijnej.