We have no substantial evidence of the state of musical culture and the forms of music and singing in the Bohemian Lands before the advent of Christianity.

Christianity (and its liturgical chant) began to make real headway in the region in the later 9th century. In 863 Rastislav, the Prince of the Great Moravia, summoned the missionaries Constantine (Cyril) and Methodius from Byzantium, and they created gradually the Slavonic liturgy. Bořivoj, Prince of Bohemia, was also christened in Moravia in the 880s. After the Fall of Great Moravia (soon after 900), the Slavonic liturgy survived in pockets in Bohemia (the Monastery of Sázava, 1032-1097), but by the Latin liturgy prevailed, and with it the canonical Gregorian Chant including all its forms and types known in Western Christendom [CD1-1]. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the period of the great flowering of Gregorian Chant, some new compositions (tropes, hymns, sequences, rhymed offices) were created in the Bohemian Lands (Bohemia and Moravia) too, especially for the feasts of the patron saints of the land: Václav (Wenceslas), Voltěch (Adalbert), Ludmila, Prokop. In 1363 the first Prague Archbishop Arnošt of Pardubice (†1364) ordered the compilation of a several-volume collection of the plainchant repertory of the archdiocese, which has unfortunately not survived in full. Composers of chants included a DOMASLAV (otherwise unknown) and Archbishop JAN OF JENŠTEJN (†1400).

The Church tolerated the performance of several other genres in churches, e. g. sacred plays and certain songs in the vernacular. The song Hospodine, pomiluj ny [Lord, Have Mercy on us, CD1-2] was originally based on Old Slavonic text and may have been created even earlier than in the 10th /11th century, as is conventionally believed. (The Emperor Charles IV included it in the coronation ceremony). Other well-known Czech (practically "state") songs were Svatý Václave, vévodo české země [Saint Wenceslas, Duke of the Czech Land] and later Bóh všemohúcí (= Christ ist erstanden) [God Almighty], and Jezu Kriste, ščedrý kněže [Jesus Christ, Generous Prince].

Latin sacred songs (cantiones) were composed by both clerics and students [CD1-3]. They spread to Central and North Europe at the end of the 14th century and were successively translated into Czech, German and Flemish. In addition to the simple strophic songs the genre included more refined and complex forms, such as lais (Germ. Leich), e. g. O, Maria, matko Božie [Oh Mary, Mother of God, CD1-4]. In the 14th century the Latin sacred Easter plays were also translated into Czech and performed (together with what were known as the Plaints of the Virgin Mary) at schools and during Corpus Christi processions, although the Church authorities tried repeatedly to ban the practice.

Secular music and song undoubtedly existed from earliest times but up to the 13th century there are only obscure references to it in the chronicles and we lack reliable testimony and musical sources. In the 13th-14th century, a number of well-known German minnesingers were certainly present at the royal court of the last Přemyslids and then the Luxemburgs to sing the praises of the Czech kings (Reinmar von Zwetter and others), while others would certainly have been known here (Neidhardt von Reuenthal, Heinrich von Meissen, known as Frauenlob, Heinrich von Mügeln etc.). The great French poet and composer Guillaume de MACHAUT was in the service of King John of Luxemburg, but it seems to be unrealistic to assume he had much effect on the Czech culture of the time. From the 14th century we have records of Czech love songs of courtly type (Dřěvo se listem odievá [Trees Are Putting on Leaves, CD1-5], the so-called Song of Záviš Jižť mne všě radost ostává [All My Joy is Waning]), but in most cases the texts have survived without the music. Polyphony first entered the church liturgy as a tolerated "decoration" of the monophonic chant. The improvised organum was probably cultivated in clerical communities (chapters, monasteries) from as early as the mid-12th century. We have written records of it (i.e. pieces fixed in the process of oral tradition) from the end of the 13th century (Kyrie, Sanctus, hymns [CD1-6], tropes for the Benedicamus domino, lessons for the Offices and Mass), and some of these pieces were in use right up to the end of the 16th century! The more elaborate mensural polyphony likewise spread into the Bohemian Lands probably from the end of the 13th century and developed its own specific genres there on the (mediated) models of the music known as (French) ars antiqua – songs of conductus [CD1-7] type and polytextual motets. In Europe beyond the Alps these were only two-part forms, and in the Bohemian Lands they were gradually "modernised" – especially the motet – by the addition of further parts (from three to five), by transformations of rhythm and metrics and so forth. Otherwise, after the mid-14th century the influence of French ars nova (a new system of notation was explained "to Prague students" in an anonymous treatise of 1369) reached the Bohemian Lands. Indeed, the cultivation of contemporary polyphony seems to have shifted to the sphere of the schools and Prague University, from which the musical theory of the time (including a kind of "textbook of musical forms"), and knowledge of contemporary French music, to a lesser extent Italian music and home compositions (the isorhythmic motet Ave coronata – Alma parens, [CD1-8]) spread to other Central European universities as well. Unfortunately this contemporary polyphonic music appears to have remained "the property" of learned men, students and clerics and not to have attracted the interest and support of the court and nobility. The cantilena songs for which Machaut became famous in an aristocratic society that cultivated the courtly love lyric, continued to be bound to sacred texts in Bohemia.

The fifteen-year Hussite period (1419-1434) had a serious impact on musical culture in the Bohemian Lands, involving as it did the overthrow of church institutions (the dissolution of many monasteries, the emigration of monks), many and various transformations of rites and liturgy, ideological disputes about the permissibility and form of polyphony in the religious service etc. One notable achievement despite the disruption was a relatively sensitive and effective experiment in translating the Gregorian Chant from Latin to Czech (in what is known as the Jistebnice Hymnbook c. 1420). There was a huge upsurge in songs about current events (Ó svolánie konstanské [Oh, Council of Constance, CD1-9]), war songs (Ktož jsú Boží bojovníci [You Who are God's Warriors], Povstaň, povstaň, veliké město Pražské [Arise, Arise Great City of Prague]) and religious songs.

In the wake of the Hussite Wars, the Emperor Sigismund confirmed the legitimacy of two religions in one state, a move that was to be reflected in the liturgical music of the next historical epoch.

PhDr. Jaromír Černý, CSc.
(Translation: Anna Bryson)

While in Western Europe a new style of polyphonic music was undoubtedly crystallising from the 1430s, the period 1440-1620 in the Bohemian Lands should be more properly termed the Bohemian Reformation, when proceeded various changes in liturgical and sacred singing. Elements of Renaissance music style were nonetheless reaching the country from the mid-15th century.

The majority of the Czech population adhered to the faith known as Utraquism (because the legacy of Hussitism was communion in both kinds = sub utraque specie for the laity), and until the mid-16th century the Catholic church was very much a minority, as were other smaller reformation groups (e. g. The Unity of the Brethren, 16th century churches inspired by Lutheranism etc.)

Utraquist liturgical singing did not, however, differ much from catholic. The Utraquists curtailed (or almost abolished, perhaps with the exception of Vespers) performing of the Offices (i.e. Day Hours); but they performed the Mass in Latin and (with only a few small deviations) as the Gregorian Chant. They also, however, adopted the singing of (mainly Latin) monophonic and polyphonic songs and polyphony in general into the service. A corpus of church music of this kind (plainchant, songs, polyphony) has been preserved from around 1500 in ornate manuscript graduals in the large towns (the so-called Franus Hymnbook [1505] from Hradec Králové, the Gradual from Chrudim [1530] and others). On the one hand, then, the repertoire of medieval polyphony (songs, polytextual motets [CD1-10], see above) was revived and often modernised. Around the mid-15th century pieces by Petrus WILHELMI OF GRUDZIADZ (de Grudencz, 1392-c. 1470 [CD1-11]), already influenced by the style of the West European Renaissance, reached the Bohemian Lands. This repertoire (later translated into Czech during the 16th century) survived into the 17th century, albeit only as entertainment music for the "Literate Brotherhoods" (see below) and students at various schools during carolling.) On the other hand, it was at this time that polyphony of the new Renaissance style gradually arrived in the Bohemian Lands (Mass cycles and parts, motets, songs), in many cases written by leading English (W. Frye, J. Plummer) or Franco-Netherlands composers (H. Isaac, J. Obrecht, Josquin Desprez); there are also signs of development in original home production, although most composers were anonymous (Náš milý svatý Václave [Our Dear St. Wenceslas, CD1-12] is an arrangement of a very old sacred song). The so-called Codex Strahov (c.1470) and Codex Speciálník (c.1490) are particularly important sources of European significance.

Church singing in the era of the Czech Reformation was provided by what were known as the literátská bratrstva [Literate Brotherhoods], societies of educated burghers. It was on their abilities that the breadth and complexity of the church music repertoire sketched above depended.

Roughly around the middle of the 16th century church singing – evidently under the influence of the Lutheran Reformation – shifted from Latin to Czech. One clearly associated change was the strikingly increased participation of the congregation in the religious service through the singing of Czech sacred songs. (The liturgy of the Unity of the Brethren was practically limited to this monophonic singing, and in the latter part of the 16th century even Czech and German Catholics adopted congregational singing in the church). This explains the huge number of hymnbooks (i.e. collections of sacred songs) produced by all the religious groups, many of them printed (especially in the case of the Unity of the Brethren – the so-called Šamotulský kancionál, 1561). Some hymnbooks also included sets of polyphonic arrangements of the most widely known songs (e. g. the anonymous Vstalť jest této chvíle [He is Risen at this Hour, CD1-13]).

It can generally be said that the from the 1570s the musical culture of the Bohemian Lands moved closer to the culture of Western Europe, both in basic conditions (a school system linked up to music institutions, printing of music, manufacture of musical instruments), and in musical practice (town trumpeters and organists, amateur circles of burghers, cappellae and instrumental ensembles of nobility, e. g. at the courts of the Rožmberk families in the South of Bohemia where contemporary European secular music was also played) and in original musical production.

The leading composers of sacred music (masses, motets, sacred songs) were now no longer only anonymous (Missa Dunaj voda hluboká [Danube deep water, CD1-14]), but distinguished and widely known composers from the ranks of the literate brotherhoods, who generally signed their names in Latin: Georgius Rychnovinus (in fact Jiří RYCHNOVSKÝ, †1616), Ioannes Traianus Turnovinus (TURNOVSKÝ, †1629), Paulus Spongopaeus Gistebnicenus (JISTEBNICKÝ, †1619) and others. There was development from the style of Netherlands composers (Gombert, Clemens non Papa) right up to the (double-choir) techniques of the Venetian School (A. and G. Gabrieli) and together with the works of all the named composers, their compositions were copied into what were known as part books, which were produced (apart from printed music materials) for the needs of all the leading literate brotherhoods of this era (Prague, Hradec Králové, Klatovy, Rokycany and elsewhere). Only occasionally were pieces by Czech composers actually printed (Bicinia nova by Ondřej Chrysoponus Jevíčský, †1579; humanist arrangements of psalms and odes by Jan Campanus VODŇANSKÝ, †1622 [CD1-15]).

With the arrival of the Habsburg court cappella of the Emperor Rudolf II in Prague (1583), important European composers began to work here, including (Kapellmeister) Philippe de MONTE (†1603 in Prague) [CD1 16], the deputy Kapellmeister Jacob REGNART (†1599) [CD1-17], the organist Charles LUYTHON (†1620 in Prague) and others, who performed internationally popular secular genres at the court (madrigals, canzonettas, ensaladas etc.); these penetrated, at least partly, even into the puritan atmosphere of Bohemian Reformation (in lute intabulations such as Jungfrau, eur wanckelmut – Panno, vrtkavost tvá). At the same time the notable Slovenian composer Jacobus HANDL GALLUS (†1591 in Prague) [CD1-18], was living first in Moravia and then in Prague, where the printer Jiří Nigrin had publish practically all his work. The musicians Ch. Demantius, M. Krumbholz, V. Otto and others were active in the border towns and at the courts of the German nobility.

Among Czech composers of the era, the nobleman and leading Rudolphine courtier Kryštof HARANT of Polžice and Bezdružice (1564-1621) occupied a special position, although only a small fragment of his work has survived (e. g. the motet Maria Kron, [CD1-19]. Missa super Dolorosi martyr based on the madrigal by L. Marenzio). Towards the end of his career Harant converted to Protestantism and played an important role in the rebellion against the Habsburgs. His execution on Old Town Square in Prague on the 21st of June 1621 may be regarded as the symbolic end of the epoch of the Bohemian Reformation and Renaissance.

PhDr. Jaromír Černý, CSc.
(Translation: Anna Bryson)

The beginning of the Baroque epoch in the Bohemian Lands was moulded by the stormy political and social changes that followed the defeat of the Revolt of the Estates at the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620. The leaders of revolt were severely punished, there were unprecedentedly large-scale confiscations of property, the forced recatholicisation of the population and, in response, mass emigration; among those who went into exile were many leading figures, such as Comenius (J. A. Komenský). The constitutional changes that Ferdinand II embodied in the Renewed Land Constitution of 1627 established the hereditary rule of the Habsburgs in the Bohemian Lands, curtailed the rights of the Bohemian Estates, made Catholicism the only permitted faith and gave equal status to German with Czech as the official language. The revolt of the Bohemian states also, of course, triggered the Thirty Years War and up to 1648/50 the armies of both sides swept over the Bohemian Lands several times, causing economic and cultural devastation and decimating the population.

The pattern of development of new kinds of Baroque music in the Bohemian Lands was strongly affected by the removal of the royal court with its huge cultural potential and the institution of the court cappella to Vienna (1612). This meant that with few exceptions, major European composers were not attracted to the Bohemian Lands, and opera, the most important and prestigious musical genre of the time, was not cultivated there systematically for a long time. The main seedbeds of cultural development in the country were the seats of the nobility or church aristocracy. In the period of relative calm and economic prosperity in the last decades of the 17th century, the Prague towns also began to develop a degree of cultural leadership as the natural centre of Bohemia, but Moravia was more orientated to nearby Vienna. The most important places for the cultivation of music were ecclesiastical institutions – churches, monasteries and colleges. For the whole period domestic musical production was focused on various kinds of Catholic sacred music.

The new musical style already started to penetrate gradually into the Bohemian Lands in the first decades of the 17th century, above all through compositions imported from Italy. In some choirs, however, even after the White Mountain, the brotherhoods of church singers managed to survive, and for a relatively long time continued to cultivate the earlier repertoire of renaissance polyphony. Most of the Catholic hymnbooks also took over the older songs, and in a number of cases even used chants from the Protestant choral tradition. Early domestic expressions of the new style include the Magnificat by the former member of the Rudolphine cappella Jan SIXTUS of Lerchenfels (1626).

The first important Czech composer of the Baroque age was Adam Václav MICHNA of Otradovice (c.1600-1676), who was active in Jindřichův Hradec where he had studied at the local Jesuit college. His work includes both collections of sacred songs that are outstanding for their original musical treatment and distinctive poetic qualities (Česká mariánská muzyka [Czech Music in Honour of the Virgin], 1647, Loutna česká [The Czech Lute], 1653, Svatoroční muzyka [Czech Marian Music], 1661), and figural church music (with instrumental accompaniment) on Latin texts. The Obsequium Marianum (1642) was the first of his collections to be printed, in Vienna. Among other editions published, like Michna's song collections, in the Prague Jesuit press we might mention the lengthy collection of masses and other sacred compositions Sacra et litaniae (1654) [CD1-20]. The late Missa Sancti Wenceslai (c.1670) reveals the composer's capacity to keep up with the development of modern compositional techniques.

Michna's songs were abundantly taken up and used in other hymnbooks. His most conspicuous successor in this field was the organist Václav Karel Holan ROVENSKÝ (c.1644-1718) [CD1-21], who collected and published a copious set of more than 400 sacred songs Capella regia musicalis (1693) in Prague. This popular title was a special kind of hymnbook combining the form of the practical hymnal, such as the una voce Kancionál český [Czech Hymnary] (1683) of Václav Matěj ŠTEYER, for example, with the form of collection of polyphonic songs with a figured bass and instrumental accompaniment following on from Michna's example. Many of Holan's arrangements were later adopted in simplified form by Jan Josef BOŽAN in his Slavíček rajský [Nightingale of Paradise] (1719).

The most distinguished composer to follow Michna was probably Pavel Josef VEJVANOVSKÝ (1640-1693), from 1664 the trumpet player and Kapellmeister in the service of the Bishop of Olomouc Karl Liechtenstein-Castelcorn in Kroměříž. His extensive output (ca 130 at least partially preserved pieces) contains not only figural church music, but also many instrumental pieces for various instrumental combinations. Mainly sonatas [CD1-22] for performance in church (e. g. Sonata vespertina), they also included the secular dance suites called balletti. In the years 1668-1670 the Bishop of Olomouc also employed the well-known composer Heinrich Ignaz Franz BIBER (1644-1704), who soon departed to make a better career in Salzburg, but kept in contact with Vejvanovský and sent him a number of his own pieces, some of which have therefore survived as unique copies in the valuable Kroměříž music collection.

The turn of the 17th/18th centuries saw a visible revival of musical life in Prague, where there was a dense network of parish and monastic church choirs cultivating figural music. The most important, from the musical point of view, were the churches of the Jesuit colleges, the Order of the Cross Church of St. Francis Seraphic by Charles bridge, which later became famous for oratorio productions and which commissioned a number of composers including the then highly rated Johann Caspar Ferdinand FISCHER (1656-1746) [CD1-23], and the Cathedral of St. Vitus, where the director of the choir was Mikuláš František Xaver WENTZELY (ca 1643-1722), who published a major collection of masses Flores verni [Spring Flowers, 1700] in Prague. We have very little information about domestic instrumental music. Violin sonatas were composed as well as sacred works by the music-loving doctor Jan Ignác František VOJTA (ca 1660- before 1725), for example. In noble and burgher circles the lute was very popular as well, and Count Jan Antonín LOSY (ca 1650-1721) was an outstanding lute player. Prague was also the place of publication of a noteworthy musical dictionary by the organist at Our Lady before the Týn, Tomáš Baltazar JANOVKA (1669-1741) – Clavis ad thesaurum magnae artis musicae (1701, 1715), and it was followed by a similar theoretical work by the Plasy Cistercian Mauritius VOGT (1669-1730) – Conclave thesauri magnae artis musicae (1719).

The most important composer of the Bohemian Baroque was Jan Dismas ZELENKA (1679-1745). He was born in Louňovice pod Blaníkem and probably studied at one of the Prague Jesuit colleges. In 1704 he composed music for a school play produced in the Lesser Town Jesuit college. This was his first known composition, but it has not survived. Later he wrote a series of pieces for the Prague Clementinum: apart from three sepulchres (cantatas sung at the Good Friday in front of the Holy Sepulchre), they were mainly music for the Latin school drama Sub olea pacis et palma virtutis (Melodrama de Sancto Wenceslao) [Cd1-24], which was performed as part of the grand celebrations of the coronation of Charles VI as King of Bohemia in 1723. By this time, however, Zelenka was already working abroad. While in 1709 he was still in Prague as an employee of the future Count Hartig, less than two years later he left for Dresden, where he found a place in the famous court cappella there, first as a double bass player and then as a composer. In 1716-1719 he probably made a short visit to Italy and then studied with Johann Joseph Fux in Vienna. Both there and in Dresden, where he spent the rest of his life, he had an opportunity enjoyed by no other contemporary Czech musician to perfect his compositional art. His highly individual instrumental output consists of the orchestral Capriccios, 6 trio sonatas and 4 orchestral concertante pieces (Hipocondrie, Concerto, Ouverture and Simphonie) composed in Prague in 1723. Zelenka's main area of composition was, however, Catholic sacred music, and in this field his most remarkable works include six Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah (Lamentationes Jeremiae prophetae), twenty-seven Responsions for Holy Week (Responsoria pro hebdomada sancta) and more than twenty masses, particularly the unfinished cycle Missae ultimae [Last Masses]. The three parts of the latter cycle (Missa Dei Patris, Missa Dei Filii and Missa Omnium Sanctorum) together with the late Loretta litanies represent the monumental conclusion of Zelenka's oeuvre of genius.

Bohuslav Matěj ČERNOHORSKÝ (1684-1742) was likewise a major domestic composer of the first third of the 18th century. A member of the Minorite Order, who worked in the 1720s and early 1730s at the choir of the Prague Church of St. James, he nonetheless spent two decades in Italy, mainly in Padua. All that survives of his work are a few organ fugues [CD1-25] and church compositions, and his motet Laudetur Jesus Christus (c.1728) was printed in Prague. According to later tradition Černohorský was an important teacher; Giuseppe Tartini studied with him in Italy, and in Prague his pupils are said to have included many composers, the most significant being Josef Ferdinand Norbert Seger, František Ignác Antonín Tůma and Černohorský's successor at the choir of St. James's, Česlav VAŇURA (1695-1736). Other important domestic composers of this period included above all the Benedictine Václav Gunther JACOB (1685-1734) and Jan Josef Ignác BRENTNER (1689-1742) [CD1-26], who had a number of their compositions printed. Among the church compositions of Šimon BRIXI (1693-1735) we find music for the Prague Water Music in honour of St. John of Nepomuk, concertos, overtures and chamber pieces by Antonín REICHENAUER (perhaps 1694-1730) have survived as well as sacred music, and solo church cantatas were composed by Johann Christoph KRIDEL (1672-1733), Josef Leopold Václav DUKÁT (1684-1717) and Josef Antonín PLÁNICKÝ (1691-1732), among others.

For a long time opera was rarely heard in the Bohemian Lands. When performed at all it was usually as part of one of the far from numerous visits of the imperial court, while at the beginning of the 18th century a few Italian touring companies gave isolated performances. One important impulse was the monumental production of J.J. Fux's opera Costanza et fortezza during the festivities held in Prague in 1723 for the already mentioned coronation of Charles VI. Invited to Bohemia in 1724 by Count František Antonín Špork, the Italian opera company of impressario Antonio Denzio then played for ten years in Prague and at Kuks, presenting operas by Italian composers including Antonio Vivaldi. Not long before, Count Jan Adam Questenberg had begun to stage opera at his chateau in Jaroměřice nad Rokytnou, with the cast consisting mainly of his servants. Again the repertoire was primarily Italian, but it seems to be here that Czech was first used in opera, in a translation of the opera L'origine di Jaromeritz in Moravia [On the Origin of Jaroměřice, 1730] by the count's Kapellmeister František Antonín Václav MÍČA (1694-1744). Opera productions were also presented at the seat of the Bishop of Olomouc Cardinal Wolfgang Schrattenbach in Kroměříž, and two operas by the Kapellmeister there, Václav Matyáš GURECKÝ (1705-1743) – unfortunately only the librettos have survived – are further evidence of the humble beginnings of Czech opera.

Mgr. Václav Kapsa
(Translation: Anna Bryson)

When the historian of music Charles Burney embarked on his second journey through Europe in 1772, he wanted to see the country from which so many outstanding musicians had come. In every major European musical centre he had seen before he encountered not just Italians, whom he admired, but also Czechs, who filled him with curiosity. On his several-day visit to the Bohemian Lands, however, the English traveller was surprised and disappointed. From his stagecoach he saw a land gripped for the second year by a great famine, while Prague was still in ruins after the Prussian siege. He came to the conclusion that the prevailing poverty allowed few to use their talents. At the same time he appreciated the importance of the rural schools, where he saw the selfless and apparently fruitless work of the best professionals. Thus he arrived at the root of a problem later to be called "Czech musical emigration".

In the Bohemian Lands in the latter half of the 18th century we see a perfect fit between a political and a cultural era: the era of "Enlightened Absolutism" in politics and the era of Classicism in music. It is not a fit that works with Fine Art, because response to Classicism in this area came only at the very end of the century, and almost right up to the end of the 18th century visual taste and life style were still primarily influenced by the Late Baroque spirit. Its decorativeness and emotional exaltation resonated well with the local tradition and entirely saturated both semi-popular and popular visual culture. Even when enlightenment rationalism pushed it out of its position of universal visual style at the end of the century, it retained its grip in the field of folk culture.

As far as music is concerned, however, "Bohemian Classicism" was exceptionally important, and for the whole of Europe. At this period the Bohemian Lands became distinctive for over-production of talented and well trained musicians who influenced the culture of many European centres; despite the strong competition, they were sought out when orchestras were being founded, and obtained many prestigious positions. The Czech musical emigrants are, indeed, accorded an important place in the crystallisation of musical Classicism – specialists even speak of Bohemia and Prague as of one of the places were the stylistic changes of the mid-18th century were born.


The Peculiarities of Musical Life

This development was made possible by the interplay of several historical circumstances. In this period the general musicality of the Bohemian Lands reached an unprecedented peak, both in quantity and in quality. It was during the 18th century that the results of several decades of systematic development of education (Jesuits, Piarists) began to emerge. Music had played an important part in recatholicising policies, and every school leaver was usually a trained singer and instrumentalist. Active musical knowledge was a socially valued attribute, often a condition of admission to a monastery, and in one specific case (the Waldstein estates) a condition for permission to learn a trade. The absence of a royal court (which had been formally moved to Vienna) was an anomalous feature of the Bohemian Kingdom. This created a brake on the development of fundamental musical genres (opera, instrumental music), but on the other hand, relatively dense network of music centres not limited to the metropolis had developed. Grammar schools and colleges famous for their music were often located in the smaller towns. The country monasteries, which had schools and professional ensembles, were also important centres (and there is evidence that people from the surrounding areas attended the sung ceremonies in great numbers); in the rural schools singing was one of the main subjects. A number of leading musicians came from the countryside, getting a livelihood and education as vocalists in town or monastery churches on the recommendation of their teachers.

The noble residences also had an influence on the general musicality. Among the new nobility there was a large percentage of descendants of foreign "war entrepreneurs" from the Thirty Years War, who did not have local ties to the estates they acquired from Habsburgs (as confiscated from former Bohemian nobility), but who nonetheless wanted to put on a grand show and discovered that they could put together a good ensemble from their own serfs. Their attitude to the musicians often reflected the fact: they regarded them as their property, refused permission for marriage (F. Benda) and harshly punished attempts to escape (the famous case of the escaped horn-player J. V. Stich-Punto, whose front teeth were supposed to be taken out). Others, however, proved generous patrons who supported the local schools, made it possible for talented children to study and made their seats remarkable local centres (the Pachtas in Citoliby). A whole series of capable composers therefore could find a livelihood as teachers in small towns and villages where schools were under noble patronage (J. I. Linek, J. Dusík), and where they educated the new generation.

The general musicality of the Bohemian Lands was clearly not the result of these efforts alone. Prefaces to hymnals of the 18th century paradoxically show that earlier there had been much more singing in churches and families. The decisive advantage of Early Classicism lay rather in the convergence of all the musical genres, which were gradually linked up into a single universal style. This process started at the beginning of the 18th century, when new direct contacts with Italy opened up. Often the same arias as in the theatre were performed in church choirs, composed music drew inspiration from folksong (symmetry and simplicity were the overall ideal of classicism) and folk music, conversely, was much refined by the Italian music of the time. A generation that had grown up as children in this universal musical language was not inhibited from cultivating "serious" music by the sense that it was something that must be learned additionally. The moment they started professional training, the future composers usually had a head start in imaginative power and the capacity for spontaneous improvisation, which they had gained from an ordinary folk culture background.


Musical Emigration and its Causes

Despite the quantity and diffusion of musical activity, there was no large centre were the best home musicians could make their careers. In the surrounding lands this function was fulfilled by ruling courts that lavished a great deal of money on cultural prestige and had a many-sided cultural life. The first musicans from Bohemia were therefore leaving to pursue careers in neighbouring centres as early as the first third of the 18th century (J. D. Zelenka, F. I. Tůma, F. Benda). But the real rise in emigration came with the War of the Austrian Succession, when the Bohemian Lands once again became a battle field. The first wave of the exodus of skilled musicians from Prague occured in the first years of the war (J. V. Stamic, J. Zach, the Lapis opera company). In the countryside the situation was even more hopeless and deteriorated further with economic measures that gave landowners further powers to exploit their serfs as free labour force. Knowledge of a music profession thus held out the hope of a better life – escape abroad might mean prosperity and recognition, or at the least a liberation from an undignified status.

There was a substantial demand for musicians abroad, too, since especially in the German Empire there were dozens of courts that needed a cappella and theatre in order to keep up their reputation. By the mid-18th century large communities of musicians from Bohemia (both Czech- and German-speaking) were working in many of them, including highly rated composers, Kapellmeisters and instrumentalists who had fled from the war and were clearly willing to enter service even under the most unfavourable conditions. The situation was different in the Hungarian Lands, where noble authority was being restored after liberation from Turkish rule and many musicians earned enough to save for their future careers in the service of magnates (J. Vaňhal, J. Družecký). Finally Czech musicians were attracted to Vienna as the capital of the monarchy (here it is not quite appropriate to speak of "emigration"), where towards the end of the 18th century they already had an influence equal to that of the Italians. Here a whole generation of composers came to maturity who were among the best in Europe and helped to create high "Viennese" Classicism (J. K. Vaňhal, L. Koželuh, J. A. Vranický, J. V. H. Voříšek). Their compositions naturally returned to their homeland and cultivated the local environment.


The Results of the Josefine reforms

A lasting peace finally emerged in the reign of Josef II. It was at the same time a period of major reforms aimed at modernising the economy in the spirit of enlightened rationalism, and affecting almost all aspects of life. In a few years the institutional structures that had maintained the standard of musical life were in ruins. Enlightened centralism strengthened its position above all with thorough measures against the church, whose educational and cultural activities had hitherto filled the gaps left by the absence of some of the secular institutions that had developed elsewhere in Europe. The policy of Josef II consisted in curtailing the influence of the church on education, concentrating all charitable activities in the hands of the state, and dissolving all institutions that were not regarded as beneficial to the economy. Josef II's liturgical reforms banished elaborate music from the churches, which at that time had often fulfilled the function of concert halls. For the whole of the first half of the 19th century people were to remember the sharp decline of general musicality, seeing the cause in the dissolution of the Literate Brotherhoods and monasteries whose schools once produced educated teachers. After the loss of institutional background the standard of musical life was maintained usually only until the first generational transition. Especially in the countryside, however, the situation was saved by a "schoolmaster's music" often now akin to the semi-folk. After the coronation of Leopold II as King of Bohemia hopes revived for the renewal of the dissolved institutions and perhaps even the renewal of a royal court in Prague. But soon came the Napoleonic Wars...

In a time of apparent chaos, however, the conditions necessary for the gradual creation of a modern civic society, and with it for the emergence of new forms of musical life, were developing slowly and unobserved. The abolition of serfdom allowed the towns to develop normally and local culture to acquire a new form. The secularisation of cultural life forced the new local government organs to take on patronage obligations towards schools and church choirs. In Prague and the larger towns a concert life based on private patronage started to awaken. The patriotic nobility financed the Estates Theatre and founded a conservatory in Prague. As the Napoleonic Wars and their immediate consequences faded, an entirely new kind of musical life, typical for the 19th century, was already beginning to develop.


Important Composers

František Ignác TŮMA (1704-1774) [CD1-27] started his carrier as a singer at the St. James church in Prague. Then he settled in Vienna (from 1929 the latest), where he studied with J. J. Fux, and was employed as a Kapellmeister and a composer at the Emperor's court. He wrote mostly vocal-instrumental church compositions, in which he largely developed his compositional technique in a new "gallant style". He was appreciated by his contemporaries for the quality of his style and sensitive treatment of the text.

František Xaver BRIXI (1732-1771) [CD1-28] was among the most striking and prolific composers to remain in the Bohemian Lands. The son of the Prague teacher Šimon Brixi (he was orphaned at 3) at the age of 27 he obtained the prestigious (lifetime) post of Kapellmeister at the Prague Cathedral. As a composer he mainly wrote church music, but he also composed oratorios, for example and instrumental pieces. Brixi's work (several hundred opuses) is distinguished by lively melodics with abundant syncopation and a perfect feeling for sung Latin. Copies of his pieces have been preserved all over Central Europe and they were frequently performed throughout the 19th century and in some places the 20th century.

Jan Václav STAMIC (STAMITZ) (1717-1758) [CD1-29] decided as a young violinist to go abroad in the first war years. He settled at the court in Mannheim, where he became director of instrumental music and built up an orchestra with a good reputation, consisting mainly of his fellow countrymen from Bohemia. As a composer he was the founder of the "Mannheim School" and a leading pioneer of musical Classicism in the field of instrumental music.

František BENDA (1709-1788) worked from 1733 at the royal Prussian court in Berlin. He was a sought-after violin virtuoso (in his biography he expresses gratitude and honour for his first teacher, a blind Jewish violinist from a rural ensemble) and the author of instrumental pieces. His brother was the versatile composer Jiří Antonín Benda (1722-1795), who became famous primarily for his influence on the development of stage melodrama and singspiel.

Jan ZACH (1713-1773) had an extremely eventful life. He was born the son of a rural publican, and in Prague worked his way up to become the organist of several churches and a respected composer. During the war years he left for Germans and took over direction of the prestigious cappella of the Elector Archbishop of Mainz. He was dismissed after disputes and lived as a travelling performer and composer. An influence on the formation of the sonata principle is attributed to his surviving symphonies, and his church music represents a synthesis of Late Baroque expression with the style of developed Classicism. It is distinguished by ingenious rhythm and instrumentation.

Josef MYSLIVEČEK (1737-1781) was one of the few foreigners to make a name for himself as an opera composer in Italy. He composed for leading Italian theatres (Naples, Milan, Rome), distinguished for strong melodies and virtuosity of a kind that responded to the needs of the leading soloists. Mysliveček's opera and oratorio works were very popular in their time and were admired even by Mozart. They were performed in Central Europe as well - individual arias, based on Latin text, became core elements of many Czech church archives.

Jan Antonín KOŽELUH (1738-1814) [CD1-30] was for a time a Kapellmeister of the Prague Cathedral, and at the same time a member of the theatre orchestra. He was the only Prague composer to try to compose an Italian opera seria. His music was based on the Italian opera style. His meeting with music of an earlier time (when the church archives were sold off) led Koželuh to a great interest in earlier music (for example he performed the Zelenka's masses) and it influenced his later work.

Jan Václav STICH-PUNTO (1746-1803) [CD1-31] became famous as a virtuoso on the French horn. He perfected the technique of play on the natural French horn (without keys) to the standard of a solo instrument. He worked in Paris and Vienna, where Beethoven consulted him on his sonata for French horn and piano (Op.17)

Jan Ladislav DUSÍK (1760-1812) became one of the most celebrated pianists of his time, working as a soloist and teacher in German centres, St. Petersburg, London and Paris. In his piano compositions he combined the sonata form with an emotional and dramatic content, so presaging the later emergence of Romanticism.

Antonin REJCHA (1770-1836) was still a boy when he went to Germany. Since 1785 he played the violin and the flute in the court orchestra in Bonn, where he met L. v. Beethoven as well as outstanding music educationalist C. G. Neefe. Later he was employed as a flutist, conductor, teacher and composer in Hamburg and Vienna. Finally he settled in Paris (1808) and was appointed professor at the Conservatoire in 1818. His extensive musical output is distinctive especially in the field of piano fugues and chamber music for woodwind.

Mgr. Tomáš Slavický
(Translation: Anna Bryson)