Kaple Andělů strážných, Klášter Zlatá Koruna
Anno
Domini 997
Millenium of
devotion to Saint Adalbert
"Adalbert and none other, in whom age, way
of life, nobility and wealth are in accord with honour." With these
words the nation is said to have upheld the election of the man who
became the second Bishop of Prague. By their choice the Czechs
confronted Adalbert with a most challenging task: during his tenure as
bishop he was twice driven into self-imposed exile, and eventually his
career came to a close in a martyr’s death in 997, while he was on a
missionary expedition to the pagan Prussians.
Thus Bishop Adalbert entered into the annals of Bohemia’s history as a
personage who was at once revered and despised, as an intellectual and
spiritual maximalist who was ahead of his times, at least in his home
country. Likewise, his cult has seen in the course of history
alternating peaks and lows, always re-emerging to bear testimony to the
spiritual weight of the Christian ideals for which Adalbert kept
fighting in his lifetime. His legacy of zealous defence of spiritual
values still continues to convey its living message to us today, as we
are marking the millennium of his martyrdom.
There was yet another feature of Adalbert’s character, however, which
has lately been moving into the focus of attention: namely, his
all-European dimension. Quite definitely this saint’s import
transcended the boundaries of Prague archdiocese still in his lifetime
— involuntary though that may largely have been — to embrace a
territory ranging from Monte Cassino to the Baltics. Similarly, thanks
to his missionary activities, his cult developed in Poland and Hungary,
as well as for instance in Aachen. It was also the European dimension
of Adalbert’s cult which inspired the conception of the present
recording project, with its division into several sections according to
the provenance of the various source material.
The city of Aachen, in Rhineland, absorbed the cult of Saint Adalbert
thanks to Emperor Otto III, the bishop’s close friend and admirer. In
the year 1000 — i.e., still prior to the removal of the saint’s remains
to Prague — the Emperor acquired from the King of Poland part of
Adalbert’s relics and brought them to Aachen, where he founded a church
consecrated to Saint Adalbert. Accordingly, the introductory section of
this disc interprets the earliest known record of the Adalbertian
office "Ad festa preciosi" after an original
manuscript from Aachen, dating from the 13th century. The musical
aesthetics of these chants already reflects the late style of medieval
choral compositions. Of particular interest is the large-scale final
halleluja in the responsory Sanctus Adalbertus. Two
lessons, delivered with a simple recitative intonation, bring short
excerpts from the legend of Saint Adalbert by Johannes
Canaparius (a literary source which also served as
inspiration for the text of the office "Ad festa").
The following section is devoted to a repertorium drawn from Prague
sources (here the recording links up with the CD Bohemorum Sancti).
Naturally, this part would be unthinkable without the chant Hospodine,
pomiluj ny (Lord, send your love upon us), whose authorship
was attributed to Adalbert himself. According to recent findings,
however, this ancient chant resembling a litany is more probably a
vestige of the Old Slavonic liturgical tradition.
Adalbert’s relevance to Poland is illustrated by the antiphon Benedic
regem cunctorum conversa gens Polonorum (Pay tribute to the
king of all, converted people of Poland).
The final section contains chants of the mass proper, prescribed for
the feast of Saint Adalbert: namely, a selection from the "commune
martyrium", a series of chants destined for the commemorative days of
the martyrs. As these belong in the stratum of the so-called "old
corpus" of plainsong, they are interpreted here according to the
earliest neumed sources dating from the 10th/11th centuries, i.e., as
they would likely have been sung in Adalbert’s time.
In token of present-day homage to Bohemia’s great saint, the choral
chants are flanked here by two short compositions by Petr Eben,
settings of excerpts from the legend of Saint Adalbert.
David Eben
(Translation: Ivan Vomáčka)