Musicus et poeta trilinguis. New Findings about the Life and Work of Jiří Cropatius Teplický

This joint article by a classical philologist and a musicologist deals with Jiří Cropatius (a figure documented between 1569 and 1580). Until now, he has been known as a composer who achieved what no other Czech had ever done: getting his music printed by Angelo Gardano in Venice. Current research on sources has allowed us to expand greatly our knowledge about Cropatius’s life. In light of new discoveries, Cropatius is now seen as not only a musician, but also an expert on Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, the languages in which he also wrote poetry. We learn more about his life and, in particular, about his journey to the Holy Land. Cropatius’s Masses, issued in print by Gardano in 1578, have not been preserved, but we can get an idea of what kind of composer Cropatius was from two preserved voices from a manuscript of his Mass for five voices now kept at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

The Image of Růžena Maturová in the Iconography Collection of the Bedřich Smetana Museum

The article summarises the results attained so far through research and expert processing of the photographs held in the iconography collections of the Bedřich Smetana Museum. It provides information about Růžena Maturová (1869–1938) including previously unpublished details about the period of her life after the end of her career as an opera singer at the National Theatre in Prague (1910–1938), concerning Maturová’s performing in silent film (1920–1922), her work in healthcare services (1914–1920), and her sociocultural activities in support of retired soloists from the National Theatre in Prague (at the Na Slovanech Cinema, 1920–1938). The subject matter of the study is a photo album titled R. Maturová. In many cases, comparisons of the photographs from this album with other available sources have enabled the recognition of persons not previously identified in portraits, more exact determination of dating and provenience, and the identification of photography studios.

Jakub Srkal’s 1579 Litoměřice Cantional

On the basis of a little-known manuscript cantional from Litoměřice (1579) and of the analysis of its repertoire, this article presents new discoveries on the topic of the Bohemian song postils of the sixteenth century and on the question of the distribution and thesauration of songs during the early modern period. It documents how specific songs based on Gospel readings were spread, passing from the German collection by Nicolaus Herman of Jáchymov to their Czech translation by Tomáš Řešátko, and onwards to the scribe Jakub Srkal of Litoměřice. The study defines the points of similarity and agreement and the differences between Srkal’s and Řešátko’s cantional, which was published posthumously in Prague in 1610. At a more general level, it also deals with the question of the relationship between the manuscript and printed sources. Besides giving a basic description of the cantional, it also presents facts about Jakub Srkal and about other manuscripts owned by the Bohemian literati from the Church of All Saints in Litoměřice in the latter half of the sixteenth century.

The Film Music of Luboš Fišer

Luboš Fišer (1935–1999) was a prominent and original composer of the twentieth century. All his life, he worked as a freelance composer of classical music and film music. He combined these two fields, and in both he won a number of Czech and international awards. The article surveys Fišer’s film music from four decades (1960s–1990s) in the context of the music of other Czech composers, and it relies on the collection of source material from Luboš Fišer’s estate kept at the Czech Museum of Music, which was subjected to continuous comparison with available film databases. Fišer collaborated with important Czech film directors and took part in making many television series. He was able to compose original music for any film genre and to make his music into a dramaturgically substantive, full-fledged component of a cinematographic work.

Antonín Dvořák in the Notes of the Traveller Josef Kořenský and Czech Society in America in 1893

The article is based primarily on Josef Kořenský’s travelogue and diary, and in broader historical contexts it reports on Kořenský’s contacts with Antonín Dvořák in Prague in the 1870s and ’80s and in New York, where the two men met in late May and early June of 1893. There is a detailed description of the voyage to America, including the realities of ocean crossings and information about Dvořák’s family. There are also introductions of other figures from the circle of Czech artists and intellectuals in New York at the time, such as Alfred Baštýř, who took stereoscopic photographs of the Dvořák family, and the violinist Karel Ondříček. The connections between Kořenský’s journey to America and the Czech patriotic milieu also receive attention.

Two Newly Obtained Letters by Bedřich Smetana

In 2017 and 2018, the Smetana Museum added two of Bedřich Smetana’s letters to its collections. The letter written on 18 April 1859 in Dresden, the day before the death of the composer’s first wife Kateřina, was addressed to the piano virtuoso Alexander Dreyschock, and it is a major addition to Smetana’s still rather sparse correspondence from the 1850s. The second letter, dated 9 January 1882, is an expression of thanks to the Bivoj Vocal Society in Budyně nad Ohří for the conferring of an honorary membership. The study presents an edition of the two letters including a description of the sources, places them in the context of Smetana’s correspondence, and characterises Smetana’s relationships with Dreyschock and Bivoj on the basis of the information contained in the letters and the few other sources.

Helfert’s Theory of a Music Museum (“Musical Archive”)

The article is devoted to one of the first modern conceptions of a music museum within the framework of Czech or Czechoslovak ideas on musical museology. This conception originated with the musicologist Vladimír Helfert. The article follows the development of Helfert’s conception, which was realised primarily in the form of the Musical Archive of the Moravian Museum. The article also identifies the constant features of that conception. Helfert conceived of a music museum (“musical archive”) as a basic institution facilitating work on musical historiography, meaning the compiling, cataloguing, and protecting of musical artefacts (especially two-dimensional artefacts), and their presentation of to the expert community.

The earliest recordings of the works of Antonín Dvořák on standard gramophone records in the collection of the Antonín Dvořák Museum

The article deals with a selection of standard gramophone records from the holdings of the National Museum – Antonín Dvořák Museum. The criteria for the selection were the age of the recordings, the material used for making the discs (shellac), and the recording method mechanical). Analysis of the identification marks on the labels served for determination of the time (the recordings in question were made between 1903 and 1916) and place of their origin. Further research on historical perspectives and repertoire is adding to our knowledge about the lives of Czech opera singers (e.g. Bohumil Pták, Málka Bobková, Otakar Mařák, Emil Pollert et al.) and the issuing of recordings of classical music in this country, as well as about the tastes of the period and the popularity of specific compositions by Dvořák.