Musicologica Brunensia 53 / 2018 / 2 https://doi.org/10.5817/MB2018-2-11 Italian Sacred Music Listed in the Catalogue of Dresden’s Catholic Court Church, 1765 Janice B. Stockigt /
[email protected] Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, AU Abstract Analysis of more than 800 items of sacred music listed in the thematic catalogue (“Catalogo della Musica di Chiesa composta Da diversi Autori – secondo l’Alfabetto 1765”) of Dresden’s Catholic court church (the Hofkirche) demonstrates the dependence of this church upon com- positions by Italian composers. Apart from existing repertoire, important transmissions of Ital- ian music into Saxony came through the personal collections of the church composers Jan Dis- mas Zelenka (1679–1745) and Giovanni Alberto Ristori (1699–1754), composers whose musical estates came to be acquired by the Dresden court. Valuable additions came from members of the electoral and royal family, while an important corpus of Italian sacred works came into the collection of the Hofkirche to be entered into the Catalogo by Schürer. This late repertoire came from the Venetian copying house of Iseppo Baldan and it contained more than seventy sacred items attributed to Baldassare Galuppi (1706–1785). An overview of the main contributors to the Dresden collection as it was catalogued in 1765 is presented. The principal Italian composers of Dresden’s sacred Catholic repertoire of music are named and the collectors are identified. A possible purpose is proposed for the acquisition of the many items from Iseppo Baldan. Finally, the transmission of the Italian repertoire from Dresden demonstrates the ongoing movement of Italian sacred music to German centres such as Leipzig and Berlin.