JAN BAťA Charles University, Prague THE INFLUENCE OF CORI spezzati TECHNIQUE ON THE MUSIC OF THE CZECH LANDS THE CASE OF Pavel Spongopaeus JISTEBNICKý (CA. 1560-1619) The period of cultivation of cori spezzati technique falls during the time of major development of Renaissance music in the Czech lands, which can be easily associated with the time of the rule of the Emperor Rudolf II. At that time the country experienced a great blossoming of culture, which was very much supported, in the best sense of the word, by the move of the imperial court from Vienna to Prague in 1583.1 This phase of Czech music history has been attracting researchers since the nineteenth century. However, musicologists working during the period between the two world wars were the first to contribute serious analytical studies. Emilián Trolda (1871-1949) was the foremost researcher at that time.2 Studies of Renaissance music in the Czech lands received a new impetus in the 1960s thanks especially to Jaromír černý (1939-2012) and his students. One of those students is Kateřina Maýrová (born 1954), who has been deal- ing with the issue of double-choir compositions in the Czech lands for more than thirty years. She presents the results of her work to researchers not only in the Czech Republic but also abroad, where she has published summarizing studies devoted to the issue of cori spezzati technique.3 However, a researcher interested in this repertoire encounters many problems that he or she has to tackle along the way – especially the fragmentary character of sources, which unfortunately hinders adequate research, not to mention performance of these compositions. The vast majority of the pieces were notated in partbooks, most of which were destroyed during later historical convulsions. With the single exception This paper is published as a part of the research project Musical Culture in Prague 1526-1620: Situation, Sources, Institutions, supported by the Czech Science Foundation (Reg. No. 408/09/1922). 1 Cf. Jaroslav Pánek, The Czech Estates in the Habsburg Monarchy (1526-1620), in Jaroslav Pánek - oldřicH Tůma and others, A History of the Czech Lands, Prague, Karolinum, 2009, pp. 209-212. 2 emilián Trolda, Kapitoly o české mensurální hudbě [Chapters on Czech mensural music], «Cyril», LIX, 1933, pp. 4-7, 27-31, 52-56, 74-78. Concerning Trolda’s life and work see JoHn Tyrrell, Emilián Trolda, in NG2, XXV, pp. 756-757 and Tomአslavický, Emilián Trolda, in MGG2, Personenteil, XVI, cols. 1066-1067. For the latest contributions to knowledge about Trolda’s life and work in the Czech language see «Hudební věda», XXXVII, 2000, pp. 175-311. 3 kaTeřina maýrová, Compositions for Double Choirs (Cori spezzati Compositions) in Bohemia at the Turn of the 16th and 17th Centuries: the State of Manuscripts and Printed Sources and the Problems of Migration of Double Choir Singing, «Acta Universitatis Palackianae Olomucensis. Philosophica et Aesthetica», XVII, 1998 (Musicologica Olomucensia, 4), pp. 123-140; ead., I “cori spezzati” nelle terre ceche tra il 16. e il 17. secolo, le fonti e i modelli ispiratori italiani: il repertorio italiano dei “cori spezzati” conservato in Boemia, in Italia e Boemia nella cornice del Rinascimento europeo, ed. Sante Graciotti, Firenze, Olschki, 1998 (Civiltà veneziana. Studi, 49), pp. 237-260. – 385 – Jan Baťa of a complete set of five part-books from the former holdings of the literati brother- hood associated with the church of Saint Michael in Opatovice (in the New Town of Prague),4 all we have are remnants from once-rich musical archives of churches, literati brotherhoods, and school choirs.5 Still insufficient registration of preserved sources is another problem. Few thematic catalogues of relevant music collections are available, and most of them are hidden in unpublished papers and theses.6 Czech musicologists are aware of this dismal situation and therefore research projects to date have been devoted more to basic registration of the sources than to any deeper analysis. In my paper I should like to focus on Pavel Spongopaeus Jistebnický, whose composi- tional output was influenced by the cori spezzati technique more than of any other author in the Czech lands. Spongopaeus was among the most prolific Czech composers of his time. He was born around 1560 in Jistebnice, in southern Bohemia. Unfortunately we have no reliable information about his education. He is mentioned in sources only as a teacher in Přeštice, in western Bohemia, in 1585, and it seems that he remained in that region until 1598 when he moved to Kutná Hora. In this city he first taught at the parish school of Saint Barbara. After marrying the widow Kateřina Beranová, he was probably granted rights as a burgher and was elected to the position of a school inspector. He died in Kutná Hora in 1619.7 Spongopaeus is known for his contacts with literati brotherhoods in various parts of 4 Prague, National Library of the Czech Republic (hereafter CZ-Pu), Manuscripts and Early Printed Books Department, ms. XI B 1a-d; Prague, Library of Royal Canonry of Premonstratensians at Strahov (hereafter CZ-Ps), ms. DA II 3. Cf. THomas a. noBlitt, A Polyphonic Gradual for the Literary Brotherhood at the Church of St. Michael in Opatovice, Prague, in Gestalt und Enstehung musikalischer Quellen im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert, ed. Martin Staehelin, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 1998 (Quellenstudien zur Musik der Renaissance, 3; Wolfenbütteler Forschungen, 83), pp. 213-223. For a selective edition see Hudba české renesance: výběr polyfonních skladeb 16. stol. z rukopisů St. knihovny ČSR (XI B 1 a, b, c, d) a Památníku nár. písemnictví (D. A. II. 3) [Music of the Czech Renaissance: A selection of sixteenth-century polyphonic compositions from manuscripts in the State Library of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic – XI B 1 a, b, c, d – and The Museum of Czech Literature – D. A. II. 3], ed. Jaromír černý, Prague, SNTL, 1983 (Varia de musica, 3), LV; and Officium in Nativitate Domini: graduale ecclesiae Sancti Michaelis Opatoviensis Neo- Pragae, pars 18, ed. Martin Horyna, Prague, Národní knihovna české republiky, 2009 (Fontes musicae, 2), XXX. 5 The so-called literati brotherhoods formed at the end of the fifteenth century as an imaginary heritage of the Hussite emphasis on greater participation of the laity in the liturgy. They were groups of educated (homines litterati) and music-loving citizens. In addition to their musical role (accompaniment of liturgy), these brotherhoods, working virtually in every large church, also played a significant social role like other religious brotherhoods. They had expensive manuscript songbooks made for their musical activities, often including polyphonic music alongside Gregorian chant. They also paid attention to printed music production which was coming to Bohemia from all over Europe. Cf. Jiří seHnal, Cantional, in NG2, V, pp. 60-61. 6 Catalogus codicum notis musicis instructorum qui in Bibliotheca publica rei publicae Bohemicae socialisticae in Bibliotheca universitatis Pragensis servantur, ed. Václav Plocek, Prague, Academia, 1973, 2 vols.; kaTeřina maýrová, Hudební prameny literátského bratrstva v Rokycanech ze XVI. a začátku XVII. století [Musical sources of the literati brotherhood in Rokycany from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries], diploma thesis, Prague, Charles University, 1980, 3 vols.; víT ascHenBrenner, ‘Literátské bratrstvo v Klatovech 16. století a jeho hlasové knihy’ [The literati brotherhood in sixteenth Klatovy and its partbooks], seminar paper, Prague, Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy, 2000. 7 Cf. Jana vozková, Paulus Spongopaeus Gistebnicenus, in NG2, XXIV, p. 212; and marTin Horyna, Paulus Spongopaeus Gistebnicenus, in MGG2, Personenteil, XV, cols. 1223-1224; see also JiTka sníŽková, Der – 386 – THE INFLUENCE OF CORI SPEZZATI TECHNIQUE ON THE MUSIC OF THE CZECH LANDS Bohemia (in Přeštice, Klatovy, Prague, and Hradec Králové) as well as with humanist intel- lectual circles in Prague and Kutná Hora. This is shown not only by his own Latin poetry but also by a collection dedicated by leading Czech humanists to the composer’s memory after his death in 1619.8 Pavel Spongopaeus Jistebnický is known today as a composer of twenty-six settings of complete masses (each containing an ordinary and proper of the mass), seven se p- arate ordinaries, seven separate propers, twenty-three motets, two psalms, and minor compositions such as hymns, invitatories, Magnificats, responsories, and songs (see table 1). His works are composed for four to eight voices. In addition to Franco-Flemish imitative counterpoint he also mastered the modern cori spezzati technique. Although there are compositions that set texts in the Czech language, Latin strongly dominates in his works. It is an irony of fate that of his large known output, including about one hundred compositions, only one minor four-voice composition has survived complete.9 Therefore it is not possible to conduct such a full analysis and draw relevant con- clusions as in the case of Spongopaeus’ contemporary Mikołaj Zieleński.10 However, even the dismal status of the preserved sources need not prevent a deeper analysis of Spongopaeus’ works, in which influences of imported compositional techniques can be traced. So far nobody has ever examined in detail the models that served as a basis for Spongopaeus’ settings of the mass. This is largely due to the fact that these models – if they are mentioned in the sources at all – lack indication of their composer, and therefore it has been very difficult to find them. I often faced the problem of searching for Jistebnický’s models while studying the Gradual of Václav Trubka z Rovin – the only surviving partbook from what was originally an eight-volume set made around 1600 for the literati brotherhood at the church of the Virgin Mary before Týn in the Old Town of Prague.11 Despite its frag- mentary character, this Gradual is one of the crucial sources for Spongopaeus’ compositions vergessene Tschechische Komponist Paulus Spongopaeus, «Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch», XL, 1976, pp.