THURSDAY 30 July 2020

13.30-14.00    Registration
14.00             Opening of the conference

Session I.
Chairman: Robert LINDELL

14.10-15.00    Václav BŮŽEK (University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice): Rudolf II. - Persönlichkeit, Regierung, Hof und kulturelle                                           Repräsentation in den adeligen Sitzen
15.00-15.40    Michaela ŽÁČKOVÁ ROSSI (Association for Central European Cultural Studies, Prague): The Ennoblements Acts of the Rudolfine Musicians                       as an Important Biographical Source
15.40-16.10    Ferran ESCRIVÀ-LLORCA (Valencia International University): Sacred works by the Rudolf II Imperial Chapel composers in the Iberian                               World: circulation, reception and context

16.10-16.30    Coffee break

Session II.
Chairman: Petr DANĚK

16.30-17.10    Alanna ROPCHOCK TIERNO (Shenandoah University): Hymns, Martyrs, and Prophets: Czech Reformation Identity in Polytextual Mass                             Ordinaries from the Brno Choirbooks
17.10-17.50    Vladimir MAŇAS (Masaryk University, Brno): Lamentations in the liturgy in Central Europe and especially in Moravia around 1600
17.50-18.30    Martin HORYNA (University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice): Ein Schatz-Kasten voller Clainodien, Hradec Králové (Königgrätz)                             1618, ein wenig bekannter Musikdruck

20.00             Concert of the Dyškanti ensemble


FRIDAY 31 July 2020

Session III.
Chairman: Vladimír MAŇAS

10.00-10.40    Petr DANĚK (Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Art History, Prague): The Swan Song of Rudolphine Polyphony: Liber I missarum by                       Carolus Luython
10.40-11.20    Bernhold SCHMID (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, München): Carl Luythons Missa à 5 super Tityre tu patulae und seine                                 Vorlage
11.20-12.00    Jan BAŤA (Charles University, Prague): Luython’s Missae quodlibeticae

12.00-14.00    Lunch break

Session IV.
Chairman: Jan BILWACHS

14.00-14.40    Christian Thomas LEITMEIR (Magdalen College, University of Oxford): ‘Madrigals in Italian as well as Latin’: Towards a radical                                     re-definition of the madrigal in the late 16th century
14.40-15.20    Kateřina MAÝROVÁ (Prague): Kateřina MAÝROVÁ (Prague): The Contemporary State of Research on the Rokycany Music Collection and                           Charles Luython’s Sacral Compositions, preserved in these Music Sources
15.20-16.00    Scott L. EDWARDS (Universität Wien): From Convivial Dispute to Social Ferment: Luython’s Vinum bonum et suave

16.00-16.30    Coffee break

Session V.
Chairman: Bernhold SCHMID

16.30-17.10    Marc DESMET (Université de Lyon-Université de Saint-Etienne): On the relation between structure and detail in Luython and                                         Handl-Gallus
17.10-17.50    Jan BILWACHS (Charles University, Prague): Karl Luythons Sacrae cantiones vom Gesichtspunkt der Textvorlagen
17.50-18.30    Erika Supria HONISCH (Stony Brook University, New York): Confessions, Anthologized: Heartbreak, Vandalism, and the Promptuarii                               musici (Strasbourg, 1611–13 and 1617)

20.00              Social event


SATURDAY 1 August 2020

Session VI.
Chairman: Robert LINDELL

10.00-10.40    Markus GRASSL (Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Wien): Luythons Instrumentalmusik im Kontext / Contextualising                                   Luython’s instrumental music
10.40-11.20    Luc PONET (Leuven University College of Arts): In organis et in discantu. The basics of a multi-cultural European organ in the early 17th                       century
11.20-12.00    Martin KIRNBAUER (Schola Cantorum Basiliensis / Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz): Carl Luython and the «Clavicymbalum Vniversale,                         seu perfectum» - Finding a historical and musical context
12.00-12.40    Winfried DAHLKE (Organeum Weener): Cembalo Universale - die Möglichkeiten des Instrumentes

12.45              End of the conference

18.00              Concert in St. Vitus Cathedral (Josef Kšica - organ)


SUNDAY 2 August 2020

10.00              Mass in St. Vitus Cathedral




Jan BAŤA (Charles University, Prague): Luython’s Missae quodlibeticae
The paper will focus on a group of Luython’s masses entitled Quodlibetica. Although Carmelo Peter Comberiati devoted to this corpus only few words in his book “Late Renaissance Music at the Habsburg Court”, he brought to fore interesting question of the character of these compositions: “The similarities between the four settings include a quick execution of the text and a remarkable thematic unity within each setting. […] The thematic unity within each setting suggests a previous model […] however, no models have been found.” The paper will examine this statement through the analysis of the masses and the comparison with similar works of Luython’s contemporaries.

Jan BILWACHS (Charles University, Prague): Karl Luythons Sacrae cantiones vom Gesichtspunkt der Textvorlagen
Die Motettensammlung Selectissimarum sacrarum cantionum... fasciculus primus von Karl Luython wurde im Jahr 1603 von Buchdrücker Georg Nigrin in Prag herausgegeben. Mit ihrem Inhalt von 29 sechsstimmigen Motetten gehört sie zu bedeutendsten Quellen mit Luythons Vokalkompositionen. Die Motetten von dieser Sammlung wurden von Albert Smijers schon vom kompositionsstilistischen und teilweise auch textlichen Gesichtspunkt behandelt. Auf die besondere thematische Buntheit der vertonten Textvorlagen sowie auf ihre mannigfaltige Herkunft wurde in seiner Dissertation aber nur sparsam hingewiesen. Neben der Vorstellung des thematischen Inhalts der Luythons Sammlung, der eng mit den Bedürfnissen des Prager Musik- und Kirchenlebens zusammenhängt, versucht dieser Beitrag auch die wahrscheinliche Entstehung der ausgewählten Textvorlagen zu beschreiben. Vor allem wird betont, dass ihr Ursprung eher mit der humanistischen Umgebung in Prag und mit spätmittelalterlichen Quellen verbunden wird als mit Texten des üblichen liturgischen Kanons.

Václav BŮŽEK (University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice): Zwischen dem Rudolfinischen Hof und den adeligen Residenzen in den Böhmischen Ländern
Im ersten Teil seines Beitrags wird der Autor die Persönlichkeit Rudolfs II. und die institutionelle, personale, konfessionelle und nationale Struktur des Kaiserhofes in Prag darstellen. Das Hauptaugenmerk wird der Konstituierung kleiner Machtgruppen im Umkreis der einflussreichen Hofwürdenträger (besonders der Oberkammerdiener) und der Wahrnehmung des multikonfessionellen höfischen Milieus in den Augen der ausländischen Gesandten geschenkt. Im zweiten Teil des Beitrags wird sich der Autor mit dem kulturellen Mäzenatentum der bedeutenden rudolfinischen Höflinge (zum Beispiel Johann Barvitius, Heinrich Julius von Braunschweig) befassen und sich dem Thema des Schaffens der bekannten rudolfinischen Künstler für die Residenzen des Adels im Königreich Böhmen (besonders für Christoph den Jüngeren Popel von Lobkowicz, Wilhelm und Peter Wok von Rosenberg, Adam II. und Joachim Ulrich von Neuhaus) widmen.

Petr DANĚK (Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Art History, Prague): The Swan Song of Rudolphine Polyphony: Liber I missarum by Carolus Luython
This paper deals with the greatest music print of Rudolphine Bohemia: a collection of polyphonic masses by Carolus Luython, Liber I missarum (Prague: Nicolaus Strauss, 1609). It investigates exactly how many times it was published, how it was printed and distributed, and its significance in the musical culture of Bohemia and Central Europe at that time, evaluating also the work of the printer Nicolaus Strauss and his enterprise and comparing the preserved specimens and their users.

Marc DESMET (Université de Lyon-Université de Saint-Etienne): On the relation between structure and detail in Luython and Handl-Gallus
Although it is well known that a deep interest for curiosa characterizes many an artistic trend favoured at Rudolphine court in Prague at the turn of the 1600s’, the question of the relevance of this aesthetic and cultural imprint within the musical field still remains largely open. The focus on detail, and especially on peculiar detail, which ideally serves as a distinctive hallmark of mannerism, brilliantly displayed by Prague artists surrounding Rudolph II, is not easily detected in musical compositions of the time, and this not only because the way music endorses a rhetorical role appears itself to be subject to rapid changes at the end of 16th century. Yet, the question of detail in its relationship with the global structure of musical compositions seems to provide illuminating criteria in order to understand some of the questions at stake within the Grand Art of Prague during the Pre-White Mountain period. Karel Luython and Jacobus Handl-Gallus, both present and active in Prague although not exactly at the same time, seem to provide in their compositions examples of diametrically opposed conceptions of the link between detail and structure. Examples of related texts set to music by both composers will serve in this presentation as an illustration of the tension existing between these two conceptions, characteristic of the turn of 17th century in Prague.

Scott L. EDWARDS (Universität Wien): From Convivial Dispute to Social Ferment: Luython’s Vinum bonum et suave

Luython's seven-voice Vinum bonum et suave, which survives uniquely in the printed anthology Musicalischer Zeitvertreiber (Nuremberg: Paul Kauffmann, 1609), builds on a centuries-old tradition of parodies based on the Marian sequence Verbum bonum et suave. Earlier polyphonic parodies include settings by Jean Richafort and Orlando di Lasso, but Luython sets an otherwise unknown text structured as a linguistic dialogue pitting Latin tributes against German commentary. Moreover, Luython's setting is divided into two partes, the first of which extolls the virtues of wine, while the second praises the excellence of water. This paper situates Luython's setting in the context of a Bohemian tradition of convivial entertainments, as witnessed by the Summa recreatorum, a compendia of material for discussions and entertainment at feasts probably compiled for the fourteenth-century court of Charles IV. Inspired by the dialogical forms featured in this source, which includes a disputatio vini cum aqua alongside another, more widespread version of Vinum bonum et suave, Luython provides a setting updated for the early seventeenth-century world. By expanding Latin parody with German glosses, Luython's setting dramatizes linguistic code-switching as a form of social commentary, a technique that informs other songs in the Musicalischer Zeitvertreiber. While such forms of verbal exchange translate the courtly milieu in which Luython worked, Vinum bonum et suave seems especially well-suited to the socially and geographically varied audience to whom Kauffmann's anthology was also marketed.

Ferran ESCRIVÀ-LLORCA (Valencia International University): Sacred works by the Rudolf II Imperial Chapel composers in the Iberian World: circulation, reception and context
This paper will give an overview on the circulation of the Sacred Music by composers of the Imperial Chapel in the Iberian World. This will be done on the basis of preserved musical sources and other varied documentation such as inventories, book catalogues and personal documentation. This paper will also show that these works were a singularity within the court institutions and private libraries: although some works were disseminated widely, the reception was quite sparse and was restricted to private circles. However, the circulation of music books, instruments and musical agents among the courts of Madrid, Lisbon, Vienna and Prague in this period was not anomalous. Moreover, some members of the imperial chapel, as in the case of Philippe de Monte, were ubiquitous in some of the libraries and inventories in the Iberian World. Notably, most of these were profane works that probably arrived through different channels than the sacred works.

Markus GRASSL (Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Wien): Luythons Instrumentalmusik im Kontext / Contextualising Luython’s instrumental music
Die wenigen, aber durchaus bemerkenswerten Stücke für Tasteninstrument, die unter Luythons Namen überliefert sind, werfen eine Reihe offener Fragen auf. Diese betreffen u.a. die Autorschaft oder die auffällige Divergenz, die zwischen manchen dieser Stücke in Stil und kompositorischer Anlage besteht. Zwar dürfte eine definitive Klärung aller mit Luythons Instrumentalmusik verbundener Probleme nicht möglich sein. Trotzdem lohnt der Versuch, dem spezifischen Profil, der Funktion und generell der historischen Einordnung von Luythons Clavierstücken unter insbesondere zwei Gesichtspunkten nachzugehen: zum einen dem Überlieferungskontext, d.h. der Frage, welche Rückschlüsse aus dem Charakter und Inhalt der Quellen mit Luythons Instrumentalwerken auf diese gezogen werden können (besondere Aufmerksamkeit verdient dabei die Sammelhandschrift A-Wm XIV.714); zum zweiten vor dem Hintergrund dessen, was sich über die Claviermusikkultur und dabei speziell die Einsatzbereiche von Tasteninstrumenten am und rund um den Hof Rudolfs II. ausmachen lässt.

Erika Supria HONISCH (Stony Brook University, New York): Confessions, Anthologized: Heartbreak, Vandalism, and the Promptuarii musici (Strasbourg, 1611–13 and 1617)
Two motets by Carolus Luython, first printed in his 1603 Cantionum sacrarum…liber primus (Prague: Nigrinus), resurfaced in 1611 in the Promptarium musicum, an anthology compiled by the Lutheran schoolteacher Abraham Schadaeus, and printed in Strasbourg with a bassus ad organum by a young Catholic organist, Caspar Vincentius. In this eminently practical print (the first in a series of four), Luython’s settings of Domine Jesu Christe and Gloria laus et honor reached a far wider market than his own motet prints ever did. The Promptuarii were purchased eagerly by both Catholic and Lutheran institutions, and it was probably via these anthologies that Luython’s Domine Jesu Christe entered Erhard Bodenschatz’s Florilegium portense vol. 2 (1621), still in use in Leipzig during Bach’s tenure. Although Schadaeus had amassed a great deal of music before he began editing the Promptuarii, he probably acquired Luython’s music from Vincentius, who had been a choirboy in the Prague chapel of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II before arriving in Speyer, where Schadaeus befriended him. This paper shows that the anthologies bear the traces of the unlikely friendship that formed between the melancholic schoolteacher and the hot-headed organist. Whereas initially the Promptuarii volumes were confessionally neutral, the final volume was explicitly Catholic in orientation, its confessional angle engineered by the zealous Vincentius, who oversaw the project when Schadaeus withdrew following the death of his wife. Following Luython’s motets from Prague to Speyer and on to Strasbourg, we are reminded that for such music—whose sounds, pace Vincentius—were not marked as Catholic or Lutheran—confession was not immanent, but rather lay in the ears of its diverse listeners.

Martin HORYNA (University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice): Ein Schatz-Kasten voller Clainodien, Hradec Králové (Königgrätz) 1618, ein wenig bekannter Musikdruck
Im Jahre 1618 erschien in der Druckerei von Martin Kleinwechter in Hradec Králové (Königgrätz) ein Buch Ein Schatz-Kasten Voller Clainodien, der die tröstlichen Texte, Gebete, Gedichte und Gesänge für alle getreue Christen enthält, die die Stunde des seligen Todes erwarten. Die Sammlung ist von Breslauer Bürger Caspar Rauch von Ulm geordnet. Beilage vom Drucker Kleinwechter enthält einige mehrstimmige Lieder im Canzonettenstil.

Martin KIRNBAUER (Schola Cantorum Basiliensis / Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz): Carl Luython and the «Clavicymbalum Vniversale, seu perfectum» - Finding a historical and musical context
Since the description of a particular harpsichord with 19 keys per octave by Michael Praetorius in 1619, Carl Luython has been linked to this «Clavicymbalum Vniversale, seu perfectum», which is perfectly adapted for «Madrigalia in genere Chromatico». According to Praetorius, the harpsichord was built in Vienna and Luython owned it for some years, before he sold it to a town that is known today as Nysa (in Upper Silesia). The instrument, which attracted the attention of Praetorius, was by no means extraordinary (or esoteric), as a review of similar keyboard instruments with additional keys reveals. The contribution aims to put Luython’s «Clavicymbalum Vniversale» into its historical and musical context, showing that a practical musical interest is the driving force behind its conception.

Christian Thomas LEITMEIR (Magdalen College, University of Oxford): ‘Madrigals in Italian as well as Latin’: Towards a radical re-definition of the madrigal in the late 16th century
Throughout the 16th century, languages constitute a convenient mechanism for sorting non-liturgical polyphony into different ‘genres’. Motets (however loosely defined in most other respects) are characterised through their Latin texts, whereas chansons, partsongs, Lieder and madrigals were based on the vernacular of languages of French, English, German and Italian, respectively. Even the Elizabethan is ultimately treated as an exception that proves the rule. The only major violation of this linguistic principle can be explained away as a process of cultural transfer, through which the Italian madrigal inspired similar creations in the English language. Infinitely more troublesome is the testimony of the Madrigalia tam Italica quam Latina, published in 1590 by Camillo Zanotti, Vice-Kapellmeister of the Imperial Chapel in Prague. A comparative study reading of the Italian and Latin madrigals assembled in this little-known print established that Zanotti’s terminology has more than curiosity value. Albeit unique in their unashamed broadening of the term ‘madrigal’ beyond the Italian vernacular, the Madrigalia tam Italica quam Latina are suggestive of a broader trend. As this paper will argue, by the end of the 16th century, cosmopolitan circles of Italophile and Italophone no longer regarded Italian as a definiens specificum of the madrigal. Severed from its ties to the Italian vernacular, the term ‘madrigal’ may have served as a descriptor of specific compositional features and techniques more generally. Analogies between Latin-texted works from Zanotti’s publication and ‘motets’ by Gallus, Luython, Lassus and other (Eastern) Central European composers and others constitute a reasonable case for adding the term ‘Latin madrigal’ to our nomenclature of genres.

Vladimir MAŇAS (Masaryk University, Brno): Lamentations in the liturgy in Central Europe and especially in Moravia around 1600
This paper will focus on several sources from different environments such as parish- and chapter churches, cathedrals as well as monasteries. It seems that polyphonic lamentations played key role as the polyphonic repertoire within the Triduum sacrum. The known archival sources testify also to an important practice of singing the lamentations (and perhaps also responsories) in vernacular, especially in the environment of religious brotherhoods.

Kateřina MAÝROVÁ (Prague): The Contemporary State of Research on the Rokycany Music Collection and Charles Luython’s Sacral Compositions, preserved in these Music Sources
The paper deals with the present state of research of the Rokycany Music Collection, mentioning the main figures of the researchers, who have paid their attention to study these rich music sources of the sacral polyphonic music – both in manuscript and printed - from the first half of the sixteenth century till the first third of the seventeenth century. Apart from the author of this contribution there should be mentioned at least the following historians and music historians: Karel Konrád, Karel Kadlec, Emilián Trolda, Ladislav Hovorka, Jaromír Černý, Jitka Snížková, Petr Daněk, Hana Hrachová, Jan Baťa and Ondřej Dobisík, from the foreign scholars can be introduced already deceased Róbert Árpád Murányi, Janka Petöczová, Marta Hulková, Stephanie P. Schlagel and Willem Elders. As far as the Luythons sacral polyphonic compositions, in the Rokycany Music Collection there are preserved incompletely 3 pieces in the manuscript sources, namely 6 parts motet Bellum insigne fuit coelo in the shelf-mark ROk A V 19 a-b, unique 8 parts motet Beatae Wenceslae in the shelf-mark Rok A V 41, written for double-choir and 6 part Lamentationes Hieremiae Prophetae, preserved in the shelf-mark Rok A V 45 a-b. As the possible models could serve by the first motet and by the Lamentations the contemporary music prints.

Luc PONET (Leuven University College of Arts): In organis et in discantu. The basics of a multi-cultural European organ in the early 17th century
Luython was primarily a composer of sacred music, most of it in a rather conservative, late Flemish idiom. The rare developments he realised with his keyboard music can be seen as an important step in the direction of the 17the century contrapuntal compositions. As can be found in the surviving organ works of Simon Lohet (c. 1550-1611) – another Flemish composer – the idea of the keyboard fugue (f.i. fuga suavissima) is of great importance for the further evolution to the later structural fugue. This creates comparisons with keyboard pieces by Sweelinck, Gabrieli, Philips, … as collected in the Liber Cruciferorum Fratrum Leodiensium (Liège, 1617). Even the Tongeren Organ Manuscript (1626) – including canzoni and intabulations of Orlandus Lassus – gives credit to a specific evolution in the relationship between word and tone, singer and organist, notation and instrument, which contributes to a specific identity in playing the organ. This tradition was developed in an important way in the prince-bishopric of Liège, a region that was recognized as a leading religious-artistic-cultural biotope. Many musicians (singers, organists, and composers) from Liège and from the environment received prestigious appointments at prominent European courts. This gave rise to a fruitful interaction between an authentic musical practice and the European musical culture. In the slipstream of this movement, famous 16th and early 17th organbuilders contributed to the development of a new concept: a multi esthetical synthesis in organ building. This created a new understanding of the relationship between the organ and the organ music of other European regions.

Alanna ROPCHOCK TIERNO (Shenandoah University): Hymns, Martyrs, and Prophets: Czech Reformation Identity in Polytextual Mass Ordinaries from the Brno Choirbooks
The two extant choirbooks from the Lutheran community of St. James in Brno contain a variety of Mass Ordinary and Proper settings, most of which were composed west of the Czech lands and decades before the choirbooks were copied around 1550. Several Mass Ordinary settings found in these choirbooks are polytextual: they contain a different text in one voice alongside the standard Ordinary text in the other voices. The Brno choirbooks preserve this centuries-old practice within the Mass Ordinary genre and demonstrate different approaches to composing polyphonic masses with multiple texts. The masses with identifiable composers such as Heinrich Isaac and Thomas Stoltzer date from the first quarter of the sixteenth century, and some are actually bilingual with German chorale texts alongside the standard Latin texts. The polytextual masses were probably intentionally selected for inclusion in the Brno choirbooks due to their borrowed material. The pre-existing texts and melodies in several of these older works bear distinct connections to Czech Reformation history, particularly the figure of Jan Hus. This Unixe group of Mass Ordinary settings demonstrate how a Lutheran community could repurpose and apply new meanings to earlier Catholic liturgical music that reflect both their confessional and cultural identities.

Bernhold SCHMID (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, München): Carl Luythons Missa à 5 super Tityre tu patulae und seine Vorlage
Carl Luythons fünfstimmige Messe Tityre tu patulae basiert der Forschungsliteratur zufolge auf der sechsstimmigen Motette Orlando di Lassos über die ersten zehn Verszeilen von Vergils Ecloga Nr. 1. Ein Vergleich beider Werke zeigt jedoch, dass nicht Lassos Tityre tu patulae der Messe zugrunde liegt, sondern eine andere Komposition über Vergils Text. Über den RISM-Opac gelang es, das Modell für Luython ausfindig zu machen. In einem weiteren Schritt soll Luythons Umgang mit seiner Vorlage untersucht werden.

Michaela ŽÁČKOVÁ ROSSI (Association for Central European Cultural Studies, Prague): The Ennoblements Acts of the Rudolfine Musicians as an Important Biographical Source
At the end of their Imperial service numerous musicians applied for a coat-of-arms or, generally, for a kind of ennoblement: “Musici und Trometter” Cesare Bendinelli, Hans Drexl and Dominico Cappa received the ennoblement before their departure to the court of Bavaria in 1582 while Protasio and Zuanjusepo Celotti, also trumpeters, left the court in 1592 to return to their native Udine. Other Rudolfine musicians (and Carl Luython is among them) obtained some kind of ennoblement, without necessarily leaving the Imperial court, as we can see from the Frank’s list ennoblement acts preserved in Austrian Archives in Vienna. The applications for coats-of arms were paid by the applicants themselves by a kind of administrative payment and are very useful in terms of biographical data: they indicate frequently the family provenience of the servant, the length of his stay at the court and also identify his relatives present in the Habsburg service. Moreover, it is interesting now, when we have learned from the Imperial accounting ledgers the exact period of the service for many of the Rudolfine musicians, to study in more detail the ennoblements acts for the information they contain and to link this knowledge to the year of the request, or tracing the circumstances of the coat-of-arms application to understand better in which period of their Imperial court career the musicians asked for the ennoblement.