Antonín Borový

The musical activity of this teacher from Zlatá Koruna is documented not only by the date when it was played, but also by his own chronicle records. Besides obligate Latin church music, his collection also includes many compositions with Czech texts (songs, Czech masses, carols), instrumental music (sections for five wind instruments, German dances, serenades, love songs, flourishes for bugles and tympani, symphonies), an organ book and an opera about "A Bad Woman" that local people performed in Zlatá Koruna in 1820. He himself wrote many compositions, many of them borrowed and copied from his colleagues - teachers from Římov, Zaháje, Chvalšiny, while many others were taken from České Budějovice, Linz or Vienna. Each public celebration in Zlatá Koruna was accompanied by "bugles and drums". In 1817 on a country fair in Zlatá Koruna, Antonín Borový wrote: "The music was well cast with the clarinets, flutes, two French horns, four violins, altoviola, bassoon, principal and drums, three cantos, an alto, a tenor, a basso and an organ. I myself conducted and still there were only four foreign musicians". With the ensemble composed of students, local musicians and teachers from the surroundings he appeared on tour on choirs in Velešín and Černice. He described a victory celebration over Napoleon in 1814 with the following words: "... at sunset they played a kasací, first eight French horn players came, then a principal among them started to blow a march, after that a Czech song about peace came, and all at once they trumpeted, they sang, and we walked all through Zlatá Koruna with that music... When we got back to the castle courtyard we all sang a German song called Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser, and when it was done everybody went to the pub to quench his throat, all dried up from singing."

Many of the dancing compositions written for harpsichord or brass harmony (cast with two clarinets, two French horns and bassoon) suggested that Borový also played pub parties with his ensemble.

(mh)