Literary Brotherhood in Český Krumlov
The Literary Brotherhood was a community of the more educated members of the middle classes who used to meet to sing songs of worship on Sundays and on holiday morning services and in Advent matins. Most of the preserved memorials of Czech music from the end of the 15th century to the beginning of the 17th century are connected with the activity of such literary brotherhoods.
The Literary Brotherhood
in Český Krumlov was founded in 1490, abolished before the middle
of the 16th century, and in 1554 Wilhelm
von Rosenberg re-established it again. He, in fact, ordered to
re-establish the brotherhood because "it has been a long tradition
in all towns of the Czech kingdom that those who are educated and
endued with music or literary ability and live in a town have to
come and sing the masses". After the renewal the brotherhood had 24
members, most of them members of the middle class. A complaint from
the school leadership from the beginning of the 17th century has
been preserved saying that the literary brotherhood "does not have
enough members" and choir singers have to help them to fulfill
their duties "they used to do on their own according to a very old
tradition". Both choirs supplemented each other, but as time went
on they began to sing together. It was also one of the duties of
members of Rosenberg Music to help the literary brotherhood with
the choir.
Music on the turn of the
16th and 17th centuries had to have quite a lot of members. The
singers were arranged in two or more independent choirs that played
to each other or joined each other in a polyphonic choir. The
stereophonic effects were quite common in the vocabulary of the
music of the Late Renaissance. One of three polyphonic hymn-books
preserved from those times in Český Krumlov contains such music -
twelve masses for five to eight voices composed by the most famous
composers of the end of the 16th century (Orlando di Lasso, Jacob
Vaet, Philipp de Monte, Alexander Utendal, etc.). Their
interpretation needed the help of choir singers, especially
pre-pubescent boys, because they were able to sing the high parts.
Two other hymn-books, of fourteen that are registered in an
inventory, were preserved. One of them contains a mass and motets
only for male voice - it means only for members of literary
brotherhood (Cypriano de Rore, Matthias Herrmann Verrecor, Jacob
Arcadelt, Benedictus Appenzeller, Dominicus Phinot, etc), the
second book contains vespers, psalms and Magnificat that were sung
by the choir singers.
(mho)
See also:
- St. Vitus Church in Český Krumlov
- Choir-singers in Český Krumlov
- Rosenberg Music in Český Krumlov
- History of Music in Český Krumlov