• New ‘Eastern European Studies’ series

The postwoman’s just delivered the first volume in a new series, ‘Eastern European Studies in Musicology’.  It’s a collaboration between the University of Wrocław and the German publisher Peter Lang, under the general editorship of Maciej Gołąb (Wrocław).  I should declare an interest in so far as I am on the Editorial Board, along with colleagues from Brno, Vilnius, Lviv, Moscow and Budapest.  The series promises to bring not only new perspectives on music from this wide geo-cultural area but also the writings of a host of authors to the attention of a broader public.  This new volume sets the benchmark.

The Musical Culture of Silesia before 1742 contains twenty one essays under the editorship of Paweł Gancarczyk (Warsaw), Lenka Hlávková-Mráčková (Prague) and Remigiusz Pośpiech (Wrocław).  Why the specific date, 1742? This was the year that Silesia came under Prussian rule.  Prior to that, it had been subject to centuries of shifting political and cultural influences (which of course did not stop then).  The wonderfully varied contents of this first volume reflect this history.  Sixteen of the essays are in English, the remaining five in German.  There are plentiful illustrations, an index of people mentioned in the essays, but no author biographies except academic affiliations at the top of their contributions.

The Musical Culture of Silesia before 1742

• Elżbieta Witkowska-Zaremba (Warsaw): Early Keyboard Music in Sources from Prague and Silesia
• Veronika M. Mráčková (Prague): The Silesian Tradition of Hymns to Czech Saints
• Jan Ciglbauer (Prague): Two Alleluia Chants in Nicolaus Cosel’s Manuscript: On the Creation of New Liturgical Music in 15th-Century Central Europe
• Paweł Gancarczyk (Warsaw): A New Fragment of 15th-Century Polyphony in Silesia and the Tradition of the Central-European Repertory
• Lenka Hlávková-Mráčková (Prague): Die Saganer Stimmbücher (Das Glogauer Liederbuch) und die Traditionen des polyphonen Liedes in Mitteleuropa
• Jaap van Benthem (Utrecht): Die Saganer Stimmbücher (Das Glogauer Liederbuch): eine unbeachtete Quelle für Johannes Tourout?
• Jacobijn Kiel (Houten – Heřmánkovice): Two Anonymous Salve Settings in Warszawa, Biblioteka Uniwersytecka, RM 5892
• Christian Thomas Leitmeir (Bangor): Lutheran Propers for Wrocław/Breslau: The Cantus Choralis (1575) of Johannes Knöfel
• Marc Desmet (Saint-Étienne): Jacob Handl’s Compositions Preserved in the Brzeg Manuscript Collection: Presentation and Chronological Clues
• Bernhold Schmid (Munich): Nach dir, Herr Christe, thut mein hertz verlangen. Ein unbekanntes Kontrafakt zu Jacob Regnarts Tutto lo giorno aus der Bibliothek des Gymnasiums in Brieg
• Thomas Napp (Reichenbach): Transferprozesse zwischen Görlitz und Breslau am Beispiel des Meistergesangs im ausgehenden 16. Jahrhundert
• Janka Petőczová (Bratislava): The Role of Silesia in the Development of Musical Culture in the Towns of Spiš/Zips and Šariš/Scharosch
• Paulina Halamska (Warsaw): Protestant Elite Milieu in the 17th-Century County of Kłodzko/Glatz as Exemplified by the Family of the Wrocław/Breslau Organist Tobias Zeutschner.  Gloss to the Biography
• Tomasz Jeż (Warsaw): Jesuit Melodrama in Baroque Kłodzko/Glatz
• Barbara Przybyszewska-Jarmińska (Warsaw): Marcin Mielczewski (d. 1651) and Alberik Mazák (1609–1661): A Silesian Perspective
• Grzegorz Joachimiak (Wrocław): A Week in the Blacksmith’s Life: Lutenists from Silesia and Bohemia around Count Losy von Losinthal (1650–1721)
• Remigiusz Pośpiech (Wrocław): Ein Schlesier aus Oppeln in Prag: Franz Ludwig Poppe (1671–1730) und seine Werke in tschechischen Sammlungen
• Václav Kapsa (Prague): On the Way from Prague to Wrocław: Sacred Music by Early 18th-Century Prague Composers in Silesia
• Marc Niubo (Prague): Bernard Artophaeus and Bohuslav Matĕj Černohorský.  Casual Examples of Czech Music in Baroque Silesia or the Last Traces of Music by Minorities in Wrocław?
• Dominika Grabiec Warsaw): The Motif of «Deafening with Trumpets» in Central European Passion Iconography, the Religious Renewal Movement «Devotio moderna» and Reform of the Begging Monastic Orders
• Martina Šárovcová (Prague): Choral Books from the Observant Franciscan Monastery in Wrocław from the End of the 17th Century.