Instrumental fantasy in the Habsburg lands

Abstract

Monographic studies of the music of composers represented in the Kroměříž music archives in the Czech Republic—such as Heinrich Biber (1644–1704), Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (c.1620/23–80), Pavel Vejvanovský (c.1633/39–93), Georg Muffat (1653–1704) and Antonio Bertali (1605–69), among others—are few and far between. Such studies in the English language, however, are an even greater rarity, although, as is often the case, if you wait long enough two come along at once. Charles E. Brewer’s volume was preceded by the Czech musicologist Jiří Sehnal’s Pavel Vejvanovský and the Kroměříž music collection: perspectives on 17th-century music in Moravia (Olomouc, 2008; reviewed in this issue by Robert Rawson), which (as Brewer notes) ‘arrived too late to fully incorporate its contents into my own research’. To some extent this does not matter as the two volumes are complementary. Sehnal focuses on the administration of the music collection, the musical life and performance practice at the Kroměříž court, and especially on the life and works of Vejvanovský. Brewer, however, gives much greater weight to discussions of musical style of the composers, especially Schmelzer, Biber and Muffat, who were active in other important centres such as Vienna and Salzburg (as well as having connections with the Kroměříž court), and many of whose works are preserved in manuscript in the Kroměříž music archives now held in the magnificent 17th-century castle in the town.