The Jesuit Musical Tradition in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Abstract

The article sums up the current state of research into the music of Jesuit communities in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the years 1556–1773. In this region, the Society’s engagement in cultivating various forms of musical culture was dictated primarily by considerations of pastoral and confessional natures in a country in which the Reformation remained a strong presence. Strategies of cultural activity were applied in the Polish and Lithuanian provinces with more freedom than in the remaining regions of the Society’s German assistancy. These freedoms referred primarily to everyday forms of cultivating music in Jesuit-administered churches and schools, as ratified in the books of customs. A special role in the didactic and formative process was played by the school drama, rich in musical elements, as well as the so-called musical boarding schools. Although the surviving repertoire of Jesuit provenance is unrepresentative of the artistic tradition under scrutiny, we have reconstructed its character on the basis of intermediary sources.