Department of Musicology

The research strategy of the Department of Musicology at the IAH CAS focuses on themes from the history and theory of Czech music. The department's main long-term goal – the preparation of the collective monograph History of Music in the Czech Lands – involves a collaborative activity that links up with other departments and research centres at the IAH CAS. This monograph will gradually materialize in partial, individual projects. These projects focus on research into music culture within the geographical and historical framework of the so-called Czech lands and its interpretation from the perspective of the changing social, cultural, economic, denominational and institutional context, including the necessary excursions to the European situation in general. 

The department team's present composition allows us to cover the entire breadth of research from the middle ages to the present. Research themes will not remain limited to high music culture; rather, we will look for new methods to uncover how music functioned in all social strata. The research into medieval music will at first focus on choral liturgical manuscripts from Czech monasteries and some specific phenomena in the repertoire used during festive liturgy in Bohemia. These phenomena will then be compared with relevant sources in Central Europe and beyond.

The research in the field of Renaissance music will largely focus on music culture in pre-White-Mountain  Bohemia and its first phase will shed light on sheet music printing in the Rudolfine and pre-White-Mountain periods. Important parts of research into the pre-White-Mountain music culture also include reconstruction and evaluation of Renaissance music libraries (especially the library of the last Rosenbergs). Department members will also edit the polyphony repertoire from the literati brotherhood circles. The department members collaborate on the preparation and gradual publication of Slovník hudební kultury českého středověku a renesance [Dictionary of Music Culture of Czech Middle Ages and Renaissance]. The researchers will newly concentrate on the theme of continuity and discontinuity of some activities and phenomena in the development of Czech music culture in the first decades of the post-White-Mountain era. Research on subsequent periods focuses on the work of early-18th-century Prague composers – researchers will work on thematic catalogues of these composers and investigate the development of music printing in this period. In the 18th century, Italian opera was the most influential musical form in the field of secular music – its ongoing research will focus on specific aspects of “teatro impresariale,” a type of opera popular in Prague between 1724–1807. These aspects include the repertoire, theatre directors, singers and, the reception by the local public which can be studied from, among other sources, period transcriptions and libretto prints. The repertoire overlapping between Italian opera and church music will be studied through the contrafacta phenomenon, a common occurrence in arias and ensembles. In addition to partial studies of the life and work of W. A. Mozart, researchers will examine the unique reception of his work in Bohemia and the spreading of Prague-made transcriptions of Mozart's works throughout Europe. Research into 19th-century music culture will focus on the activity and influence of salons and music clubs and the repertoire played in this milieu. In the field of popular music, the research in its initial phase will focus on the history of Czech musical theatre and will follow the evolution of dance music and musical entertainment from the 18th century onward. The musicology department is expected to grow to include researchers specializing in music from the second half of the 19th century to the present. Research themes from this important period of Czech music history will thus be added among the department's research priorities.