Czech Baroque Music – Sheet Music

Despite the difficult conditions in the Bohemian lands during and after the Thirty Years’ War in the first half of the 17th century, the Baroque style gradually began to develop, despite being slightly behind the rest of Europe. Browse our sheet music and scores, and discover all the wonderful Czech Baroque Music with Stretta today!

The Advent of the Czech Baroque Era

With the advent of the Baroque era, the Czech people were re-Catholicized by the Habsburgs. They built many Catholic churches, and these had to be filled with music. Church and organ music was at the centre of the work for almost all Czech composers of the time.

Early Baroque

An important composer who was the driving force of the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque Period was poet and scholar Adam Václav Michna von Otradovic (1600*-1676). He tried to actively fight against the cultural decline in the period after the Battle of The White Mountain (1621), after which the majority of the Protestant intellectual and cultural elite fled the country. Through his tireless work, he created a new surge in Czech baroque music, and became a role model for future generations. Michna composed in the early Italian baroque style, but he also often used elements from the Renaissance. The vast majority of the 230 surviving works are sacred. In addition to Latin texts, he also set his own native Czech poetry to music.

High Baroque

An important high baroque figure is Pavel Josef Vejvanovský (1640-1693). He worked as a court trumpeter, organist and later as director of the court orchestra of the Bishop of Olomouc. He wrote both secular instrumental music, mainly for wind instruments, and sacred music. A total of around 120 compositions have been preserved. His style of composition is based on modal principles, complemented by rich melodies, with clear Moravian folk roots.

Pavel Vejvanovský was colleagues for two years in the Olomouc Chapel with the Austro-Czech composer Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644-1704). However, he soon went to Salzburg, where he got a position as Kapellmeister of the archbishop’s court orchestra. He wrote mainly instrumental compositions, sonatas and sacred music.

Late Baroque

The most important composer of the Baroque period is undoubtably Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745). Zelenka trained in Prague, and then in 1710 moved to Dresden, where he spent his entire artistic life in the service of the royal court, first as a double bass player, and later as court composer. Due to the exceptional quality of his unconventional works, he is often compared to J. S. Bach. Zelenka devoted himself primarily to large-scale sacred vocal, instrumental works. Over 250 of his compositions have been preserved to this day.

Selected Compositions by Jan Dismas Zelenka:

• Masses by Zelenka
• Requiem by Zelenka
• Te Deum by Zelenka
• Sonatas by Zelenka

More Related Links

• The Baroque Period – Sheet Music
• Czech Classical Music – Sheet Music
• Czech Music from the Classical Period
• Czech Romantic Music – Sheet Music