Page 403 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2023. Glasbena društva v dolgem 19. stoletju: med ljubiteljsko in profesionalno kulturo ▪︎ Music societies in the long 19th century: Between amateur and professional culture. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 6
P. 403
the mer it of czech musicians for the r evival of the musical her itage of jacobus ...
Missa super Elisabeth Zachariae in Ljubljana Cathedral
on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of Gallus’s death
The 300th anniversary of Gallus’s death was commemorated in Ljubljana
Cathedral with a celebratory performance of Gallus’s Missa super Elisabeth
Zachariae, the sixth mass from the composer’s opus of masses Selectiores
quaedam missae. The Board of Glasbena matica planned the celebration of
the important Gallus anniversary with two concerts of sacred and secular
music together with the Cecilian Society or its most active member, Anton
Foerster. On 12 July 1891, as regens chori of the Ljubljana Cathedral, he pre-
pared its performance in the Cathedral Church of St. Nicholas in Ljublja-
na with the Cathedral choir. He was helped in the transcription of the mass
by Karel Hoffmeister, another outstanding Czech musician active in Slove-
nia, later a member of the Czech Trio and a rector of the Prague Conser-
vatory, who at the time was teaching piano at the central music school in
Ljubljana. Interestingly, the report on the event states that it was a “hither
to unknown,”14 newly discovered Gallus mass in the Lyceum library, whi-
ch shows that knowledge of Gallus was still quite scant in this country in
the early 1890s. This is mainly due to the fact that Gallus’s masses were not
yet available in modern transcription and were therefore practically un-
known. Of course, many years before that we find numerous copies of Gal-
lus’s masses scattered all over Europe, especially in present-day Germany,
in Wrocław, in the Parisian archives and also in Slovenia. Gallus is mentio-
ned, for example, in a list of musical records in the archives of the Ljublja-
na Cathedral commissioned by the Bishop of Ljubljana, Tomaž Hren, at the
beginning of the 17th century.
After the concert, Cerkveni glasbenik published a report by Janez Gn-
jezda, who as secretary at the time was among the most deserving of the
Cecilia Society’s work. In it Gnjezda, the later president of the Cecilian So-
ciety, describes the concert quite briefly. What makes Gnjezda’s report even
more interesting is the summary of a kind of audit report he gives later in
his article. This was written by the aforementioned Karel Hoffmeister and
is one of the first articles of its kind in Slovenia. In it, Hoffmeister shows the
stylistic complexity of Gallus’s Elisabeth Zachariae mass and goes into more
detail about the special features of the score.15 The Mass is based on the six-
part motet of the same name by Gallus, which the composer wrote for the
14 Janez Gnjezda, “Jakoba Gallus-a maša ‘Elisabeth Zachariae’,” Cerkveni glasbenik 14,
no. 7 (1891): 53, http://www.dlib.si/?URN=URN:NBN:SI:doc-4PFNLGOK.
15 Ibid., 54–5.
401
Missa super Elisabeth Zachariae in Ljubljana Cathedral
on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of Gallus’s death
The 300th anniversary of Gallus’s death was commemorated in Ljubljana
Cathedral with a celebratory performance of Gallus’s Missa super Elisabeth
Zachariae, the sixth mass from the composer’s opus of masses Selectiores
quaedam missae. The Board of Glasbena matica planned the celebration of
the important Gallus anniversary with two concerts of sacred and secular
music together with the Cecilian Society or its most active member, Anton
Foerster. On 12 July 1891, as regens chori of the Ljubljana Cathedral, he pre-
pared its performance in the Cathedral Church of St. Nicholas in Ljublja-
na with the Cathedral choir. He was helped in the transcription of the mass
by Karel Hoffmeister, another outstanding Czech musician active in Slove-
nia, later a member of the Czech Trio and a rector of the Prague Conser-
vatory, who at the time was teaching piano at the central music school in
Ljubljana. Interestingly, the report on the event states that it was a “hither
to unknown,”14 newly discovered Gallus mass in the Lyceum library, whi-
ch shows that knowledge of Gallus was still quite scant in this country in
the early 1890s. This is mainly due to the fact that Gallus’s masses were not
yet available in modern transcription and were therefore practically un-
known. Of course, many years before that we find numerous copies of Gal-
lus’s masses scattered all over Europe, especially in present-day Germany,
in Wrocław, in the Parisian archives and also in Slovenia. Gallus is mentio-
ned, for example, in a list of musical records in the archives of the Ljublja-
na Cathedral commissioned by the Bishop of Ljubljana, Tomaž Hren, at the
beginning of the 17th century.
After the concert, Cerkveni glasbenik published a report by Janez Gn-
jezda, who as secretary at the time was among the most deserving of the
Cecilia Society’s work. In it Gnjezda, the later president of the Cecilian So-
ciety, describes the concert quite briefly. What makes Gnjezda’s report even
more interesting is the summary of a kind of audit report he gives later in
his article. This was written by the aforementioned Karel Hoffmeister and
is one of the first articles of its kind in Slovenia. In it, Hoffmeister shows the
stylistic complexity of Gallus’s Elisabeth Zachariae mass and goes into more
detail about the special features of the score.15 The Mass is based on the six-
part motet of the same name by Gallus, which the composer wrote for the
14 Janez Gnjezda, “Jakoba Gallus-a maša ‘Elisabeth Zachariae’,” Cerkveni glasbenik 14,
no. 7 (1891): 53, http://www.dlib.si/?URN=URN:NBN:SI:doc-4PFNLGOK.
15 Ibid., 54–5.
401
