Music in the Past of Český Krumlov and Some Characteristic Traits of the Cultivation of Music in Bohemia from 1500 to 1800

Abstract

The town of Český Krumlov served in the past as a traditional seat for important noble families.
 Several institutions, each having its own tasks but also capable of collaborating with the others on
 special occasions, shared in providing music in the castle, the church, and other locations. Comparison
 with the situation in other towns indicates that around 1500, in conditions of a consolidated post-Hussite
 society in which lay persons took over a portion of responsibilities in churches from the institutionalized
 church, whose property they had secularized, there arose in Bohemia a model of musical life whereby
 professional, semi-professional, and amateur performers, whose indispensable base was in the schools,
 joined forces in churches and noble residences. This model made possible the blossoming of Bohemian
 musicality in the eighteenth century, and continued to function into the second half of the nineteenth
 century or, in some respects, even longer. It finally waned as a consequence of social changes that
 were projected into the school system, whereby training in church singing and in the playing of
 instruments was replaced by practical instruction.