English Translation

a very lively life especially in the eighteenth century. At that time there were no less than eight-ten powerful church choirs in Prague, some of which were also directed by German composers, from whose works, however, little has been preserved. But the few give a good concept of the skill of these sounders. Among them are German motets by Brentner, which are distinguished by noble melodicism. In addition to Brentn, there are Christoph Gayer, Wenzel Jakob, Anton Reichenauer and especially Franz Habermann. He came from Königswart near Mariánské Lázně, studied philophie in Prague, then went to Italy, Spain and France to return to his homeland after he had held positions in Paris and Florence. He then lived in Prague for more than thirty years as a choir regent of the Theatine Church and later of the Maltese Church and as a teacher especially in aristocratic circles. He spent the last decade of his life as a choral regent at the Dekanal Church in Eger, where he died in 1733. In addition to church compositions, he also wrote symphonies and sonatas, which unfortunately are not preserved. Only Masses and litanyes, which appeared in Graslitz in 1747, were printed by his works. These fairs were now given the high honor that the great Handel wrote five of them by himself and whole parts of them in his last oratory, written in 1751, "Jeptah", which was not considered to be plagiarism at the time. Thus the sixty-five-year-old Grand Master, at the height of his work, did not find it under his dignity to draw some from the fairs of the twenty-one-year younger modest compo- nist. After all, a single case. The two major musical events of this century concerning Prague are only briefly mentioned: The performance of the coronation opera "Constanza e for tezza" by the Viennese court Kapellmeister Fux in 1723 in a huge open-air theatre built for this purpose at the Hradschin with a mass of participants, among artists of European reputation. The greatest event in Prague's history of music is of course the premiere of Mozart's "Don Giovanni". In between, the founding of a permanent German opera by Count Sporck, the première of three operas by Gluck in 1750 and 1752 in the Kotztheater, where the first German singing plays by Hiller and other composers were already successful in the seventy years. A permanent German opera was given to Prague in 1806, at least earlier than some larger German city. No less than Karl Maria von Weber, in the short period from 1813 to 1816, brought it to fame and prestige. By the foundation of the conservatory in 1811, Prague became the seat of the oldest German educational institution of this kind. It remained German until the end of the century. As Prague gradually became a predominantly Czech city over the course of this century, Czech music became more and more prominent. The second half of the century is the time of Smetana and Dvorák, but after all, both belong to the cultural sphere of German music, although it may also appear nationally coloured. At the same time, nothing remarkable was done on the German side, but the German music life was always very lively and on a high level. Since Prague was once again part of the German Reich, German musical life was being rebuilt. With the founding of the German Philharmonic Orchestra, a promising start has already been made, so that we can look forward to a beautiful future in musical terms. Dr. Theodor Veidl