English Translation

PRAGER MUSIC UM 1600 The capital of European art Among the emperors, who determined the fate of the German Empire from the Prague Castle, Rudolf is the second, if by no means the greatest, yet the strangest appearance. A grumbler and spintizer, passionately devoted to astrological studies, morbid in his human shyness, weak in his will and increasingly falling prey to the peculiarity with increasing age, this Habsburger did not manage to increase his empire. But he brought Prague to a new splendour when he settled the Reichs-Hofrats-Kanzlei in the Moldovan city. This made the castle not only Europe's most important residence, but the Bohemian capital also the seat of the decisive authorities. The embassies of all countries settled here; the trade and social life flourished again. Rudolf, not inclined to the realities of this world, found less satisfaction and balance in government business than in science and fine arts. Franz Grillparzer, who drew the image of the monarch in his "brother-twist in the house of Habsburg", introduces him as he taxis two paintings presented to him, then deepens himself in the reading Lope de Vegas, examining stones and ores in his melting furnace. All this is historical: the love for painting, Spanish poetry, the young science of chemistry and alchemy. Rudolf flourished in mass fashion and eventually degenerated into collective rage, so in his art chamber he accumulated images and antiques from all over Europe, thousands of canvases, including masterpieces, such as Albrecht Dürer's Rosary Festival; and equally lavishly he took on science: the most famous astronomers of the time, Johannes Kepler and Tycho de Brahe, lived and worked in Prague, but besides them also flocks of goldmakers and other scientific windlers. But one thing Grillparzer mentions only nebein: Rudolf's love for music. The period around 1600 (Rudolf II ruled since 1576 and died in 1612) was one of the most important in European music history. In addition to the multifarious church art that flourished in Italy and the Netherlands, the secular song had developed into a new splendor. Already the church lost its sole control in the musical field. The Renaissance had unleashed new forces not only in poetry and painting, but also in the art of clay, bold newers stood up, revolutionary spirits who broke all the boundaries of tone and harmony, introduced sharp dissonances and showed new ways of expression. The opera was invented by a circle of beautiful amateurs in Italy around 1600 as a summary and coronation of the highly developed singing music as a real new element. The most important care centers of music, however, were at that time the princely courts, which competed with each other in the compilation and preservation of the best chapels. These were at first pure singers' communities, who cultivated the ecclesial and secular genre of vocal music; choirs of boys, men and castrates (the church forbade the women the influence of musical performances); only around 1600 did these choirs become more and more instrumentalists, so that the weight, and thus also the meaning of the word chapel, gradually shift from chorister to orchestral. It goes without saying that the imperial court of Vienna and Prague held the top in such a competition.