Sunday, November 3, 2019

Jan Josef Ignác Brentner - Hymnodia Divina

What's amazing about history is that any of the sources from centuries ago have survived at all.  For most of history, we actually don't have any history at all because the records from the time haven't survived.  Sometimes it's a mystery how some sources have come down to our day.  It's like this with the Czech composer Jan Josef Ignác Brentner.

We don't know a lot about his life, other than he published four collections of his music.  Likely there were not a lot of copies because many that we know existed (because they were mentioned by other people) have not survived.  What's strange is that much of his music has survived in Bolivia.  How it got there any why it wasn't lost there is unknown.

You have to wonder how many other composers we don't know about simply because their works weren't lucky like Brentner's.

One thing that we do know about hi was that today is his birthday, born November 3, 1689.

1 comment:

libertyman said...

Impressive voices, though I couldn't understand any of it. Another rare find.

I would love to visit the Czech Republic.