News

The working team of the Institute of Musicology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences prepared a scientific and popularisation workshop for April 27, 2026, in the Moravian Regional Library in Brno. Together with Brno colleagues Vladimír Maňas (Institute of Musicology, Masaryk University Brno) and Kateřina Maňáková (Janáček Academy of Performing Arts Brno), they organised an event entitled On the Notation of Liturgical Manuscripts. The workshop aimed to present the development of various types of musical notation using examples from the Moravian Regional Library and, at the same time, to point out the need for interdisciplinary cooperation in the scientific processing of the oldest written sources.

During the workshop, liturgical books were presented, the analysis and evaluation of which require the integration of several scientific disciplines (musicology, codicology, palaeography, liturgy, history of fine arts, etc.). The workshop was attended by students from various Brno departments and universities (musicology, auxiliary historical sciences and archival science from the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University; Faculty of Music of the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts). The event emphasised the need to know the material side of the musical source - it is in its analysis that graduates of auxiliary historical sciences are specialists. For the knowledge of the musical side and for its interpretation, musicologists and practical performers, i.e. singers or musicians, are irreplaceable.

A selection of liturgical books from the Moravian Regional Library’s collections presented various forms of musical notation from the early Middle Ages to the Renaissance. The speakers’ presentations highlighted the development of notation forms and the continuity of notation for some characters to the present. Along with graphic changes in musical notation, there were also changes in font types in liturgical books, or in the size of manuscripts or prints. These transformations were demonstrated on 19 manuscripts and prints dating from the 10th to the early 17th centuries, which participants had the opportunity to examine up close. At the end of the workshop, the students tried to sing a portion of a polyphonic mass by Charles Luython, published in Prague in 1609.

The working team of the Institute of Musicology of the SAS consisted of Eva Veselovská, Hana Studeničová, Eduard Lazorík and Daniel Śnieżek.

The workshop was held as part of the projects APVV VV-MVP-24-0083 Music Centers in Slovakia before 1650: Institutions - Repertoire - Parallels (2025 - 2028) and VEGA 2/0019/25 Repertoire - Institutions - Transformations: Musical Culture in Slovakia from the Middle Ages to 1650 (2025 - 2028), implemented at the Institute of Musicology SAS

Text and images: Eduard Lazorík, Institute of Musicology SAS