This study is concerned with the relationship between musical repertoire and worship services in non-Catholic churches. The repertoire of the Czech Reformation retained many traits from Catholic worship services, such as a large share of Gregorian chant (translated into Czech) and of songs related to late Medieval cantiones. Chant and polyphony were entrusted to the schola (choir), while monophonic songs could be sung by the whole congregation. The main part of the article is devoted to non-Catholic liturgical services – two types of mass (Matura and Summa) and several of the canonical hours (Matins, Prime, Vespers, and Compline) – and to forms of vocal music associated with them. Prescribed liturgy for worship services is compared with the preserved musical repertoire with the goal of understanding better the place of paraliturgical forms (motets and songs) in the framework of vocal music used in worship services.
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 indispensible 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.