Adam Vaclav Michna (1600-1676)
- Missa S Wenceslai (c.1670)
Performers: Chorale Franco-Allemande de Paris; Bernard Lallement (conductor)
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Bohemian composer and poet. Michna's father Michal was ‘Burggraf’ of the
castle at Jindřichův Hradec and reputedly town organist and leader of
the castle trumpeters. Adam probably received his early musical training
from his father. In 1611-12, and again in 1615-17, he studied at the
town's Jesuit Gymnasium. The Jesuits were the leading musical force in
the Czech lands in the 17th and 18th centuries and Michna seems to have
become one of their favoured composers, a fact attested to by the
striking number of his compositions printed, mostly by the Jesuit
Academic Press in Prague. Among friends made during his school years was
the bishop's supreme steward at Kroměříž, Johann Nikolaus Reiter von
Hornberg (d 1669), to whom Michna dedicated his most important
concertato collection, Sacra et litaniae. In about 1633 Michna became
town organist of Jindřichův Hradec, his only official musical
appointment. A licensed wine vault and an advantageous marriage to
Zuzana Zimmermannová brought him considerable revenue; he was a
substantial property owner and prominent in local affairs. In 1673 he
established an endowment for three talented young musicians in his area.
He was twice married but there are no records of any children. It is
estimated that only about a third of Michna's compositions survive. They
are all for the church and are of two distinct types: simple vernacular
hymns and elaborate Latin concertato works. The hymns are clearly
influenced by the strong and long-established tradition of
congregational singing in the Bohemian lands, but nothing discoverable
in his background fully accounts for the marked, and contemporary,
Italian influence in his Latin church music.
His two hymnals, Česká mariánská muzika (‘Czech Marian music’) and
Svatoroční muzika (‘Music for the liturgical year’), were specifically
compiled for the use of churches with limited musical resources. They
contain simple four and five-part homophonic settings of his own
religious poetry, and the melodies have a decided folk character. Each
hymn can be accompanied by a simple continuo part. Several of the pieces
from these two books have remained in popular use in Czechoslovakia to
this day, and Michna's sacred texts are regarded as a high point in
Czech Baroque poetry. He also wrote the words for Loutna česká (‘The
Czech lute’), which is also technically a hymnbook but which, in musical
style, provides a bridge between his two extremes of composition. The
hymns are set as arias for two solo voices with accompanying strings and
organ, the instruments providing short ritornellos. The Czech lute and
Obsequium Marianum (his earliest surviving concertato music) are now
incomplete. Of Michna's works in the concertato style, the most notable
are those in Sacra et litaniae (1654). They employ between four and six
solo voices with chorus, and sometimes two choirs. The instrumentation
is varied but relies on permutations of violins, violas, trombones and
cornetts with organ continuo. Even in such elaborate music there is
still a strong folk admixture, partly through the modality of the
harmony and partly through the brief melodic motifs on which his
counterpoint is built. In the second mass of Sacra et litaniae Michna
actually used the opening of a Czech Christmas carol, which recurs as a
linking motif. In the third mass he created an extended passacaglia, the
whole mass consisting of variations over an eight-bar bass. Michna's
music is notable for its colour and its attractive melodic qualities. He
was the outstanding composer in the Czech lands during the 17th
century, dominating his contemporaries.
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