Czech Rorate chants, missa Rorate, and Charles IVs foundation of votive officium in Prague Cathedral. The testament of choral melodies to the long-term retention of repertoire

0498476 - EÚ 2019 CZ eng J - Journal Article
Slavický, Tomáš
Czech Rorate chants, missa Rorate, and Charles IVs foundation of votive officium in Prague Cathedral. The testament of choral melodies to the long-term retention of repertoire.
Hudební věda. Roč. 55, č. 4 (2018), s. 237-262. ISSN 0018-7003
Institutional support: RVO:68378076
Keywords : Rorate chants * Czech Rorate chants * Czech hymnology * longue durée * Prague cathedral * Marian devotion * votive office * Charles IV * Zdeněk Nejedlý * Karel Konrád * Dobroslav Orel
OECD category: Performing arts studies (Musicology, Theater science, Dramaturgy)

The question of the long-standing tradition of the Czech Rorate chants was the subject of lively discussions even among the first hymnologists. This study points to the continuity between the shortterm tradition of the votive office to the Virgin Mary, based on the wishes of Charles IV at the Prague cathedral, and the later, long-term, tradition of Czech-language Rorate chants, which caught on in Utraquist milieu and was retained as late as the 19th and 20th centuries. The comparability of sung melodies is evidence of the fact that the melodic fund of the Czech Rorate chants retained the proprium Rorate caeli as found in sources from the 14th century. We may thus consider the long life of the Rorate melodies (roramina), including some typical late-Medieval forms (sequences, tropes), as not only a significant example of Czech uniqueness, but also as a representative example of the tradition of “longue durée,” which, over the course of 600 years, passed through various traditions and transformations of different religious denominations
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0290834