Johann Joseph Ignaz Brentner
Johann Joseph Ignaz Brentner (3 November 1689, Dobřany – 28 June 1742, Dobřany) entered into the music history of the Czech Lands mainly through four collections, which appeared in print in Prague from 1716 to 1720. The sacred arias, choral offertories, and instrumental concertos contained in them reflect period stylistic influences of Italian music, and together with the works preserved in manuscript, they provide a valuable glimpse of the music being composed at that time in Bohemia. In their day, Brentner’s compositions were quite widely disseminated, and they were known in places as far away as Jesuit missions in what is now Bolivia.
Instrumental Music
ed. Václav Kapsa
The goal of the edition is to make available all of the known instrumental works by Joseph Brentner. His collection of six four-voice concertos Horae pomeridianae op. 4 was published 1720 in Prague, and it represents the only locally produced printed title from that time that was devoted to secular instrumental music. Two similar concerti da camera have been preserved at the Vatican Apostolic Library. In the context of the given genres, the instrumental Pastorella and the Partita a 5 with the unusual instrumentation of viola d’amore, two oboes, horn, and bass are unique among the compositions of Bohemian origin that have been preserved.
