The subject of this study is the office for the Feast of St. Vojtěch (St. Adalbert) and publication thereof, which is something that Czech musicology has lacked so far. Scholars have been able to identify this complete office in sources in the Czech Republic dating back as far as the mid-fourteenth century. The source situation and also the fact that this office includes a responsory taken from the office of St. Stanislaus (from the mid-thirteenth century) indicate that formation of the complete office for the Feast of St. Vojtěch was probably related to the rapidly-developing cult of St. Vojtěch during the period around 1300. However, the conception of this office differs greatly from that of canonical hours in general at that time, because its chants do not proceed by the modes and most of them have unrhymed texts. The office contains at least three chants certainly taken from offices of other saints, and on the other hand a group of chants that may be called original, which are musical settings of an unrhymed text from the legend of St. Vojtěch by Canaparius and are distinctive in their shared archaic recitative procedures. Thus in all probability the complete Czech office of St. Adalbert came into being during the period around 1300 as a compilation of older chants supplemented by several contemporary rhymed chants.
The Sedlčany Antiphonary CZ-S M-7 from the fifteenth or sixteenth century is one of only a few Utraquist sources for the divine office (canonical hours). The repertoire of the manuscript was examined with the help of the CANTUS Analysis Tool in order to find the feasts where the chants differ from most other liturgical traditions. Following an article devoted to Sedlčany graduals published in 2008, this new article presents another case study of the evolution of chant repertoire and liturgy in the Czech reformation.
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