Ensemble Castelkorn & Josef Žák Labyrinth Garden. Violin at The Court of Kroměříž (2024) [official Digital Download 24 96]

Prince-Bishop Carl’s musical taste was greatly influenced by the musicians of Emperor Leopold I’s Hofkapella in Vienna. The archives at Kroměříž often have unique copies of music by the court composers. In the early 1670s, Prince-Bishop Carl even began a personal correspondence with the then Vize-Hofkapellmeister, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (c.1620/23-1680), a virtuoso violinist and, at that period, also responsible for much of the official court dance music. Schmelzer’s early reputation as violinist was based on the influence of his early printed collection, Sonatæ unarum fidium (1664), and his Sonata Quarta is the longest piece. The first section of this sonata is constructed on 52 repetitions of the descending major tetrachord in D.

Prince-Bishop Carl’s musical taste was greatly influenced by the musicians of Emperor Leopold I’s Hofkapella in Vienna. The archives at Kroměříž often have unique copies of music by the court composers. In the early 1670s, Prince-Bishop Carl even began a personal correspondence with the then Vize-Hofkapellmeister, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (c.1620/23-1680), a virtuoso violinist and, at that period, also responsible for much of the official court dance music. Schmelzer’s early reputation as violinist was based on the influence of his early printed collection, Sonatæ unarum fidium (1664), and his Sonata Quarta is the longest piece. The first section of this sonata is constructed on 52 repetitions of the descending major tetrachord in D.