Utraquist church music

A new chapter of fifteenth-century music history starts with the Utraquist church, which added a novelty to the liturgy – a communion under both kinds for the whole congregation. Concerning the repertory of liturgical music, the Utraquists remained largely faithful to the tradition from the time before the Hussite Wars (i. e. before 1420). As we can conclude from the extant musical sources, a redaction of the liturgical repertory took place during the 1470s or 1480s, which resulted in a specific kind of choirbook called „a Utraquist gradual“.[23] Apart from standard late medieval graduals with plainchant for the Mass liturgy, there are extensive collections of monophonic songs and polyphonic compositions as well, selected and organized according to a common model.[24] A specific feature of Utraquist music culture is a conscious return to the „archaic“ polyphony of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries (including compositions by Petrus Wilhelmi de Grudencz), which is to be found very rarely in the neighbouring regions (e. g. Silesia or Bavaria) after 1450. Polyphonic compositions written in older styles belonged to a core repertory of the school choirs, where they fulfilled mainly a didactic function, partly a liturgical one. At the end of the fifteenth century, when choirs of educated laymen, called litterati, were established, these archaic pieces might also have been sung at their social meetings as generally known pieces from school times. The polytextual motet Christus surrexit vinctos/ Chorus nove Ierusalem/ Christus surrexit (» Hörbsp. ♫ Christus surrexit vinctos) reflects this long tradition; the piece was copied both in the Speciálník Codex and a slightly later Utraquist gradual with polyphonic works, the richly illuminated Franus Codex (» CZ-HKm Ms. II A 6; 1505) from Hradec Kralové (» Abb. Christus surrexit, Franus).

Abb. Christus surrexit, Franus

The polytextual motet Christus surrexit vinctos/Chorus nove Ierusalem/ Christus surrexit in the Franus Codex (» CZ-HKm Ms. II A 6), fol. 334v.

On the other hand, there is no doubt about the active interest of Utraquist intellectuals in the Franko-Flemish polyphony of this time. This kind of music was not only imported (e. g. from France, Italy, Bavaria or Austria) and copied, but it also inspired local composers to write new pieces in this style, even with Czech words.[25] In the Utraquist sources we do not find any polyphonic settings of the Mass Ordinary text of the Agnus Dei, but there are some of them copied without text only or underlaid with a new text (contrafacta), ready to fulfil a different liturgical function.[26] This phenomenon is probably related to the practical implementation of the communion under both kinds to the Mass liturgy.