Šimon Lomnický z Budče, an important figure in the Czech Renaissance, authored many works in various genres. A special position among them is held by his occasional songs, which have been unjustly neglected by researchers not only in the field of musicology. These songs represent an important preliminary stage leading to the later genre of cantastoria songs, but with the fundamental difference that Lomnick˘, as a compiler of cantionals, worked much more inventively with ‘referenced songs’ (songs whose tune is borrowed, with the instruction ‘to be sung like’); for instance there may be a special relationship between an occasional song and the context of the referenced song. In seeking out and analyzing referenced songs we learn much about period practice, and with a little luck we can also identify tunes of songs that were once widely known but are not preserved in any other source.
The article deals with Zdeněk Fibich’s (1850–1900) Variations in B major for piano which Vladimír Hudec, the author of the Tematický katalog Zdeňka Fibicha (Thematic Catalogue of Zdeněk Fibich’s Works), believed to have been lost. Its complete autograph, however, was recently discovered by the author of this article in the music collection of the Prague Hlahol Choral Society. The discovery of this composition, therefore, has substantially changed the existing knowledge of this work – as shown in the following paper, describing its context, such as the Fibich sources linked to it (including the Moser catalogue and the estate of Stanislav Kamenick˘). The article also points out the discrepancies found in the secondary literature.