The international ‘Society for Musical Education’ was founded in Prague in 1934 by an international group of distinguished musicologists, musicians, politicians, and music administrators with the intention of promoting musical education within all parts of society. The ideological concept of the Society was mainly based on the reform ideas developed and disseminated by Leo Kestenberg. The Society was also strongly supported by the acting foreign minister of Czechoslovakia, Kamil Krofta. Within the foreign ministry, the pursuits of the Society were regarded as an ideal opportunity to present Czechoslovakia internationally as a young democracy in Central Europe. At the same time, however, Kestenberg and his Czech colleagues were strongly critisized by Czech national circles for promoting ‘foreign’ (Jewish and even, surprisingly, fascist) ideas. In a changing political climate, the ongoing discussions about the objectives of the Society demonstrate how musical culture was politicized in the 1930s, even in democratic countries.
The medieval poet and composer Záviš is known as author of religious and secular poetry, written in Latin and in Czech. Scholar works – both of musicologists and literary historians – mostly focused on his love song Jižť mne všě radost ostává, looking for its correct musical reconstruction and the proper place within the late-fourteenth-century vernacular literary tradition. The article deals with Záviš’s less studied works, which represent typical additions to the repertory of the Latin liturgical poetry. It revises the hitherto authoritative Mužík’s interpretation of the Záviš’s lai O Maria, mater Christi and its transmission, brings analysis of his tropes Kyrie Inmense conditor and Gloria Patri et filio, and compares Záviš’s output to the typical or exceptional works of the late-fourteenth / early fifteenth-century. The chants which can be today attributed to Záviš, show a strong influence by the late-medieval German repertory, knowledge of the chants once performed (only) in the St Vitus’s Cathedral, and reveal a surprising link to the contemporary poetical repertory in Northern Italy. Following this, new arguments arise supporting older hypothesis about the identification of the autor ‘Záviš’ as the influencial church official Záviš of Zapy.