The Information Value of a Music Inventory : “ Musicalien und Instrumenten ” listed in Sokolov ( Falkenau ) in the First Half of the 18 th Century

Music inventories represent traditional terrain of musicological research useful for various inquiries. Within the project on historical music inventories in the Czech lands, several desiderata of previous research were identified including a lack of systematic investigation of inventories from the vast network of parish churches in Bohemia. The impulse for this article was the emergence of the 1736 inventory of the archdeanery church of St James the Greater in Sokolov (Falkenau) with the previously unnoticed specification of “Musicalien und Instrumenten” in three places: in the collection of church inventories of the Prague Archbishopric, in the parish chronicle, and finally in the parish archives with significant additions and within the whole series of church inventories (1707, 1731, 1736, 1769, 1781, 1798, 1815, 1827). The article follows both the scope of the local music collection, which is lost today, and the evolution of music items in the inventories judging their changing information value. It comprises the edition preserving the dynamic character of the sources. Their contents indicate that in the first decades of the 18th century, printed music still formed the core of the music collection. It was also possible to outline the position of the church choir within the presumed streams of music circulation and trace the links with the music centres of Prague (especially with the music collection of the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star) and Dresden (Cozzi, Ristori, Vivaldi, Zelenka). The inventorying method often consisted in the copying of the previous inventory and the later lists obviously strive more to keep the continuity with the preceding lists rather than reflect

For musicological research, historical music inventories represent traditional terrain affording various types of information. From a source of this kind we are usually informed on two levels: about musical items on the list (if they are listed specifically), and about the shape of the music collection at the very moment of inventorying (provided it is possible to date the source). If a series of inventories from one locality is available, the information value is often significantly enriched by the possibility to trace the growth or the decline of the music collection in question. 1 Besides the obvious and invaluable usefulness of a music inventory for researching the local music culture or the development of a personal music collection, sources of this type can be worthwhile for a plenty of other inquiries such as investigating the dissemination of a specific repertory or even writing the music history of a specific region or land. As far as the latter approach is concerned, Czech musicology has a long tradition in the productive use of music inventories: as an early example let us mention Emilián (Emil) Trolda, who was able to utilize the music inventories from Třebenice (1699) and especially Osek (1706) as important sources for his pioneering writing about Bohemian music of the 17 th century. 2 Much later, Barbara Ann Renton based her comprehensive dissertation on music in Bohemia in the 18 th century almost solely on the extensive music inventories from two important monastic centres, the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star in Prague and, again, the Cistercian monastery in Osek, using and thereby also increasing general awareness of the research done by her predecessors available in Czech only. 3 Meanwhile, a fundamental and unique attempt to process Czech music inventories systematically was undertaken by Jiří Fukač in the 1960s. In this project Fukač followed up the experience gained during the writing of his thesis on the already mentioned inventory of the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star in Prague 4 and beyond all doubt he also profited from the works of his teachers and colleagues in Brno and Olomouc, especially Jan Racek,Theodora Straková and Jiří Sehnal. 5 In the end, Fukač's project led 1 For this aspect of the research depicted particularly on the oldest layer of sources see MAŇAS, Vladimír. K problematice hudebních inventářů: několik doplňujících poznámek k heslu Katalog Jiřího Fukače ve Slovníku české hudební kultury [About Music Inventories: Some Remarks on the Entry "Katalog" (Catalogue) by Jiří Fukač in the Encyclopaedia of Czech Musical Culture]. Musicologica Brunensia 51, 2016, no. 2, pp. 81-94. 2 TROLDA, Emilián (Emil). Tote Musik (Ein Beitrag zur Musikgeschichte Böhmens). Musica divina 7, 1919, pp. 71-72, 111-112, 139-144, 171-176. IDEM. Česká církevní hudba v období generálbasu [Czech Sacred Music in the Thorough-Bass-Time]. Cyril 60, 1934, pp. 49-52, 75-78, 103-10;Cyril 61, 1935, pp. 2-7, 25-31, 56-59, 73-78, 98-99 , 1938, pp. 45-68. IDEM. Hudební to the publication of an important methodological study 6 and to the inclusion of extensive entries on music inventories into two Czech dictionaries of music, 7 but the documentation in its entirety remained unpublished. 8 For the group of earlier sources dated from before ca 1800, the current project on historical music inventories in the Czech lands aims to complete Fukač's task taking his documentation for the starting point of further research.
Apart from verifying heuristic information provided by Fukač, several new sources uncovered since then as well as many studies published in the meantime have to be incorporated into the documentation. Besides, certain imbalance in the registered music inventories arouse questions. For example, the quantity of inventories from Bohemia is relatively small against the number of sources from Moravia, which does not reflect the proportion in the size of both lands and an estimated numbers of their music institutions. Further, in the first half of the eighteenth century with its rapid transformation of music styles, the known music inventories witnessed very high level of figural music (as opposed to chant) 9 in the monastic orders while nearly no sources are available from the choirs of numerous parish churches. Such irregularities appear to be mostly results of the problematic and patchy preserved source base; the frequency and quality of figural music of course greatly depended on the size and importance of a given place, its patronage and other aspects, and one can generally say that there are fewer surviving sources from parish churches than monasteries and cathedrals. Under these circumstances it is clear that every newly-found source might represent an important discovery with a potential to fill the gaps in our present knowledge.
So far no systematic research has been made into the figural music performance in the vast network of parish churches in Bohemia during the 17 th and 18 th centuries  Brunensia 52, 2017, no. 2, pp. 27-41. 9 Writers in English often strive to avoid the term 'figural music', which is common e.g. in Latin, German or Czech, in favour of 'polyphony' or 'concerted music'. However, both terms preferred by English speakers are too concrete and associated with too specific parts of a repertory for the given purpose. Here, I follow the formulation used in TALBOT, Michael. The Sacred Vocal Music of Antonio Vivaldi. Firenze 1995, pp. 58ff. comparable to the thorough examination of the Moravian sources made by Jiří Sehnal. 10 Therefore, the reconnaissance probe into serial sources from the parish churches in Bohemia was one of the tasks of our project. The immense scope of source material, which is, however, rather unevenly distributed and often of low information value, counts to the obstacles of such research. In Bohemian sources we also encounter a paradox phenomenon already pointed out by Jiří Sehnal: In the dean's registers of the Olomouc diocese, representing in fact reports from bishop's visitations, the scarcest, briefest and least systematic reports were precisely those regarding churches in the most important and wealthiest cities/parishes. 11 Thus, in two series of parish priests' relations (the answers of parish priests to questions posed by the Prague archbishop, collected in 1676/77 and 1700) as well as in the collection of 18 th -century parish-church inventories of the Prague archdiocese preserved in the archives of the Prague archbishopric kept in the National Archives we find almost no inventories of Prague parish churches and also reports from other prominent cities are comparatively brief.
The inventory of the archdeanery church of St James the Greater in Sokolov (Falkenau) written down in 1736 and containing the specification of "Musicalien und Instrumenten" is one of the previously unnoticed sources uncovered by Vladimír Maňas and his team of students in the collection of church inventories in the Prague Archbishopric archives. Independently and almost simultaneously, I ran into the same text in a parish chronicle from Falkenau, today easily accessible online thanks to the extensive digitization of sources of that kind. 12 Finally, it turned out that in the parish archives kept in the State District Archives Sokolov the antecedent and subsequent inventories as well as the original manuscript of the 1736 inventory with significant additions are available! 13 Such a complex of sources represents valuable material enabling us not only to follow the evolution of the local music collection but also to look at the genesis, disseminating and contemporary information value of a music inventory. Consequently, the present article attempts to merge both lines of thought outlined here and offer an edition of the music inventory preserving the dynamic character of the sources.
Information on music culture in the north-west Bohemian town of Falkenau (Falknov in Czech, renamed to Sokolov in 1948) in the first half of the eighteenth century is scarce. After the Battle of the White Mountain, the town became the property of the Nostitz family (Nostitz-Rieneck since 1673). In the late 18 th and early 19 th century the members of the family played a very important role in the music history of Bohemia but almost no information related to music on their properties is available before 1750s. 14 In the second half of the 17 th century, the town slowly recovered from losses suffered during the Thirty Years' War. In 1663, the monastery of the Friars Minor Capuchin with the church of St Anthony of Padua was founded. The deanery (since 1672 archdeanery) church of St James the Greater was rebuilt in the early 1670s. 15 The new instruction for schoolteachers issued by Count Johann Hartwig Nostitz  in 1683 can also be seen as a part of the ongoing renewal. From the remark that a substitute has to be found when both teachers are engaged as Cantor and Organist respectively, we can assume that this was a rather common situation. They were also supposed to train pupils in singing and educate those with special talents in church music. 16 The third person responsible for music in the church was the Stadtpfeifer. 17 Unfortunately, the document is currently known only partially from the town's history written by local archdean Michael Pelleter and I have not succeeded in finding the source in the parish archives.
In the foundation letter of the archdeanery from 1672, Count Johann Hartwig Nostitz commits himself (as well as his heirs and future possessors and patrons) apart from other things to provide "vocal, und so viel möglich instrumental Music" for the church of St James the Greater. 18 The oldest inventory found in the parish archives is the list of items present at the archdeanery dated from 1687, which does not contain any records associated with music. 19  The mixture of music instruments and sheet music is not very typical if we take into consideration other sources of this kind; as a rule, only instruments are listed and if sheet music occurs it is usually listed separately; as we will see, in Falkenau they kept their own style also in subsequent inventories. We have no information about the music repertory of the church in the immediately preceding period and, unfortunately, the parish priests' relations (1676/77, 1700) from the vicariate of Falknov have not survived either, so in this respect we have no hope of 'framing' the picture. But it is clear that the items on the list including the compositions by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber and Nicolaus Franz Xaver Wentzeli were in recent use. This was not always the case, since several music inventories contain remnants of old repertoire, whether in use or stored only as an ancient 'treasure'; telling examples are found in the Vimperk (1709) and Most (1761) inventories containing records of music prints from the second half of 16 th century. 20 With the help of the later church inventories from Falkenau we can deduce that both records of masses by Wentzeli and vespers by Biber stand for the printed collections. As for the Flores verni by Wentzeli published in 1699 or 1700, it might be a recent acquisition, since the print was widely recommended by the Prague consistory in the 1706. 21 We can only speculate why there are yet no traces of Italian repertory when for instance in the Osek inventory from 1706 it is significantly represented with works by Giovanni Battista Bassani being on the top. 22  different ranks, but the absence of Italian music in the 1707 Falkenau inventory does not necessarily mean that such music was not played there. In any case, the subsequent couple of church inventories from 1731 and 1736 offer much better opportunity to follow the progress both in the widening of the music collection and in the acquiring of works by Italian composers.
More sources are now available with similar, yet differing text layers. In the "Specification der befindlichen Musicalien und Instrumenten auf dem alhießigen Chor St. Jacobi Majoris" written at the end of the church inventory from 1731 (further referred to as S-1731), which solely survived in the parish archives of Falkenau, several entries were corrected after the inventory had been written and the whole section of eight entries titled "Mehr Sachen auf den Chor gehörendt wie folget" was attached to the empty page at the end of the document. In 2 nd December 1736 a new church inventory (further referred to as S-1736P) was put together using the method of copying the previous inventory. 23 Thereafter, S-1736P was copied twice: it was inscribed into the local parish chronicle (S-1736C) 24 and one copy was sent to the archiepiscopal archives in Prague (S-1736A). 25 The mutual relationship of these two copies is not entirely clear, but in both cases, the text was slightly standardized: for instance, each of the four entries for the printed collections on top of the "Specification…" begins in S-1736C and S-1736A with the strict word order "1 Opus getruckter […]" while in S-1731 and S-1736P the word order of these entries slightly differs (see the edition below). Afterwards, S-1736P was further elaborated: two new records of music instruments acquired later were inserted at the end of the first page of the document in or after 1739 and entire two blank pages at the end of the document were filled up with the list of sheet music written in one stroke. It is not known when the latter addition was made; a natural 'terminus ante quem' is 1769, the date of the next inventory (S-1769), but most probably the music was listed immediately after 1736 and no later than the 1740s. Unfortunately, the writers of all documents in question are currently unknown.
The following edition aims to put together the information from all these sources, because not only the contents, but also the information about different time layers and about the gradual evolution of some records is of importance for the interpretation of the inventory. The text is transcribed and pagination indicated according to S-1736P, which is the main source for the edition, since its contents are the most comprehensive. The main time layers are indicated by a grey shade (see below for more detailed comment). The names in the main text are printed in bold. In the petite script following immediately after the respective record, the identification of a composer and of the recorded item as well as other comments are given. In the same place, the occurrence of a record in other sources (when there is a difference) or significant variants are stated. The references to the 1707 inventory are given only for clearly identifiable music prints. On the other hand, the comments cover almost all music items listed in S-1769 including later corrections made in it (before 1781); only the following record from the music section of S-1769 was not possible to include reliably: "1 positiv [later added:] unbrauch[bar]".

Trompeten, alß 3 lange und 3 kurtze 4 neu und 2 alte
The specification "4 neu, 2 alt" later written into S-1731, S In S-1769, "2 Flautten" stated in the same line with bassoons (see above), but later crossed out and new line written to the list with the same pen: "1 Flauten Passon", i.e. a bass recorder.

Missa votiva ex D S[anc]ti Anto[nii]
Later inscription into S-1731, on the new page with the title "Mehr Sachen auf den Chor gehörendt wie folget". Probably a mass to Saint Anthony of Padua, while in the foundation letter mentioned earlier Count Nostitz stated the obligation to serve the mass to this saint every Tuesday; 27 also the local church of the Friars Minor Capuchin monastery founded by Count Nostitz in Falkenau in 1663 was consecrated to the same saint. From many hypothetical concordances, the Missa Corporis Domini, ZWV 9, by Jan Dismas Zelenka is worth mentioning as it survived in the music collection of the Knights of the Cross in Prague (CZ-Pkřiž) as the Missa Sancti Antonii de Padua. 28

Requiem ex C
Later inscription into S-1731. Later crossed out in S-1769.

Te Deum laudamus ex C Auth[ore] Fux
Later inscription into S-1731; later crossed out in S-1769. Three Te Deum laudamus in C major by Johann Joseph Fux (1660-1741) survived in the Knights of the Cross music collection in Prague (CZ-Pkřiž). 29

Missa seu Kyrie et Gloria Ex C. Auth[ore] Reichenauer
Possibly concordant with the Missa non tota survived in Dresden and Prague. 31

Missa Ex A. Sub titulo: Fiat voluntas tua. auth[ore] Öttl
Mathias Öttl (ca 1675-1725), Missa Fiat voluntas tua (a-Moll), cat. no. A/I/14, among four Prague copies of the composition only the copy from Gayer's collection in the music archive of the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star (CZ-Pkřiž) bears the title "Fiat voluntas tua". 32

Missa Tempus designans Ex F auth[ore] Caldara
The mass by Caldara with a similar title (Missa Designans tempus seu velationis) but in D major survived in Prague (CZ-Pak). 33

Beatus vir. Ex A auth[ore] Cozzi.
Probable concordance in Dresden (D-Dl), the work in the literature ascribed to Carlo Cozzi ( † 1658/59), but possibly composed later, perhaps by Giacomo Cozzi working in Milano around 1720, whose sacred compositions survived in Prague (see the discussion about authorship later in the article) 34

Dixit dominus. Ex G. Auth[ore] Antoino (!) Lotti
Antonio Lotti (1667-1740) In addition to the few items known already from the 1707 inventory, we basically have three time layers in the main text of the edition: 1) the items listed in S-1731 until 26 th February 1731, the day to which the inventory is dated (without grey shade in the edition), 2) the items added at the end of S-1731 under the title "Mehr Sachen auf den Chor gehörendt wie folget" sometime between 1731 and 1736 (highlighted by light grey shade), and 3) the items added at the end of S-1736P sometime after 2 nd December 1736, to which the inventory is dated (grey shade). Two records added in S-1736P to the end of the f. 9 v , which are datable in or after 1739, are also highlighted (semi light grey shade); it is necessary to specify that this addition was obviously written independently of the major supplement added at the end of the document. Finally, the next two time layers are hidden in the comments: it was possible to pair up all music items of S-1769 except one with the elder records and these items were further corrected before 1781, when the next inventory is dated. The 1781 and subsequent inventories are not taken into account in the edition, but several items from these late sources will be commented thereinafter.
Let's aim our attention primarily on the sheet music listed in the Falkenau inventories. Printed collections dominate in the oldest layer. From the low number of surviving copies of these titles (only Biber's Vesperae survived in more than three copies) one might gain an impression that their spreading and consequently also their impact could not be high, but our inventories indicate the contrary: in such an important and wealthy parish as was Falkenau, printed music still formed the core of the music collection in the first decades of the 18 th century. The four large prints occupied prominent position at the beginning of the Specification in the S-1731 and S-1736 inventories and they were still mentioned in S-1769 where most of the music manuscripts listed in the previous inventory are missing and no new sheet music turns up. The selection of titles includes the best known Bohemian composers of the beginning of 18 th century and remind us also of the prominent role that the regions of North and Northwest Bohemia played in the music development of the country. Wentzeli held the prominent position of choirmaster at the Prague Cathedral. 40 J. C. F. Fischer was praised in his time as "nostri aevi componista absolutissimus"; he was born in Schönfeld (today Krásno) near Falkenau and for a long time worked in Schlackenwerth (today's Ostrov, ca 30 km from Sokolov). 41 Fiebig worked in the North-Bohemian town of Ústí nad Labem (Aussig) and published his work in Bautzen. H. I. F. Biber was born in the north Bohemia as well. Somewhat surprisingly in this respect, both printed collections by Wenzel Gunther Jacob, OSB, who was born in Gossengrün (today Krajková, ca 10 km from Sokolov), are missing.
The name of Caspar Schollenberger, an Augustinian Canon from Ulm, diverges from this context, since his music does not occur in Bohemian music collections and inventories of that time at all. Both the title "6 Missae Ariosae" in S-1731 (same in S-1736A, C, P) and the specification "geschrieben" in S-1769 indicates that this record stands for a manu-script copy of Schollenberger's third opus. It is conceivable that some person connected with the neighbouring Schlackenwerth was responsible for the occurrence of this music in Falkenau, since Ulm was on the way to Rastatt, the main seat of the Margraves of Baden-Baden, the possessors of Schlackenwerth. The name Wagner emerging in Falkenau inventories twice after 1731 and once after 1736 represents similar case. Although two works by the otherwise unknown Andreas Ignatius Vagner are listed in the 1699 music inventory from the North-Bohemian town of Třebenice, 42 the Benedictine Gotthard Wagner living in Tegernsee, South Bavaria, seems to be a more likely candidate; especially the record of "Offertoria 39 in uno compendio" may possibly stand for a part of some of his large printed collections of 'arias'. 43 It is not at all surprising that the records of music manuscripts, which entered the Falkenau inventories in two waves after 1731 and after 1736, show gradual shift from the local interest towards recent style represented by names like Caldara, Mancini or Porpora. The other well-known names on the list such as Brixi, Lotti, Reichenauer, Ristori, Vivaldi or Zelenka point out predictably to the most eminent music centres of the area, the capital city of Prague and the catholic court in Dresden. Although it is almost impossible in the case of a non-thematic music inventory to identify the items with absolute certainty, several verisimilar concordances with other music collections or inventories give us enough hints to track the ways of music circulation more precisely. Perhaps the clearest concordance is available for the Missa Fiat voluntas tua in A minor by Matthias Öttl. Among four Prague copies of the composition, the only one surviving within the Gayer's collection in the music archive of the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star (CZ-Pkřiž) bears the title Fiat voluntas tua. 44 Consequently, this copy has to be considered as the source for the missing copy in Falkenau.
Some kind of connection between Falkenau and the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star is more probable than it might appear at first sight. This order of Czech origin was remarkably widespread in the Northwest Bohemia: The Knights of the Cross with the Red Star have administered not only the famous place of pilgrimage in Chlum Svaté Maří (Maria Kulm) near Falkenau, but also the parishes in Loket (Elbogen), Carlsbad (Karlovy Vary) and Kynšperk nad Ohří (Königsberg an der Eger). Bearing this potential in mind, we can establish further links between the Falkenau inventories and the music inventory and/or the archive of the Knights of the Cross in Prague. In this way, the "Cantata Flammae caelestes de tempore" listed anonymously in Falkenau can be almost surely identified with the "Cantata Flammae Caelestes" listed in the Prague Knights of the Cross inventory in the section of "Cantatae de tempore" as the work of Daniel Milčinský, a composing member of the order. 45 Unfortunately, no such convincing concordance was found for the works by Caldara, Mancini or Lotti listed in Falkenau, possibly because the entries in Falkenau inventories are too general. But just manuscripts with music of these composers acquired by the Knights of the Cross in Prague served in several cases as sources for other copies survived in the Central Europe. 46 The Prague music archive of the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star also contained a significant amount of vocal music by Giovanni Alberto Ristori, Antonio Vivaldi and Jan Dismas Zelenka, but it is advisable to consider the remarkable representation of their works in Falkenau as a result of an unknown independent connection to Dresden. The Beatus vir in A minor by Cozzi, listed in S-1736P, represents a possible direct link between Falkenau and Dresden. Most likely the same work survived in a score written by the copyist often working for Zelenka (labelled as Zelenka 0 by Wolfgang Horn) in ca 1725-1733. 47 It was Eitner who for the first time ascribed the piece to Carlo Cozzi, a Milanese musician and composer from the first half of the 17 th century. 48 In his analysis of the composition, Wolfgang Horn observed the excessive modernity of a work written by the composer who allegedly died in 1658 or 1659, and raised a question mark to the composer's date of death, 49 while author attribution was questioned later. 50 More sacred vocal works ascribed to Cozzi survived in Prague. One of the two pieces in the cathedral music archive (CZ-Pak), another Beatus vir setting, was in the concordant sources ascribed to Antonio Negri. 51 However, only Prague manuscripts bearing the name of Giacomo Cozzi represent a possible clue, even though earlier Czech literature, under the influence of Eitner, regarded this ascription as misleading in favour to Carlo Cozzi. 52 The sources in question include the Credo a 5 with instruments a cappella be- 45 See the commentary in the edition above and the footnote 39. 46 BACCIAGALUPPI. Rom, Prag, Dresden (see footnote 44), pp. 103ff. and 156ff.
47 The source is available online, see the RISM record ID no. 212006861 for a link to the repository as well as for further references to literature and to the historical inventories from Dresden. longing to Gayer's collection at the Knights of the Cross 53 and especially the Domine ad adjuvandum and Dixit Dominus, which survived in the remnants of the music collection from St Nicolas church in the Lesser Town of Prague. 54 The violins are often treated in unison in Dixit Dominus and together with other features they reveal certain affinity with the Beatus vir in A minor from Dresden, which has no concordance in Prague. These compositions can hardly be regarded as works from the middle of the 17th century, so Giacomo Cozzi seems to be a more probable candidate to their authorship. Could the works represent the rest of a whole set of music for Vespers by the same composer? And were more of them listed in Falkenau among Vesper psalms without the composer's name in the S-1736P inventory? There are no answers to these questions and also the matter of exact routes of the music between Prague, Dresden and Falkenau remains hidden.
Also the Confitebor ex E by Zelenka referring most likely to one of his settings in E Minor (ZWV 72 or ZWV 73) indicates possible connections between Falkenau and Dresden, whether direct or indirect via Prague. And the same might be said about Cantata a Canto Solo by Vivaldi. Vivaldi's cantatas were rare in Central Europe and Dresden was the main place of their occurrence. 55 Prague music archives contained a significant collection of sacred vocal works by the Venetian master and even one cantata, among other works, is listed in the Knights of the Cross inventory. This nowadays lost composition was intended for the alto against the soprano in the cantata from Falkenau, according to the respective inventories. 56 But the scarce record in S-1736P also might have stood for a solo motet or retexted aria and its low information value does not make it possible to identify the piece more closely; the same is true for most items on the list.
Without any further specific information, it would be idle to speculate in any substantial way about conceivable links between the music milieus in Dresden and Falkenau. As far as potential personal contacts are concerned, it is only necessary to mention the name of a French horn player and composer Tobias Butz (1692-1760). From Johann Gottlob Kittel's Lobgedicht, Butz is known as a composition student of Zelenka's. 57 He became the electoral prince's personal horn player in 1718/19, since 1723 he was regularly mentioned in the Dresden Jesuit Diarium as a composer and leader of sacred music and later obtained a title of a church composer in Dresden alongside Zelenka and Johann Sebastian Bach. 58 A very small fraction of his compositional work is known -only one mass survived in Dresden. Butz also composed oratorios played both in Prague and Dresden, such as Deus propter scelera in 1727. 59 There is one hitherto unknown piece of information relevant for our topic, namely that he was born on 19 January 1692 in the village of Prameny (Sangerberg) about 20 km from Sokolov and studied at the Premonstratensian grammar school in Teplá (Tepl). 60 Is it possible that Butz later played a role in a supposed transfer of sacred music repertory from Dresden to Falkenau? His youth career leads us to the Premonstratensian Monastery in Teplá, which is also worth mentioning when we are considering musically important institutions surrounding Falkenau. Especially the abbot Raymund II. Wilfert von Adlersfeld (1653-1724), the dedicatee of the printed collections by J. C. F. Fischer and J. J. I. Brentner, was known as a knowledgeable music lover. 61 Unfortunately, we know of no music collection, inventory or other information from the time in question that would enable us to speculate about the place of Teplá monastery in the local circulation of music repertory.
The names of the composers and especially the identification of some items on the list, which reached its largest scope after 1736 as manifested in S-1736P, enables 'horizontal' analysis of the data. This means we were able to delineate the position of the Falkenau archdeanery church choir on an imaginary chart depicting the presumptive streams of music circulation at that time. Now, the series of sources from different years as well as the corrections made in the individual lists open the 'vertical' dimension of time. Although for this purpose we will take into account the S-1769 and partly also later inventories, the repertory in question will still be the same. Curiously, all music items listed in S-1769 except one are in some form present in S-1736P, large amount of sheet music is entirely absent in S-1769 and several titles were crossed out between 1769 and 1781 (as is seen in the comments in the edition above) and does not occur again in the 1781 inventory. Furthermore, the ordering of the list in S-1769 changed, or better to say its logic went back to 1707 inventory: while at the beginning of the 1731/36 inventories, four expensive music prints and several liturgical books stand out as a reification of the will of the founder articulated many years ago in the letter of foundation, the later ordering begins with trumpets and other music instruments, thus coming back to the traditional concept of the church inventory as a list of objects.
Of course that might not imply that the Schrank for music on the choir loft in Falkenau was empty. Sheet music could have been in the possession of the cantor or choirmaster rather than the church. Very often sheet music was also listed separately: sometimes we find in a church inventory a reference to a special inventory of music, today usually missing. In Falkenau, no such reference was found and the only separate music inventory is the Inventorium from 1798 recording mostly music instruments; it was made by the local cantor Franz Zürchauer. The only sheet music listed in the inventories from 1781 onwards are "2 Vesper" and "36 Offertorien", the latter item modified in a separate 1798 music inventory to "36 Responsoria" and in 1815 and 1827 to "36 Ofertoria für die Karwoche und Allerheiligen". The curious genesis of this record can be seen in S-1769, where the original formulation "6 Offertoria" was later corrected to "36 Offertoria". One would be happy to know whether this record is not hiding the previously listed 6 offertories plus whole collection of arias from the last page of S-1736P. Anyway, it is hardly conceivable that an important church choir in the second half of the 18 th century would function without a provision of recent music or with vespers and offertories only. If the sheet music records in S-1736P represent a fully functional music collection, the later records either stand rather for the contents of an old cupboard on the choir loft, where the remnants of the old music collection are stored, or they strive more to keep the continuity with the previous inventories rather than reflect the real situation.
The same development is visible also in the church collection of musical instruments. Only 4 trumpets are characterized as good in the 1798 list, more items bear the attribute "sehr alt" or "unbrauchbar". The case of "2 Flauten sambt den Bass" coming up for the first time in S-1731 is worth mentioning. In S-1769, this item was corrected to "1 Flauten Passon" and, same as the "Ein Flauten Bass", it is still present in the 1798 inventory without any closer specification. It would be great to know if the bass recorder was kept as an obsolete curiosity or as an instrument for a special purpose. 62 With the help of the lists of "Musicalien und Instrumenten" from the archdeanery church in Falkenau we were able to follow, at least to some extent, the fate of the local music collection, which seems to be completely lost today. 63 Solely on the basis of the repertory listed in the inventories and of its concordances it was possible to outline the major directions of music circulation, which includes not only Prague, but possibly also the music milieu of the catholic court church in Dresden. According to these sources, the music at the church of St James the Greater reaches its highpoint approximately in the 1730s. However, our interpretation is only preliminary and further research into local music history or any other new information may rapidly supplement or even change the view.
The remarkable set of sources also makes it possible to follow the genesis, circulation and limits of the information value of the inventories themselves. The music sections of church inventories reveal the common inventorying method, based on the copying of a previous inventory as a starting point for the work on a new one. And it is obvious that the later lists gradually lost their informational value in reference to the recent state of music in the church. But despite all these limits, music inventories can in many ways provide a unique view of and information on the music culture, becoming an important part in the puzzle, just as the Falkenau inventories did.