Piarists played an important role in the history of the Slovak culture. Their basic work was teaching, but simultaneously they dedicated themselves to many other activities, music among them, occupying a very substantial position in their educational system. Close contacts among piarist provinces in Central Europe have their historical roots – the centre having been the oldest piarist collegium outside Italy Mikulov in Moravia; also colleges in Slovakia (belonging to Hungarian province) maintained lively contacts with it, namely Prievidza college. Many influential piarists-musicians permanently active in the territory of Slovakia came from Bohemia. In the 17^th century the most remarkable is P. Nicolaus Augustinus Hausenka ab Immaculata Conceptione B.V.M., the author of a handbook Cantionale rituale (Wien 1681), important for understanding a position of sacred song in liturgy of the period. In piarist singers’ seminary in Kroměříž there were several musicians, who later helped in Slovakia (P. Laurentius Petrasius a S. Joanne Baptista, P. Stephanus Horník a S. Sigismundo, P. Matthias Ursinus a S. Joanne Evangelista), even some piarists-musicians, coming from Slovakia (a composer P. Emericus Schurmann a S. Stephano, P. Georgius Hrdovič a S. Michaele) were active in this famous institute. In Strážnice there worked another renowned musician (“insignis musicus”) P. Josephus Herchl a S. Gabriele, who even left several compositions.

In the 18^th century several prestigious piarists-musicians from Bohemia or Moravia came to Slovakia. In Podolínec P. Justus Caspar a Desponsatione B.V.M. lived in 1730s, the best musican of the Polish province and a composer, whose output was known all over the Central Europe, then in the 1760s and early 1770s it was P. Benedictus Weber a Visitatione B.V.M., known especially as a copist (he enriched the Podolínec piarist collection in many precious manuscripts, especially symphonies). P. Henricus Thumar a S. Ladislao, a very active composer working namely in Svätý Jur. However, the most significant piarist-musician is P. Norbertus Schreier a S. Bernardo (1749–1811), an excellent theologian and professor of oriental languages, coming from Moravia. In addition to a general view on Schreier’s literary and music work the study pays attention to his up till now unknown compositions (Praecepta Salomonis, Nugae Canorae sive XX Canones Musici, Aria honori Domino F. X. Fuchs), influenced particularly by the music of W. A. Mozart. The other significant piarist-musician coming from Moravia is a pupil of P. N. Schreier, P. Augustinus Šmehlík a S. Joanne Caalasantio, active mostly in Trenčín, whose work extends to the 19^th century.

The study is a continuation of an already published work The Compositions of Anton Zimmermann in the European Repertoire of his Time (2001). It offers a view on a “repertoire life” of particular pieces of Anton Zimmermann (1741) in Czech lands, i.e. in the composer’s motherland: a country where his compositional work had the greatest response of all the European countries at that time.

Czech lands and Moravia form a unique territory not only because of a quantity of preserved music literature treasures, profusion and variability of compositions, but also due to a variety of patronage and a broad listeners’ background. Anton Zimmermann is renowned first of all as a composer of secular (orchestral and chamber) music, in the environment of aristocracy, high church hierarchy and the so-called historical orders. Repertoire interest in Zimmermann’s output proceeded approximately from the beginning of the 1770s to the middle of the 19^th century (with a culmination about 1770–1810). It was the most intense in the region of Central Moravia, North Bohemia and in Prague vicinity. Brno, Praha, Námešť nad Oslavou, Kroměříž and Český Krumlov may be designated as the centres of Zimmermann cult. Although the period stressed the utilitarian perspective of music, the choice of Zimmermann’s compositions is conditioned by their artistic value, quality and spectacularity. Contradictions between the composer’s demands and local feasibilities for performance of pretentious pieces were solved by their adaptation to local conditions.

The aim of the study is to point to the significance of Moravian-Slovak folk songs for Janáček’s hypotheses on origin of music in “speech-melody”, then to an inspirational potential hidden in the metrico-rhythmical structure of these songs as well as to the way, by which Janáček exploited this potential in his output.

It was just in Slovak songs, where Janáček revealed the most important evidence proving the veracity of his hypothesis on origin of folk songs in “speech-melody”. He found the direct transition from speech to singing in songs from Veľké Rovné. He arranged seven of them for piano and published them as Lidová nokturna. These songs are typical by their asymmetric and free rhythm symptomatic also for the diction of Janáček’s peculiar compositional expression. Janáček’s accompaniments to these songs are based on characteristic folk dulcimer mannerisms on one side, and they adumbrate his mature compositional style with typical stratification to several “sčasovka” (sčasovka – Janáček’s term designating specific rhythmical figures) layers with crystallized rhythmic profile and expressive character on the other side.

The author endeavours to clarify the aspects unexplainable from the position of Janáček’s hypotheses about the direct origin of Moravian-Slovak folk songs in the “speech-melodies”, on the basis of a hypothesis by Zdeněk Úlehla, assuming the existence of metrico-rhythmic “double-concept”. Following this hypothesis the rapsodic rhythms and odd groupings, typical for Moravian-Slovak long-drawn songs, are extended over an even metrical basis (only imagined in the singer’s mind). When these songs began to be instrumentally accompanied and changed to dances, peculiar polyrhythmic-heterophonic combinations emerged.

The author of the paper points to Janáček’s inspired exploition of these motives through analyses of the 2^nd movement of his piano sonata, 2^nd movement of his piano cycle V mlhách and the songs from the vocal cycle Zápisník zmizelého.

The contribution concentrates on a part of Bratislava concert life in the inter-war period –  performances of Czech chamber ensembles and Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. In introduction it points to a way of organizing the concerts, to their organizers and to places, where they occured. Exemplified by reviews published in a periodical Slovenský denník we present selected concerts of the Czech Quartet, Ševčík Quartet, Prague Quartet / Zika Quartet, Ondříček Quartet, Prague Wind Quintet and Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Czech music ensembles possessing a unique performing degree and colourful dramaturgy and presenting works of Slovak composers and authors of the 20^th century music distincly enriched Bratislava music life and influenced the taste of Bratislava concert audience.

A study in a culturally and ethnically heterogeneous environs in Prague, especially at the Prague conservatoire with Vítězslav Novák (Novák’s master’s classes), played an important role in the music of the Slovak as well as West-Ukrainian compositional schools. V. Novák taught several significant representatives of both music cultures, who as pupils of the Prague schools established mutual long-running friendships. Close contacts originated also between Ukrainian composer of older generation Mykola Kolessa (b. 1903), a son of an Ukrainian ethnomusicologist Filaret Kolessa, and Alexander Moyzes (1906–1984), a son of a music composer and organist Mikuláš Moyzes. This friendship was conditioned by a similar family background stressing the patriotic raising and relationship to national traditions, projected to common sources in their music work. The study is presenting remembrances of a living Ukrainian music composer, a conductor and a teacher, published for the first time, on the period of his studies in Prague, focusing on a friendship with A. Moyzes and their opinions on music creation and artistic inspirations sourcing in folk music.

An interest in an extensive correspondence of Leoš Janáček has persisted for several decades already. The reason dwells first of all in its informative value; it discloses a musician, whose professional and creative range was extensively wide and surpassed the boundaries of Moravian music culture. Janáček’s interest in folk music and his organizational activity in this field is documented by a selection from his correspondence with Hynek Bím, Jiří Horák and Samko Dudík. The chosen letters concern the Janáček’s co-operation with the dulcimer band of Samko Dudík from Myjava. This co-operation began in 1927 at the folk music festival in Kyjov. Here Janáček negotiated the performance of the band at the world music festival in Frankfurt am Main, where they spent two months altogether. Initial Janáček’s fears of “improvisatory nature” of Dudík’ ensemble play were to no avail; the band received here the highest award – Gold medal.

The next year (1928) Dudík band participated at an exhibition “Present-day culture” in Brno, where it performed for four months. Janáček visited Samko Dudík almost daily here and wrote down his folk songs. The band these days received many offers to concerts, what is also documented in the preserved correspondence. Leoš Janáček began to prepare Dudík band for a concert tour around Europe, which should have been in 1929, but, unfortunately, the great plans were interrupted by Janáček’s unexpected death in August 1928.

Although the friendship between Janáček and Dudík lasted just for a short time, it appeared as a very prolific and perspective. Both artists were joined by the same feeling and taste for a folk song, as well as by the strong national feeling and an idea of a pan-Slavic mutuality. One may feel from their humble correspondence that Janáček did not consider the folk musician an “uneducated” one, on the contrary, he took him as an equal partner, whose musical taste and opinions he trusted. As Janáček was interested in Slovak folk songs, so Dudík was adopting Moravian and Czech songs. Both thus evolved into the personalities, who substantially contributed to preservation and development of traditional music culture and both have their place in the common history of Czechs, Moravians and Slovaks.