Közlemény

Recorders in the Sibiu Museum
János Bali

In the collection of the historical section of the National Brukenthal Museum in Sibiu, Romania (old German name Hermannstadt, Hungarian name Nagyszeben) there are seven Renaissance woodwind instruments. Alongside a bass crumhorn and two shawms we find four recorders: two bassets, a bass, and a great bass. They were publicized together with photographs by Dr. Martha Bruckner in 1941 in the proceedings of the Sibiu Museum, however, they have remained unknown to modern organology; it was worth giving a more precise description in the light of recent musicological researches.
These recorders are significant for several reasons: firstly, to my knowledge, they are the only surviving historical recorders in Transylvania. Secondly, they are among the few old recorders about which we have written contemporary documents. Lastly, a comparison of them with other instruments bearing the same master's mark leads to valuable conclusions.
Three of the Sibiu recorders belonged to a set, and on the basis of their maker's mark (HIER•S•), technical details and manufacturing we could place this set in between the famous HIE•S and HIER S• sets - now in the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum - reinforcing the hypothesis that all these instruments were made by the same maker (who could be the Italian Hieronymus Bassano, one of the most famous figures in the history of the recorder).
The fourth recorder is marked with a letter “W” and a crown. The set to which it belonged probably contained a bass with extension: curiously the fragments of the typical key of this bass survived on the bass of the HIER•S• set, as a comparison of the keys with a bass recorder now in Vienna shows. The same “W-and-crown” marks are on the Sibiu and Prague shawms; all these instruments could be of south-German origin.

“C-F-E-B-A-C-H” Fughetta by C. P. E. Bach
Katalin Komlós

There is an unpublished manuscript in the Brussels Conservatory, called Miscellanea Musica (B Bc 5895), which contains various compositional sketches, contrapuntal studies, thoroughbass exercises, and modulation and chord-progression schemes by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. In this material we find a short five-part fughetta, written on a theme made from the initials of the “initialized” name [Filippo] of the composer. The analysis of this special little piece is the subject of the essay.

Writing Music for Film – Freely: Hoellering and Lajtha
Emõke Tari Solymosi

This short presentation explores one of the most neglected fields in Lajtha research: the composer's film music. It focuses particularly on his collaboration with the Austrian director Georg Höllering (George Hoellering, 1897-1980), providing new information based on research done in London and Budapest. An examination of their three joint films (Hortobágy, 1936; Murder in the Cathedral, 1951; Shapes and Forms, 1949), as well as letters and other documents proves that Lajtha enjoyed the mutual respect of the director and the writer, and thus was ensured complete artistic freedom in his work with them. Lajtha's film music is not merely illustrative program music, but can stand on its own artistic merit, and as such represents an important part of the Lajtha-oeuvre.