Codex Jacobides / Praga circa 1600 - CD

This CD presents music from the fragmentary lute tablature Codex Jacobides, one of the most important Czech monuments of lute and instrumental music from Prague around 1600, performed for the first time on period instruments. The programme includes period dances, intabulations of songs and secular and sacred vocal polyphony, with works by Michael Praetorius, Jacob Regnart, Jean Planson, John Dowland, S. L. Jacobides and others. The lute, undoubtedly the most popular instrument among Europe’s townspeople and nobility in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, also left a significant mark on Prague during the reign of Emperor Rudolf II. The manuscript known as Codex Jacobides was probably compiled at the beginning of the seventeenth century by a musically gifted student at the University of Prague. It contains German, English, French, Italian and Polish pieces, including intabulations of vocal villanellas by Jacob Regnart, the court Kapellmeister of Rudolf II. Originally German compositions, these songs travelled from the imperial court to the wider public, where they continued to live in Czech versions. The collection also includes works by Michael Praetorius, John Dowland and Jean Planson. Jan Čižmář studied the lute in London and The Hague with leading specialists and is now sought after internationally as a soloist and chamber musician. On the recording, he plays eight stringed instruments of different sizes and tunings, in various combinations with a consort of Renaissance recorders, the Czech Lute Orchestra, viola da gamba and voice. This sampling of the musical world of Prague under Rudolf II offers a rich experience beyond specialists, evoking the lute music heard in Prague’s streets, taverns and university.