Several recent decades have witnessed the researchers’ digression from the periodization of Western music on the basis of its stylistical categories. It has been substituted by a segmentation of history according to centuries, thence centuries are acquiring a status of autonomous eras led by their own aesthetics. When criticizing the ordering of history of music according to cultural and stylistical epochs (Renaissance, Baroque, Classicism, Romantism) as derivated from structural thinking we must bear in mind, that history of music did not created its own periodization but borrowed the terms from other arts. It is evidence of weakness of music historiography as well as of closeness of arts and music theory to the whole sphere of culture. Determinants of stylistical periods in music have to be comprehended as impulses of creation, which revealed in certain time with various intensity. Continuity and discontinuity of history is still noticeable. Although there exist several new views and theories on question of continuity in the history of music (theory of intertertextuality, electroacoustic text, postmodernistic attitude), it is important to preserve history of music independently from ways of its ordering and thus preserve a feeling of responsibility towards created values.

The subject of the present study is heortological contents of the calendar and Proprium de sanctis of the Missal R. 387 deposited in the the Central Library of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. It is in itself an important indicator of the liturgical tradition contained in the book. A complex quantitative analysis was applied which revealed that the examined calendar of the Missal R. 387 is related to the calendar family coming from the territory of the present Sweden, especially to calendars coming from the former archdiocese Lund. Several local feasts typical exclusively for this liturgical tradition attest to the fact.

The results of the research undertaken in the University Library in Bratislava have brought new interesting information enriching the medieval music history in Slovakia concerning medieval church music, music paleography most particularly. They definitely bring new impeti for research in other scientific branches (liturgiology, paleography, codicology or art history). In the case of lately elaborated manuscript fragments from the University Library in Bratislava three medieval notational systems were preserved: Messine-gothic, square and Czech notation, which were mostly used notations on the territory of Slovakia in Middle Ages. There are namely fragments of the Missal-Gradual No. 3 and Antifonary No. 9, which are unique examples of square notation system coming from French sphere from the 2nd half of the 13th century, which crystallized from domestic Aquitanian neume notation. Both fragments exemplify the initial stage of usage of line system while finishing the process of evolution of diastematic neumes. Both fragments are unique examples of this kind of notation coming from our territory.

On the basis of recent researches in Slovak archive music funds conditions of medieval monuments in Slovakia began to be specified and stabilized. Parchment covers, which had been used as a firm cover of printed books coming from the 15th and 16th centuries became the research subject in particular; among them two neume fragments deposited in the Central Library of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. The introduced analytical study confirms the hypothesis of both fragments coming from the same or related scriptorium and having originated in the first half of the 12th century.

A collection of portraits – oil paintings in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna – belongs to the most important portrait collections related to music in the world. Despite this till present days it struggled with the problem typical for less known works of art: the authors of particular paintings were unknown. A provenance of this so-called Sonnleithner Portrait Gallery was similarly obscured. The author of the study has recently revealed documents which immensly contribute to both problems. As the evidence prove, the gallery was founded as a private collection by Joseph Sonnleithner, the first secretary of the Gesellschaft and one of its main initiators. In 1830 he sold it to the Gesellschaft; the collection then comprised 56 portraits of music composers. Outer circumstances of the event are also of certain importance. However, the most significant contribution of the revealed documents is data enabling to identify almost unambiguously the painters of one third of the portraits of music composers after almost 180 years. Two of them are famous artists working in Biedermeier period – Leopold Kupelwieser and Joseph Willibrord Mähler. The third one is fully unknown Anton Depauly coming from Bohemia, whose life is at least partly reconstructed in the present article. Nevertheless, new-acquired information about the collection suggests also new problems; every picture being a different problem in itself. Two examples suffice: three Mozartean pictures (with elucidated history of their origin) and a portrait known as Schubert Without the Spectacles (artist: A. Depauly) present not only answered questions, but also new hypotheses.

Sopron, also known as Ödenburg (the German name of the town), is located in western Hungary, near Neusiedler See. The town gave place to diets on several occasions which were combined with the crowning of the Queen in 1622, the King in 1625, and in 1681 the inauguration of the Palatine. As a Royal Free Town, the cultural life of Sopron was directed by the council which supervised music in various churches and schools at religious and secular occasions. In German speaking Lutheran congregations the position of the Kapellmeister, who was responsible for the music in the church, was formed in the same fashion as in Germany. The church ensemble was the most successful during the directorship of Andreas Rauch, who had fled from Austria at the beginning of the Counter-Reformation. Rauch was followed by Lukas Psyllius as director musicae, who was aided by cantor Johann Kalinka (Kalinkius), a teacher at the grammar school. After the death of Psyllius the congregation invited an organist and director musicae who had been born in Hungary but fled to Regensburg, Johann Wohlmuth. His diary survived and his album might have been known; he compiled a textbook for keyboard instruments, he was a rector, an organist and music director, taught instrumental music to numerous students, trained singers, copied and composed musical pieces, published a disputation in physics, enjoyed a vast circle of friends and acquaintances, boarded students in his home. In the light of old and recent research the life of an interesting individual unfolds, a musician and composer whose name might only be familiar from encyclopaedias.

Teaching of musical texture was formed and developed little by little as a result of experience with techniques of polyphonic music and with a theoretical reflection generalizing namely compositional phenomena and situations marked by discant innovations. This process took place in the 12th and 13th centuries and it was recorded in several treatises and compendia reflecting partial theories, problems and solutions of compositional or perfoming practice. The given study reflects some of these theories and solutions more thoroughly, as they contribute to a creation of a self-contained picture of musical mind of the period. The survey is supplemented by a brief outline of attributes of basic compositional techniques, reflecting at the same time a level of performing experience in vocal polyphony: conductus, motet, hocket, rondellus, fauxbourdon and discant. It is not usual and presently even not easy to speak generally about homogeneous texture teaching – in fact, we speak about various developmental levels of several theories of horizontal voice leading. These theories are presented namely by just then forming sets of rules of movement (Regulae) of particular voices in harmony with ideas of their mutual intervallic co-existence, embodied in the theory of consonancies. One of exquisite concepts of such a theory – among others –, written by Johannes Garlandia, was preserved till today. It is necessary to remind, that foundations of texture teaching – or constitution of a theory of polyphony leading to counterpoint – appeared between 1230 and 1280, in the time when works by Johannes Garlandia (1250) and Franco of Cologne (1280) originated. On the basis of authentic period experience stating the correspondence between the theory and performing practice the whole system of texture teaching looks exceptionally logical and acceptable – seemingly it contains absolutely everything needed: everything necessary for challenging polyphonic compositional and performing (mostly vocal) practice of the 13th century: 1. regulae, e.g. rules or set of recommendations concerning the simultaneous leading of voices and their optimal harmony; 2. revised notational system, built upon precisely measurable time units and modal structures; 3. theory of grouping of particular note values into groups, e.g. theory of ligatures. Musica mensurata brought with itself many terminological, theoretical and performing innovations. It is absolutely evident, that a huge progress in polyphonic musical thinking engendered this theoretical concept, embodying so markedly the first example of a pure compositional theory. A usage of combination of these techniques is one of main signs of this progress. A number of sources – collected period works and treatises – give evidence of the progress. Unfortunately, the knowledge of these compendia in our country is very modest so far (anthology CHYPRE, CMM 21, American Institute of Musicology).