The importance of urban science in addition to rural one as a component of ethnological and ethnomusicological research is constantly increasing. A growing number of specialized literature gives evidence of their long historic explorational traditions. In the 1930s sociology, anthropology and culturology began to be interested  in a town as a multiculturally, ethnically and socially differentiated community. Musicology analyzed town as a centre of music development. Musicology and ethnomusicology noticed a whole range of genres and kinds of music, styles of popular, folk and artificial music. History of town formation and its music began to acquire still more important role. There are substantial differences in the comprehension of the development of a big city and a small town.

Music development of a small town may be exemplified by an inception of a guild of folk musicians in Bobrovec in the 18^th century and namely by establishment of large folk bands on Moravian-Slovak border and in the West Slovakia, with changed body of instruments and repertory (in the 18^th and 19^th centuries). The song repertory itself is related to social function, to environs, occasions, to ethnic and socio-cultural structure, whether in the village or in the town.

The questions of music of rural and urban society have many attributes in common considering the content and character of their music repertory. Both a village and a town have their own specific development, historical dimensions and relations changing in time and space. They have a complex socio-economic and cultural structure. The culture of a village society is attributed the function of a carrier of traditional and constant values. The town is conceived as a carrier of new and modern music phenomena. Such a bipolar interpretation does not enable us to understand music manifestations of a town nor of a village thoroughly. A town is not only centre of modernization but of regional integration, too. Neither a town nor a village is an undifferentiated unit. Repertory of particular social strata and minorities as well as of various generations show significant differences. Differentiation is still more marked in multiethnic societies. The differences in town are more evident, as music forms larger autonomous stylistic and genre strata there. Besides traditional folk music in suburbs, town boroughs, adjacent village societies, associations, ensembles as well as in families, there is a wide range of the so-called entertaining and popular music in town.

All said cultural forms and societies call for their own independent methodical approach. In ethnology too narrow and selective working methods in town communities predominate. The examined questions are often very distant to ethnologic and folklore issues themselves. Their aims and content tend to politics and sociology. In rural communities the exploration is realized by traditional folklore and ethnomusicological methods, while neglecting the socio-cultural background of the problems. In musicology and ethnology an application of musico-sociological methodology is absent while researching the musical life and music activities whether in a town or a village. In any case the exploration has to concentrate primarily on music and questions joined with it, on music culture as a complex of genres, styles associated with surroundings and possessing their own historic and musico-aesthetic continuity. It is exploration of music as a social phenomenon.

The aim of the study is to present the most influential personalities of the Bardejov music history in the 16^th and 17^th centuries. The oldest information concerning the musicans active in this “free royal city” in the Middle Ages was found in the municipal archive files from the 15^th century. After 1500 organists, cantors and trumpeters occur almost regularly as payed municipal employees in the Bardejov archive manuscripts. The importance of their work increased after the years 1525–1530, when the economic, national and religious situation in the city stabilized (the Germanic population predominated in the city almost until the 17^th century, with the Slovak minority as the second one; considering the religion the bourgeoisie of Bardejov inclined to Reformation). Close contacts with Polish, Silesian and German Reformation centres were crucial for organization of music events in the town, based on Reformation ideas, highly appreciating the role of music and music education for a life of a man. The first prestigious reformer of the church, education and musical life in Bardejov was Leonard Stöckel, a cantor, rector, conductor of the cathedral choir and an author of musico-theoretical compendia. His closest collaborators were cantors Ján Hensel (1546), Simon Gergel (1554), Georg Baranyi (1566) and Thomas Fabri (since 1558), who became a rector of the school after the death of L. Stöckel. The music repertory which sounded in the cathedral of St. Egidius in Bardejov in the second half of the 16^th century, had an international character and included all forms of then Renaissance sacred polyphony. The collection of music literature, preserved in Bardejov, consists of the most significant printed music miscellanea ((Novum et insigne opus musicum… Nuremberg 1537,1558, 1559, Thesauri musici Nuremberg 1564, Beati omnes. Psalmus CXXVIII. Davidis Nuremberg 1569 etc.) and one-author prints (Orlando Lassus, Leonard Lechner, Jacob Meiland, Hans Leo Hassler, Hieronymus Praetorius et al.) of the period.

The approaching end of the 16^th century brought lowering of economic status of the citizens. The city attempted to maintain the high level of music education at the municipal school and to provide for prominent musicians. Four letters preserved in the Bardejov archive inform us about the social, national and cultural situation in the first two decades of the 17^th century (included as an attachment to the study): 1. a letter by Krištof Presser (dated 1604), the teacher asking for a financial support in poverty; 2. a letter by Andrej Neomann (1609), an organist and a composer, who left his post in Bardejov after two years because of his conflicts with the municipal pastor over the nationality, and started to serve in Bytča for the earl Juraj Thurzo; 3. a letter of a rector Leonard Wagner from Wittenberg written in the times of his studies (1614) promising to return to his native town after finishing his studies; 4. a letter of a rector Juraj Udvarheli (1614), written at Hertník near Bardejov, by which he accepts an invitation of the city council for a post of an organist in Bardejov, which he held untill his death in 1623.

The centres of economic, political and social life in the territory of Slovakia played an important role during the period of Classicism. However, music and art flourished also in less important regional or local centres, position of which was irreplaceable in spreading the culture in the Slovak countryside.

Intelligentsia of the town of Ilava also participated in the cultural life of the Middle Považie region. Education, art and culture concentrated mainly around the local Roman Catholic church. Preserved music sources show the importance of music in the life of the citizens.

The most ancient stratum of the music repertory of the Roman Catholic church is presented by the music of Italian and South-German composers tending to Baroque style. Works of these composers predominated until the end of the 18^th century. However, considering the regional proximity of the Czech lands, the music performances focused on the composers from Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia as early as in the middle of the 18^th century. The repertory of the church confirms the permanent interest in Czech music, which even intensified at the end of the 18^th century. The core of the repertory from the last decades of the 18^th century was created predominantly by the works of the latter compositional circle. In this period the repertory became to be enriched by the pieces of the representatives of Vienna Classicism, from which undoubtedly the most precious are three copies of compositions by Joseph Haydn. New material flooded from Austria and Vienna, accompanied by a growing number of secular compositions. Works of domestic composers, the most significant of them being Anton Zimmermann, Johann Matthias Sperger and Juraj Družecký formed an inseparable part of the music collection.

The more intense development of the religious music in Ilava church was probably in the 1760s. The first proof of the existence of the basic instrumental facilities comes also from this time; however, to ensure the music production meant to cooperate with neighbouring localities. The study revealed mostly lively contacts of Ilava and neighbouring Pruské. The relations between the two municipalities were supported also by the family of Königsegg.

It was not only in the church where the church music – and probably also the secular one – sounded. In accordance with the period written records the music performances took place also in the  houses of more prestigious families and at the castle of the noble family of Königsegg, which financially supported the church musicians. The quality of the musical life culminated due to an organist and rector Ján Cserney especially at the end of the 18^th century and at the turn of the century. The first half of the 19^th century brought a stagnation of the musical life in Ilava and the following generations mostly only derived from Ján Cserney’s achievements.

By the range of its music activities Ilava cannot compare with the big centres of cultural and social life, however, it was an important pillar of the regional musical life.

One of interesting personalities of the music culture at the turn of the 19^th century was Anton Július Hiray, whose life and activities joined three Central-Slovakian mining cities – Nová Baňa, Banská Bystrica and Banská Štiavnica. He belonged to a peculiar group of musicians in the Slovak history – to municipal trumpeters. The practice of municipal trumpeters was joined mainly with “free royal cities”. In the era in which Anton Július Hiray lived, the municipal trumpeter was usually also an organist, regenschori, municipal Kapellmeister, composer and a music teacher. In the period 1790–1820 Hiray worked as a regenschori in the German vicarial church in Banská Bystrica, as a master of municipal trumpeters and a music teacher. From this period 12 of his secular pieces are preserved: a march Civitatis Neosoliensis Militare Marsch for six wind instruments (1798) and 11 dances (menuets, German dances and polonaises) for solo instruments and an instrumental band in the style of early Classicism. Since the year 1820 until his death in 1842 he worked in Banská Štiavnica as a regenschori of the German vicarial church and a municipal Kappellmeister. His preserved piece Graduale in C de Angelis for a mixed choir, chamber orchestra and organ comes from this period. Apart from his music employment he was also active in mining business. His life and music document life and culture of the bourgeois stratum of inhabitants in the Middle-European mining towns.

Our interest is focused on the first supporting society of Bratislava artists (painters and musicians) and language teachers. It originated in 1815, functioning mostly on unofficial basis. Its foundation was mainly owing to Bratislava musicians Josef Schodl and Heinrich Klein. They joined by their friends supported their colleagues and family members facing poverty. The main aim of the society was to support financially its members in the case of their invalidity and incapability to earn. Famous patrons of musical life in Bratislava and active musicians supported it. The financial resources came from theatrical productions, music academies and entertaining undertakings. In 1828 a group of musicians separated from the Society and created an independent Church Music Society (Kirchen Musik-Verein), which terminated in 1832. One year later a second trial to found a new Church Music Society was successful: its history dated up to the middle of the 20^th century. The number of its members was not enormous: 25–30 men. Probably not all of those interested became also the members of the Society. Presumably only good artists and teachers with a certain level of artistic importance and social status were accepted. Speaking about musicians they were usually significant representatives of Bratislava musical life in the 19^th century. At the beginning of the 20^th century the original aim of the Society was probably modified due to continually broadening possibilities of the social and pensionary insurance. The existence of the Society is documented in 1927 for the last time.

In the 1920s there were several societies and concert agencies active as organizers of concerts in Bratislava. After the foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918 appropriate conditions for the existence of Slovak and Czech music societies were formed, while on the other hand German and Hungarian societies were still active in this period.

The most renowned concert agencies were Musa, Hostašovo koncertné jednateľstvo (oHoHostaš Concert Agency), Harmonia and Thalia. Their efforts tended to performances of foreign compositions by foreign musicians, usually from Vienna, Budapest or Prague. Owing to their endeavours these performers played in Bratislava: Vienna Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic, The Czech Quartet, Conrad Ansorge, Ottorino Respighi with his wife Elza Olivieri-Sangiacomo, and the conductors Richard Strauss and Felix Weingartner. Hostašovo koncertné jednateľstvo as the first one began to organize concert series after WW1.

The Church Music Society of the Cathedral of St. Martin played an important role in the town’s concert life by its cooperation with other societies and choirs, by which the Bratislava concert production was enriched substantially.

The other societies – Artistic Forum of Slovakia, Educational Association for Slovakia and Bratislava Concert Society – engaged Slovak performers with Slovak compositions on one hand and on the other hand organized also the concert from the pieces of American composer Henry Cowell, concert of English madrigalist ensemble The English Singers or the Evening of Quartertone Music in the city.

The concert life of the period was enriched also by activities of non-musical societies, e.g. Czechoslovak Red Cross, Alliance française etc.

From the abundance of the preserved information we may suppose still the more frequent occurrence of Edward H. Grieg’s pieces in the Bratislava concert life namely during the first half of the 20^th century. It was joined with the absence of contemporary music and with the taste of the listeners, who preferred the music of Classicism and Romanticism. The social and national origin of the listeners also played its role. The changes came after 1919 and namely after 1945. In the concert life we may notice the shift from the quantity of the works to the qualitative criterion reflecting the growing performance quality, and its verification by the receptive experience.

In Slovakia the perception of the work of the composer may be observed in three stages, related to the political, social and cultural changes in connection with reforming institutions: 1^st stage (1890–1919), 2^nd stage (1919–1945), and 3^rd stage (since 1945 until today).

A specific repertory of miners’ songs in Slovakia is joined mainly with habitat of historic mining towns. On the basis of songs and memories of Slovak miners from Kremnica recorded in the early 1980’s the contribution reveals the information about short revival of mining in the town in the 1930s hand in hand with renaissance of traditional forms of miners’ culture. It was mainly the song repertory, which documented how the common professional affiliation as well as a phenomenon of town culture succeeded to break the barriers of ethnic, locally-regional and social affiliation and acted as an integrating factor in this habitat.

Miners’ songs from Kremnica form a multilevel and functionally differentiated repertory, which is heterogeneous from the aspect of its origin (artificial, semifolk, folk song) and its inner genre structure (estate songs and anthems, working songs and songs joined with mining profession, hymns-prayers, humoristic and love songs). At the same time this repertory is integrated into the shape of specific song subculture on the basis of its thematic and functional bounds with miners’ surroundings. Particular song groups of this repertory are joined by complementarity of functions, thus forming a coherent cultural unit. Considering the past integration of Slovakia into the multinational state formations on the one hand and the specifics of development of mining population in our country with a portion not only of Slovak ethnic group, but since the Middle Ages first of all of German ethnic group on the other hand, the mining culture in our country is a multiethnic culture, too. It is reflected in various relations among the language versions of songs. A relation of this repertory to German, Hungarian and later to Czech mining song is significant and it proves its over-regional relations to Slovak semifolk and folk song, reflecting the growing portion of Slovak ethnic group in traditional mining profession in the past. Music component substantially influences style homogeneity of miners’ repertory: not only by its affiliation to newer evolutional layers of harmonic song, but also by symbolism of its melody penetrated by signal motives in its structure.

In the second half of the 20^th century a part of Slovak repertory of miners’ songs was cultivated by choirs, wind and folk ensembles from the region. After 1989 the non-Slovak part of the miners’ repertory began to revive. It is a demonstration of a return to Slovak-German-Hungarian-Czech tradition of miners’ songs, which was part of multiethnic culture of Kremnica and its habitat in the past.

The production of harmoniums is a subject fully ignored by the Slovak music historiography. The aim of the paper is not a comprehensive monographic elaboration of the history of the instrument in Slovakia, but to present a starting point for the future study. In Slovakia, similarly to the whole Europe, harmoniums were produced mostly by organ builders, piano makers, even by cabinet makers. Approximately since the middle of the 19^th century it was a side activity for organ builders. From this era come records written in canonic visitations and similar documents were preserved about harmoniums usually belonging to vicarages of smaller towns and churches, which could not afford to pay for the building of a new organ. We suppose that these instruments were used not only at churches but also in private music productions of the bourgeoisie. During the 1880s advertissements spoke about the so-called parlour harmoniums. Some preserved written records inform us that several Slovak organ builders produced also harmoniums: Paul Hermann from Kežmarok, Ján Drábek from Borský Mikuláš, Štefan Kiepsel from Banská Bystrica, Vincent Možný from Bratislava, Gustav Adolf Molnár from Brezová pod Bradlom, Anton Schönhofer Sr, Anton Schönhofer Jr and Viliam Schönhofer from Bratislava, Július Gua from Prešov and others. During the period 1879–1885 in Banská Bystrica there was a company and a training institution for production of harmoniums named “Harmonium”. The director of the school was an organ builder Alexander Sovánka. Some 150-year long history of harmonium in Slovakia is incomparable with other, longer used instruments, but due to its wide and intense usage in musical practice it found its permanent place among home music instruments.