DUCHOVNÉ PIESNE V MANUALE MUSICO-LITURGICUM (EDITIO LATINO-SLAVICA 1853) FRANTIŠKA ŽAŠKOVSKÉHO

The liturgical handbook Manuale musico-liturgicum (Editio latino-slavica) by František Žaškovský (Eger 1853) is the second published Latin-Slovak ritual, after the Cantionale Rituale of 1681 by the Piarist Father Mikuláš Hausenka. The handbook contains liturgical chants and songs for the most important Holy Days and church ceremonies and it is designed for organists and singers in the choirs of parish churches. It includes also 31 hymns to Slovak texts, of which 9 have organ accompaniment and two are adaptations for four voices. The editor, together with his brother Andrej Žaškovský, adopted and modified some hymns from older Slovak hymnals. Apart from that, they also created some texts and tunes of their own. The Slovak Catholic hymns with organ accompaniment had been published for the first time in 1847 (Martin Eliáš). As compared to M. Eliáš, the Žaškovský brothers worked out their organ accompaniment to the hymns in a more modern manner, using organ interludes in the mode of figurative passages between the lines or musical phrases. They attempted to resolve these interludes variably, in an attempt to avoid triviality and mannerism. Their ideal was rather a classical moderation and sense of proportion, and in this they stand somewhere between the classical school and the new sound ideal of another generation of organists in the second half of the 19th century.