Mathias de Sayve, a Composer of Rudolphine Prague, and His Printed Collection Liber primus motectorum quinque vocum (1595)

Pages	25–65
DOI	10.37520/muscz.2025.002
Keywords	printed music, vocal polyphony, Rudolphine court ensemble, motet, part book, Prague printers before the Thirty Years’ War
Citation	DANĚK, Petr a ALEXOVÁ, Petra. Mathias de Sayve, a Composer of Rudolphine Prague, and His Printed Collection Liber primus motectorum quinque vocum (1595). Musicalia. Journal of the Czech Museum of Music / Časopis Českého muzea hudby . Prague: National Museum, 2025, 17(1-2), 25–65. DOI: https://doi.org/10.37520/muscz.2025.002. ISSN 1803-7828 (Print), 2533-5634 (Online). Also available from: https://www.nm.cz/en/periodicals/musicalia-journal-of-the-czech-museum-of-music-casopis-ceskeho-muzea-hudby/17-1-2/mathias-de-sayve-a-composer-of-rudolphine-prague-and-his-printed-collection-liber-primus-motectorum-quinque-vocum-1595

Musicalia. Journal of the Czech Museum of Music / Časopis Českého muzea hudby | 2025/17/1-2

This study deals with the composer and singer Mathias de Sayve, who was active at the Prague court of Emperor Rudolf II. It offers new information about his life and activities in his position as a court musician. At the same time, it attempts to evaluate his compositional oeuvre. It characterises the collections of compositions in which he is represented, and above all, it deals with the composer’s private printed edition of his five-voice motets, which were issued in Prague in 1595 in the printing workshop of Jan Othmar. Only a torso of the printed collection has been preserved, and it has not yet been evaluated in the musicological literature. Besides a catalogue of textual and musical incipits in the print, the study also offers a transcription of the composer’s only motet that has been preserved with all of its voices.

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