Kryštof Harant
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Kryštof Harant z Polžic a Bezdružic (1564 – June 21, 1621) was a Czech nobleman, traveller, humanist, soldier, writer and composer.
As a composer he represented the school of Franco-Flemish polyphony in Bohemia. His activity in revolt of Protestants resulted in his execution by Catholic forces after the Battle of White Mountain during the Thirty Years' War.
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[edit] Life
He was born at Klenová Castle, near Klatovy, Bohemia, and received some early education at Innsbruck, at the court of Archduke Ferdinand II, learning 7 languages, discovering his talent for music and the other arts and his interest in history, geography and political science. He returned to Bohemia in 1584 in a vain attempt to get a post at the court of Rudolf III, and so enlisted as a soldier, participating in the 1593 and 1597 campaign against the Turks. In 1589 he married Eva Czernin von Chudenitz - they had two children before she died in 1597. Kryštof married two more times. Leaving his relation Lidmila Markvartová z Hrádku to raise the children, in 1598 and 1599 he went to the Holy Land as a pilgrim, wishing to visit the Holy Sepulchre with Eva's brother Hermannn. He wrote about his experiences in a book entitled Journey from Bohemia to the Holy Land, by way of Venice and the Sea which was published in Prague in 1608.
After his return, in 1599 he was given a post in the emperor's court and simultaneously raised to the peerage, though both his children died that year. In 1601 he was made an advisor to the court of Rudolf and his successor Matthias and part of the imperial chambers. When the imperial court moved to Vienna, Kryštof Harant was granted Burg Pecka and dedicated himself for some years to the music, becoming most important bohemian composer of the time. During 1614-15 he travelled to Spain with a diplomatic mission.
In 1618 he converted to Protestantism, returned to Prague, joined the forces arrayed against the Catholics as an artillery officer and fought on the side of the Bohemian states during the uprisings. In 1619 he became the commissioner of the military unit of Boleslav, Kouřim and Hradec Králové, and was involved in a 50,000 strong regiment in the unsuccessful march on imperial Vienna. During the rebellion he bombarded the imperial palace in Vienna—with the emperor inside—which proved to be a bad move.
After Friedrich V succeeded to the Palatinate, he was appointed as a privy councillor and president of the Bohemian chamber, though this career was short-lived. After the defeat of the Protestant Czechs at White Mountain in 1620 by the combined arms of Maximilian and Tilly, the subsequent sack of Prague by Imperial troops, and the assumption of office by emperor Ferdinand II, Kryštof Harant withdrew to his castle. He was captured there by Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Waldstein, arrested and taken to Prague, unsuccessfully pleading for mercy. As one of the twenty-seven Bohemian noble rebels, he was condemned to death and beheaded on 21 June 1621 by Jan Mydlář in the Old Town Square, Prague, along with all the other leaders of the insurrection.
His widow Anna Salomena (born von Horschitz, who had married Kryštof) in 1625 married Hermann Czernin von Chudenitz, Eva's brother.
[edit] Music and influence
Harant's music was conservative, and in the style of the Netherlands composers of the previous generation. He used archaic techniques such as cantus firmus mass composition. Seven separate works survived, all sacred vocal compositions (the rest were lost when his property was confiscated as being that of an executed traitor). One of his pieces is a cantus firmus mass based on a madrigal by Marenzio (Missa quinis vocibus super Dolorosi martir) —an amusing musical irony in that it combines a technique which went out of fashion a hundred years before with the music of one of Italy's most popular and progressive composers.
Harant had a reputation as a fine instrumentalist and singer in addition to being a composer. In another interesting irony, one of his Roman Catholic masses was performed in 1620, just before his execution, in a Catholic church in Prague, to great ceremony.
[edit] Musical works
- Missa quinis vocibus super Dolorosi martir
- Motet Maria Kron, die Engel schon
- Motet Qui confidunt in Domino
[edit] References and further reading
- (Czech) Koldinská, Marie (2004). Kryštof Harant z Polžic a Bezdružic: Cesta intelektuála k popravišti (The Path of The Intellectual to the gallows): biography and legacy. Praha, Litomyšl: Paseka. ISBN 80-7185-537-5.
- Article "Kryštof Harant z Polžic a Bezdružic", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1561591742
- Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0393095304
- Museum in the Bezdružice Castle holds a permanent exposition about Harant [1].
