Musicologica Olomucensia

The Reformation took place on the territory of present-day Slovakia almost parallel to its rise in Germany and played here a very positive role especially in the sphere of education. Musical education in the town schools, following the example of Melanchton´s and Sturm´s educational systems, was given great attention and this also became directly reflected in the level of music performance in the Evangelical churches. The musical repertory which was played in the Evangelical churches - belonging to German, Slovak and Hungarian religious communities - corresponds, first of all, with the German Protestant music of that time and, according to geographical specificities and possibilities, contains Italian music as well. Noteworthy is that layer in the musical repertory which was spread in Central Europe only in the form of manuscripts and which tells us more than anything else about the musical contacts and the migration of musicians on the above-mentioned territory. An important contribution to the development of musical culture in the Evangelical churches on the territory of Slovakia was made by the religious exiles from those parts of Europe where already during the first half of the 17th century the re-Catholization efforts reached their culmination. A decline in the cultivation of an exacting European music took place in the Evangelical churches in Slovakia in the last third of the 17th century, i.e. after the year 1674 when also in the Greater Hungarian State re-Catholization gained a temporary victory.