Reflections of the Activities of the Vocal-Instrumental Chapel of the Carmelites of the Ancient Observance of Bialyničiai in Several Manuscript Sources of the Second Half of the Eighteenth–the First Half of the Nineteenth Century

Abstrakt

So far, a separate musicological work on the musical activities in the church of the Carmelites of the Ancient Observance of Bialyničiai (Belarusian Бялы́ нічы, Polish Białynicze) has not been prepared. The lack of a sheet music library prompted the study into several manuscript sources from the second half of the eighteenth century to the first half of the nineteenth century, which are stored in manuscript libraries in Vilnius and Minsk. Using the book of registration of income and expenses of the Carmelites of the Ancient Observance of Bialyničiai, which was the primary source of information, a list of the members of the chapel of the Carmelite Order of Bialyničiai, who were paid in the second half of the eighteenth century, was compiled, with their names, surnames, time of service, and positions. The exact information on the size and the composition of the chapel that used to play in the church of the Carmelites of the Ancient Observance in Bialyničiai in 1824–1825 and in 1832, found in the inventory, the visitation, and the audit, is also provided. With the help of sheet music lists, attempts were made to determine the musical genres predominant in the chapel’s performances and the composers whose vocal-instrumental works were performed. The names of the composers are often distorted in the manuscript lists found, but it is possible to identify some of them or to make assumptions. The seventeenth-to-nineteenth-century heritage of the vocal-instrumental chapels of the Catholic monasteries of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania requires further research in order to produce a synthetic summary of this phenomenon.