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The National Museum - Czech Museum of Music holds an important source - a bundled collection of three printed sets of lute tablature by Nicolas Vallet, which contains parts I and II of Le Secret des Muses (1615, 1616) and the psalm collection Vingt et un pseaumes de David (1615). In our examination of graphic motifs, we focused on musical motifs worked into the decorating of initials and especially on depictions of the Biblical figure of King David with a lute, of lutenists, and of the lutes themselves. The schematic depictions of the instrument did not provide any new organological discoveries, but instead confirmed the popularity of the lute as a symbol. Vallet's tablatures were printed from original full-page copper engraving plates and not from individual blocks, as was customary. It is also for this reason that the initials, decorated with genre pictures and Biblical scenes, have merited extraordinary attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study reports on interesting holdings in the musical iconography collection of the Czech Museum of Music. Drawings by the sculptor Karel Otáhal (1901-1972) that are related to music and musicians were created for the most part at concerts of the Prague Spring festival between 1946 and 1969. He had already begun making portraits of musicians by the end of his studies, when he created a sculpture of Jan Kubelík. His works are a specific expression of portrait realism and of the ability to capture the typical movement and characteristics of the person depicted. He met in person with musicians, and his drawings bear valuable dedications and commemorative musical quotations by important figures of Czech and foreign music. Unlike the other creators of such drawings, he was merely an enthusiastic observer, but not a caricaturist. Otáhal's drawings serve as a unique source on the history and dramaturgy of the Prague Spring festival, including its politicization in the 1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides information about the partially unfamiliar estate of the Czech dancer, choreographer, dance teacher and impresario Otakar Bartík (1868-1936), who worked mainly in the USA, and it determines its provenience. Some of the 323 photographs document Bartík's activity at the Metropolitan Opera in New York (he first appeared there as a dancer and choreographer for the premiere of Smetana's Bartered Bride in 1909 with Gustav Mahler conducting and with Emmy Destinn as Mařenka). Bartík collaborated with the Metropolitan Opera until 1928. Besides a wealth of collected iconographical material, the Bartík estate also preserves correspondence that reveals to us the beginnings of show business in the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents findings from study of and research concerning musical instruments and rich iconographic materials from the estate of the world-renowned Czech violinist František Ondříček. Violins held by the Czech Museum of Music's Musical Instruments Division were analysed and the results compared with secondary information from literature. Information was found concerning a total of fifteen bowed string instruments known to have been once owned by Ondříček. Five of them are presently held by the Czech Museum of Music, which also holds more than three hundred photographs of the artist (forty of them showing him with a violin) and fifteen works of visual art depicting him. The violin seen most frequently on preserved photographs of Ondříček is one by Didier Nicolas aîné, which is the most historically valuable instrument from his estate. In drawings and works of graphic art Ondříček is shown mainly with his last violin, by Carlo Giuseppe Testore, which he played to the end of his life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study summarizes results achieved to date in researching the photographic collections of the Czech Museum of Music. Numerous Czech musicians as well as important artists from abroad who performed in Prague had themselves photographed in the Prague studios of Jan Mulač (1841?-1905) and later his nephew Josef Mulač (1846-1941). Evaluation of the more than five hundred photographic positives and forty-four negatives in the museum's holdings provides new information on the history of these studios and establishes connections among photographs scattered in various collections. The portrait studio of Jan Mulač, especially, constituted a distinctive cultural gathering place in the last third of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth, and played a role in public promotion of artists, especially opera singers. Comparisons of photographs have allowed refinements of their dating in some cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the exhibitions mounted by the Czech Museum of Music (CMM) from 2003 to 2008. One was "How a Music Museum is Born" held from May to Otober 2004 and featured the history of the museum's new headquarters. Another was "The Good Cheer of Czech Music," or "Dr. Desiderius's Vision and Prophecy about Music," focused on the painter, drawer and graphic artists Hugo Boettinger and held from November 2004 to May 2005.