Antonius Swoboda (1709 – after 1746). Dixit Dominus. Litaniae Lauretanae

Antonius Swoboda (1709 – after 1746) entered the Jesuit order in Jíčín. He spent his life in Olomouc, Telč, Prague, Wrocław, and Kłodzko, where he led the Jesuit convictus ensembles. 1746 he was dismissed from the Society of Jesus, and probably was employed as a musician in one of the many existing ensembles. The works published in this volume – Dixit Dominus i Litania – originally from the music collection of the parish church of St Hedwig of Silesia in Grodzisk Wielkopolski, now kept at the Archdiocesan Archive in Poznań. Both pieces are relatively brief settings representative of Catholic religious music written in that period for ecclesiastical and monastic ensembles in Central Europe. Both are scored for similar forces, very popular in those times: a vocal quartet, two violins, and organ executing the basso continuo. In Dixit Dominus this ensemble is extended so as to include two clarini.