Biography
Jan Josef Ignác Brentner (Johann Joseph Ignaz, surname also spelled Brenntner, Brendner, Brendtner, or Prentner) (November 3, 1689 – June 28, 1742), was a Czech composer of the Baroque era.
Jan Josef Ignác Brentner was born into the family of the mayor of the small town of Dobřany in Western Bohemia. What we know about him comes mostly from time he spent in Prague, from 1717 to about 1720, where he published at least three major volumes of music. Brentner's opus 1 is a collection of 12 sacred arias for voice, strings, and continuo, Harmonica duodecatometria ecclesiastica seu (1717), popular enough to demand a second printing in the 1720s. In addition, Brentner published a collection of six offertories for chorus, strings, and continuo entitled Offertoria solenniora (1717) as his opus 2 and a collection of six church sonatas, Horae pomeridianae seu Concertus cammerales (1720) as his opus 4. If Brentner published an "opus 3," it has never been accounted for. Brentner's patron was Raymond Wilfert, abbot of the Premonstratensian (Norbertine) monastery in Teplá, located in Bohemia but administered out of Austria. Scholars agree that most of Brentner's music was first performed in Teplá under Wilfert's direction, excepting his funeral motets, which were written specifically for the Brotherhood of St. Nicholas Church in Prague. Brentner died in his home town of Dobřany.
Although a great many of Brentner's works are known to be lost, a scattering of manuscript copies survive throughout the Czech lands and a large number of them are located in the Music Archive of the Bendiktinerstift in Göttweig, Austria. Still others have turned up, in modified versions, in Bolivia; no one knows how Brentner's music managed to travel to South America. Registries of lost collections belonging to provincial churches in Eastern Europe bear witness to Brentner's works that are no longer extant; however, the library at Teplá cathedral—the second largest historical library in Bohemia—may contain music by Brentner as yet undiscovered, as its store of music manuscripts remain uninvestigated.
Brentner's music fuses a simple and direct melodic component, reminiscent of contemporary Moravian practices, with a complex and highly ornamented instrumental accompaniment more typical of Bohemian musicians. Although Brentner has never been a famous name, his music has proved enduring—it was still being performed in Prague in the mid-nineteenth century, and they have never stopped playing it in Bolivia.
