Jan Josef Ignác Brentner was born into the family of the mayor of the small town of Dobřany in Western Bohemia. He seems to have preferred his middle name Josef/Joseph. What we know about him comes mostly from time he spent in Prague, from 1717 to about 1720, where he published four collections of music. Brentner's opuses 1 and 3 are collections of sacred arias for voice, strings, and continuo, Harmonica duodecatomeria ecclesiastica and Hymnodia divina. In addition, Brentner published a collection of six offertories for chorus, strings, and continuo entitled Offertoria solenniora as his opus 2 and a collection of six chamber concertos, Horae pomeridianae seu Concertus cammerales as his opus 4. Brentner's patron was Raymond Wilfert, abbot of the Premonstratensian monastery in Teplá, to whom the Op. 2 was dedicated. Brentner's funeral motets 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 MusicArchive 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. Brentner's music fuses a simple and direct melodic component with a complex and highly ornamented instrumental accompaniment. Although Brentner has never been a famous name, his music has proved enduring—it was still being performed in Prague and Vienna in the mid-nineteenth century, and they have never stopped playing it in Bolivia.
Compositions
Harmonica duodecatomeria ecclesiastica op. 1
Offertoria solenniora op. 2
Hymnodia divina op. 3
Horae pomeridianae seu Concertus cammerales sex, op. 4
Vesperae cum ordinariis psalmis, Hymnodia divina op. 3. Ensemble Inégal, Pražští barokní sólisté, Adam Viktora. Praha 2008, Nibiru 0148-2211.
, Ensemble Inégal, Adam Viktora, Praha 2003, Nibiru 0144-2211.
Music from the Missions and La Plata, Florilegium and Arkaendar Bolivia Choir, Channel classics, 2006. Contains Brentner’s Gloria et honore from op. 2.
San Ignacio. L’opéra perdu des missions jésuites de l’Amazonie, anciennes réductions de Chiquitos et Moxos, Bolivie, Gabriel Garrido, L’Ensemble Elyma, K617, 1996. Contains Brentner’s Cantemus Domino from op. 2.
