The reception of the Italian small-scale motet in central-eastern Europe in the early Baroque era: state of the art and new perspectives of research

The phenomena of reception (and in particular of the reception of small-scale motet) have been investigated by numerous scholars in central-western Europe, who for some decades have been studying the assimilation of the Italian repertory and the genesis of local musical products showing more or less Italianate characteristics, thus producing a fairly substantial musicological literature on the subject. However, with the exception of more recent publications (and of some recent musicological journals of eastern European countries, or the most recent yearly issues of some of these same journals), the majority of the scientific contributions produced so far are written in languages traditionally considered ‘non vehicular’ (Polish, Slovakian, Czech, Slovenian, Croatian, not to mention Hungarian) and have appeared in publications difficult to access for the international musicological community, again mainly on account of language problems. As a consequence the scientific results already consolidated in the musicological literatures of the various areas in question have not been absorbed (or only partially and after some delay) by the majority of contemporary musicologists, meaning that the overall picture drawn so far of the diffusion and development of the genre of the small-scale motet with basso continuo (but also of other genres, first and foremost polychoral music) not only reveals gaps, but is also on the whole unsatisfactory. In more recent times a growing number of scholars working in different areas of central-eastern Europe have published articles, monographs and critical editions in English, partially avoiding the problem of knowledge-exchange, in some way intrinsic to research of this type. Moreover, some international research projects have favoured the exchange among scholars from differing academic and scientific settings, by advancing inter-institutional initiatives and promoting a certain number of publications in the more widespread languages stemming from these initiatives.