The Lobkowicz Collections

About the Music Archive of The Lobkowicz Collections

The Music Archive, begun by Ferdinand August, 3rd Prince Lobkowicz, was assembled over three centuries by principal members of the family who were not only great patrons but also enthusiastic collectors, and often talented performers. The Music Archive contains works by over five hundred composers and musicians. These include a rare collection of late 17th- and early 18th-century lute, mandolin, and guitar scores. This collection, regarded as the world’s largest private collection of Baroque music for plucked instruments, is particularly rich in works by French composers, such as E. and D. Gaultier, J. de Saint-Luc, Ch. Mouton, J. de Gallot, and others. The Music Archive is most celebrated, however, for its late 18th- and early 19th-century collection, including works by Handel, Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven.

Baroque Music and the Lobkowicz Family

In the Lobkowicz family, music has always ranked very high among the arts. The family supported and employed distinguished musicians, collected great quantities of music, and nurtured the musical accomplishments of family members, hosting musical entertainments of all kinds for several centuries. The family's musical activities took place in the imperial cities of Vienna and Prague, and on family estates in northern Bohemia.

The affinity for music among the Lobkowiczes can be traced back to the Baroque period. During their “Grand Tours,” many of the family members were impressed with artistic life in European aristocratic courts; they met numerous important contemporary musicians and were exposed to their work. Thus, several Lobkowiczes bought copies of new music, and were introduced to new techniques for playing musical instruments.  In the early 17th century, the founders of the Princely family line – Zdenko Adalbert Popel (1568–1628) and Polyxena, née Pernstein (1566–1642), were interested in musical life at the Imperial court. They purchased the oldest piece of music in theLobkowicz Music Archive: Musiche Concertate, a madrigal collection composed by imperial capellmeister Giovanni Valentini in 1619. A unique commemoration of their only son’s travels as a young man,a rare 17th-century manuscript, Ariette in musica, containing compositions in the Florentine style by the earliest Italian operatic composers like Jacopo Peri, Giulio Caccini, and Settimia Caccini, is also a part of the Collection

Ferdinand August, 3rd Prince Lobkowicz (1655–1715), was perhaps the first passionate music lover in the family and a leading proponent of lute music in the French style. He became especially fond of compositions by French composers, such as Denis Gaultier, Charles Mouton, and Jacques Gallot. During his Grand Tour, he purchased lute and guitar tablatures and fine plucked instruments. It was most likely him or his son who commissioned a rich collection of scores and parts with music by Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687)—therebyfounding what would become the family’s vast collection of Baroque and Neoclassical music.

Continuing his father’s enthusiasm for plucked instruments, Philipp Hyacinth, 4th Prince Lobkowicz (1680–1734), and his wife Anna Wilhelmina, née Althann (1704–1754), were both distinguished lutenists. Their own compositions are preserved to this day in both the Austrian National Library and the Lobkowicz Collections. They studied under the best lutenists of the period. Some of their instructors include the famous virtuoso Sylvius Leopold Weiss, as well as other renowned composers who dedicated compositions to the musical couple. The collection of lute tablatures collected by the 3rd and 4th Princes is the most voluminous private collection of lute music in the world

Philipp Hyacinth and Anna Wilhelmina passed on their musical talents to their son Ferdinand Philipp, 6th Prince Lobkowicz (1724–1784), for whom music was an intimate companion, especially in his frequent states of melancholy. He mastered violin, cello, and a popular instrument called the glass harmonica. Above all, he was deemed an excellent composer by his contemporaries. He even composed a Sinfonia with horns and oboes with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Ferdinand Philipp's lengthy sojourns outside the Habsburg empire (in England, Italy, and Prussia) were crucial for forming his personality and taste in the arts. He is also responsible for numerous acquisitions of musical prints and manuscript copies of musical scores with music by Arcangelo Coreli, Giuseppe Sammartini, Thomaso Albinoni, Francesco Geminiani, and Georg Friedrich Händel. Ferdinand Philipp’s only son, Franz Joseph Maximilian, 7th Prince Lobkowicz (1772–1816), inherited his passion for music and became famous as a talented opera singer, violin player, and one of the most generous patrons within the history of music.

The Lobkowicz Music Collection acts as a time machine; even after several centuries, it tells us stories of a noble family and collection against the backdrop of European musical history, and provides us with valuable testimony that continues to resonate.