18TH CENTURY LATVIAN PROTESTANT HYMNALS: INITIAL OBSERVATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

Abstract

This paper is the first attempt to gather and codify the broad range of 18th century Latvian hymnals with regards to Protestant traditions. In a musicological context, this is the first time a statistical summary and codification of these books based on the target audience has been presented. The research sketches out major directions of development, questions of content and format, provides a brief analysis of the reception of hymnals in Latvian society, a review of the level of saturation of books in society, the correlation between literacy and singing skills, as well as providing facts that characterise Latvian society’s relationship with hymnals. Additionally, there is an analysis of the close relationship between the church singing tradition and the institution of organ performance and the role of the organ in the development of singing skills. The paper shows that the Protestant Church’s songs became a part of Latvian oral traditions, rooted in Western European music language and the localisation of all literary texts, and this allows for further discussion into the transfer of Western European, mainly German, culture to Latvian society.