Preserved musical instruments from the Church of the Assumption of Our Lady in Kvasice in museum collections in Vienna and Brno

This study traces the history and use of the preserved musical instruments from the organloft of the church of the Assumption of Our Lady in Kvasice. Currently, they are placed in the museum collections Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna and at the Department of the History of Music of Moravian Museum in Brno. Theodora Straková not only wrote a report about this rare inventory of music in her study Kvasický inventář z r. 1757 (Kvasice Inventory from 1757), but also presented other preserved inventories of church property. She provided basic information about the instruments from the loft of the church, which gave rise to the creation of this study. In this study, the fate of the musical instruments coming from the loft of the church of the Assumption of Our Lady in Kvasice is mapped. After a period of time when they were not used during the church activities, Dr. Emanuel Proskowetz jr. (1849–1944) bought them from the priest F. Ignác Němec in Kvasice in 1905. Dr. Proskowetz jr. was a breeder, economist, water management expert and the president of the management of sugar factories. Apart from this, he was an excellent organist and music lover. He donated some of the instruments to the collections of Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna later in life. Other instruments are part of the collections of the Department of the History of Music of Moravian Museum in Brno. The museum obtained them via Adolf Straka (1883–1960) – the director of the loft of the church in Kvasice – either as a gift or as a part of his inheritance. The preserved instruments were compared with the entries in the church inventories that are part of the Parish Office in Kvasice and are stored in the State District Archives of Kroměříž.