On the Dresden sources of Zelenka’s instrumental music

The hand of the Bohemian-born and Dresden-based church composer Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679– 1745) is one of the more distinctive to be seen among the music autographs held in Dresden today. This is particularly the case with his numerous sacred compositions written in the 1720s, most of which survive as concept scores. The present discussion, however, is confined to the Dresden sources of Zelenka’s small number of instrumental works with a Cx number that came to be housed in the renowned “Schrank II” of the Dresden Hofkirche at some time after 1765. Excluded, therefore, are the orchestral overtures to Zelenka’s melodrama,1 to his oratorios of 1730, 1731–35 and 1736,2 and to the serenata of 1737 (titled Il Diamante);3 the six sonatas;4 and a set of six fanfares scored for four trumpets and timpani that remain classified as “uncertain” in the Zelenka-Dokumentation.5 As the appended table with basic information on Zelenka’s „Schrank II“ instrumental works demonstrates (pp. 205–207), they fall into three clearly defined groups: