This first monograph of the life and œuvre of Marcin Mielczewski (d. 1651) sets it in the context of musical life at the courts of the Polish Vasas, particularly King Ladislaus IV and Bishop Charles Ferdinand. Much attention is devoted to the evidence of the reception of Mielczewski’s music in seventeenth-century Europe.

The volume includes detailed studies concerning various aspects of the musical culture of Silesia from the fifteenth to mid-eighteenth centuries. The authors, who represent academic centres in Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia, Holland, France and Great Britain, present new sources, as well as reinterpreting previously known facts and phenomena.