Orel, Dobroslav
Orel, Dobroslav
Orel, Dobroslav, Czech ecclesiastical music scholar and choral conductor; b. Ronov, near Prague, Dec. 15, 1870; d. Prague, Feb. 18, 1942. He studied music with Novák and Hostinský in Prague, and later musicology with Adler at the Univ. of Vienna. In 1914 he received a Ph.D. there with the diss. Der Mensuralkodex Speciálník: Ein Beiträg zur Geschichte der Mensuralmusik und der Notenschrift in Böhmen bis 1540. He was ordained a priest. He was a prof. at the Prague Cons. (1907–19). From 1909 to 1918 he was ed. of the Prague church music periodical Cyrill, and from 1921 to 1938 was a prof. of musicology at the Komensky Univ., Bratislava; was active as a conductor of various choral societies. He greatly distinguished himself as an authority on Czech liturgical music.
Writings
(all in Czech and publ. in Bratislava unless otherwise given): A Theoretical and Practical Manual of Roman Plainsong (Hradec Králové, 1899); A Czech Hymnbook (Prague, 1921; 5th ed., 1936); The Franus Hymnbook (Prague, 1922); The Beginnings of Polyphony in Bohemia (1925); Ján Levoslav Bella (1924); Frantšisek Liszt a Bratislava (1925); Musical Sources in the Franciscan Library in Bratislava (1930); St. Wenceslas Elements in Music (Prague, 1937); J. Potuček, ed., Contributions to the History of Slovak Music (1968).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire