To all those who are interested in history of Art, exuberant bloom of musical cultu re in Belarus in the 16 - 17 centuries is a well - known fact. Among the representatives of eastern Europian Art of latest Rennaissance Voitsakh Dlugoraj, lute player and composer, is well worth memtioning. Considerable part of his life linked with Belarus. Only a few facts from his biography are know: he was born in 1550 (birthplace is not know ), he was interested in music, probably, from his childhood years for even as a boy he was nick - named " Voitashek the bandura - player " ( bandura is an old folk musical instrument ). He got musical education thanks to Meacenas Samuel Zbarovsky and remained to perform music at the court of the latter - but not for good.

Later, he ran away from his cruel trustee and entered one of the monasteries in Krakow. Soon Dlugoraj gained cofidence of the king Stefan Batory and, thanks to his musical genius got the position of the court lute player. During this period 1583 - 1586 he found his way to Grodno which was, as is known, the King's residence. After Batory's death Dlugoraj being afraid of political represion left Rzecz Pospolita (ancient name of Poland). He died after 1619.

Musical legacy of Dlugoraj is represented by his dance pieces for the lute all of which were composed in the late Rennaiccanse gamma phonoharmonic style and are a typical example of dance music of that period.

In 1956 Yagelon university library in the town of Krakow obtained a copy of Belorussian Uniat sermon book to the cover of which a musical manuscript was pasted. This manuscript is a valuable record of Polish and Belorussian culture of the 16 - 17 centuries. This material gained attention of a Polish musical researcher Jerzy Golas, who wro te a number of articles on the subject. The sermon book got the Poland after the second World War from the German storages. On 64 pages of the musical manuscript notes of vocal and instrumental pieces 16 - 17 centuries music can be found. There is no date and no cources of origin on the musical manuscript, but the sermon book itself (dated back to the 17 century) has a number of inscriptions, indicating the date and the place of origin At first Jerzy Golas thought the manuscript came from Polotsk and so it was called " Polotsk Notebook " , but a number of Polish language notes on the pages show that the hand - written book came from Ostrometchevo, Brest region.

The most interesting is dance music, which is largely represented in the manuscript. Analysis of its rhytmic structure show that it's based on the dance rhythmes widely popular at the time Westwrn Europe, as well as in Poland and Belarus. Among the worthless musical relics of the last yaers of Yagelon dynasty King Zigmund the 1 st 'Old' rule (1537 - 1548) is " Organ tablature by Yan of Lublin ". Yan, a monk from the monastery of Krasnik near Lublin, collected in his tablature of works outstanding European masters. Works of Polish musicians - monogramers ( i.e. The authors who signed their pieces only with initials), Mikolay of Krakow, constitute the most valuable part of the manuscript.

Both musicians, whose life is shrouded in mystery, freely mastered sophisticated polyphonic art of Netherlands school and were interested in Polish folk music, tines of which are reflected in their compositions.