Edmund Pascha

Edmund Pascha (17146 May 1772) was a preacher, organist and composer. He used the pen name Claudianus Ostern. Life Edmund Pascha was born in 1714 in Kroměříž, the Moravian musical centre of that time. Aged 17, he entered the Franciscan monastery at Hlohovec (western Slovakia). He studied philosophy at Beckov (western Slovakia) and theology at Uherské Hradiště (eastern Moravia). In addition to his native language he also managed Latin, German, Italian and some Hungarian. He practised music and preaching in several Franciscan monasteries of the order’s Salvatorian province, notably at Prešov (eastern Slovakia) and lastly at Žilina (northwestern Slovakia), where he died on 6 May 1772, following many years of painful illness. Works Pascha’s compositions of Slovak passionals, pastoral masses and Christmas carols exemplify Slovak Baroque music and reference Slovak literature. In his musical textbooks, he highlighted Christmas folklore and Slovak folk songs with Christmas and Easter themes. His musical works include a few textbooks in manuscript. The so-called Žilinský kancionál (ca. 1770) contained two manuscript textbooks. The first was Harmonia pastoralis (Pastierska harmónia), a Latin