(b Jegenye [now Leghea, nr Cluj-Napoca], 8 March 1629; d Szárhegy [now Lǎzarea, nr Gheorgheni], 25 April 1687). Transylvanian compiler of music anthologies, organist, organ builder, teacher and administrator. He studied music at the Jesuit school at Mănăştur, near Cluj-Napoca, which he left in 1641. In 1648 he was converted to Catholicism from the Orthodox faith into which he was born, and he entered the Franciscan school of the monastery at Csíksomlyó (now Şumuleu, near Miercurea-Ciuc), where on 17 November 1650 he was appointed organist and teacher. He continued his philosophical and theological studies at the Franciscan college at Trnava, near Bratislava, and he was ordained priest there on 5 September 1655. He then took up several appointments at Csíksomlyó. He had studied the organ from an early age, and worked as an organ builder and restorer in Transylvania and Moldavia. He was abbot of the monasteries at Mikháza (now Călugăreni) from 6 July 1663, and Szárhegy (Lăzarea) from 17 March 1669, before returning to Csíksomlyó as legal adviser to the monastery. He was also permitted by the Holy See to set up a printing house, and from 1675 he published textbooks and theological and musical works. His many-sided activities attracted the attention of Pope Innocent XI, who in 1678 appointed him vicar-general of Transylvania, but because of religious intrigue he held the position for only four months. He spent his last years as custodian of the Catholic diocese of Bacău (1682–6) and of the monastery at Szárhegy (1686–7).
Căianu was the first Transylvanian musician to gain a European reputation. His Cantionale Catholicum, a collection of hymn texts, was widely used and went into several editions until as late as 1805, but his fame rests mainly on two manuscript anthologies that he compiled in German organ tablature. One of these is the Organo-Missale, which contains 39 masses and 53 litanies. The other is the so-called Codex Caioni, of which he compiled the second part. The manuscript attests to the breadth and catholicity of his musical knowledge and represents a bridge between Eastern and Western traditions. On the one hand it includes numerous dances and songs, both sacred and secular, which in melody, harmony and rhythm are all strongly national in feeling and are indeed the earliest known arrangements of Hungarian and Romanian folk melodies; they consist simply of melody and bass. On the other hand the manuscript contains copies of works by many prominent western European composers of the later 16th and earlier 17th centuries, including Banchieri, Alessandro Grandi (i), Marco da Gagliano, Melchior Franck, Jacob Handl, H.L. Hassler, Hieronymus Praetorius, Schütz and Lodovico Viadana.
Cantionale Catholicum, hymn texts (1676); ed, in Domokos
Antiphonarium Romanum … ad usum ecclesiae Romanae cum cantu Gregoriano, 1649, Miercurea-Ciuc Museum
Hymnarium, 1649, lost
Cantus Catholici, cantionale cum cottis scriptum, 14 Aug 1650, Miercurea Ciuc Museum
Organo-Missale, 39 masses, 53 litanies (org tablature), 1667, Miercurea-Ciuc Museum; 2 pieces ed. in Szabolcsi
Sacri concentus, diversorum authorum, praesertim Ludovici Viadanae, 25 March 1669, Miercurea-Ciuc Museum
Antiphonae de sanctis ordinis minorum, 1670, Miercurea-Ciuc Museum
Codex Caioni, 346 pieces (org tablature), pt i compiled by Matthias Seregely, 1634–52, pt ii compiled by Căianu, 1652–71, Muzeul Judeţean Hatghita, Miercurea-Ciuc, facs. (Bucharest, 1993); ed. S. Diamandi (Bucharest, 1994); 4 pieces ed. in Szabolcsi
J. Seprödi: ‘A Kájoni-kódex dallamat’ [Melodies of the Codex Caioni], Akadémiai Ertesitö, xx (1909), 61–70
G. Papp: ‘Kájoni János orgonakönyve’ [Ioan Căianu's organ book], Magyar zenei szemle, ii/5 (1942), 1–23
B. Szabolcsi: A magyar zenetörténet kézikönyve (Budapest, 1947, rev. 3/1979 by F. Bónis; Eng. trans., 1964, 2/1974, as A Concise History of Hungarian Music)
V. Mocanu: Ioan Căian (Bucharest, 1973)
V. Cosma: ‘300 de ani de la apariţia antologiei de cântece a lui Ioan Căianu’, Muzica, xxvii (1977), 21–8
P.P. Domokos: ‘… édes Hazának akartam szolgolni …’: Kájoni János: Cantionale Catholicum [‘… I wanted to serve my dear native land …’: János Kájoni: Cantionale Catholicum] (Budapest, 1979) [incl. edn of Cantionale Catholicum]
V. Cosma: Muzicieni din România (Bucharest, 1989)
S. Diamandi and A. Papp: Introduction to Codex Caioni (Bucharest, 1993)
VIOREL COSMA