By the second half of the seventeenth century the demand for musicians for Prague's many churches, courtly institutions and aristocratic households drew them to the capital from the provinces. Once in Prague, the musical traditions of the villages mixed with the cosmopolitan styles that typified musical life in any great European capital. Although there was no single musical institution in Prague during this period to rival certain provincial establishments such as the Liechtenstein court at Kroměříž, the sheer number of churches and monasteries in and around Prague made attractive employment prospects and also provided opportunities to make contacts with other nobles, churches and other institutions abroad—especially in Vienna. This transference of musical life from the provinces to the capital was abundantly clear to Charles Burney, who commented that none of Prague's great musicians actually came from there, but rather, were ‘brought thither from the country’. Moreover, when discussing young musical prospects with Josef Seger (1716–82), organist at the Týn Church and church of the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star [Křižovnický řád rytířů s červenou hvězdou], Burney was informed that recent arrivals consisted of ‘three or four boys, brought thither from country schools’.