Reviews

The international group Ensemble Fantasmi, which focuses on older music and was founded by flautist Paul Leenhouts, performed in Olomouc, at the Znojmo Music Festival and also visited Brno during a small European tour. The group presented themselves to the audience on Monday 24 July at Červeny kostel, where they, along with the invited singers prepared vocal-instrumental works by Czech Baroque composers. The reviewed concert in the Hall of Merciful Brothers on 25 July, which was also the last night of the tour, was in the same spirit. Its subheading Musica Bohemica pointed to a varied programme consisting of instrumental works by Czech composers of the Baroque and Classical periods.  more

The trilogy of lute concerts at the chateau within the Concentus Moraviae International Music Festival concluded on the evening of Sunday, 18 June. Once again, the audience at the Ceremonial Hall of the Rájec nad Svitavou Castle saw performances by Ryosuke Sakamoto on the Renaissance lute and David Bergmüller on the Baroque lute. Both prepared their own recital for the audience, dedicated to the given historical period, finally joining their artistry at the end of the concert. There was also a slight change in the program of the Renaissance block, which was more than welcome given the expansion of the repertoire and the offer of interesting - often lesser-known - lute pieces.  more

The Concentus Moraviae International Music Festival has been underway in thirteen Moravian towns since the end of this May. The theme of the twenty-eighth edition, titled Between Kroměříž and Vienna, highlights the interconnectedness of the seat of the Olomouc archbishops and the Imperial Habsburg court. The concert held on Friday, 16 June in the reconstructed church of the Cistercian Abbey Porta Coeli, offered the audience a musical probe into the Moravian Baroque.  more

Although this year’s 28th edition of the Concentus Moraviae international music festival embraces the theme Between Kroměříž and Vienna, the three-day project Island of Lutes by virtuoso lutenist and guitarist Pierre Pitzl holds a special place in its program design. From 16 to 18 June, the lute, vihuela or baroque guitar brought life to the castle grounds in Lysice and Rájec-Jestřebí with performances of  works by Renaissance and early Baroque composers. The noteworthy culmination of the project was prepared by the organizers of the festival on Saturday, 17 June on the premises of the Rájce-Jestřebí Chateau. In addition to the vihuela and Baroque guitar player Pierre Pitzl, it also featured Renaissance lute player Ryosuke Sakamoto and theorbist David Bergmülller.   more

For the twenty-eighth year running, the Concentus Moraviae International Music Festival presents dramaturgically varied and interpretively refined evenings set not only in concert halls, but also in courtyards and chateau salons, castle halls, basilicas, churches and synagogues. The theme of this year’s 28th edition is Between Kroměříž and Vienna. Vienna, the cultural centre of Europe, served as the seat of the Habsburg emperors, while Kroměříž was the home of the archbishops of Olomouc. The dramaturgy of this year’s edition was prepared by a trio of respected experts: the Dean of the JAMU Faculty of Music, harpsichordist, organist and musicologist Barbara Maria Willi; historian, musicologist and choirmaster Vladimír Maňas; and Otto Biba, Austrian musicologist and long-time director of the Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde archive.  more

The Brno Philharmonic’s headquarters and one of Brno’s most important historical and cultural landmarks – the Besední dům – celebrates its 150th anniversary this year. Exactly on 3 April 1873, when the auditorium (great hall) of the building designed by architect Theophil von Hansen, author of the famous Musikverein in Vienna, was ceremonially opened, this magnificent building became the centre of Brno’s culture and its distinctive artistic life. A century and a half later – on Monday 1 May 2023 – an afternoon gathering and a subsequent concert entitled When Smetana First Played in Brno. . . will launch a series of concerts that pay tribute to unique milestones in the city’s cultural history.  more

The end of the Lenten season culminates in the Passover week with the commemoration of Christ’s Passion, whose motif was also the main dramaturgical idea of the Ensemble Opera Diversa concert entitled Lamento. The Wednesday evening of 29 March was devoted to works on lamentations by Czech and British composers. Conveniently, the ensemble chose for this concert the Baroque Hall of the Convent of the Merciful Brothers, which enhanced the Lenten atmosphere.  more

After the American tour, the Brno Philharmonic, led by chief conductor Dennis Russell Davies, has prepared a mini-festival of three interconnected evenings called Dialogues. Each of these evenings offered a unique dramaturgy with extraordinary repertoire. It was partly linked to the aforementioned tour (e.g. the concert From America to the Czech Republic). The final concert of the trilogy, which took place on Friday 10 March at the Janáček Theatre, offered the home audience monumental orchestral works from the pens of composers Alfred Schnittke and Sergei Rachmaninoff. The entire concert was broadcast live on Czech Radio's Vltava station.  more

The concert with subtitle “Comradeship, Cooperation, Subversion and a Big Battle at the End”, directed by the Brno Contemporary Orchestra (BCO), offered a remarkable programme of contemporary music. It consisted of three Czech and one world premiere, performed at the Besední dům on 27 February under the baton of the tribal conductor Pavel Šnajdr. The choice of the concert hall was anything but random. The Besední dům is celebrating 150 years since its opening this year, and the ensemble held an annual community concert to mark the important anniversary.  more

The Brno City Theatre has launched the Czech premiere of the musical “Matilda” based on the famous book of the same name by Roald Dahl, one of the world’s best-selling authors. Directed by Petr Gazdík, the family show aspires to be a spectacle for the auditorium for all ages. On stage, however, it is the children who win in this demanding production, led by the lead actress Maruška Juráčková. Her performance inspires respect beyond the quantity of text, the quality of her singing, and her command of movement. To be fair, however, the children’s roles are alternated three times, and these performers have undergone the same training.  more

Drama, philosophy, and an interestingly outlined psychology of works was offered up by the most recent big concert of the Brno Philharmonic at the Janáček Theatre. The listener-friendly programme, aptly titled Ancient Nordic Tales, was staged and performed with the orchestra by Danish conductor Michael Schønwandt (*1953), currently chief conductor of the Orchestra of the National Opera Montpellier. His fondness for promoting contemporary composers is reflected in the dramaturgy itself. In addition to well-known works by Edvard Grieg and Jean Sibelius, the audience had the opportunity to get acquainted with Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen (*1952). American soprano Nicole Chevalier also introduced her works to the audience.  more

The latest addition to the concert series organized by the Brno-based Ensemble Opera Diversa is a chamber recital by violinist Milan Paľa and pianist Katarína Paľová entitled “Repentance”. The program, which took place on Sunday 30 October at Villa Stiassni, presented works by composers Valentin Bibik and the recently deceased Roman Berger, whose Adagio No. 2 "Repentance" (Pokánie) inspired the title of the evening.  more

At the penultimate concert of its tenth year jubilee staged in the Fresco Room of the Comenium Elementary School, the Olomouc Baroque Festival presented an evening with the Musica Florea ensemble. The musicians, conducted by cellist Marek Štryncl, performed a selection of compositions by forgotten classical and early romantic composers Karl Kohaut, Jan Ladislav Dusík and Johann Nepomuk Hummel. The choice of composers was not random – this year it is 210 years since Dusík’s death and 185 years since Hummel’s death. Performing with the ensemble’s core members – violinist Magdalena Malá and Simona Tydlitátová, violist Lýdie Cillerová, cellist Marek Štryncl and bass player Ondřej Štajnochra – was Petra Matějová on the fortepiano.  more

On 18 and 19 August, the tenth anniversary edition of the Olomouc Baroque Music Festival included a unique dramaturgical treat in its program – one of the most historically important Czech operas which, however, does not appear much on the stages of opera houses or music halls. This is Dráteník (The Tinker), the first original Czech opera composed by František Škroup to a libretto by Josef Krasoslav Chmelenský. It was directed by Kateřina Křivánková, with costumes and set by Sylva Marková and music by Marek Čermák, and performed by the Volantes Orchestra, the festival’s resident ensemble. Singing roles were taken up by Matúš Šimko (Dráteník/Škroup), Lenka Cafourková Ďuricová (Růžena), Vincenc Ignác Novotný (Vojtěch), Zuzana Badárová (Liduška), Aleš Janiga (Květenský), Jiří Miroslav Procházka (Lána), and Martin Vodrážka (Kůl). The purely dramatic roles of Chmelenský – the aforementioned author of the libretto – and Hranatý the guard were played by Martin Mihál. The reviewer visited the premiere performance.  more

For the sixth time, the Music Marathon has stirred up the streets, squares, and many spaces in Brno with all sorts of musical genres. These are not necessarily just concert venues, however. The Hausopera ensemble, for example, took their opera The Eternal Miss Pale to the Zeman Café on Friday 12 August. In three weekend performances there, they will complete their “Trilogy for the City”, a custom-made project for Brno that recalls its pros, cons, and above all some of its functionalist buildings.  more