The world-renowned orchestra will open the 28th edition of the Concentus Moraviae International Music Festival in Kroměříž, then head to Brno. The concerts will be led by conductor Tomáš Netopil.
The opening ceremony of the 28th annual Concentus Moraviae International Music Festival will, for the first time, take the audience to the Hall of the Archbishop’s Palace in Kroměříž, which has undergone extensive reconstruction. This is where the festival’s resident ensemble, the world-famous Concentus Musicus Wien ensemble, will perform Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” under the baton of one of the most internationally successful Czech conductors, Tomáš Netopil. The opening concert will take place on 30 May in Kroměříž and a day later, on Wednesday 31 May, the same concert will take place in Brno’s Besední dům.
“I was absolutely delighted by the dramaturgical idea of the 28th Concentus Moraviae festival, which seeks to musically connect Kroměříž and Vienna,” praises conductor Tomáš Netopil, who was behind the selection of Beethoven’s iconic Eroica. “The rich Kroměříž castle archive and its important Baroque section are already part of the broadest awareness of music history. What I do appreciate very much, however, is the festival’s effort and desire to bring the legacy of Archduke Rudolf Jan, who was a great lover of music and who in 1805 met Ludwig van Beethoven himself, his future teacher of piano and composition, closer to the audience. The Archduke was the composer’s patron, and in return Beethoven composed the Missa Solemnis for Rudolf Jan’s appointment as Archbishop of Olomouc. I consider the performance of his Symphony No. 3, called Eroica, in the newly renovated Assembly Hall of the Archbishop’s Castle in Kroměříž, performed by a legendary ensemble specialising in Baroque and Classical music, to be a unique opportunity to capture the historical moment of the union of two important personalities and the linking of two very important, even crucial, cities of musical culture.”
Both the Kroměříž and Brno concerts are also dedicated to the legacy of Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who was a tireless searcher for connections between Moravia and Vienna, and who personally contributed to the research of the Kroměříž collection and carefully examined it in the context of the works of the great composers Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. He pioneered a new perception of early music and brought his then revolutionary approach to interpretation to life by founding his own orchestra, Concentus Musicus Wien, the resident ensemble of the 28th Festival. It is only natural that the Austrian early music ensemble is conducted by Czech conductor Tomáš Netopil, a proud native of Kroměříž who has been exploring historically informed interpretations of the music of Beethoven’s generation not only as a conductor, but also as a violinist and, more recently, as a doctor of the JAMU. After many decades of researching and thoroughly learning and experiencing, the circle of modern and historical performance practice is finally beginning to close.
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