For discerning ears only

Big things come in small packages.

Contempuls, a festival of contemporary music, returns this week for its third and most ambitious year, attesting to Prague's growing interest in contemporary instrumental music. The festival lasts only three days at La Fabrika, but each day brims with up to three performances from the best contemporary European musicians and composers, a program the festival's organizers hope will be both entertaining and educational.

Contempuls dramaturge Petr Bakla tells The Prague Post that the festival was created for an underserved demographic of listeners in the Czech Republic who are interested in developments in modern music. Institutional support for instrumental music has until now been channeled into performances of pieces by canonical composers, but that is beginning to change, Bakla says.

"During the last few years, there have finally been a few people who understand that bringing as many foreign performers as possible to the Czech Republic is the best thing to do for Czech music," he says.

Contempuls has certainly had something to do with the ongoing evolution of taste. The festival has developed significantly over the past three years, having started by focusing on postwar European music in an effort to fill the gap of local audiences' knowledge of contemporary music. This year, the focus is on newer developments in the genre.

The first evening of the festival features a duo performance from two international music collectives, Praesenz and Ensemble Nikel, playing seven pieces of contemporary music, the oldest of which was composed in 1990 (Nov. 5 at 7).

Praesenz, a collective that includes musicians from Germany, Switzerland, Australia and the Czech Republic, was founded in 2007. The five-member Ensemble Nikel is equally international, with members hailing from Tel Aviv, Brussels and Zurich. The evening's performance will be as eclectic as this grouping of young musicians, featuring compositions such as Steamboat Bill Junior by Magnus Lindberg and Diptico by Elena Mendoza.

Klangforum Wien, the pre-eminent European contemporary music ensemble, will make their Prague debut at this year's festival, playing pieces from Jorge Lopez and Miroslav Srnka, among others. Over the past decade, this 24-member ensemble of international musicians based in Austria has recorded some 70 albums and made more than 2,000 appearances in major concert halls and opera houses across Europe (Nov. 12 at 9).

Saxophone quartet XASAX, led by German sax prodigy Marcus Weiss, will perform several pieces of original music, including Luboš Mrkvička's Saxophone Quartet, which was commissioned by Contempuls and will premiere at the festival (Nov. 19 at 8:30). The quartet is known for their melding of chamber and solo styles, and the debut of this composition is sure to break new ground.

Two of the Czech Republic's premier contemporary music ensembles, Ostravská Banda and Fama Quartet, whose members also play with the Prague Modern ensemble, will represent the local music scene at Contempuls. Ostravská Banda will play music by Francesconi, Lang, Zalubska, Kotík and John Cage's 1958 Concert for Piano and Orchestra (Nov. 5 at 9). Fama Quartet will perform avant-garde Italian composer's Fragmente - Stille, an Diotima, a piece that is challenging for performers and audiences alike (Nov. 12 at 7).

There is a fine line between satisfying and alienating listeners with avant-garde music. But Bakla is more interested in being uncompromising than careful.

 "You will find that many contemporary compositions are mere imitations of what was done better in the past. Some people think if they fill a festival program with this music, it will be more easily accepted by a wide public, but this is an illusion. Those who want Mozart only want Mozart, and those who are curious about developments in music will only get disappointed because the selections sound hopelessly obsolete," he says.

Bakla says he's willing to risk losing traditional audiences if that ensures that Contempuls continues to operate on the cutting edge and to offer something unique in the Czech Republic. 

"Classical concertgoers are not our main target, even though they are most welcome," he says. "The big opera houses and orchestras have been receiving substantial subsidies over the years just for playing 30 pieces over and over again without any attempt to respond to the artistic development in their own branch of the arts. It is no wonder that the classical music public here is so conservative and ignorant."

The severity of Bakla's words is matched by his dedication to contemporary music, and is amply exemplified by the exciting lineup at this year's Contempuls.

Stephan Delbos can be reached at
sdelbos@praguepost.com