Sounds of the season

Hallelujah! Prague finally has an Easter music festival.

Which is not to say there's never been good Easter music in the city. In fact, there's been quite a lot of it. The problem in previous years was that the concerts were scattered, and often not even billed as Easter music. So you had to be a combination musicologist/urban explorer to enjoy the classical bounty of the season.

This year, the smart folks who run the Czech Philharmonic and Prague Symphony (FOK) orchestras have joined forces to create a two-week, 13-concert program that features some of the country's finest Baroque performers.

"Our budget is not so high this first year, so we're featuring mainly Czech groups and orchestras, with only a few soloists from abroad," says FOK Program Manager Petr Daněk. "We hope to continue next year and expand the programming beyond classical music, to jazz and folk."

A worthy ambition, but it shouldn't detract from the inaugural effort, which is first-rate. In particular, Daněk and his colleagues have taken advantage of Prague's incredible wealth of early music ensembles and put together a showcase of Baroque music, ranging from famous pieces by Bach to lesser-known works by the likes of Joseph Haydn and Jan Dismas Zelenka.

"A lot of the pieces are quite new for Prague," explains Daněk. "Some of them are being played here for the first time."

The Collegium Marianum program, for example (April 10 at Sts. Simon and Jude), includes an oratorio by Antonio Caldara, an Italian composer of the late 1600s and early 1700s. Daněk's own vocal ensemble, Octopus Pragensis, will be singing a program at the Rudolfinum (April 11) that includes Responsoria Sabbato Sancto, a sacred work by the late Renaissance Italian composer Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa, whose chromatic style was centuries ahead of its time.

"It's very expressive music, like Stravinsky or Schönberg," Daněk says.

Not every concert encompasses that kind of musical range, but there's plenty to explore across the breadth of the festival. Bach aficionados get to hear two nights of the master: Celebrity violinist Gabriela Demeterová is bringing her Collegium ensemble to Sts. Simon and Jude for an evening of the Brandenburg Concertos (April 7), while harpsichord soloist Giedré Lukšaité-Mrázková rolls out The Well-Tempered Clavier II at the Rudolfinum (April 11).

At the other end of the musical spectrum, Prague's AD Trio, which often works with contemporary Czech composers, will be performing Quartet for the End of Time, the remarkable and unorthodox piece composed by Olivier Messiaen in a German prisoner-of-war camp in 1941 (St. Lawrence Church, April 7). Latvian clarinet player Ints Dalderis does the solo honors.

Other highlights of the festival include:

Petr Wagner's fine Baroque group, Ensemble Tourbillon, performing Francois Couperin's Lecons de tenebres pour le mercredi Saint (Lessons of Darkness for Holy Wednesday, Sts. Simon and Jude, April 5);

David Eben's vocal group Schola Gregoriana Pragensis, known throughout Europe for their note-perfect recreations of medieval sacred music, singing Magna Pascha, a cycle of choral and polyphonic Easter songs (Sts. Simon and Jude, April 6);

Two performances of Dvořák's monumental Requiem by the FOK orchestra, with Jiří Kout at the podium and the excellent Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno (Obecní dům, April 8 and 9);

Two performances by the Czech Philharmonic of Foerster's symphonic suite Cyrano de Bergerac and, just so no one gets too joyful, Haydn's The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross, with Gerd Albrecht conducting four soloists and the Prague Chamber Choir (Rudolfinum, April 9 and 10);

And, for the finale, the Prague Chamber Choir returns with Vojtěch Jouza's Prague Baroque Ensemble and four outstanding soloists for an evening of sacred works by Zelenka, one of this country's finest Baroque composers (Rudolfinum, April 14).

Daněk can talk about all these performers and pieces in detail, but he's not far into explaining how Charles Luython, a composer and organist in the court of Rudolf II, came to write Lamentations of Jeremiah when he stammers a bit and says, "You should just come see it."

Agreed. Take advantage of this sweet opportunity to revisit some old favorites and experience some new works, and you'll have a musical Easter to remember.

Frank Kuznik can be reached at
fkuznik@praguepost.com