The Easter festival of Sacred Music has been a space of resonance for many years: the songs (again) come to life in the sacred spaces and in the sacred time assigned to them. In addition to the musical experience itself, the festival gave the audience the opportunity to stop in those two weeks and in individual temples to contemplate suffering and good news. At this time, the idea of the festival again becomes more of a sleeping seed, a symbol of hope.
The year 2021 was originally the thirtieth anniversary of the festival. However, because a number of unique projects and premieres were created for the eventually unrealized years 2020 and 2021, the Easter Festival in 2022 symbolically represents a fusion of these programs, which did not take place due to the pandemic. The original emblems of the body – both martyred and glorified – have thus become even more topical.
The opening concert, traditionally held on May Sunday, this time bears the subtitle Affettuoso (“with powerful mental excitement” according to Otto’s educational dictionary). The reason is not only the Czech premiere of Anton Zimmermann’s classicist Lent composition, but also the inner character of the other compositions and the felt, passionate interpretation of the ensemble Musica figuralis. Diving against the flow of time then completes the unique performance of all twenty-seven responsories (published in 1611) by Carl Gesualdo da Venos, performed by three different ensembles within the three festival Tenebrae.
The Czech premiere of Meditation for solo clarinet by Icelandic composer Atli Heimir Sveinsson, a new production of the festival order by Estonian composer Toivo Tulev in combination with works by Anton Bruckner and finally the premiere of Pavel Zemek Novák’s Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament will be in the line of contemporary sacred music. However, the promises of new horizons do not necessarily have to be carried only by contemporary works. For the final concert of the festival, the Czech Ensemble Baroque ensemble prepared a unique performance of the solemn psalms of Antonio Vivaldi for two orchestras and two choirs with Andreas Scholl as soloist. This year’s festival will start, and will end.
Vladimír Maňas, dramaturg
