37th Český Krumlov Festival of Chamber Music

As always, this year too the chamber music festival focuses on music connected with the Český Krumlov region and the lives of the erstwhile owners of the local landed estate.

What is more, the 37th edition will accentuate the influence of Spanish and Latin American culture. The highlight of this programme segment will be an opera, whose shortened version will be performed by Capella Regia Praha within the Baroque Night. The work in question is Una cosa rara, ossia Bellezza ed onestà, created by the Spanish composer Vicente Martín y Soler.

In the wake of its premiere in Vienna in 1786, the opera, abounding in catchy lovely melodies, gained immense popularity, which even surpassed that of W. A. Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro. At the time, it was perhaps the Viennese opera most cherished by audiences.

It comes as no surprise, then, that the Schwarzenberg family included Una cosa rara in their music collection, both in the form of a copy of the score (according to which the piece will be performed) and several arrangements, one of them being the court musician Jan Vent’s transcription for the Schwarzenberg wind ensemble. The latter version will be performed by Harmonia Mozartiana Pragensis.

The Spanish (and Latin American) musical culture’s influence will also feature in several other concerts. Ensemble Inégal will present Spanish composers’ works from the Baroque era, while the singer Yvonne Sanchez will primarily foreground Latin American inspirations in jazz. Dedicated to the tango nuevo genre will be the nocturne concert, at which the audience will hear the accordionist Ladislav Horák and the cellist Petr Nouzovský.

Solely Czech music will be performed at a concert in honour of Josef Suk. The Dvořák Trio, a top-notch Czech chamber ensemble, will present pieces by Bedřich Smetana, Antonín Dvořák and Bohuslav Martinů.

Two festival concerts will be specifically linked with two distinctive periods in the history of the musical life in Český Krumlov, with both performances following on from research into local sources. The illustrious Renaissance era will be referred to at the evening titled Rosenberg Court Madrigals, featuring the vocal group Dyškanti under the guidance of the music historian Martin Horyna. Music from a much later era will be on the programme of the open soirée, at which the Schwarzenberg Guard Jazzband will present an interwar repertoire compiled from its music archive.