A Lily Among Thorns

Poetry and Virtuosity in Czech Baroque Music

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Thursday 06. 08. 2020 | 17.30 Sts. Simon and Jude Church
Dušní/U Milosrdných, Prague – Old Town

Artists

Collegium Marianum
Lenka Torgersen –baroque violin
Vojtěch Semerád – baroque violin, baroque viola
Jana Semerádová – flutes
Hana Fleková – viola da gamba
Ján Prievozník – violon
Jan Krejča – theorbo
Kateřina Ghannudi – Baroque triple harp
Filip Hrubý – positive organ

Programme

Adam Václav Michna z Otradovic (1600–1676)
Česká mariánská muzika
 
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644–1704)
„Annuntiatio“ (from the Rosary Sonatas)
 
Vincenzo Albrici (1631–1690/96)
Sonata for 2 violins in D major
 
Giovanni Battista Fasolo (1598–1694)
Per la Concettione della Vergine – „Chi nasce d’Adamo“
 
Stefano Landi (1587–1639)
Passacaglia della Vita „Homo fugit velut umbra“
 
Samuel Capricornus (1628–1664)
Sonata Prothimia Suavissima
 
Alessandro Grandi (1586–1630)
Ave maris stella
 
Concert with intermission. Expected end of the concert 21.30.

Annotation

The Lily Among Thorns concert will introduce listeners to the world of early Baroque music in the Kingdom of Bohemia in several contrasting ways. Refined musical virtuosity, and not only instrumental, will combine with the simple but compelling lyrical poetics of strophic songs by the knight Adam Václav Michna of Otradovice. He dedicated Czech Marian Music, his first collection of songs (1647), to Marian veneration. In eleven songs from this extensive collection, we will explore the life of the Mother of God from her birth and the annunciation, through to the crucifixion of Jesus, Mary’s death and the Ascension.

 

Unlike Michna, both Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, whose “Annunciation” from his well-known Rosary Sonatas will be performed, and his equally accomplished colleague Samuel Capricornus, a native of Žerčice near Mladá Boleslav, were Baroque cosmopolitans. Vincenzo Albrici also travelled across Europe before spending the last eight years of his life as an organist in Prague.

 

This diverse programme will give us an insight into the piety, poetry and instrumental virtuosity of those times, represent both settled composers and globetrotters, Czechs and Italians, and, like a Baroque painting with its chiaroscuro contrasts, bring out in their various interconnections the very best aspects of their creative work.

Venue

Sts. Simon and Jude Church

Dušní/U Milosrdných, Prague – Old Town

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Artists

Hana Blažíková

Hana Blažíková

soprano

Hana Blažíková is an exceptional figure on the Czech and international early music scene. She graduated from the Prague Conservatory, where she studied under Jiří Kotouč. Currently, the singer specialises in the interpretation of mostly Baroque, Renaissance and Medieval repertoire and performs solo with many of the world’s leading ensembles, including Collegium Vocale Gent, Gli Angeli Genève, Bach Collegium Japan, the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble Pygmalion, Nederlandse Bachvereniging, La Cetra, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Collegium Marianum, Tiburtina Ensemble, Collegium 1704 and Cappella Mariana.   Hana Blažíková appears at major international festivals, such as the Prague Spring, the Edinburgh International Festival, Salzburger Festspiele, Oude Muziek Utrecht, Tage Alter Musik Regensburg, Resonanzen (Vienna), the Summer Festivities of Early Music, Festival de la Chaise-Dieu, Chopin i jego Europa, Festival de Saintes, Bachfest Leipzig and Concentus Moraviae.   She has also sung works by Bach with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Bamberger Symphoniker under the baton of Herbert Blomstedt. Her collaboration with the Bach Collegium Japan took her to New York’s Carnegie Hall. Since 2015, she has worked closely with the renowned cornetto player Bruce Dickey, with whom she has toured several times in North America, Australia and Tasmania.   In 2017, she performed in all three of Monteverdi’s operas under the direction of Sir John Eliot Gardiner and sang in leading opera and concert houses in both Europe and the USA.   Hana Blažíková also plays the Gothic and Romanesque harp. She appeared on more than forty CD recordings.
Collegium Marianum

Collegium Marianum

music ensemble

Since it was founded in 1997, the Prague ensemble Collegium Marianum has focused on presenting the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially by composers who were born or active in central Europe. One of the few professional ensembles specializing in this field in the Czech Republic, Collegium Marianum not only gives musical performances, but regularly also stages scenic projects.

 

The ensemble works under the artistic leadership of the traverso player Jana Semerádová who also regularly appears as a soloist with some of the eminent European orchestras. Her active research together with her study of Baroque gesture, declamation and dance, has enabled Semerádová to broaden the profile of the Collegium Marianum ensemble and present multi-genre projects featuring Baroque dance and theater. Her unique, thematic programming has resulted in a number of modern-day premieres of historical music presented each year. The ensemble has collaborated with renowned European conductors, soloists, directors, and choreographers such as Andrew Parrott, Hana Blažíková, Damien Guillon, Peter Kooij, Sergio Azzolini, François Fernandez, Simona Houda-Šaturová, Benjamin Lazar, Jean-Denis Monory, and Gudrun Skamletz.

 

Collegium Marianum has received critical acclaim both at home and abroad. The ensemble has appeared extensively on the Czech Radio and TV as well as on the radio abroad. It regularly performs at music festivals and on prestigious stages both in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in Europe, including Tage Alter Musik Regensburg, Bachfest Leipzig, Potsdam Festspiele, Mitte Europa, Festival de Sablé, Bolzano Festival, Palau Música Barcelona, Pražské jaro, or Concentus Moraviae. In 2008 the ensemble started a successful collaboration with the Supraphon label. Within the “Music from Eighteenth-Century Prague” series it has launched eight recordings.

Jana Semerádová

Jana Semerádová

flauto traverso, artistic leader

Flautist Jana Semerádová is a graduate of the Prague Conservatory, the Faculty of Philosophy, Charles University in Prague, and the Koninklijk Conservatorium in the Hague, the Netherlands. She is also a laureate of the Magdeburg and Munich international competitions.   Jana Semerádová is the artistic director of Collegium Marianum and programming director of the concert cycle Baroque Soirées and the IMF Summer Festivities of Early Music. She undertakes intensive archival research both at home and abroad and is engaged in ongoing study of Baroque gesture, declamation and dance.   Under her direction, Collegium Marianum stages several modern premieres each year. Jana Semerádová has a number of CDs to her name; her recordings with Collegium Marianum are featured as part of the successful series “Music from Eighteenth-Century Prague” on the Supraphon label, for which she has also recorded her two signature CDs “Solo for the King” and “Chaconne for the Princess“.   Jana Semerádová has performed at leading European concert venues and festivals (such as Oude Muziek Utrecht, Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci, Händel-Festspiele in Halle, the Prague Spring festival), collaborated as a soloist with artists including Magdalena Kožená, Sergio Azzolini, Alfredo Bernardini, or Enrico Onofri, and regularly performs with e.g. Il Suonar Parlante, Wrocławska Orkiestra Barokowa, or Orkiestra Historyczna.   In 2015 she received her habilitation degree as an associate professor of flute from the Faculty of Music and Dance at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. In 2019 she was awarded the prize of the Prague Group of the Society for Arts and Sciences.   The Czech Music Academy Awards „Anděl“ in 2020 brought the nomination to Jana Semerádová and Erich Traxler (category Classics) for their CD „Chaconne for the Princess“.
Lenka Torgersen

Lenka Torgersen

baroque violin, concert master

Lenka Torgersen studied violin at the Pilsen Conservatory and subsequently at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague under Václav Snítil. After graduating she focused intensively on Baroque violin and honed her skills at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis under Chiara Banchini.   Lenka Torgersen is the concert master of Collegium Marianum. From 1999 to 2012 she was the concert master of Collegium 1704; currently she also works regularly with other Czech and international ensembles including La Cetra Barockorchester Basel, Ensemble 415, Freitagsakademie (Bern), Ensemble Inégal, and others. From 1999 to 2012 she was concert master of Collegium 1704. As a chamber musician and soloist she performs at major European stages and music festivals and also collaborates with various leading figures in early music (e.g. René Jacobs, Andrea Marcon, Jordi Savall, Andrew Parrott).   In 2010 as a soloist with Collegium 1704 she recorded the works of Antonín Reichenauer, for which she received the Diapason d’Or award. In 2013 she recorded a solo CD “Il Violino Boemo” (Supraphon), a modern-day premiere reviving the sonatas of the 18th century Czech violin virtuosi.