15. 4. 2025
Musical and family ties across the centuries – Summer Festivities of Early Music presents its programme
What does FAMILY mean to us? A safe haven, a blood bond, a lifelong challenge...? In any case, it can certainly be seen as an inexhaustible source of artistic inspiration – sometimes glorified, sometimes cursed. How clear and deep are the imprints of family relationships in the music of past centuries?
”We asked ourselves these questions when preparing the dramaturgy of the 26th edition. The programmes will explore familial ties that influenced and shaped the music from the Middle Ages to the High Baroque. Audiences can look forward to performances by world-class ensembles and soloists, most of whom have prepared their programmes specifically to align with the festival theme, directly at the request of our festival,” says the festival’s programming director, Jana Semerádová.
We look forward to seeing you at the concerts of the 26th festival edition.
The 26th edition will be opened by the Berlin-based Ensemble Polyharmonique with a vocal-instrumental programme based on the compositional legacy of arguably the world’s most famous musical dynasty. In addition to the great Johann Sebastian Bach, born 340 years ago this year, the concert will also feature music by his predecessors.
The concert of the phenomenal Portuguese ensemble Sete Lágrimas will guide the audience through all the rites of passage and stages of life, from birth to death, illustrated by examples of both the artificial and traditional musical heritage of Iberian culture across centuries and religious denominations.
The third concert, located in the Basilica of St. Peter and Paul in Vyšehrad, will feature the oldest music performed at the 26th edition of the festival. The Spanish ensemble Tasto Solo will transport the audience to the mystical world of medieval monasteries, chapters and universities, i.e. into the environment of the religious and intellectual elites of the time.
The fourth evening will offer a recital by two of the most promising musicians of the new generation of historically informed interpreters of early music – French violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte and French-American harpsichordist Justin Taylor. They will present a virtuosic programme paying tribute to the brothers Louis and François Francœur.
Making their Prague debut, the Italian-Swiss ensemble Concerto Scirocco will draw attention to an important phenomenon of music history – printing. The dramaturgy will focus on editions published by the Gardano/Magni family, one of the largest and most important music publishers of the 17th century throughout the whole of Europe.
The sixth festival evening will be an invitation to the most noble society of the English kingdom in the second half of the 17th century and early part of the 18th century. Flemish ensemble Musica Gloria will remind the audience that in addition to the popular and successful Henry Purcell, his relative Daniel was also engaged in music.
The final concert traditionally belongs to Collegium Marianum, the festival’s ensemble-in-residence, under the direction of Jana Semerádová. The programme will demonstrate how family relationships have been an inexhaustible source of artistic inspiration and also the driving force behind complicated operatic plots. Arias from the opera Giulio Cesare in Egitto by George Frideric Handel and Il Giustino by Antonio Vivaldi will be performed by Ukrainian-German soprano Kateryna Kasper and Czech baritone Roman Hoza.
