Kvetnov Music Days 2025
Friday, August 29 - Sunday, August 31
in the Church of St. Michael the Archangel in Blatno (map here)
and in the Church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary in Květnov
village Blatno, district Chomutov (map here)
voluntary entrance fee
!Enter the tender for the plein air painting project in Blatno! (Details here.)
The sixth annual festival KVETNOV MUSIC DAYS will take place again on the last long weekend in August with the participation of Czech and foreign artists specialising in period instruments and historical interpretation.
In 2025, we will celebrate several important anniversaries: the 240th anniversary of the composer and organist Karel Blažej Kopřiva (1756-1785) with a performance of his organ concerto and arias from his sacred works composed for the nearby Osek Monastery. We will also honor another celebrant of the year, Jakub Jan Ryba (1765-1815), with the modern premiere of a harpsichord concerto. The surviving orchestral parts for this work serve as a starting point for a reconstruction of the solo part or at least a historically informed response to the original work of this brilliant composer. The renowned Baroque ensemble Batzdorfer Hofkapelle will commemorate the 350th anniversary of the bridge-born Andreas Hammerschmidt (1611-1675). A cross-section of his sacred works, interwoven with sensuous Italian melodies and lush instrumental compositions, will provide an understanding of why this outstanding composer was so popular in his time, and Batzdorfer Hofkapelle and the Ensemble Polyharmonique will thus complete the many years of research that have been devoted to this composer in recent years.
The festival itself will be preceded this year by a painting workshop. Under the guidance of the Batzdorf artist Bettina Zimmermann, several Czech and German landscape painters will be based in Blatno from 20 August to 24 August 2025 and will look at the Ore Mountain landscape with the church of St. Michael the Archangel in Blatno through the eyes of a painter. The results of the workshop will be presented at an exhibition opening on Friday 29 August at 6 pm. Read more...
On Friday at seven o'clock, the Blatno church will sound with Bach's cantata SOAR JOYFULLY ALOFT (Schwingt euch freudig empor). The singing parts will be performed by young Czech soloists together with the choir from the Ore Mountain Baroque town of Pockau under the direction of Elisabeth Rohloff and accompanied on period instruments by an international ensemble of instrumentalists, including one of the best contemporary virtuosos on the viola d'amore, Daniela Braun.
The cantata BWV 36 has survived in several versions, with secular and sacred text, and Bach used it for several different occasions. What united them was their joy and lightness. The collaboration of the Kantorei Pockau from the Ore Mountains, which is involved in the production completely without any claim to royalties and with a sincere desire to support the musical events at St Michael the Archangel Church and thus the return of the original historic organ, with young soloists from the Czech Republic, participants in our masterclasses, and an international instrumental ensemble will undoubtedly be another joyful event in the history of this cantata.
Saturday evening at five o'clock will be dedicated to KAREL BLAŽEJ KOPŘIVA AND JAKUB JAN RYBA. Both were the sons of teachers and organists who followed in the footsteps of their fathers and were forced to combine their playing and compositional commitment with their teaching duties. Karel Kopřiva lived to be only twenty-nine years old and only one concerto of his twelve sinfonias and eight organ concertos has survived. However, he also wrote a number of sacred works, and some of them were composed for the Osek Monastery. Their fresh melodies and quality of composition are still unknown to the musical public.
The work of Jakub Jan Ryba has undergone a great renaissance in recent years and his interesting life has become the subject of attention of many scholars. However, we still lack his harpsichord concerto. It is possible that Ryba never wrote down the solo part because he played it himself. The 360th anniversary of Ryba's birth is a good opportunity to begin to dream about what this concerto sounded like, and with knowledge of Ryba's compositional style, to try to bring this music to our listeners.
The final concert on Sunday at three o'clock will feature sacred and secular music by one of the most important composers of his time, Andreas Hammerschmidt, in the church in Květnov/Quinau. Its lyrics and sensuous melodies, full of Italian charm, tell a story ABOUT HEAVENLY AND EARTHLY LOVE and will be performed by the long-time festival partner Batzdorfer Hofkapelle in collaboration with the vocal Ensemble Polyharmonique.
This year's blog EX LIBRIS VEIT SEBASTIAN LAURENTIANUS (in Czech and German) takes a look into the family archive of this burgher. In it we will find letters, memoirs and diary entries not only from him, but also from members of his family and servants. Can you guess which of these letters are genuine and which are perhaps just artfully mimicked by a contemporary author who wanted to bring you details from the lives of the composers at this year's festival?
Visitors will also find a stylish stand of sweet delicacies in Blatno and the popular refreshments of Mrs. Jermilovova from the Jirkov parish at the church in Kvetnov. As in previous years, we are planning online live broadcasts of all festival performances.
