Kvetnov Music Days 2023
Friday, August 25 - Sunday, August 27
in the Church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary in Květnov
village Blatno, district Chomutov (map here)
and in the Church of St. Michael the Archangel in Blatno (map here)
voluntary entrance fee
The fourth season of the annual festival KVETNOV MUSIC DAYS will traditionally take place on the last long weekend in August with the participation of Czech and German artists. The inspiration for the dramaturgy of the upcoming festival was a song by the Czech composer Johann Joseph Rösler entitled Wisely or Just So? to a text by Felix Weisse. Together with the poet, who has treated this theme very wittily, we intend to balance on the border between deep thoughts and the lightness of living. To seek a balance between a wise and lighthearted approach to life.
Many poets of secular and sacred poetry took an interest in this theme, which is why the text and its setting has become one of the central ideas of our festival. In addition to the three festival performances, a masterclass for future professionals will be open to the public, focusing on compositions with German texts from the second half of the eighteenth century and the first twenty years of the nineteenth century.
Opening concert of the festival with the title WISELY OR JUST SO? on Friday evening will be devoted to the songs of Johann Joseph Rösler (1771–1812). In a modern premiere, Six Songs with Piano Accompaniment will be performed by leading song interpreters Jan Kobow and Anna Hlavenková, accompanied by Alena Hönigová on historical piano. The programme will be supplemented by songs published in 1805–1806 in the Prague music magazines Harmonia and Euterpe.
We want to bring the texts of Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Christian Felix Weisse, Johann Georg Jacobi, Christine Stein, Giuseppe Carpani or Scipione Piattoli to our listeners not only through Rösler's exceptional music, but also through translations and "interpretations" (in this case we will tend to the more light-hearted side of the matter). The program will be illustrated directly during the concert by Bettina Zimmermann, a leading German artist with long experience in LIFE-PAINTING. We believe that the sight of the dancing painting brush cerating a picture right in front of the viewer's eyes will enhance and complete the experience that enthralled Rösler more than two hundred years ago when reading the popular almanacs of the time and inspired such eloquent compositions.
The result of the demanding preparations necessary for the performance of Rösler's hitherto unknown songs, whose sheet music sources are practically inaccessible to the musical public, will be shared not only at this concert but also after the last notes of the festival have sounded. That is why we are preparing, in cooperation with the Czech Radio Publishing House, a modern music edition of Rösler's songs, for which Petr Koudelka has translated the texts into Czech, and a CD recording (in cooperation with Koramant Records in Switzerland).
On Saturday evening we would like to delve into one of the extremes of our matter with the programme (UN)BEARABLE LIGHTNESS or Sentimental Serenade. Ensemble Consolatione with music by Diabelli, Carulli and Guiliani for flute traverso and romantic guitar should provide an atmosphere of sweet enjoyment of life in the gazebo in the Blatno park. Karel Valter and Jan Tuláček are performers of the highest calling in this respect; they are linked to the philosophy of carpe diem not only by their fondness for the imaginative melodies and colours of early 19th century music, but above all by the depth and breadth of their artistic scope. We hope that this year we will be lucky with the weather and the concert will take place in the gazebo in Blatno Park, but if not, the Church of St Michael the Archangel, just a few metres away, is ready for the performance.
Sunday's 3 o'clock concert will feature our long-time festival partner, the Batzdorfer Hofkapelle. The "holy" premises of the pilgrimage church in Kvetnov will ring with the music of the Bach family. With the words of the motet GOOD NIGHT, WORLD! they will close the door to the common world for a moment and in a vocal-instrumental programme take us into the archives of the Bach family estate and let us listen to the beautiful texts of the collection of motets, choral songs and cantatas of the elder members of the Bach family from around 1650 to 1700, which have been preserved mainly in the estate of C. P. E. Bach. Will it really be as sad world as the title of the concert might suggest? Or will we discover, along with Goethe's harpist from the first concerto, that at the end of solitude there is a wonderful peace, joy and embrace?
Festival events will be commented again by Wolftraud de Concini on the Czech-German blog not only FESTIVAL CHRONICLES. This year she will come from northern Italy in person with her dog Zampa. We will publish photos, interviews and articles focused on festival topics from June.
Visitors will also find a stylish stand of sweet delicacies in Blatno and the popular refreshments of Mrs. Jermilova from the Jirkov parish at the church in Kvetnov. As in previous years, we are planning online live broadcasts of all festival performances.
