Social Programme

 August 26, 2024 at 7 PM

The Bethlehem Chapel is a medieval landmark in the Old Town of Prague, founded in 1391.

You will have the unique opportunity to experience the birthplace of the European Reformation and to listen to beautiful music.

For more information click here.

Ensemble Inégal  - conductor and organ Adam Viktora.

Programme:

Czech Lute – Adam Vaclav Michna

The song cycle Czech Lute from 1653 by Adam Vaclav Michna is the most famous collection of the Czech Baroque.

This Michna's cycle of 13 sacred songs enjoys great popularity and has been repeatedly published. However, incompletely, the instrumental interludes were until recently considered lost. Thanks to the rare discovery of the violin part, the most famous Baroque collection of Czech origin has been reconstructed. In August 2015, the American edition of The New York Times published an extensive report on the discovery of the violin part of this most important collection of Czech Baroque music. The author of the article, Michael Beckerman, described the find as phenomenal and cited it as one of the greatest musical discoveries of our time.

The work describes the wedding of the human soul to Christ in three stages of this ceremony: the courtship, the betrothal, and the wedding feast. Michna's Czech Lute is the first work in the history of Czech culture to present a so-called ritornello song in the Czech language, where the individual parts are introduced by instrumental overtures or ritornels. It is these ritornels that are the subject of a spectacular musicological discovery.

Knight Adam Václav Michna of Otradovice (1600?-1676) was organist and one of the most important Czech composers and poets of the 17th century, the initiator of the boom of Czech Baroque musical culture and became an inspiration for many generations of composers.  He came from an aristocratic family, his noble title was Knight of Otradovice. His artistic activity was closely related to the activities of the Jesuit order, in whose Prague publishing house many of Michna's works were published. In addition to his artistic profession, Michna also ran a wine shop, was a highly respected citizen of city Jindřichův Hradec and a house owner in the same town. In 1673 he founded the Foundation for the Education of Young Musicians and bequeathed part of his fortune to it.