International Early Music Festival in the Ore Mountains /Krušné hory. https://www.kvetnovskehudebnislavnosti.cz/en/ The international music festival KVETNOV MUSIC DAYS continues the tradition that has been cultivated at Jezeří /Eisenberg Castle since 2012, focusing on the famous history of the castle. The festival, which began in 2019 in the pilgrimage charismatic Church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary in Květnov (part of the municipality of Blatno), will also be held in Blatno‘s Church of St. Michael the Archangel from 2021. The original audience from Jezeří/Eisenberg has been joined by other audiences from the Ústí nad Labem region and Saxony, and the festival has built up its unmistakable character with its annual new premieres and the fusion of artistic styles. The original late baroque organ from the Blatno church was also rediscovered in 2022 and now the municipality of Blatno is working to complete its reconstruction and return it to its original location, while gradually repairing the church. The fiftth season of the annual festival will traditionally take place on the last long weekend in August (30 August - 1 September 2024) with the participation of Czech, German and Norwegian artists specialising in early music and playing period instruments. Historical organ form Blatno is the inspiration for the upcoming festival. The Erzgebirge organ was at the beginning of Georg Friedrich Händel‘s stellar career. ‘It is said that Zachow taught Handel to play the organ on a small, six-stop instrument without pedals, which was built in the Marktkirche in Halle in the 17th century by the Erzgebirge organist Georg Reichel. The sound of Reichel‘s organ seems to have been indelibly etched in Handel‘s memory: its layout is almost identical to that of both the instrument he had built for himself in England and the one he designed for his friend, the author of the libretto of Messiah, Charles Jennens’, mentions Michaela Freeman in her 2009 article (‘Fireworks of the life and works of Georg Friedrich Händel’ in Harmonie).The famous Müthel organ in Riga was renovated by the same organ builder, Kristian Wegscheider, as the organ in Blatno, which was recently purchased by the municipality and is now awaiting the completion of the reconstruction and its return to its original location. In 2024, therefore, the festival will bring the works of two musicians who were born and educated in Germany, but whose lives were taken far from home – Georg Friedrich Handel to London and Johann Gottfried Muethel to Riga. We look at them through the eyes of their contemporaries, whether they were friends or enemies. Both were admired and celebrated, but they were also suspected of being in league with dark forces. The world of Handel and Müthel will be connected with the North Bohemian town of Most and the Ore Mountains town of Blatno by a magical instrument whose sound is associated with the fervor of the South - the viola d'amore, or love viola. This instrument was very popular in Bohemia at the end of the 18th century, and its sound fascinated many of the country's outstanding violinists and composers. At the opening concert of the festival HANDEL’S FRIENDS AND FOES on Friday evening, countertenor Alex Potter and the Norwegian Baroque ensemble Nivalis Barokk will present scenes from Handel‘s operas Orlando and Theodora in the context of the works of his London colleagues Agostino Steffani (1654–1726), Attilio Ariosti (1666–1729) and Giovanni Bononcini (1670–1747). Can the audience guess from the music when he was Handel‘s friend and who was his rival? And is the anecdote about what led his portraitist and set designer Joseph Goupy to paint a caricature of Handel true? Alex Potter will comment on all the action with his typical English humour and his dramatic counterpart will be soprano Guro Evensen Hjemli, nicknamed the Norwegian Emma Kirgby for her pure and supple voice. The concert will also feature the premiere of a piece composed for the occasion by Czech composer Otto Orany. While in Handel‘s lifetime his fondness for food was the cause of gossip, at our concert it will inspire a competition for the best regional pie. The „expert“ jury will be chaired by the great gourmet and passionate cook Alex Potter and the audience present at the concert will also award their prize. Saturday‘s matinee of the VIOLA D‘AMORE RESONANCE will take us into the magical world of an almost forgotten instrument. Gustav Schilling describes it with the words: ‘The love viola is pure tenderness, pure emotion and only those who have a heart receptive to such tender stirrings of the soul will derive great joy from them. Its joy and sorrow are restrained, but they touch the heart deeply and penetrate to its core.’ Handel used this instrument in Orlando‘s scene when the sorcerer Zoroaster awakens him with a magic potion from the madness to which the hero has succumbed, overcome by unrequited love, jealousy and hatred. Attilio Ariosti himself, playing the viola d‘amore, linked the story of Handel‘s opera about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in Amadigi di Gaula. It is heard in exacerbated moments in the operas of Puccini, Meyerbeer, Berlioz and was loved by Janáček. However, the viola d‘amore was most popular at the end of the 18th century and was also heard in the hands of Adalbert Dussek on bright, calm nights in Prague‘s Old Town Square; masterpieces were also written for it by Florian Gassman (1729-1774) from Most or Antonin Coelestyn Mentze from Broumov. The lexicographer Bohumír Dlabacz (himself a viola d‘amore player) lists 13 Czech virtuosos and builders of this instrument, among them the famous „Stradivari di viola d‘amore“ Johann Eberle (1699–1768). Our audience will be introduced to this world by Daniela Braun, a rare master of this instrument and researcher of its Bohemian repertoire. The Saturday evening we will spend with our long-time festival partner, Batzdorf Hofkapelle, still in the south. When Handel arrived in late 1706 from Hamburg in Rome, which was to become his home for the next two years, one can hardly imagine how, after the narrow streets of his native Halle and the red-brick houses of Hamburg, he was overwhelmed by the light, bright and, for him, hitherto unseen splendour of the architecture of the Eternal City. In an environment that resembled an artistic nutrient solution, as if in a fever, enlivened by exceptionally excellent Roman musicians, supported by art-loving cardinal patrons, and inflamed by magnificent Catholic church music, he laid the foundations for his later fame throughout the European musical world. Here he became a master of all Italian forms such as opera, oratorio, serenade, cantata and instrumental concerto. The vast mountain of hundreds of melodies he created during his brief Roman period became the mine for his later works, from which he benefited again and again. In short, the Protestant North German composer became the Italian Catholic composer. While in the Protestant North one tried to interpret and explain the meaning of a word or a biblical text musically to the listener from all sides and in all nuances by increasingly refined contrapuntal means, Catholic music wants to amaze the listener, to grasp him emotionally on all levels and to take him to the supernatural world. The Batzdorfer Hofkapelle finds this lively, centuries-tested emotional seductive power of Handel‘s music recreated in HANDEL‘S MARIAN CANTATAS in the pilgrimage church in Kvetnov, famous for its statue of the Gothic Madonna. Sunday afternoon will belong to the Kesselberg Ensemble (CH) and Johann Gottfried Müthel. In the programme SILK VESTS AND GOLDEN BUTTONS, this unusual personality will be presented as a brilliant, unconventional and innovative master who can hardly be placed in a category. After his death, an inventory of his wardrobe revealed exquisite garments, including several red coats and a dozen silk waistcoats. A rather extragavant type must have walked the grey cobblestones of Riga in those days. He is also known to have loved the cold. In his letter he describes this season as the ideal time of year to immerse oneself in the world of clavichord sounds, because in winter the noise of the streets is muffled by the snow cover... (We hope that this aspect will be appreciated by the group of our festival-visitors who carefully select their costumes according to the styles presented each year.) Müthel‘s music is a mysterious and not fully understood cultural treasure: his sound world lies between Baroque and Classical, between old and new styles, between the eccentricity and impulsiveness of the Baroque and the order, clarity and harmony of Classicism. It is perhaps most closely aligned with the style called Empfindsamkeit, which emerged in the mid-18th century as a reaction by German artists to the somewhat mechanical mode of emotional expression represented by Baroque affect theory. This style is characterized by mood swings and a tendency towards unrelieved, undistorted emotions. Every bar of Müthel‘s music reflects a desire to flare, to dazzle, to surprise with unexpected harmonies, contrasts of volume and silence, almost impossible virtuosity and absolute unpredictability. Müthel was the last pupil of Johann Sebastian Bach and this training is reflected in his polyphonic style, the characteristic length of his opuses and his bold ideas. Müthel‘s compositions are complex, dense and fascinating. The harpsichord concerto is complemented with the music by violoncello virtuoso Luigi Boccherini and by Latvian composer Uģs Prauliņš‘ composed for the Kesselberg-Ensemble musicians. This year's blog EX LIBRIS VEIT SEBASTIAN LAURENTIUS (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. For example, a letter from the merchant František Korbíček to his daughter Markéta from his trip to England in the summer of 1717, where he attended the performance of Handel's opera Rinaldo and collided on the pavement with a hurried gentleman in a red beret. 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.

More about Květnovské hudební slavnosti Event www