The Image of Melancholy
Music Inspired by Poetry and Drama Works
of William Shakespeare and John Milton
Artists
COLLEGIUM MARIANUM
Lenka Torgersen – Baroque violin
Vojtěch Semerád – Baroque violin and viola
Andreas Torgersen – Baroque viola
Hana Fleková – Baroque cello
Jana Semerádová – flutes
Sebastian Knebel – harpsichord
Jan Krejča – theorbo, Baroque guitar
Ján Prievozník – violone
Programme
Anthony Holborne (ca 1545 – 1602)
The Image of Melancholly
John Dowland (1562/1563 – 1626)
Lachrimæ „Flow my tears“
Matthew Locke (ca 1621 – 1677)
Curtain Tune
Henry Purcell (1659–1695)
Dry those eyes (z The Tempest, Z. 631)
John Blow (1649–1708)
Ouverture, Cupid’s Entry, Act tune, Dance by a Huntsman
(Suite from Venus and Adonis, 1683)
Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632 – 1687)
Plainte de Vénus sur la mort d’Adonis
(from Le Grand Divertissement Royal)
Georg Friedrich Händel (1685–1759)
Concerto grosso G dur, HWV 319
Thomas Arne (1710–1778)
Cantata “The Morning”
Concert with an intermission. Estimated end at 9:15 pm.
Annotation
The dulcet tones of Hana Blažíková will fill the Theresian Hall at the Břevnov Monastery with melancholic music inspired by works of William Shakespeare and John Milton. The sounds of nature and affections of the human soul were great sources of inspiration for composers of the Early and High Baroque periods. The sung text and various affects in those compositions were expressed by way of typified melodic and harmonic elements. This concert will be dedicated to the sentiments of melancholy and grief and will present works of English authors who belong to the foremost composers of the Baroque period.
Artists
Hana Blažíková
soprano
Hana Blažíková is an exceptional figure on the Czech and international early music scene. She graduated from the Prague Conservatory, where she studied under Jiří Kotouč.
Currently, the singer specialises in the interpretation of mostly Baroque, Renaissance and Medieval repertoire and performs solo with many of the world’s leading ensembles, including Collegium Vocale Gent, Gli Angeli Genève, Bach Collegium Japan, the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble Pygmalion, Nederlandse Bachvereniging, La Cetra, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Collegium Marianum, Tiburtina Ensemble, Collegium 1704 and Cappella Mariana.
Hana Blažíková appears at major international festivals, such as the Prague Spring, the Edinburgh International Festival, Salzburger Festspiele, Oude Muziek Utrecht, Tage Alter Musik Regensburg, Resonanzen (Vienna), the Summer Festivities of Early Music, Festival de la Chaise-Dieu, Chopin i jego Europa, Festival de Saintes, Bachfest Leipzig and Concentus Moraviae.
She has also sung works by Bach with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Bamberger Symphoniker under the baton of Herbert Blomstedt. Her collaboration with the Bach Collegium Japan took her to New York’s Carnegie Hall. Since 2015, she has worked closely with the renowned cornetto player Bruce Dickey, with whom she has toured several times in North America, Australia and Tasmania.
In 2017, she performed in all three of Monteverdi’s operas under the direction of Sir John Eliot Gardiner and sang in leading opera and concert houses in both Europe and the USA.
Hana Blažíková also plays the Gothic and Romanesque harp. She appeared on more than forty CD recordings.
