The Latin word Passio means suffering, but listeners at the Czech Philharmonic Easter concert can expect the exact opposite. Performing the St John Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach will be two of the most qualified experts on the interpretation of early music: choirmaster Tereza Válková and conductor Nicholas Kraemer.
Tereza Válková, the artistic director of the ensemble SILENTIUM, lives with dogs named Brixi and Monteverdi along with a clan of adopted cats. She describes Baroque music as operating within strict constraints, from which the great masters were able to carve out remarkable forms.
According to Ms Válková “Musicians like Bach and Mozart elevated the rules far beyond the mere underlying principles, and moved within what might seem to us like fixed, immutable dogma with an almost unbelievable ease.” What fascinates her the most about Baroque music is precisely the fixed order that composers move beyond. The additional characteristic that attracts her to vocal music is “the composers’ devotion to the musical setting of the text—the multilayered richness of often metaphorical messages bearing witness to profound understanding and erudition.” As the choirmaster of Czech Ensemble Baroque, she was already successfully championing the informed interpretation of the masterworks of early music.
In 1722, Johann Sebastian Bach failed on his first attempt to become the new organist at the St Thomas Church in Leipzig. Georg Philipp Telemann was the winner of the selection process for the vacant position, but when he ultimately turned the job down, Bach did not succeed on his second attempt, either. Finally, when the new candidate Christoph Grauphner was unable to accept the position, the choice fell to Bach. In May 1723, he took over the duties, then on Good Friday of 1724 his St John Passion was premiered at the St Michael Church in Leipzig. As it turned out, the composer spent 27 fruitful years in Saxony’s most populous city.
This is not the first encounter between the public at Prague’s Rudolfinum and Nicholas Kraemer, the Bach specialist and principal guest conductor of the Chicago-based orchestra Music of the Baroque. At that venue in January 2024 he led the Czech Philharmonic in Handel’s oratorio Messiah, which critics called one of the season’s highlights.
