International Festival FORFEST 08 Czech republic

COMPOSER USA 2008

Forfest among other festivals in Central Europe represents the contemporary streams of music and arts with the spiritual inspirations and aspirations. This year we have heard 23 concerts rich on Czech premieres, among them 14 world premieres, and recitals as well as ensemble concerts with high quality performances. as before the dramaturgy of the festival included music of Czech, Moravian, Slovak, Scottish, Romanian, Italian, Greek, American, Portugal, French, German, Russian composers, encompassing music from 80s to the present. Exceptionally the works from the first third of the 20th Century of a such composers as John Cage, Bohuslav Martinu and Eric Satie.

The festival takes place regularly the last week of the June in historically beautiful settings of Moravian city of Kromeriz such as The Archibischop's Castle, Cathedrale of St, Maurice, Church of St. Baptist, Museum of Max Svabinsky, the great Czech painter of the late Romanticism, Rotunda with the famous Foucault's pendulum in late Renaissance gardens (called Kvetna zahrada), the work of Italian architect Tencalli. Kromeriz is the city of festivals, silence, Gothic and Renaissance residences, Baroque sculptures, and Unesco world treasures complex of Podzamocke gardens full of exotical trees and flowers, lakes, mazes, pagodas, geometrical grass architectures, and a small zoo with free walking fawns, highly inspirational sites.

This year the concerts outweighted the multimedia projects and fine arts performances of the last years. The inspirational leadership of the festival Zdenka and Vaclav Vaculovic included also an experimental part of the festival with a such project as the German-Swiss project "Musikseismograf", the Industrial Philharmonic Orchestra with completely new sounds and instruments from Moravia and Greek music-video-film-movement project with cognitive values. The last years of festival presented also the US performances from Boston and fine arts exhibitions of Moravian artists and photographers such as Vaclav Vaculovic, the painter of large scale paintings, inspired by Teilhard de Chardin, Jan Simek, the sculpptor of "Stories of Sculptures". This year we were pleased to see a chamber exhibition of Romanian painter Iosif Haidu.

One of the deepest experiences was the premiere of a large scale vocal-instrumental work Messe de Saint-Georges by the French composer of Georgian origin Nicolas Zourabichvili, the former director of the Parisian Conservatory of Music, the work full of tension, dreaming, and drama too, with vocal solos and special rich colorful instrumentation. The other musically magnificent, dramatic and pietistic work Ecce Homo For Violin Solo, based on contrasting, by Moravian composer Frantisek Emmert, in an excellent, even mesmerizing performance of the Slovak soloist Milan Pala. The both works sounded excellent in the spaces of Gothic St. Maurice Cathedral and Baroque St. Baptist Church. The unforgettable and virtuosic performances were given by solo and chamber performers from America Dolly and Daniel Kessner, Richard Kravchak, Julia Heinen, Shari Raynor, from Slovakia Milan Pala, Elena Letnanova, Zuzana Beresova, from Greece Theofilos Sotiriades, Italy Michele Selva, Czechia Katerina Chrobokova, Stepanka Kutmanova, Stepan Filipek, France Stella Maris, Vincent Rigot, German Ruth Forsbach, from Portugal Trio Persona (Grossmannova- Freitas- Vieira). The author’s concerts presented five composers from Moravia original Jaroslav Stastny along with late colorful and mystical work of O. Messiaen, Michal Rataj Oratorium Electronicum and other pieces as Corde Lingua Voce in an proverbial liason with the vocal performances of the old Czech chorals from the Middleage era of Vaclav II, the king of Czech kingdom, performed by Schola Benedicta from Prague.the mentioned Frantisek Emmert symphony, and Miloslav Istvan recital of Sonatas and Trio starting from late 50.s to late 80's, which were the pieces composed postwebernian style against the 50's. this was a surprise to us, as well as never heard composers from Scotland John Hearne, Paul Burnell, Hazel Maclead, Steve King performed with Inchcolm New Music Ensemble under S. King. This concert showed a rarely performed plainchant, composed by monks from the island of Inchcolm (between Edinburough and Fife) around the 1.000 A.D. This combination of the contemporary and the Medieval music was deliberately chosen because the ensemble pieces were inspired by plainchant of this years. It was a question how really was sung this plainchant, as a probable part of the old Celtic chant. We have heard the unisono developing in structure of four voices specially placed in the church. No one doubted that this chant along with the choral was the most spiritual body of music, and is now ever present in works of the present; it is not only the historical value, but also aesthetical one.

Two concerts of Ensemble Archaeus Bucharest under Liviu danceanu, were devoted to the Rumanian music of seven composers like Stefan Niculescu, Liviu Danceanu, Liviu Marinescu, the creators of prevailingly meditative music, from which Panta rhei was remarkable. Also characteristics of romantic and folk rhythms and ornamentics of Romanian music were well felt in the traditional Chanson vallaque by Francois Rouschitzki. George Enescu, an internationally known composer as other intellectuals in Paris, like Eugene Ionescu and Mircea Eliadze, is still captivating us with the complex composition in the virtuosic Lautarul (The Fiddler) by an excellent soloist of the ensemble Ion Lacraru from Bucharest. We should mention more performances and composers for instance the magical afternoon concert in Rotunda of duo Petr Matuszek and Marketa Dvorakova, Czech Republic, barytone and mezzosoprano who excelled in Moravian and Czech music of Petr Pokorny, Bohuslav Rehor, Alios Pinos, the Polish composer Riszard Gabrys, and world known Giacinto Scelsi and John Cage. In the both last composers we heard clearly the nazal and quartertone chant, almost rarity at our concert podiums. To mnetion the further surprise was the melodrama "Posli to dal" (send it further) for trio and hanging sound objects by Moravian composer of silent music with universe message of mankind, and amazing tapering o music at the ends of the compositions by Jan Grossmann.

The Three main characteristics of the 19th Forfest festival would be from atonal and fine compositions (Daniel kessner), musically "healthy" extended tonality (Emmert) to minimalistic and long sounding structures - method of composing are still alive and able of expressing ourselves Cage, Statsny), from a thin one violin or duo violin compositions to the large vocal-instrumental masses (Moravian composer Jiri Teml performed by duo Eco, to ensemble complicated and complex written compositions (Zourabichvili), the both are inspiring.

Except for the concerts we could listen to the lectures of electro-acoustic music, the Competition in Lisabon 2008 by Dr. Wanda Dambrovska from the Prague Radio, Moravian Composer prof. Rudolf Ruzicka, his religious compositions from the recordings. These three presentations, including the lecture of Dr. Lenka Dohnalova Musica Nova, were examples of spiritually grounded pieces, their main characteristics is uninterrupted sound, the eternally sounding structures with rare contrasts, their : Verarbeitung" in studios and public resonance in a concrete settings like a church. The composition Omsa (The Mass) by Moravian composer r. Ruzicka, with the prize, was the most captivating and "plowing us through". The evening and afternoon concerts were rounded by late evening interviews of the composers such as Liviu Danceanu, Liviu Marinescu, Greeks Sotiriades and Panayiotis Goubouras, by W. Dambrovska

We have an opportunity to hear in 23 concerts composers of Northern, East, Central, and South Europe, as well as America (D. Kessner, William Toutant, J. Cage, Theodor Wiprud, and others.)

Elena Letňanová