Can you introduce yourself, and talk about your current musical role and responsibilities?
My life project is Collegium 1704 and Collegium Vocale 1704: these are ensembles that I founded almost 20 years ago, of which I am the artistic director and whose future is close to my heart. I regularly collaborate with other great orchestras of the Early Music scene such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Handel and Haydn Society from Boston, or even modern orchestras such as L’Orchestre National de France and Wiener Symphoniker – but my main priority remains the Collegium 1704.
For those who haven’t come across him before, can you give a brief introduction to Jan Dismas Zelenka?
Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679–1745) is undoubtedly not only the greatest Czech Baroque composer, but I am convinced that he is also one of the most remarkable and original personalities in the history of music. His music combines stile antico elements, inspired by Palestrina’s counterpoint, with an absolutely visionary conception of musical form and harmony, going beyond the usual harmonic imagination of the High Baroque era. All this is connected with unusual emotional intensity of expression. Totally captivating music that never ceases to fascinate me.
How did you first encounter Zelenka’s music? What impression did it make on you when you first heard it?
My first meeting was certainly not representative. After all, in the 1980s there were only a few recordings from which it would be possible to get a complete picture of Zelenka’s music. Even that little, however, awakened my curiosity, and because at that time I became more interested in Baroque music as a student, I began to search for Zelenka’s footsteps. They led me to the collections of the Saxon State and University Library Dresden where the vast majority of Zelenka’s manuscripts are preserved. In the 1990s, I was a regular guest in the study room of this library and read Zelenka's manuscripts. My first impressions of Zelenka’s work were therefore more visual than acoustic. I was all the more eager to hear how this music sounded.
Can you talk a bit about Zelenka’s musical world? Where was he working and who was he making music for?
We know very little – practically nothing – about Zelenka’s childhood and youth. We know that he was born in 1679 in the small Central Bohemian village of Lounovice as the son of Regenschori (the head of the church choir), and that he somehow ended up in Prague, where he probably studied at a Jesuit college. His life’s pilgrimage is completely unknown until 1704, when his first work is documented – the school drama Via Laureata dedicated to the Prague Jesuits. (By the way, this date is also part of the name of Collegium 1704.)
In Prague, Zelenka became acquainted with Italian music, and sometime after 1710 he went to Dresden, where he then worked (with the exception of a three-year study stay in Vienna 1716–19, where he studied with Johann Joseph Fux) until his death in 1745. Although Zelenka never became a Kapellmeister at the royal court, he very often filled in Kapellmeister duties in the court church – first as a deputy for the ill Johann David Heinichen and then for the often-absent Johann Adolph Hasse. So he had the opportunity to compose representative music for the court church and collaborate with the best artists of his time. I think that when we consider that he did not start his professional career as a musician until after the age of 30, he has had an absolutely dazzling career.
In Paris next month, Collegium 1704 are performing Zelenka’s Miserere ZWV57, which has become one of the composer’s better-known works. Can you talk a bit about this piece and what listeners might expect?
Zelenka set the text of Psalm 51, Miserere mei domine to music twice in total and each time completely differently. The first in 1722, shortly after his return from studying with JJ Fux in Vienna, and the second time in 1738. While the first setting is clearly influenced by Fux, the late version is completely different and represents completely revolutionary music.
The 1738 setting, ZWV57 is an extremely impressive work, combining Zelenka’s strikingly modern and distinctive musical language with an archaizing repetition of the opening verse of Miserere in the form of a paraphrase of Frescobaldi’s ricercar from the Fiori musicali collection. Zelenka combines his visionary musical language with the inspiration of early Baroque counterpoint in a fascinating way.
What other highlights among Zelenka’s works – both large-scale and small-scale – would you point to?
The extent of Zelenka’s extant work is much smaller compared to JS Bach. He did not write any solo literature for keyboard instruments, his chamber work is represented only by a fascinating cycle of six sonatas for two oboes, bassoon and basso continuo, and his orchestral work is also relatively small. The clear focus of Zelenka’s work is liturgical music, composed for the needs of the court Catholic church in Dresden.
Although we can observe a significant change in Zelenka’s musical language over the years, the basic attributes of his expression are very distinct and easily recognizable. In short, anyone familiar with Zelenka’s musical expression will recognize his work after a few bars. I consider his three last masses to be the pinnacle of his work, which should have been part of the intended cycle of six “last masses” – Sex Missae ultimae. The cycle remained unfinished (or half of it was lost), and yet the three masses Missa Dei Patris ZWV19, Missa Dei Filii ZWV20 and Missa Omnium sanctorum ZWV21 from 1740–41 represent the pinnacle of Zelenka’s work.
After his death, Zelenka’s music was neglected until the 19th century, when it saw a revival, which has accelerated in the 20th century. Can you talk a bit about the Zelenka revival, and Collegium 1704’s own role in it?
Bringing Zelenka’s music to life on concert stages has been one of the main goals of our activity since the beginning of Collegium 1704’s existence. While it is good to make recordings of Zelenka’s music, it is far more important to perform it live in the context of the works of other great Baroque composers. Zelenka’s music has extraordinary power when performed live, and it has happened to us more than once that after listening to a program with, for example, Bach and Zelenka, the audience comes up to us with the reaction “Bach is great... but Zelenka, wow... that’s completely shocking music”! In short, Zelenka’s music has a unique ability to touch the heart and soul of the listener. Next year we will celebrate the 20th anniversary of Collegium 1704, and of course Zelenka cannot be absent from these celebrations. We are going to record his last great Mass, which has not yet been recorded on historical instruments: Missa Cicumcisionis ZWV11, and also present this work at concerts in Prague and various places in Europe.
Finally, with this year being the Year of Czech Music, how is Zelenka seen from a Czech point of view? Is there something about his music that is distinctly Czech?
The perception of the nation and national culture, as we know it from the 19th century, is foreign to the Baroque period. Of course, there were different national schools, but they were shaped by the traditions and cultural specifics of the regions from which they arose, and not by nationalistic self-awareness. So I wouldn’t look for features of Czech national music in Zelenka either. On the other hand, every creator is to a certain extent determined by the environment from which they emerged, and thus Zelenka’s musical speech is certainly latent to a certain extent shaped by his origin and musicality, which has always been peculiar to the Czechs.
Václav Luks and Collegium 1704 perform Zelenka’s Miserere at La Seine Musicale Paris on Sunday 17th November.
This article was sponsored by the Year of Czech Music.
