Septem dies / Seven Days with Music at Prague University
 |
SUPRAPHON, SU 4282-2, 6/2021 |
The concert program "Seven Days with Music at Prague University" attempts to sketch the music world of a student at the University of Prague in the period between 1360 and 1460, as captured in documents from the mid-15th century. The program conveys a varied image of official liturgical music, the spiritual work of young clerics and polyphonic compositions. The concert is also spiced with purely entertaining secular music.
The structure of the concert follows the "liturgical week" of the university student according to the statutes of the university college (so-called Reček's college). There is always an "official" part connected with the liturgical service, where chant and polyphonic spiritual songs are heard, and then the "unofficial" part, connected more with entertainment and social life in the colleges. For example, polyphonic French-style compositions (as the Motets Degentis vita and Apolinis ecclipsatur) or songs reflecting critically on the meaning of university studies (Esto quod expertus sis) can be heard here.
Student communities were also interested in instrumental music. This element in the program is provided by Corina Marti, thus contributing to the concert with her valuable expertise in the theory and practice of instrumental music of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Awords:
- Recording of the Month, MusicWeb International (2021)
- Recordings of the Year, MusicWeb International (2021)
Septem dies on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krO50uUY_tc