Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno

The life of the Virgin Mary has inspired a vast number of musical works. From Gregorian chants and mediaeval sacred songs, and the extensive polyphonic compositions of the Renaissance and the Baroque, to contemporary works. Choral music centred on this theme written between the 19^th and 21^st centuries will be performed for the public by the Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno, one of the finest ensembles of its kind, not only in the Czech environment, but also on an international level; its choirmaster Petr Fiala is a leading figure in this discipline.

The programme for the first half of the concert comprises sacred motets by Anton Bruckner. According to Petr Fiala, these “short, polyphonic, Romantic gems form a counterweight to Bruckner’s large-scale symphonies”. This is an essential part of the Czech Philharmonic Choir’s repertoire, since it was their recording of the Bruckner motets that brought them the above-mentioned Echo Klassik award in 2007. The second half of the concert opens with Fiala’s own composition Regina coeli laetare (Queen of Heaven, rejoice) for soprano, mixed choir, cello and gong. The composer himself tells us: “The composition was written in 2016 as a commission from the European Festival of Sacred Music and, in July of that year, it was premiered in the Baroque church in the German town of Hohenstadt. The work comprises several mutually contrasting parts which are interlinked with solo lines in the cello; the solo soprano highlights the ceremonial tone of the piece.”

This will be followed by the Marian creed Totus Tuus by Polish composer Henryk Górecki. Written in 1987 on the occasion of Pope John Paul II’s visit to his native Poland, the work is a powerful, clearly and neatly structured meditation which, through individual repetitions, becomes increasingly softer until it fades away into nothing. The concert concludes with Leoš Janáček’s celebrated cantata Our Father, which Fiala regards as the most interesting and most original setting of this central Christian prayer.