WHEN THE SOUL SPEAKS

Jan Jirásek’s Sacred Choral Compositions

The profile album by one of the most acknowledged modern Czech composers is the completion of Jan Jirásek’s long-term cooperation with the BONIFANTES Boys Choir. Jirásek has been the home composer for the BONIFANTES of Pardubice, and his music has already appeared on one of their previous albums – Kouzlo českých Vánoc (The Magic of Czech Christmas).

The new album presents primarily sacred choral works by Jirásek. The album has been produced in cooperation with the BONIFANTES Boys Choir and the Czech Soloist Consort ensemble.

Missa propria is a deep sacred composition based on the texts of the Latin Christian liturgy. The key part – “Kyrie eleison” – was performed by the BONIFANTES Boys Choir 40 times during their major concert tour in the United States and Canada early in 2014.

Mondi Paralleli is a cycle of compositions that combine the basics of Christian liturgy with excerpts of texts from other religions. You can thus listen to Latin lyrics accompanied with Buddhist mantras, excerpts from the Quran, or ideas of Judaism. The present-day world strives for tolerance, cultural convergence, elimination of mutual distrust, and historical injustice. Mondi Paralleli aims at being part of this process.

Tam, kde sláva nepřestává (Where Glory Ends Not) is a cycle of three compositions inspired by the oldest pieces of Czech musical heritage. These are “Hospodine, pomiluj ny (Love Me, Oh Lord),” “Svatý Václave (Saint Wenceslas),” and “Ktož jsú boží bojovníci (Ye Who Are Warriors of God).” The first composition turns to the fundamentals of the Czech Christian tradition, while the second one touches upon the fundamentals of the Czech state. The arrangement of “Ktož jsú boží bojovníci” is virtually a battle on the concert stage. To express the tumult and commotion of battle, the composer uses a battery of percussion instruments, three bass trombones and two sopranino flutes. Jirásek rids the aforementioned oldest sacred songs of their romantic pathos and with his arrangement he puts them back in the period of their origin – in the Romanesque and the Gothic periods. The cycle has been composed directly for the BONIFANTES Boys Choir.

Prof. Jan Vičar, CSc.

The compact disc ‘BONIFANTES & Czech Soloist Consort: Sacred Music by Jan Jirásek’ represents sacred choral compositions of the renowned Czech composer Jan Jirásek. The author’s unusual arrangement of the traditional liturgical concept and his original musical signature are clearly apparent primarily in the cycles of Missa propria and Mondi paralleli, in which he combines modern linear thinking and unusual chord combinations with specifically approached glissandos and time and space structures. The final arrangement of three well-known Czech sacred songs, where the author uses percussion instruments and even brass instruments, creates an urgent emotional end. Jirásek’s compositions are extremely demanding on their interpreters. The BONIFANTES Boys Choir of Pardubice as well as the Czech Soloist Consort chamber ensemble, conducted by Jan Míšek, interpret them superbly and in harmony with the composer’s intentions.

Prof. Jan Vičar, CSc. is a musicologist and music composer at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and the Palacky University in Olomouc.

Prof. Stanislav Bohadlo, CSc.

The choral works of Jan Jirásek for the boys’ and men’s voices touch upon the peaks of global humanity, artistic complexity, and creative responsibility, placing the utmost expectations on the technical, vocal and expressive quality of the choir. Míšek’s BONIFANTES demonstrate this in a notable manner in the two philosophical and liturgical cycles of Missa propria and equally so in the three most important songs of the Czech Middle Ages. The Czech Soloist Consort ensemble then delivers an equal performance in Mondi paralleli.

An album containing such a selection of works performed by the BONIFANTES and the Czech Soloist Consort represents the author and the interpreters so clearly that it should be issued by an adequately representative music house and spread archetypal human messages across countries, states and cultures.

Prof. Stanislav Bohadlo, CSc. is the Head of Sub-department of Baroque Studies with the Department of Music at the University of Hradec Králové. He was the Director of the 25th THEATRUM KUKS Annual Festival on 24 – 28 August 2016, and laureate of a Special Mention in the category of Dedicated Services, awarded by TERRA NOSTRA in 2016.