But it was the violas underpinned by the larger instruments that made the deepest impression on me.
The violins, positioned on the other side of the axis defined by the two harpsichords, were the loudest instruments. Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge got a standing ovation and the orchestra was forced to play an encore and they had a hard time saying goodbye with us.ĭuring the concert, I was sitting at the right side of the row, in front of the violas visible between the two cellos and double bass. One of the fathers of this success was the conductor, Alessandro Moccia, although you could hear the amazing amount of effort that the performers put into it. With all that art around us and only a few meters separating us from the musicians, we watched a very good, solid performance. We were surrounded by paintings, maybe not of European stature but of great importance to any Pole: Hołd Pruski and Rejtan by Jan Matejko, and in front of us, right behind the orchestra, Pochodnie Nerona by Henryk Siemiradzki. I try to follow the Capella’s most important performances, which is why last Sunday me and my wife sat down in the very good fourth row seats at the Gallery of 19th Century Polish Art in Krakow Sukiennice. The album features CC musicians who accompany Le Poème Harmonique and Vincent Dumestre (Alpha 952). One of the biggest steps to achieving this is the freshly-released album Te Deum, released on the Alpha record label and containing compositions of Charpentier and Lully. It was another part of the big picture that the CC’s artistic director has in stock for them: the band is supposed to perform as frequently as possible with world class conductors, participate in artistic projects of the best bands and thus build its musical proficiency, and most importantly – its identity. This time the concert was special, because the conductor was Vincent Dumestre, a French lutenist and founder of the early music group Le Poème Harmonique. Catherine’s Church – they have performed Mozart’s Requiem in the same venue, on that very date, for the past 20 years. On November 1st, CC played a concert at St. We were both at the concert and we were both very impressed. John, our friend now, was moved both by the fact that the orchestra played on period instruments, as well as by the performance itself and its decorum. I meant to write about John Zurek’s – our guest from “Positive-Feedback Online” – surprise in my previous report from the Krakow Sonic Society (see HERE), but I didn’t get to do it. Those most hurt were the musicians who also worked as professors at the Krakow Music Academy – after all, professors don’t get auditioned, by God!Īlmost exactly five years after the “crowning” of Jan Adamus the band has now moved on to somewhere completely new – you could even say it’s in another galaxy. Oh the yelling, anger and protests! The biggest problem turned out to be the new director’s rule – a complete novelty to many of the people in CC – of periodical auditions which would ultimately result in determining the size and composition of the orchestra. There were two problems that became clear at the time: changing the repertoire and transforming the orchestra into an early music band, using period instruments, as well as cutting down the membership from 76 to 46 people. To understand the scale of this change, please take a look at the article titled Director Jan Tomasz Adamus faces the council members in “Dziennik Polski”, which was published three years (!) after his appointment (see HERE). An average web bot has ten times as many fans. The title of the Facebook page created back then really shows people’s mood: “Save Capella Cracoviensis”, whose aim was to remove the new director. I perfectly remember the controversies, pickets, petitions and demonstrations of civil disobedience, when on November 1st, 2008, Jan Tomasz Adamus became the new director of this institution.
Although he was successful for many years, in the end he lost its identity and began a gradual descent into the hell of mediocrity.
It was founded in 1970, three years before I was born, by Stanisław Gałoński who was its conductor and musical director until 2008. Apella Cracoviensis is one of the most distinguished orchestras on the Krakow music scene.
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