| On January 1, 2009, Czechoslovakia received the Presidency of the Council of the EU. To celebrate this honour, its embassy in Colombo gave the people of Sri Lanka a toast with an evening of avant garde Czech music aptly entitled Solstice.
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| Jiri Stivin |
Solstice featured three leading musicians from the republic; Jiri Stivin, Irena Havlova and Vojtech Havel and what appealed to me most, in spite of the powerful influence of the music itself, were these musicians, no, true artistes. In the self-promotional, pin-up poster world of me, me and more me first, these guys were the proverbial breath of unassuming fresh air. It is not something we are used to culturally and I wonder why?
Here were three incredible musicians who had obviously reached the zenith of their craft and it was plain to see that they were not in it for the money. It’s the feeling you get when you meet a spiritually enlightened person and we don’t get that too often, do we?
Their music was a spiritual journey of wit, wisdom and grace and it showed and glowed in their manner, their simple garb and their unabridged respect for each other and the audience. I felt the day drop away from me like my clothes when I head for the shower.
Jiri Stivin has been interpreting pre-Classical music on the recorder since 1975. He performs music from the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Baroque periods and has recorded flute concertos (Telemann and Vivaldi on 4 CDs) and mastered all kinds of flutes and recorders.
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| Irene Havlova. Pix by Saman Kariyawasam |
As a soloist, he works with renowned musical ensembles and institutions (Virtuosi di Praga, the Prague Symphony Orchestra, the Slovak Chamber Orchestra, the Prague Madrigalists, Due Boemi, Suk Chamber Orchestra, Talich Quartet, etc.). He fronts his own Collegium Quodlibet and leads the jazz quartet Jiří Stivín & Co.
He has also been intensely involved in jazz since the 60s, and in the improvisational New Music, using saxophone, clarinet, flute, recorder, and several kinds of folk pipes. His later recordings join the influence of all genres into original musical compositions outside of any boundaries. He gives solo recitals with harpsichord, organ, or guitar, and sometimes as he did that night, performs with the sole aid of a tape recorder.
The first half of the show opened with Stivin on flute and continued till the intermission taking the audience along the eclectic and playful musical route he is renowned for, interspersing flute, recorder, clarinet and folk pipes with folk, classical, pre-classical pieces of astounding beauty and scope. But my personal favourite would have to be the romantic jazz interlude he dedicated to Papia Goshal, the famed painter from India who was also attending. He was also accompanied in a couple of pieces by Vojtech Havel on viola da gamba (tenor).
The second half ushered in the husband-wife duo, Irena Havlova and Vojtech Havel who in more than fifteen years of their joint activity, have passed through several distinctive stages of development in musical concepts. They started to work together in the mid-80s, at the experimental Capella Antiqua e Moderna ensemble which won both public and critical acclaim.
They have made appearances across the Czech Republic, Europe, Canada, and the USA. They travelled to Africa and Japan with the Solstice (Slunovrat) dreamy performance made together with avant-garde artists Petr Nikl and Jana Svobodová.
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| Vojtech Havel |
Labelling their music means classifying it in categories that very often actually tell nothing about its form and content. The only thing that can be said with certainty is that it is always music that is highly poetic, and penetrates the innermost corners of a perceptive human soul.
The most important and appreciated aspect about these performers is that the two musicians share their unusual gift with their audiences with absolute sincerity and unusual humbleness, carrying a genuinely peacemaking message. I think it was ‘Agni’ an Indian spiritual piece accompanied by a symbolic, visual essay of Indian spiritual and everyday life of still images projected on a screen which riveted me. That they are able to capture the sound of birds and the wind on violas in this sweeping, raga style overture was indeed a testament to their originality and virtuosity using the viola’s diaphragm sometimes to keep time and produce resonances that kept the audience’s soul meandering to places that only music of this type is capable of energizing.
The concert over, my colleague and I departed feeling like renaissance men. Solstice, I know is going to remain motionless is my heart, having neither the need to rise or set.
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