KRYŠTOF HARANT’S REMARKABLE MUSICAL PILGRIMAGE TO JERUSALEM

The collaboration between Cappella Mariana, specialising in Renaissance polyphony, and Constantinople, an ensemble pursuing the Middle Eastern musical traditions, has resulted in a unique album, titled Pilgrimage / Musical Journey of Kryštof Harant to Jerusalem / circa 1600. We talked with the artistic directors of the respective ensembles, Vojtěch Semerád and Kiya Tabassian.

What compelled you to make a complete recording of Kryštof Harant’s works?

Vojtěch Semerád: The very first idea was to create a programme dedicated to Kryštof Harant. I started pondering the project around 2018. I thought of showing Kryštof Harant not only as a musician and composer, but as a humanist too. He was also a writer, diplomat, traveller, high-ranking army officer and imperial official. What I find truly fascinating is his inner struggle with faith. Hailing from a Catholic noble family, during the socially turbulent time in Bohemia he converted to Protestantism, his political career notwithstanding. He joined the Bohemian estates’ uprising against the Habsburgs. But, although reflecting in the selection of the pieces, this is not the most crucial aspect of our project. In 2021, 400 years had passed since the execution on Prague’s Old Town Square of the 27 leaders of the Bohemian Revolt. As merely three complete Harant works and several fragments of his scores have survived, I couldn’t compile a whole album of his music. The programme revolves around Harant’s travelogue, capturing his journey to the Holy Land. I intended to combine the Harant pieces with the music Harant may have heard en route to Jerusalem. When I met Kiya Tabassian, during the Summer Festivities of Early Music, I immediately felt that he was the right person to take up the challenge with. 

Was it for the first time you heard about Kryštof Harant?

Kiya Tabassian: To tell the truth, it was the very first time I’d heard of the renowned figure. Only after talking to Vojtěch did I begin to inquire into Harant. And very soon I realised what a significant person, what a well-educated man, he was. I was really fascinated.

What Middle Eastern music of the time did you choose to supplement Kryštof Harant’s pieces?

Kiya Tabassian: Harant’s travelogue documents which countries and cities he passed through, how happy he was during his journey and the dangers he faced. The book also sheds light on how he felt on his pilgrimage, as well as how people travelled at the time. But Harant was a composer too. And, as a musician, he was naturally interested in and eager to hear the music of the countries he visited. Hence, Vojtěch and I decided to include in the programme works composed in the regions Kryštof Harant passed through.

Music he may well have heard?

Vojtěch Semerád: Music he probably heard.

Kiya Tabassian: Yes, probably. We don’t know for certain what precisely he did hear, as he did not take any photos or make any recordings. (Laughs.) But he surely encountered musicians. And he remade their music in a dialogue with his own pieces on the basis of the original sonic backdrop. Vojtěch and I have arranged the works in such a manner that the repertoire itself plays the fundamental role, that the compositions conduct a dialogue.  

Vojtěch Semerád: I would like to add that I didn’t want – and Kiya agreed – the two ensembles to perform separately, next to each other. I wanted Cappella Mariana, Kiya and Constantinople to find a common musical language, irrespective of our hailing from different cultures and even though our vocal polyphony sounds different from the instrumentally more colourful Middle Eastern music. Yet we have succeeded in finding and defining the musical language owing to which we can perform together. Another relevant aspect is that Kryštof Harant’s journey, which determined the selection of our repertoire, also played a great role when I was compiling the programme, which, in a rather uncustomary way, captures Harant’s journey through life. The programme commences with Kryštof Harant’s execution and then goes back in time, all the way to his roots. That is why it opens with Credo, referencing his deep religious faith, and ends with the song Otce Buoha nebeského (Our Father, God in Heaven) from the Benešov Hymnbook, a prayer that serves as a metaphorical rounding off of Harant’s life. This musically overwhelming Czech sacred song from the milieu of literary brotherhoods, so typical of Bohemian Renaissance music, is performed in an intimate conjunction with a prayer to a text by the Persian poet Hafez, as vocally improvised by Kiya. 

Can we say that the project is the fruit of communication between cultures?

Vojtěch Semerád: Absolutely.

Kiya Tabassian: Yes, communication, as well as a rebuilding of bridges between our cultures, which existed in the past and have to be constructed again. I consider it of crucial importance that we don’t stand on the opposite sides of the bridge, which should serve to bring us together. When it comes to music, we would like to implement projects joining our cultures. Each music has its own grammatical rules, its own vocabularies. And each music, be it modal Middle Eastern or polyphonic West European, is based on its own characteristic rules, rules we must identify so as to be able to convert one type of music into another, and create something beautiful. In many pieces featured on this album, we sing the microtones used in the traditional Middle Eastern music and add to them some polyphony, and vice versa. It is a very constructive and profound dialogue between our cultures.

Vojtěch Semerád: It is also a message to contemporary society.

Vojtěch Semerád and Kiya Tabassian were speaking to the music writer Alena Sojková.