TOMÁŠ ŠELC’S UNMISTAKABLE BASS VOICE

Tomáš Šelc, a renowned interpreter of cantatas and oratorios of the 18th – 20th centuries, romantic lieder, and opera, is issuing his Supraphon debut album Lacrimae, devoted to the music of Jan Dismas Zelenka. The noteworthy project is a collaboration with the eminent ensemble Collegium Marianum and its artistic director, flautist Jana Semerádová. The recording was made in cooperation with the Saint Wenceslas Music Festival and will be released by Supraphon on CD and in the digital formats on 28th March 2025.

Tomáš Šelc, who works with such leading orchestras as the Bamberg Symphony, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, Collegium 1704, Collegium Vocale Gent, and the Taverner Consort, seems to have found the place where he is most immanently at home in the music of Jan Dismas Zelenka, a Czech composer of the High Baroque.

“I see Zelenka’s music as a fascinating bridge between baroque precision and profound emotional expression. His music inspires me with its original harmony and ability to arouse the deepest emotions within me. For me personally, Zelenka represents a challenge for finding the limits of my voice – his works make use of every bit of my vocal tessitura, and that always pushes me to within a step of my own limits,” says Tomáš Šelc.

The album Lacrimae presents three liturgical masterpieces for bass, written in the milieu of the Dresden court ensemble between 1722 and 1729. The first of the Lamentations of Jeremiah (1722) creates the sorrowful atmosphere for the liturgy of the Tenebrae. Šelc’s velvety voice renders dignified praise to the Lord in the psalm Confitebor tibi Domine (1729) and plaintive cries full of urgency from the vale of tears in the Marian antiphon Salve Regina (1724).

According to Jana Semerádová, artistic director of Collegium Marianum: “It was Tomáš Šelc and his performance of Zelenka that absolutely thrilled me a few years ago, and that gave birth to the idea of recording his special approach to these highly personal compositions. It is like when you hear Tomáš’s interpretation of Zelenka’s Salve Regina, Lamentations, and Confitebor, his honest, heartfelt singing gives you the feeling that he must have been alive in those days, that he must have even met Jan Dismas, and that through his singing and declamation he is passing the composer’s message on to us.”



The flute concerto by Giuseppe Tartini on the album reminds us that besides depths of darkness, heights of gentle consolation are also within reach. With the tender, colourful tone of her flute, Jana Semerádová dispels the clouds and brightens our faces with a feeling of illumination and lightness. As she commented: “Tartini played his concertos from the choir loft during Mass to the greater honour and glory of God; so just like Tomáš in Zelenka, I too would like to express my innermost feelings, cries of sorrow and also of joy, through this concerto, which is one of my most beloved.”