CZECH ENSEMBLE BAROQUE

In the wake of the success gained by the 2014 CD featuring F. X. Richter’s Requiem in E flat major (SU 4177–2), Supraphon is now releasing a new album with another work by the overlooked composer, whose music the Czech Ensemble Baroque has continuously explored. The two-CD pack containing a premiere recording of Richter’s Depo­sizione dalla croce di Gesu Cristo (SU 4204–2) is undoubtedly be one of the most remarkable cultural projects of the year.

František Xaver Richter’s Easter oratorio Deposizione dalla croce di Gesù Cristo was recorded by Czech Ensemble Baroque, headed by the conductor Roman Válek, in the spring of this year in a revived world premiere. The CDs were made at the Holešov chateau, where Richter spent a considerable amount of time in his life.

The conductor Roman Válek, the artistic director of the Czech Ensemble Baroque, has said: “When in 1746 Franz Xaver Richter joined the far-famed Mannheim court orchestra, he found himself at the very centre of progressive music in Europe at the time, where a new epoch was emerging. And when he came across Pasquini’s most acclaimed oratorio libretto, he duly set it to music entirely within the intentions of his own singular style, combining Baroque compositional principles and elements of the nascent Classicism. Richter used the libretto’s version remade for Johann Adolph Hasse. La deposizione dalla croce di Gesù Cristo, Richter’s one and only Italian oratorio, was most likely performed for the first, and last, time on Good Friday in 1748 at the Mannheim court chapel.”

The two-CD album, titled F. X. Richter – La Deposizione dalla croce di Gesù Cristo contains a recording of the Passion oratorio La Deposizione dalla croce di Gesù Cristo, Salvator nostro, as performed by the soloists Kateřina Kněžíková (Maddalena), Jaroslav Březina (Giuseppe d’Arimatea), Philipp Mathmann (Giovanni), Piotr Olech (Simone) and Lenka Cafourková Ďuricová (Nicodemno), and the Czech Ensemble Baroque Orchestra and Choir, conducted by Roman Válek.

For further details please visit:
www.ebcz.eu