Czech Learn

Jiři Ignác Linek opens the final volume with his Sinfonia Pastoralis. Born in Bakov near Prague he succeeded his father as choirmaster in his hometown. Though he followed the trajectory of most Bohemians of studies in Prague he doesn’t seem to have travelled much and certainly didn’t take appointments in estates beyond Bohemia. Probably intended for Christmas his symphony is enjoyable and well characterised, and short. The drone effects in the Adagio hint at the kind of folkloric tints that his more cosmopolitan Bohemian and Moravian contemporaries don’t pursue in their own symphonies and they’re all the more effective for it.