Jiranek

Ever newer chapters from the history of the bountiful musical life of Baroque Prague are still being discovered today. Until recently, František Jiránek, a composer and violinist of the Prague-based Count Morzin's chapel, had only been known to a select few. Now, for the first time, all lovers of old music are afforded the opportunity to listen to an exquisite collection of his virtuoso concertos. At first hearing, we can recognise inspiration by Vivaldi (combined with distinct elements of Czech musicality) - after all, Jiránek was sent by his employer to study in Venice, where most likely Antonio Vivaldi himself, at the time Morzin's "maestro di musica in Italia", was his teacher.

Whereas Vivaldi needs no introduction whatsoever and other names (Caldara, Fasch, Tůma) are familiar to lovers of Baroque music, even specialists have only been getting to know the remarkable oeuvres of Reichenauer and Jiránek over the past few years, owing in large part to Supraphon's Music From Eighteenth-Century Prague series. Prague is that which all these composers had in common; for some of them the city represented a significant part of their career, for others a short episode or merely a way station. The Czech capital was a melting pot in which Dresden, Vienna, Naples and Venice came together and the influences of all the major European musical centres were recast.