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Adam Michna of Otradovice and the Societas Incognitorum.

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Adam Michna of Otradovice is beyond doubt the best known of Czech baroque composers, but his Latin liturgical pieces are rarely heard in concert programmes and on recordings. A recently released CD from the Brno Ensemble Societas Incognitorum and the Schola Gregoriana Pragensis goes some way to filling the gap, and paying the debt to this most important protagonist of the Czech organ baroque and dedicated Marian from Jindrichuv Hradec. Michna's third Ordinary of the Mass, Marian Vespers, and Lorettan Litany are here augmented by gregorian chant. We talked about questions of performance and about the Societas Incognitorum itself with its artistic director Eduard Tomastik.

The Third Mass from the Sacra et Litaniaeje Collection is remarkable for its character--continuous variations over a repeating bass melody. The Societas Incognitorum ensemble have chosen an approach that is relatively unusual, but all the more interesting for that. Many will be surprised by the changes of tempo between the individual passages, and in the introduction to the recording this choice is justified in some detail as "the word of the performer". Can you say something more about this mode of performance?

Michna's mass is truly excellent music in terms of structure and inventiveness, and so I was all the more surprised to find it had never been recorded before. All I know is that some Czech ensembles have played it, but since I never heard any of their performances, I couldn't draw on any specific experience for my own approach. It is simply my own interpretation, and I stand by it. The choice of instrumental voices is also specific. The virginals, used in some places instead of a positive organ, rather change the character of the pieces, and so fulfils the aim of presenting the variety and colour possibilities of the Baroque basso. Instead of the normally used viola da gamba, however, a cello...

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