New Memories CD
In June 2025, a new CD by Marta Kratochvilová and Jan Čižmář called New Memories, recorded in Belgium, was released. It inlcudes compositions that form bridges between old and new music. On the one hand, the axis of its dramaturgy are compositions by modern composers who have written their pieces directly for the ensemble. These are then in dialogue with the music of the old masters, brought to life by the unique and distinctive creative approach of both performers. The result is an engaging mosaic full of contrasts and the interconnection of generations and different perspectives.
The composers represented are:
Štěpán Rak (*1945), CZ
Jean van Vugt (*1958), NL
František Lukáš (*1977), CZ
Marian Friedl (*1979), CZ
Pau Canyigueral (*1982), ES
Lukáš Sommer (*1984), CZ
… and also John Dowland, Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger, Henry Purcell, Leopold I., Jacques-Christophe Naudot, Anonym (Ennemond Gaultier?, Codex Jacobides, traditional)
Live concert recording of this programme was broadcast on radio Concertzender and is available in the archive there.
Crowdfunding campaign New Memories – album release | Donio allows you to pre-order the CD or contribute to its creation.
New Memories is a concert programme in the first place, that was taking shape dynamically during these concerts: 22.4.2024 Brno (CZ), 28.4.2024 Seoul (Korea), 14.7.2024 Hilbesheim (FR), 17.7.2024 Baldenheim (FR), 28.8.2024 Palol de Revardit (ES), 29.8.2024 Girona (ES), 12.10.2024 Vranov u Brna (CZ), 20.10.2024 Berlin (DE), 2.11.2024 Rosario – Bever (BE), 26.11.2024 Bratislava (SK), 27.11. Spišská Nová Ves (SK), 12.12.2024 Santiago de Chile, 13.12.2024 Valparaíso (Chile), 17.12.2024 Mendoza (Argentina), 18.12.2024 Villa Tulumaya (Argentina)
New album will be presented to public in these concerts: 12.6.2025 Valtice (CZ), 26.6.2025 Brno (CZ), 27.6.2025 Vizovice (CZ), 16.7.2025 Strasbourg (FR), 24.7.2025 Nonnenhorn (DE), 2.8.2025 Kunín (CZ), 3.9.2025 Kroměříž (CZ), 12.10.2025 Baldenheim (FR), 5.2.2026 Varnsdorf (CZ).
More information will be published continuously on this website.
Texts from the booklet of the CD (CD_NewMemories_booklet)
The musical mosaic that you are going through now is made up of pieces that relate to the past, the present and the future. It contains many memories, moods, emotions, colours, expressions. The idea of preparing this programme has been with us for a long time. Early music cultivates a natural beauty in us, and the aesthetics of sound and the way old instruments are played influence the shaping of the music that comes
from them. We have tried to reflect all of this in the selection and interpretation of modern pieces as well.
With this album we document the power, depth and timelessness of sometimes seemingly simple melodies and the musical intimacy that springs from them. Over the course of our many years together in music and life, we have encountered many great people, meeting not only old masters but also new ones, including the composers represented on this album. The choice is therefore not random, but based on closeness and harmony. Likewise, the selection of pieces by old masters (often forgotten) is the result of the long journey on which these pieces have accompanied us. The way we approach them is often unconventional, not striving for historical authenticity at all costs, but rather inspired by them. In this way, early music becomes naturally inherent to us, the people of the 21st century – essentially contemporary music. The boundaries between performer, arranger and composer are blurred. The past mirrors the future – and vice versa. This is how the name of the project naturally emerged: New Memories, or if you prefer – memories from the future.
Our selection of early music works is directly linked to their character and what their authors mean to us.
It includes examples from the Baroque world: the brilliant English composer, Henry Purcell (or was it William Croft who wrote the Ground?) and the Emperor Leopold I, tied to his office but obviously full of skill, talent and emotion (or was it his teacher Schmelzer who wrote the virtuoso variations on the Ciaccona, today in the Kremsier archive?). Jacques-Christophe Naudot represents the French Baroque style with his charming La d’Hastrel. The French balladic style is also evident in the timeless, anonymous La blanche biche and Une jeune fillette. La cançó del lladre reminds us of several friends, not only from Catalonia. Kapsberger, although a native German, represents the extravagant Italian style. This creates an unconventional concept where rhythm, regularity, colours, emotions, direction, stopping are the playing stones – sometimes their presence wins, sometimes their absence.
The Renaissance is a recurring inspiration. František Lukáš’s composition reflecting on Dürer’s engraving contains a quotation from Flow My Tears by John Dowland, ‘The English Orpheus’. Another inspiration by Dowland, this time set in a rondo-like form, can be found in New Lachrimae by Pau Canyigueral. He also elaborated a modern counterpoint to the ancient lament Madre non mi far monaca, which we have combined with one of its many settings, Ich gieng einmal spazieren from the Codex Jacobides, a unique musical manuscript monument from Renaissance Prague. It was brought to our attention by Jiří Tichota and was the basis for a fruitful collaboration that we are grateful for. Also Sarabande de Gaultier comes from the same manuscript, and we decided to combine it with a surprisingly thematically similar piece Dance of Hope by Marian Friedl. Finally, Štěpán Rak’s Temptation of the Renaissance also breathes the Prague Renaissance atmosphere.
Marta Kratochvílová a Jan Čižmář
Album content:
1. Jean van Vugt (*1958): A New Memory
2. Henry Purcell (1659–1695): Ground in C minor
3. S.M.C. Leopold I (1640–1705): Ciaccona in G
4. Anonymous: La blanche biche
5. Anonymous: Sarabanda de Gaultier
6. Marian Friedl (*1979): Dance of Hope
7. Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger (1580–1651): Toccata seconda arpeggiata
8. Anonymous (Catalan traditional): La cançó del lladre
9. Pau Canyigueral (*1982): New Lachrimæ
10. Pau Canyigueral (*1982): Contrapunto sobre Madre non mi far monaca – Anonymous: Une jeune fillette – Anonymous: Ich gieng einmal spazieren
11. Lukáš Sommer (*1984): Be water, my friend
12. Jacques-Christophe Naudot (1690–1762): La d´Hastrel
13. Štěpán Rak (*1945): Introduction
14. Štěpán Rak (*1945): Temptation of the Renaissance
15. František Lukáš (*1977): The Melancholy Engraving I
I often feel that certain memories do not come from the past, but from the future. That’s why I’ve written a number of memories of the future, one of which I arranged for Marta and Jan: A New Memory. This composition is not built on a linear or narrative concept. Rather, it is a snapshot – a memory. Within this piece, transparent and non-transparent segments alternate. The transparent parts represent the memory of the future; the non-transparent ones reflect the present.
For me, music is like a window – not to look at something, but to listen through it – into space, and inward. Accessible melodies and harmonies form the foundation of my work. Within that simplicity lies room for nuance, for wonder, and for the listener’s own personal story.
Jean van Vugt
Dance of Hope is a piece that was written around 2010 as my reaction to a film I saw about the Holocaust. I remember feeling the weight of utter helplessness that emanated from the whole inherently absurd and incomprehensible situation. In it, one group of people decided to oppress another group of people on the basis of irrational arguments, and irreversibly, step by step, a system was born that led from initial discrimination to a murderous mechanism of monstrous proportions. I had to think with pain of all those who, in the face of the relentlessly rolling wheel of history, were still unwilling to give up on the idea of humanity, and who sought again and again for hope that everything would eventually turn for the better. This is the way this piece is conceived: it seems to keep starting and stopping again, as if every moment it eems that the sun is about to shine, but in the end it remains under a cloud with the prospect of an early storm. We cannot escape it, we can only dance a last stumbling dance… It was originally written for jazz trumpet and double bass.
Marian Friedl
When Jan Čižmář told me about the existence of a short handwritten sketch by John Dowland (just a few notes in his own hand) and asked if I would be interested in using it as the starting point for a new composition, I felt as if a true treasure had been placed before me. Dowland is such a powerful figure in music history; deeply expressive and surprisingly familiar and yet still not fully known or appreciated by the wider public. His music has always struck me as intimate and timeless, filled with a kind of melancholic beauty that resonates across centuries. Inspired by those few precious notes, and recalling the joy I felt singing his music as a conservatory student, I composed this short fantasy for lute and flute. It blends elements of Renaissance counterpoint with a contemporary sensibility. The piece unfolds in a rondo-like form, with the original Dowland motif returning, transformed, between contrasting episodes.
I wrote it during days of heavy rain, as nearby villages around Valencia were experiencing severe floods. Perhaps that atmosphere found its way into the music, and that’s why this piece feels like a new kind of lachrimae, suspended somewhere between memory and longing.
Madre, non mi far monaca is a charming and ironic plea from a young girl begging her mother not to send her to the convent. With its simple, lyrical melody and light-hearted tone, this traditional tune has inspired numerous instrumental versions since the Renaissance.
This recording begins with a newly composed introduction that seeks to evoke the protagonist’s inner, unspoken world; a space of hesitation, vulnerability, and quiet resistance, before her feelings are voiced through the song itself. The introduction lays the emotional groundwork from which the melody gradually blossoms.
Pau Canyigueral
The famous video where Bruce Lee uses nunchaku to play ping pong and then summarizes his philosophy of life in a nutshell enchanted me immensely. Likewise I am fascinated by the Japanese haiku poetry form. I jotted down a fragment of an idea for a melody and accompaniment in my notebook and when Jan Čižmář approached me to write something for him, it was clear that the time for composition was ripe.
Lukáš Sommer
The basic theme of The Temptation of the Renaissance is more or less an improvised melody, which I used in the film Pleasures of the Father of His Country (1969); I collaborated on the music with Jaromír Klempíř, who composed the orchestral score. One of my melodies from this film eventually became a kind of my life motif, which I later worked out not only for solo guitar, but also in many other ways, whether it was for guitar and violin, guitar quartet, for violin, guitar and marimba, or in the form of a concerto for guitar and orchestra, as well as for marimba and orchestra. Yet I always return to the basic version return to the basic version, and I really like the one that you did.
Štěpán Rak
The composition The Melancholic Engraving I was originally written in a version for Renaissance lute and countertenor, but its tonal range and character make it possible to interpret it in a purely instrumental form. It was created as a reflection of or fascination with Albrecht Dürer’s work, Melencolia I. This engraving is full of feelings of melancholy in the deepest possible sense of the word. Its emotional impact is also enhanced by the masterful technique of engraving in black and white.
The sound of the Renaissance lute is clear and subtle at first hearing, but in its depth there is also a raw and sometimes hoarse timbre. This, at least to me, is a very similar feeling of melancholy as Dürer’s painting. Singing or a melodic instrument then gives the composition clearer contours and also the symbolism expressed in various melodic fragments. What Dürer’s engraving tells us is something very strong about us that we can hardly express in words. So I tried to express it with music.
František Lukáš