King Wenceslas (Szent Vraclav) statue, Wenceslas Square, Prague, Czech Republic.
Photo by TGM.

Prazska Muzejni Noc

Web designers: Czech out this gorgeous Web site!

Anniversary of 5th Prague Museum Night, a collaboration among the National Museum, Prague Public Transport Company Inc., and Association of Museum and Galleries of the Czech Republic. 25 cultural institutions and 51 sites were involved. Happens on Thursday evenings. Admission and transportation are free, except for a free will donation to two national sites.

The evening also includes concerts, recitals, movies, theatre, and dance performances, public readings, lectures, and guided tours.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every city in America did that? Can you imagine the upsurge in learning in our schools? The rise in the quality of our national intellect? When every child has access to quality instruments, instruction, music, investment of time and puts all that body of knowledge into creating more music? We would be better listeners. We would appreciate how music is inextricable from the human experience. That music sculpts vibrations into rainbows of sound.

It’s not political, it’s cultural. Nurture music and the arts wherever you are.

Post from: The Good Musician

Budapest is an old dowager, still grand, but crumbling about the edges. Many old palaces, homes, and historical buildings have been sold to other countries in order to support the country’s administration and government.

If the general municipal buildings are a bit shabby, the cathedrals and churches are kept in excellent repair and more likely to receive funds for renovations. Singing in these venues was a joy. Hungarians take their religion and accompanying music very seriously, and we are the beneficiaries of their love for both.

Post from: The Good Musician

Castle Hill, Budapest, Hungary. The largest spire is the Basilica of St. Mattias, one of the venues where AVAE was privileged to perform.

A bit of background

The Danube River separates Buda (west, Castle Hill) and Pest (east, government and commerce). Built in the first century B.C. by Celts, the Romans occupied the town as the eastern border of the Roman Empire. In the fifth century, Goths and other peoples on the run from the Huns overran the Roman defenses. These in turn were routed by Ostragoths and Huns. The name Attila is still popular today.

Over the following centuries, Buda and Pest were dominated by various populations, emerging as an important trade center between Europe and Constantinople in the 15th and 16th century. Cultural growth was particularly active during the reign of King Matthias, with the second Hungarian university established in 1395, and the first book was printed in 1473.

Composers and music

By the 19th century, Budapest emerged as a major intellectual center, and a rich environment for the simultaneous development of musical performance, composition, and pedagogy. Hungary produced Ferenc (Franz) Lizst, composer, wicked-good pianist, and founder of the (Hungarian) Academy of Music. That in turn fostered the famous Zoltan Kodaly (Ko-die) method, a brand-new musical pedagogy, culminating in the internationally-known Kodaly Institute.

Then you have Bela Bartok, musicologist, educator, and composer extraordinaire, teaching at the Academy at the same time as Gustav Mahler, one of the orchestral gods.

Coming up next…more about Hungary, Slovenia

Post from: The Good Musician