Jakub Jan Ryba:
Concertos

Jakub Jan Ryba (October 26, 1765 – April 8, 1815) is a Renaissance figure whose legacy has been awaiting its rebirth for more than two centuries. Ryba’s musical work is considered the pinnacle of so-called "cantorial music" in the Czech lands, but in many ways, it surpasses it in quality and stands apart from it significantly. After a stimulating period of studies in Prague, Ryba’s life was involuntarily tied to the rural environment, where he settled permanently as a teacher and regenschori in Rožmitál. A comprehensive disc featuring the instrumental music of Jakub Jan Ryba offers a completely new perspective on this composer’s persona within the context of his work. The dominant part of Ryba’s compositional legacy consists of sacred music, to which he dedicated most of his active composing life. Thanks to surviving period copies found in various church choirs and monasteries, we have a fairly rich source of Ryba’s sacred works. Unfortunately, his instrumental music was not so fortunate, and most of what he wrote for instruments is irretrievably lost. The magnificent and intensely virtuosic Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in C Major was the initial impulse and inspiration for the creation of this album, and it ultimately became an impressive centerpiece of the overall program. The CD’s program is complemented by the two-movement Concerto for Horn and Orchestra in D♯ Major. This work presents Ryba in a completely different light, as a composer capable of expressing a range of moods and their nuances on a small scale, sharing joy through music in a direct manner, much like his great model, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The contrasting mood of the instrumental concertos culminates in the dance suite Cassatio in C Major, which was most likely a commissioned piece for the needs of the castle’s operations in Rožmitál. Unlike the common practice of the time, however, this six-part composition is filled with esprit and a sense of musical wit at a similarly high level as we know, for example, from Joseph Haydn.

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