Postludium: Pēteris Vasks – 80 Years of Silence and Revolt

ABOUT

This concert closes the festival not only as a musical finale, but as a heartfelt tribute — to Mr. Jan Mičánek, whose long-standing support for the festival’s postludia in the village church of Bohdanec made possible many of the quiet, intimate moments that gave the festival its soul. In his memory we present a programme devoted to the music of Pēteris Vasks — a composer whose voice resonates with both spiritual depth and a commitment to moral and ecological consciousness.

Pēteris Vasks — life and artistic journey

Born on 16 April 1946 in Aizpute, Latvia, Vasks grew up in the household of a Baptist pastor, immersed in sacred-church and folk-music traditions from an early age. Initially trained as a double-bassist and orchestral musician, Vasks played in several Latvian and Lithuanian orchestras before turning to composition. Having studied composition at the Latvian Academy of Music under Valentīns Utkin (graduating in 1978), Vasks began to forge a unique musical language — one that marries the austerity and textural sparseness of late-20th-century modernism with a deeply rooted reverence for nature, folk tradition, and spiritual introspection. Over decades, Vasks became internationally recognized. From the 1990s onward, commissions and performances by world-renowned artists and ensembles — among them soloists, choirs, and contemporary-music festivals — brought his emotionally powerful and philosophically rich music to a global audience. Vasks’s works are often described as meditations on light and darkness, on humanity’s relationship to nature, memory, suffering and hope. Through sparse textures, often minimalistic means, and a reverence for silence, his music creates spaces for introspection — for spiritual reflection, but also for a quiet, firm resistance to violence, destruction, and loss.

As Vasks himself said: “I want to uphold a beam of light,” using music not for spectacle, but as a channel for the deepest human truths and for moral clarity.

The pieces selected for this concert reflect multiple facets of Vasks’s musical universe: contemplative, sacred, elegiac, yet unafraid to demand moral presence from the listener. Musique de soir  — a quietly spiritual conversation between the deep voice of the cello and the sacred resonance of the organ. Castillo interior draws inspiration from the mystical imagery of St. Teresa of Avila. Vasara (“Summer”) for mixed choir — a luminous hymn to nature, to the warmth of sun and earth, to renewal. In this choral soundscape, the composer channels his love for the natural world: birdsong, breezes, summer light, echoing with sacred innocence and fragile joy. Pater Noster for mixed choir — a musical prayer that bypasses grand gestures.  Fruit of Silencefor mixed choir and organ — perhaps Vasks’s most emblematic work of contemplative spirituality. Based on a text by Mother Teresa, it transforms the short, humble lines into a vast space of sound, where silence itself becomes a carrier of meaning, and where each tone, carries the weight of faith, hope and love.

This Postludium is more than a finale: it is a ritual of remembrance, gratitude, and collective contemplation. It invites the listeners to inhabit a world where sorrow and beauty coexist, where memory and hope intertwine, and where each note can become a prayer, a protest – or a promise.

In the silence that follows the last chord, we honor both the man who supported our festival’s quiet moments — and the composer whose music continues to inspire them.

Programme and performers

In memory of Jan Mičánek (1975–2025)

Pēteris Vasks: Musique de soir for cello and organ

Castillo interior for two cellos

Vasara (Summer) for mixed choir

Pater Noster for mixed choir

The Fruit of Silence for mixed choir and organ

Jiří Bárta, Josef Bárta – cello, Viktor Darebný – organ, TYL Teachers’ Mixed Choir,
Zdeněk Licek – choirmaster