Collegium 1704 – Messiah

Collegium 1704, Prague baroque orchestra and vocal ensemble, presented the best-known opus among the world’s oratorio literature – Messiah by G. F. Handel.

As a part of the St. Wenceslas Music Festival in Ostrava, Collegium 1704 presented the best-known opus among the world’s oratorio literature – Messiah, by George Frederic Handel.

Harpsichordist and conductor Václav Luks founded the ensembles Collegium 1704 and Collegium Vocale 1704 in 2005, on occasion of the Bach–Praha–2005 project, marking the beginning of a long-standing collaboration with the Prague Spring festival. Ever since 2007, when they made a splash with Zelenka’s Missa votiva in France, the ensembles have been regular guests at festivals and a mainstay on the programmes of prestigious concert organisers across Europe, presenting to their international audience major works from the 17th and 18th century, including the oeuvre of Czech masters such as Jan Dismas Zelenka and Josef Mysliveček.

In turn, Václav Luks has been enriching the Czech music scene with compositions from the canon of German and English musical tradition. His Collegium 1704 is among the few domestic ensembles which not only performs these famous Baroque-era works but also preserves them for posterity in its recordings. Their most recent accomplishment is the first complete Czech recording of Handel’s oratorio Messiah, made during the fourth concert production of the work at the Rudolfinum concert hall in Prague during the 2018 season. Under the baton of Václav Luks, the ensemble thus helped create the first-ever complete Czech recording of Messiah on replicas of period instruments.

Czech Television
Production Company Czech Television
TV Director Jakub Kořínek