ALIA FANTASIA – Domus & Hortus artis 2026

At the start of the programme, we hear Alia Fantasia by Nicola Matteis – a work that seems to have fallen out of its own time. Its musical language is unmistakably rooted in the Baroque, intimate to the listener in both sound and gesture, even though the composer himself remains largely unknown to this day. An opening that searches for something familiar within the unfamiliar. This idea leads us directly to Eugène Ysaÿe's second Sonata in A minor. Its opening at first recalls J. S. Bach – music that belongs among the most familiar of tones. Yet this initial certainty soon breaks: the quotation dissolves, transforms, and Ysaÿe unfolds his own expressive musical language. The sonata circles almost obsessively around Bach, as an unattainable ideal. The recurring returns of the Dies irae chorale theme likewise point back to the origins of the Western musical tradition – like an echo of something familiar turning irrevocably into something else… Thomas Larcher, a composer from Tyrol, creates in his work Similaun a sound world that challenges the listener. Terse, fragmentary and highly intense – a conscious leap into the depths of the unknown. Similarly, Werner Pirchner, also from Austria, moves between two worlds in his composition Shalom?. His output is less well known, yet his musical language somehow feels familiar to us – like a return to a sense of closeness, without ever truly being attainable.

Annette Fritz violin (AT)

Nicola Matteis (1650 – 1714): Alia Fantasia

Eugène-Auguste Ysaÿe (1858 – 1931): Sonata in A minor, Op. 27, č. 2

Thomas Larcher (b. 1963): Similaun

Werner Pircher ( 1940 – 2001): Shalom?

Paul Hindemith (1895 – 1963): Sonate „ Es is so schönes Wetter draussen…“, op.31, č. 2

Grażyna Bacewicz (1909 – 1969): Polish Capriccio

Tickets are available in advance sale through the Ticketportal network in the form of a "hometicket" HERE

Advance sales close at 12:00 on the day of the event. Additional tickets, subject to availability, can be purchased 30 minutes before the concert at the Dom Albrechtovcov.

Reservations are possible by phone: 0905 871 868. Reserved tickets must be collected no later than 20 minutes before the start of the concert at the Dom Albrechtovcov.

The DOMUS & HORTUS ARTIS 2026 chamber music festival was financially supported by the Bratislava City Foundation, the Bratislava–Old Town Borough, the Italian Cultural Institute, the Austrian Cultural Forum, SOZA, and takes place thanks to the BKIS Support Programme. Thank you!

More information: www.albrechtforum.com

Programme and performers subject to change.

We look forward to seeing you!