We live in an age of reaching and transcending boundaries. In art, the ongoing redefinition of concepts, questioning various authorities, and expanding the scope of freedom have become the norm. Technological breakthroughs allow us to dream of conquering space, yet at the same time blur the line between man and machine, distancing human beings from each other. Under the influence of these transformations, music – though ubiquitous and easily accessible – is being pushed out of our lives. This is because it has ceased to fulfil its traditional, fundamental social functions.

With this year’s Forum Musicum, we will return to a time when, to exist, music had to meet the criteria for achieving its assigned goals. However, we have conceived the festival programme so as to highlight composers exploring the limits of the early sound systems’ capacities. These are areas still too rarely explored today. From the late 16th century, instruments led the way in breaking down aesthetic barriers. The music performed on them became increasingly independent of vocal forms. The emerging instrumental idiom broadened the horizons of the era’s sonic imagination. This experimental tendency was perfectly reflected in the name of one of the flagship genres of the time – ricercar (Italian: ricercare – to seek).

Immersing ourselves in the world of the early art of music, we will focus on instrumental works. Join us for August concerts at the National Forum of Music and in other historic venues in Wrocław. 

Tomasz Dobrzański

Artistic Director

Forum Musicum