The 9th festival of this kind is starting on October 17 and is dedicated to the Lviv Lute Tablature, one of the biggest and the most interesting collections of this type in the world. The Lviv Lute Tablature is a unique Renaissance music monument dating back to the second half of the 16th century. It is kept at the Ivan Franko Lviv
National University Academic Library. As the masterminds of the festival told The Day, Lviv University purchased the collection from Krause antique store in Vienna some time around 1936. Its origin is still not clarified. Researchers tend to associate it with the Galicia of that time, especially with Krakow, since this city is mentioned in the manuscript along with the last name of one of the first owners of the tablature.
The tablature consists of 124 paper sheets. About 60 pieces of lute music make up its main part. Almost all of them are anonymous. There are only two names of composers mentioned: Valentin Bakfark, a famous Hungarian musician and virtuoso lute player (presented with one play) and Gioanne Pacaglione, an obscure Italian composer (presented with two pieces). At the concerts during the 9th Festival of Ancient Music different versions of pieces from the Lviv Tablature and other musical compositions of that epoch will be performed.
Among the guest of the festival are famous lute players, as well as Renaissance and Baroque music researchers, who are coming to Lviv not only from different parts of Ukraine, but also from Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, the US, Israel, and Poland: the bands Laude Novella and Starck Compagna, lute players Anna Kovalska, Anton Bi-rulia, Oleh Timofeiev, Stepan Tykhonenko, clavecinists Christopher Stembridge, Svitlana Shabaltina, and Olha Shadrina, music critics Nina Herasymova-Persydska and Levi Sheptovitski.
Besides the concerts, the audience will have an opportunity to visit the exhibit of children’s drawings “Colors of Baroque Music,” an exhibit of music manuscripts and incunabula from the funds of the Incunabula Section of the Ivan Franko Lviv National University Academic Library, and a presentation of the CD “The Music of the Habsburger Lviv.” Also, a documentary Dreams of the Past about ancient music in Ukraine will be presented. This film was directed by Alexander Timofeev, the US, and won a prize as “The best full-length documentary” at the Wa-shington Movie Festival. We would also like to note that the Festival of Ancient Music in Lviv is one of a kind in Ukraine that provides so much professionally performed music of different European countries from the Middle Ages to classics – vocal and istrumental, church and secular, opera and oratorio. Besides, ancient music experts do not just perform during concerts but give master classes as well.
