Perhaps you too, while wandering through the center of Bratislava, have come across a narrow alley behind the Cathedral of St. Martin. At one end of it is a large brown gate, through which once you step, you will never leave this part of the city again. A place that has been breathing art for several decades is rising from the ashes again and, thanks to the civic association ALBRECHT FORUM, is being made accessible to the public. Visit the garden and house of the Albrechts on Kapitulská Street with us. We talked about them with Igor Valentovič, chairman of the OZ ALBRECHT FORUM.
The foundations of the Albrecht House were supposedly built in the 13th-14th centuries. Is anything original still preserved?
Yes, actually the core of the current cellars was built at the time you are talking about. Originally it was a medieval semi-sunken house, which is now the central cellar space. The walls and cobblestone paving, the original floor of this house from the end of the 13th century measuring about 2x4 meters have been preserved. Of course, mainly the younger parts of the building have been preserved - Renaissance and Baroque structures - walls, vaults, door and window openings. De facto all vertical structures. The ceilings, especially on the upper floors, were most damaged due to leaks, so paradoxically, the younger parts had to be replaced somewhere. Wooden and stone linings, door frames, doors, etc. from the 18th and 19th centuries have also been preserved. Of course, they all had to be repaired by art and craft. Paintings from the end of the 18th century in the current chamber concert hall and in the former salon of the Albrecht family have been restored.
The exterior of the house – the garden and the yard are beautifully landscaped and various concerts are held there. This year, for the first time, concerts were held in the house. What is its current condition? What are you still working on?
We are completing the attic, which will house the office space of our association ALBRECHT FORUM and we hope for partner art associations, we are preparing the interior of the café, we are finalizing the second floor with a chamber hall, and we are still working on the garden, which has become a popular place for concerts and other artistic events.
How are you financing the renovation? It must be difficult to raise money for such an expensive renovation.
Well, yes, it is not easy. In the early years, we were quite successful in obtaining funds from public funds, but in the last 4-5 years, investment funds have been somehow unavailable. Anyone who has carried out more demanding repairs to a national cultural monument knows that roofing, stabilizing and dehumidifying are key, but the subsequent work is an enormous financial burden. If we add inflation, COVID, increasingly fewer available funds and a smaller willingness to support investments in culture and the civic sector, then it comes out a simple three-term. We have to invest from our own funds or from loans. It does not add to our peaceful sleep, but we are moving forward. It would be a great shame to give up this long-term fight at this stage. Almost a million euros have been invested and we are still not at the end. At least we feel satisfaction from our public cultural events and from the people who cheer us on and many support us morally and materially in incredible ways. We thank them all from the bottom of our hearts.
As you mentioned, you host various events at the venue. What can people look forward to in the coming months?
From the beginning of July to the beginning of September , the Hortus artis chamber music festival takes place. It is a cycle of 10 concerts on Sunday late afternoons, in which we present various artistic chamber groups from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, international ensembles and domestic soloists. The theme of this year's festival is the overlap of the folk and the artificial, or rather the intersection of the worlds of oral spontaneous musical tradition with composed artistic music. Regionally, the emphasis is placed on Central Europe, but we will also "visit" the Mediterranean, South America, the suburbs of North American cities and many other interesting "regions and historical periods". In the autumn, the cycle of lectures and debates continues, the Albrechts' Music Salon, master classes by leading performers (e.g. Simona Šaturová, Straton Bull, etc.) and hopefully we will be able to hold the first exhibition of works of art in our multifunctional spaces of the house by the end of the year.
Photo: Martina Šimkovičová, ALBRECHT FORUM archive, Martin Mondok
As complete beginners. We learned everything as we went along – legislation, management, operations. Simply everything that was (and still is) needed. From the intention to restore the monument, through the project to the building permit, applications for decisions from the Regional Monuments Authority, construction procedures, negotiations with suppliers, writing grant applications, organizing public collections, networking, organizing brigades, finding volunteers, the physical and mental work associated with it, accounting for a non-profit organization, etc. Now, fortunately, the bulk of our work is in developing dramaturgies and production activities associated with our artistic events. But that doesn't mean that all the others have fallen away, rather they have receded a bit into the background.
Yes, the house looks finished, but we are still finalizing the interiors, furnishings, lighting, etc. In the spring, we organized the first year of our festival in the house – Domus artis. An event in which we finally incorporated the piano into the dramaturgy (which was not entirely possible in our summer open air festival Hortus artis). It allowed us to fully develop the dramaturgy of chamber music towards the 19th and 20th centuries. We opened the way to hundreds of works that should be heard in chamber halls today.
Igor Valentovič is a graduate of the Department of Musicology, Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava. After completing his studies, he was a scholarship holder at the Institute of Art History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, later working as an editor at the renewed magazine Slovenská hudba and at the Slovak Philharmonic. In the 1990s, he was instrumental in founding the international festivals Melos-Étos and Days of Early Music, and in the first years he also participated in creating the dramaturgy of both festivals, which are still vital today. Since 1992, he has worked for MUSIC FORUM, a company engaged in publishing, commercial and agency activities in the field of classical music. As a volunteer, he works in the civic sector in the ALBRECHT FORUM association, whose goal is to save and revitalize our cultural heritage.
