Václav Matyáš Gurecký (1705-1743) - Vesperae de Dominica ex C
Performers: Musica Floreа; Mаrеk Stryncl
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Moravian composer. His family came from Příbor and were closely related to the mother of the Catholic priest Jan Sarkander, martyred in 1620 in Olomouc and later canonized. Gurecký received his musical and general education at Piarist schools and from 1724 was a tutor in the Piarist music seminary in Kroměříž. In 1729 he married the daughter of the Kroměříž organist Anton Bernkopf. By that time he was presumably already employed by the Olomouc bishop, Cardinal Wolfgang von Schrattenbach (1711–38), who enabled him to study composition with Caldara in Vienna. It is not known why in 1736 Gurecký left the Schrattenbach orchestra and took the post of musical director of Olomouc Cathedral. He worked there until his death in 1743. Gurecký was a very prolific composer of operas, oratorios, church and instrumental music, strongly influenced by Caldara, but little has survived (CZ-Bm, D-WD). From the librettos we know that he composed the operas Antioco (Kroměříž, 31 October 1729) and Griselda (Kroměříž, 31 October 1730) for the bishop's orchestra, both to texts by Zeno. His oratorios, according to the librettos (CZ-Bu, KRa, YU-Ls), were Giacobbe (Brno, 1731), San Francesco di Paolo (Brno, 1734), Gioas re di Giuda (Brno, 1736) and Von der göttlichen Liebe (undated) to texts mostly by the cardinal's secretary, Giovanni Battista Catena; this list is probably not complete. His only well-known church works are the two vesper settings and three masses, Missa obligationis (probably for the solemn introduction of Bishop Jakob Ernst von Liechensten at Olomouc on 30 April 1740), Missa divinae gratiae and Missa a 4 voci (all 1740).
