• Žofín Academy: participating institution, vv, orch
• KOLEŠOVSKÝ, Zikmund Michal: director of institute, conductor

A report published by Dalibor 10/5/1859 announced that the Žofín Academy was to give a concert on ‘Friday 13th May’ and listed details of a programme that was much the same in content as that given by that institution on 19/5/1859. That the concert was postponed was confirmed by news appearing in later sources. Bohemia 13/5/1859 noted that owing to various unspecified obstacles the production had to be put aside to a later date. That newspaper on 18/5/1859 then contained news that the concert would take place on the following day at 4pm, and this was confirmed in the next day’s Tageskalender. Prager Morgenpost carried no advance news of the Žofín Academy concert whatsoever, but on 21/5/1859 did publish a review of their concert given ‘the day before yesterday’. Prager Zeitung 18/5/1859 announced that the Žofín Academy would give a concert on 19/5/1859, and published a review much of the occasion much later on 26/5/1859. This related that the concert given by the Academy each year to mark the nameday of its patron the Archduchess Sophie [the nameday being 15th May] was this year originally to have taken place on 14/5/1859 but had to be postponed. The discrepancy with the earlier date of 13th May announced by Dalibor is not explicable from this text. However, the report by Prager Zeitung then proceeded to draw attention to the difficulty faced by the Academy in presenting public concerts with pupils who had only for a short time been receiving tuition. ‘How challenging the situation of this society, that arises from the necessity to give immediate public productions with pupils often only briefly arrived and only a short time enjoying instruction. This can only be realized through sterling teachers on the one hand and through talented pupils on the other hand.’ One may therefore surmise that the concert was postponed due to lack of preparation.

The unsigned review published in Dalibor 1/6/1859 was critical of certain aspects of this concert. Miss Karolina Jelínková was noted to have sung ‘accurately enough’, but was lacking in the strength necessary for the ‘difficult role’ of the Mozart aria. Miss Čechová played Mendelssohn’s Capriccio ‘with great skill, but without spirit and without feeling.’ The review concluded that the concert did not go as well as had been expected. The blame for this limited success was considered by the Dalibor critic not to lie with the conductor and director of the Academy, Zikmund Kolešovský, but was levelled at the Žofín Academy itself. The Academy, the critic observed, ‘arranges many concerts each year but does not hold sufficient thorough rehearsals.’

Although no composition with the specific title Vánoční kantata [Christmas cantata] can be identified in Tauwitz’s output, the composer did write a work for voices entitled Weihnachtslied. This may well have been the composition performed in this Žofín Academy concert.