The Jetpacker

Prague entertains a plethora of world-class concert halls, many in old, opulent churches.  During the Christmas season, most of these concert halls have performances a few times a day.  We attended a Christmas concert at the Klementinum in Old Town Prague.

The Klementinum is one of the largest and oldest complexes in Prague.  In the 11th century it was a Dominican monastery.  Then it became a Jesuit college in the 16th century.  Later it became an observatory, library and university.  Today it’s a little bit of everything, including the National Library of the Czech Republic.

But it’s most stunning feature is the Chapel of Mirrors.  The ceiling is covered with beautiful frescos, each one depicting a verse of the Hail Mary prayer.  The room is dark despite the gold stucco; paintings and mirrors line the walls, marble columns reach to the ceiling and statues of angels grasp musical instruments.  The chapel is intimate for such exuberance.  Photographs weren’t allowed, but I snuck a few poor ones (just don’t tell anybody).

Unlike other Christmas concerts that are performed with an orchestra, this one was performed with only two people: a vocalist and an organist using one of the chapel’s two 18th century organs (which used to be played by Mozart).

The hour-long concert didn’t actually feature much Christmas-themed music (and we were very surprised by the noticeably absent “All I Want For Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey and Bruce Springsteen’s “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”). Instead, it was mainly works from Vivaldi, Mozart and Bach, punctuated by the famous aria “Ave Maria,” which was so popular it was performed twice.

We wondered if an entire concert played by an organ would wind up as boring as a church mass, but it was surprisingly fun.  We definitely gained a new appreciation for organists after watching him work his magic.  Hearing all the clicking of the keys and foot pedals was a little distracting, but just watching him use every limb to strike a note while simultaneously turning the pages made me realize that I’ve never worked that hard at anything.

And the singer was fantastic. Her vocals reverberated through the room and some of her high pitches even managed to startle me (there was a lot of power coming out of such a small lady).

We definitely recommend an organ concert at the Klementinum, if for nothing more than to bask in the glory of the Chapel of Mirrors for an hour.  You can book tickets to a show using a service we really like called the Prague Experience, here.