Festival Kvarner is particularly proud of this concert format, developed jointly and exclusively with its partner Klangwerkstatt Purpur. The aim was not merely to invent a new concert format but to create a complete experience — following historical models, for in matters of the all-encompassing concert experience our forebears were in some respects ahead of us. Pure chocolate addresses every sense: hearing, sight and taste. The ensemble chooses eight works; these are analysed according to the science of key characteristics, translated into colours, and set against a selection of eight pralines composed especially for them by the chocolatier Josef Zotter. With each piece the Festival invites the audience to take the sweet masterpiece that belongs to it. What will be played, and what lies in the box, is revealed only in the hall.

Gli Schiavoni is an ensemble of young Croatian musicians devoted to the historically informed performance of early music. After individual studies in Croatia and abroad they came together to explore their own — Croatian — musical heritage, which in the seventeenth century was closely interwoven with European influences. The ensemble takes its name from the famous Riva degli Schiavoni in Venice, named after the Slavic merchants who moored their ships there. Alongside gems of the baroque repertoire for voice and basso continuo, the ensemble brings its audience the traditional music of the seventeenth century, with a declared aim of presenting works never before heard or only rarely performed.

The Zotter chocolate manufactory in Riegersburg, Styria, is among the most innovative chocolatiers anywhere, and has accompanied Pure chocolate since its very first edition. Josef Zotter founded the firm in 1987; since 2004 he has worked exclusively with fairly traded cocoa, since 2006 with entirely organic cocoa, and since 2007 in his own bean-to-bar production — the beans are roasted, ground, rolled and conched in house. For the evening at the Gervais he selects, on the basis of the character analyses of the programme, eight hand-scooped organic pralines, all alcohol-free, assembled in a box of their own. Which eight they will be remains open until the concert.

Ticket price: €20 – Each ticket includes a box of Zotter pralines, which visitors can collect at the entrance.

Tickets can be purchased in Opatija at the Festival Opatija office at the Open Air Theatre (Zert 6A), on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and at the Gervais Centre (Nikole Tesle 5), one hour before the start of events held there. In Rijeka, tickets are available at Dallas Music Shop and Foto Revija, as well as online at www.mojekarte.hr.
On the day of the event, the box office on the ground floor of the Gervais Centre opens one hour before the start of the programme.