Markéta Irglová

 

 

Musicians have told me for many years the best album they have heard or their all-time favorite record. I don’t believe anyone ever chose a movie soundtrack album — until now. 

The 1973 Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice and conducted by André Previn, is the all-time fave of Markéta Irglová, one half of the Swell Season duo with Glen Hansard. The 1973 album also elicits a soft spot in my heart, because the original Jesus Christ Superstar play, which opened two years before the movie, was the first Broadway performance I attended. 

“The Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack is full of my favorite songs which have accompanied me through my whole life,” says Irglová, who will tour with Hansard in Europe in May and in the USA in July. “It has some of the best vocal performances I have ever heard, and the 1960s-1970s production is something I thoroughly enjoy. I love how the lyrics are crafted and the story they work with. They stir something in me and move me. I also love the orchestration, so it seems to tick all the boxes.”

Irglová leapt to fame at age 19 when she and Hansard starred in the movie Once and won a 2008 Oscar for the two musicians’ original song “Falling Slowly.” The duo became even more well-known when Once captured a Grammy in 2013 for Best Musical Theater Album.  

The Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack featured the vocals of Ted Neeley, Yvonne Elliman and Carl Anderson, the playing of various rock musicians and the 72-piece London Symphony Orchestra. Rock guitarists on the album included Henry McCullough, a noted session guitarist who later joined Paul McCartney’s Wings band, and Ollie Halsall, a long-time guitarist for founding Soft Machine bassist and British cult legend Kevin Ayers. 

“An important reason why I still love Jesus Christ Superstar so much is that somehow the music has not been saturated with any of my own stuff or become encapsulated in a particular time of my life I do not wish to revisit,” Irglová explains. “Music can do that for me often — time travel. But this record has remained pure for some reason, untouched by the passing of time and the changing of the seasons. It is still as I heard it the first time. A few years ago, the Hamilton music became very beloved in our home as well for similar reasons.”

The Jesus Christ Superstar album was released 15 years before Irglová was born — a time when residents of her native Czechoslovakia lived under communism and many recordings were prohibited. In December 1989, two months before Irglová’s second birthday, Václav Havel was elected president of Czechoslovakia, ending 41 years of communism and spreading joy throughout the country. The freedoms brought by democracy were celebrated by her family — politically, socially and musically.

“Music was usually playing in our house whenever dad was home, and he would listen to all the records that used to be banned and could now be freely enjoyed,” Irglová tells me from her home today outside Reykjavik, Iceland. 

At age 7, Irglová began learning to play the piano in her hometown, Valasske Mezirici, located about 214 miles east of Prague in the eastern part of the Czech Republic (Czechoslovakia split into two countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, in 1992).

“Learning the piano was my mother’s dream, but her parents neither had the money to buy a piano nor a big enough interest in music to support her dream as a child,” Irglová says. “I was generally interested in music from an early age and spent a lot of time singing to myself. It must have made sense to them to give me the opportunity to learn how to play an instrument.”

Irglová and her sister Zuzana Irglová attended the same piano classes through their teenage years. Then her sister switched to drums, and Markéta also started learning to play guitar and cello. 

“I also learned musical theory and attended a choir, which were the requirements of our music school alongside the piano classes,” she recalls. “I have been able to put my musical education to good use in all my years of making music, and I think my classical background greatly enriches the music I make. Back then, I didn’t know music would ever be anything but a hobby to me, and I didn’t think it would ever be possible to be a professional musician. I didn’t have anyone around me to model that kind of a calling until I met Glen. All I knew was that when I grew up, I wanted to do something of service to others — be a nurse, a doctor or a teacher to provide comfort and support, even healing. Today, I try to do that with my music.”

Irglová first met Hansard when he was performing in the Czech Republic in 2004 with his Irish rock band the Frames. Her father, Marek Irgl, was promoting the group’s shows and hosted a welcoming party. 

Two years later, Hansard asked Irglová to collaborate on music for Once, a low-budget Irish movie being made by John Carney, the Frames’ original bassist. The duo recorded about 20 songs and dubbed their project “the Swell Season,” the title of a book by a Czech author they were reading. Carney offered them the movie’s two lead acting roles, and their acting and singing received critical acclaim after the film was shown at Utah’s Sundance Film Festival.

Hansard and Irglová launched a concert tour as the Swell Season in 2007. A year later, when they won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Falling Slowly,” the 19-year-old Irglová became the first Czech woman to win an Oscar and the youngest person to win an Oscar in a musical category. 

“When I acted in Once, it was a month I had to take away from school and catch up on all my studies once I returned,” she recalls. “Later, while promoting Once prior to its theater release in the U.S., I studied for my final exams at the same time. It was far from easy, but I can see how much it all taught me. I graduated just in time, before things truly exploded into nonstop activity following the Oscars.”

In addition to the Swell Season’s two albums, Irglová has released three solo albums. She went to Iceland to record one of the albums and met her future husband, native Icelander Sturla Mio Thorisson, a producer and recording engineer. They lived in Reykjavik for nine years before moving in 2021 to a nearby peninsula, Seltjarnarnes, where they built a recording studio in their home.

Irglová reflects on her past with Hansard and her, at times, whirlwind life in the international spotlight.

“I see my meeting with Glen as fate — something that was meant to happen one way or another,” she says. “But even things that are meant to happen are influenced by the free will of those involved. There are things in the past I wish happened differently, but, ultimately, I am a believer that things happen for us, not to us. Everything that was difficult or challenging at the time helped shape me into the person I am today. I have learned a lot from Glen, who mentored me, believed in me and treated me as an equal always.

“I am grateful to him for everything he made possible for me and will continue to be as long as I live,” Irglová adds. “I believe we have known each other before and will know each other again. It’s just that kind of a soul connection. There were many years when we had very little contact and did not make any music together. Those years were important for me in developing my own voice, figuratively and literally. Now, when we play together again, I feel more confident, more aware of what we each bring to the table, which makes our collaboration more enjoyable for me.”

Looking back at the two Swell Season albums, Irglová loves the first self-titled record but isn’t enamored with the second one, Strict Joy. 

“The first record had a lot of light and hope,” she comments. “The songs on Strict Joy feel heavy, and the production is cold and industrial, not the right kind of sound for us in my opinion. It was a complicated, difficult time, and that is obvious in the songs and the record as a whole. I am still proud of the two songs I had on it from a writer’s point of view. The others were written by Glen without much input from me, and, in this way, the second album is different from the first one. I think I have become a better songwriter and a stronger singer since, but I can look back and be proud of my beginnings. What I am most proud of is that we have stayed true to ourselves.”

Irglová describes the music on her three solo albums as “very feminine — soft, lush and warm, like the embrace of something familiar and loving.” The songs are conversational, “asking questions and finding the answers, searching and reaching for something higher,” she says.

All three albums delve into three topics: passion, spirituality and unconditional love. I ask Irglová which songs are her favorites.

“The songs I feel most drawn to playing would be the ones that still resonate with me today: ‘Let Me Fall in Love’ on Anar; ‘The Leading Bird,’ ‘This Right Here’ and ‘Without a Map’ on Muna, and ‘My Roots Go Deep,’ ‘The Way’ and ‘High and Dry’ on Lila. But I still like them all, and more importantly, each song is an important part of the whole in the context of the record.”

As Irglová and Hansard prepare for their upcoming concert tour, I ask her what concert by another performer was her all-time favorite.

 

“I remember seeing Leonard Cohen at the Sydney Opera House, and that was incredible,” she responds. “I did not think I would ever get to hear those songs live. I also really enjoyed seeing Florence and the Machine in Paradiso in Amsterdam before she became massively famous. That was such an energy-packed performance. She had everyone dancing and singing with her. Hamilton on Broadway blew my mind for so many reasons. The performances were incredible, and the production was insane. Seeing Once on Broadway and, more recently, in Ventura, California, was beautiful and so touching to see all those talented people sing our songs and breathe new life into them. The first time I saw Glen on stage with the Frames was also pretty unforgettable. The band was electric, and Glen pulled me up on stage to sing a song with him in my hometown. I was totally mortified but also pretty excited.”

Irglová says she’s glad she grew up in the Czech Republic “in the age of records, not playlists.” In the past, music was enjoyed as a journey — not every song written to be a hit, she says.

“I think that was healthy and made for more interesting music,” Irglová surmises. “Most music I hear on the radio today gives me a sensory overload within seconds.”

She treasures many records of other artists, including some that influenced her musicianship. She loves the soundtracks of Hair, Les Miserables, the Lion King, Amadeus and Braveheart, and the Beatles’ music was “played religiously” in her home. Her first boyfriend introduced her to Eminem, so she often listened to the best-selling rapper. She also holds dear the tastes of her mother, Jana Irglová, who played albums by the Buena Vista Social Club, Tracy Chapman and Manu Chao.

“I had some Czech folk singers I loved too, including Karel Kryl,” Markéta says. “My dad played Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd a lot. I didn’t get the appeal until later, and then I really got it. He also liked Cat Stevens, Simon and Garfunkel and Janis Joplin. Glen introduced me to Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison and many indie artists. I had a long period of listening to Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Crosby, Stills and Nash and James Taylor. After that, I got into Kate Bush, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone and Townes Van Zandt. So, my exposure to music was varied, but my favorite always remained my first love: Jesus Christ Superstar.”