Budapest
A capella and onemovement oratorios
featuring the Hungarian National Choir
Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra
Tonight’s concert focuses on the choir. Led by choral conductor Csaba Somos since January 2016, the National Choir performs a capella works and one-movement oratorios which are hard to fit in traditional orchestral programmes, but which deserve a place among the most ambitious symphonies and oratorios of the repertoire. Composed to two poems by Goethe, Beethoven’s cantata is one of his boldest and most effective works, while Mendelssohn’s eponymous concerto overture portrays the extreme atmospheres and emotions without words. Brahm’s stunning setting of Hölderlin’s text is also characterised by polarity, and Schumann’s four songs for two choirs pits mortal man against eternity. Dvořák’s rarely heard cantata is a monument to the memory of the tragic first battle of the Thirty Year War, which had tragic consequences for the Czechs.
