On paper, a poem is but dead text – which will immediately come to life when it is sounded: recited or sung. Now the National Choir and distinguished actors will sound the poems of Attila László Nagy, Sándor Weöres and János Pilinszky, among others.
The concert begins with György Orbán’s choral cycle. Written between 1978 and 1983, these works were motivated by a personal tragedy. “The pieces of the series,” writes László Matos, “are linked by the motifs of death, and faith in life and God, the whole forming a distinctive requiem in both form and content.”
“In choral music,” says György Orbán, “we must return to the very simple elements of music. You don’t use traditional means because you are attracted to old things, but because they are irreplaceable idioms, parts of the language.”