Haydneum – Hungarian Centre for Early Music will hold its second Festival of Sacred Music between 9 and 17 June 2023 at the University Church in Budapest.
This is an excellent opportunity to showcase the rich repertoire of Hungarian church music from the 17th and 18th centuries, both Hungarian and Hungarian-related. This year’s festival will feature concerts by some of the finest Hungarian choirs and orchestras playing period or modern instruments, performing these works with great skill.
The Haydneum – Hungarian Centre for Early Music was founded in 2021 with the aim of promoting the values of Early Music in Hungary and the Hungarian Baroque, Viennese Classical and early Romantic repertoire (1630-1830).
The Sacred Music Festival features national performers: The Purcell Choir and Orfeo Orchestra, under the artistic direction of György Vashegyi, will perform at the opening concert under the direction of young conductor József Gál, the Hungarian National Choir and the Budapest Strings under the baton of Csaba Somos, the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra under its new music director György Vashegyi, and the Kodály Choir of Debrecen and Capella Savaria under the baton of Zoltán Kocsis-Holper.
The final concert of the festival will be a real curiosity, featuring works by Gregor Joseph Werner from the Esterházy Collection of the National Széchényi Library, unperformed since the 18th century, performed by the Purcell Choir and Orfeo Orchestra under the direction of György Vashegyi. The concert will be preceded by an introductory talk, letting the audience in on the mysteries of the research and preparatory processes, so that they can become part of the discovery themselves. Admission to this concert is free, but registration is required.
The excellent ensembles will be complemented by well-known soloists from the national Early Music scene: Ágnes Kovács, Csilla Kovács, Erika Kovalik, Katalin Szutrély, Csilla Tillai, Eszter Zemlényi, Eszter Balogh, Dorottya Láng, Viola Thurnay, Péter Bárány, József Csapó, Márton Komáromi, Péter Mészáros, Ákos Borka, Zsombor Cserményi, Lőrinc Kósa, Zoltán Melkovics and Lóránt Najbauer will be guests of the festival.
The concerts, which start at 8pm without a break (except Sunday 11 June at 20:30), will include works by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Georg Christoph Strattner, Joseph and Michael Haydn, Benedek Istvánffy and Gregor Joseph Werner, both well-known and lesser-known, and in Werner’s case, completely unknown.
Programmes of the Haydneum Festival of Sacred Music will also be performed in other Hungarian cities, including Kengyel, Tihany, Makó and Szeged – the latter in collaboration with Filharmónia Hungary.
