Carus-Verlag is a highly respected German publishing house
specialising in choral music. Most choral singers will have
Carus scores on their shelves, and choral directors have particular
reason to appreciate these excellently produced editions. The
Carus catalogue contains a number of albums of shorter pieces
gathered together by theme. One of them is entitled Musica Sacra
Hungarica, a collection of forty-one sacred works by twentieth-century
Hungarian composers. Like others in the same series, this volume
presents a perfect opportunity for an adventurous choral conductor
to seek out lesser-known but attractive repertoire. A further
help is the compact disc which the publisher has also issued
and which features twenty-two of the pieces contained in the
published volume.
The three pieces by László Halmos are very pleasing. Immediately
attractive, for example, and within the scope of any good amateur
choir, is the very first piece on the disc, Jubilate Deo, a
simple piece of canonic writing using the pentatonic scale and
featuring some very affecting, gentle hallelujahs. The notes
tell us that ancient Hungarian plainsong was based on the pentatonic
(five-note) scale, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that this characteristic
style found its way into modern choral sacred music writing
in Hungary. It is to be heard again in Ferenc Farkas’s lovely
Kyrie, an extract from his Margareten Messe. György Orbán is
a more recent composer and his music is characterised by a rather
more advanced harmonic and melodic language. The choral texture
is more varied and inventive than is the case in the works so
far discussed, and overall the music is rather more sophisticated
and challenging. Singers won’t be frightened off, though, nor
will an unwary public! His Ave verum corpus is a particularly
lovely piece, I think, and Our Father rises to a surprising
climax just before the final “Amen”.
Three other composers are represented by a single work. Hodie
Christus natus est by Halmos is as lovely as it is easy to listen
to. Harmat’s De profundis is dark and anguished, as befits the
words, though it ends on a tranquil major triad. Dextera Domini
by Ferenc Kersch begins unpromisingly, uncomfortably close to
a harmony exercise, and remains fairly predictable thereafter.
Many conductors of amateur choirs are familiar with the name
of Lajos Bárdos, represented here by five pieces. O gloriosa
virginum is a simple, homophonic strophic piece, charming in
its way, and an attractive proposition for a choir’s Christmas
concert, but not particularly individual. His other pieces,
however, demonstrate a sophisticated and highly-developed musical
sensibility. His setting of the Libera me text is surprisingly
dramatic and technically quite taxing for the choir, and his
Ave maris stella is a real success, with some involved part
writing, exposed lines and a number of particularly lovely cadence
points. György Deák-Bárdos was his brother. The two works included
here set texts which would represent a real challenge to the
greatest of composers, and many will feel that Crucifigatur
(“Crucify him!”) and Eli, Eli, which sets one of Christ’s last
utterances from the cross, seem more dutiful than inspired.
A collection of twentieth-century Hungarian choral music would
be unthinkable without the great Zoltán Kodály, and he is represented
here by five pieces. Two of them, Pange lingua and Veni, veni
Emmanuel, are for three-part choir only. Their purity, simplicity
and restraint demonstrate how, in the hands of a supreme master,
less really can mean more. Jésuz és a kufárok is another matter.
At six and a half minutes it is the longest piece on the disc,
and rising in places to seven parts, it is also the most challenging
to perform and to listen to. Often known by its English title,
Jesus and the Traders, it vividly retells the story of Christ
overturning the moneylenders’ tables and angrily driving them
from the temple. Stabat Mater sounds very easy, but as anyone
who has performed it knows, the slightest deviation in pitch
is immediately audible. Esti dal – Evening Song – is based on
a folk-song. The humming accompaniment is only one attractive
feature which has made this piece a firm favourite with choirs
and audiences.
At almost seventy minutes, this is perhaps not a disc to listen
to in one sitting. But it is far more than just a prop for those
who buy the printed music. There is scarcely a dud amongst the
twenty-two pieces, and several of them are, despite their brevity,
masterpieces. The Monteverdi Choir of Budapest, founded in 1972,
is conducted here by its founder. It is a fine group whose sound
is perfectly adapted to the repertoire. Only once in the entire
collection, and at a cruelly taxing moment, was there a single
chord that I thought might have been retaken. This is choral
singing as fine, convinced and convincing as you will hear anywhere.
The recording is excellent. The booklet gives the words in Latin
or Hungarian with a translation in German. The notes are informative,
but not all of them are translated into English, leaving tantalising
passages unexplored when one’s school German is not up to the
task.
William Hedley
Budapesti Monteverdi Kórus/Éva Kollár
