Just like Haydn’s oratorio entitled The Creation, Britten’s cantata composed in 1937 also begins with conjuring up the chaos preceding the Creation. However, in Britten’s work, the continuation is different: the composer depicts the events of the Otherworld rather than those of the earthly world, and focalises on the deeds of the Archangels, primarily on the Archangel Michael. Originally, this musical composition was incidental music to a radio play, which includes a narrator, prose actors, soloists, a choir and an orchestra. Later on, Britten was considering making a concert version of the piece, but this plan was never realized. In 1956 some excerpts were played at a concert, but the entire composition was not performed until long after Britten’s death, and was eventually staged at the Aldeburgh Festival in 1989. Not long ago this musical work’s first performance in Hungary was conducted by Zoltán Pad, who has undertaken to conduct this unusual piece also at this concert.

B. Britten: The Company of Heaven – cantata

J. Haydn: Mass in B-flat Major (Heiligmesse), Hob. XXII: 10

Conductor: Zoltán Pad

With:

Hungarian Radio Symphonic Orchestra and the Choir of the Hungarian National Radio

Armand Kautzky (narrator)