The Hungarian National Male Choir (formerly the Honvéd Férfikar) launches its concert series with a new name and a new image, which will be held for the third year in Pesti Vigadó. In the 2024-2025 musical season, the choir will perform in Pesti Vigadó altogether four times. The first event of the series will feature a joint concert with MÁV Symphony Orchestra: on 30th October, in commemoration of the deceased, Cherubini’s Requiem in D minor will be performed, followed by the world premiere of a special version of Barber’s Adagio featuring a male choir.

Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842) was a Florence-born composer, but his name is mostly associated with the history of French music. He was a composer of great talent and knowledge and also of great artistic dedication and care, who was undeservedly lesser known and less widely appreciated, and whose importance was somewhat overshadowed by the great composers of Viennese classicism. He composed two Requiems: the later, entitled “Requiem in D Minor” features a very simplified musical apparatus, as well as lacks female voices and presents exclusively male voices accompanied by an orchestra. When one is listening to this seven-movement composition, the music reminds them of a choir of monks reciting Gregorian chorales.

Samuel Barber (1910-1981) was an American-Irish composer, whose works were performed by some of America’s greatest artists. For example, his opera entitled “Antony and Cleopatra” was the first opera to be performed in New York’s new Metropolitan Opera in 1966. The orchestral rearrangement of the slow movement “Adagio” of his String Quartet No. 1 in B Minor, composed in 1936, became extremely popular after its premiere by NBC Symphony Orchestra with Toscanini as conductor in 1938. The key of the musical piece is B-flat minor, the key of mourning. This piece was also played at the funeral of Albert Einstein and at the 2001 memorial service in London in commemoration of the victims of the September 11 attacks in New York. This masterpiece will be performed at this concert in an adaptation for men’s choir, composed by the Ensemble’s choirmaster, Richárd Riederauer. For the audience in remembrance of the dead, this inspiring and moving programme will bring both quiet reflection and uplifting moments.

Programme:

Samuel BARBER: Adagio – Adaptation for male choir (world premiere)

CHERUBINI: Requiem in D Minor

With:

MÁV Symphony Orchestra

Conductor: Richárd RIEDERAUER

Organizer: Honvéd Ensemble