In the days before Christmas, the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall will once again resound with the playing of the two most active ensembles in Hungarian early music, the Orfeo Orchestra and its sibling, the Purcell Choir, under the stewardship of their founder and conductor György Vashegyi. As in recent years they will be playing a Baroque piece that connects to the season. In 1734, Bach augmented the Christmas worship of the Leipzig churches with a new series of cantatas. He wrote a cantata f...or each occasion of the festival: for the three days of Christmas, for the New Year, the first Sunday after New Year and Epiphane. As so often he did not have time to compose every cantata as he originally planned and so he took movements from earlier cantatas to flesh out the Christmas Oratorio, changing the texts, or else recomposed the recitatives or choruses. Interestingly, he even used some birthday music written for the Prince of Saxony, but felt – correctly! – that this music was also fitting to praise the birthday of Jesus Christ. He only had to change the words. There are many examples in this work of Bach’s experimental side: he calls for several interesting instruments as part of the orchestral texture, and his innovative use of brass really makes the cantatas sparkle. Before the first performance, a text was published, alluding to the Leipzig churches in which they would be played: “Oratorio which will played at Christmas time. Anno 1734. On the first day of Christmas, in the morning in St Nicholas’s, in the afternoon in St Thomas’s”.
Parking information
We wish to inform you that in the event that Müpa Budapest's underground garage and outdoor car park are operating at full capacity, it is advisable to plan for increased waiting times when you arrive. In order to avoid this, we recommend that you depart for our events in time, so that you you can find the ideal parking spot quickly and smoothly and arrive for our performance in comfort. The Müpa Budapest underground garage gates will be operated by an automatic number plate recognition system. Parking is free of charge for visitors with tickets to any of our paid performances on that given day. The detailed parking policy of Müpa Budapest is available here.
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