The Capella Savaria is the longest-established period chamber ensemble still active in Hungary today. Since its foundation in 1981, it has enriched the domestic concert scene with authentic performances of Baroque and Viennese Classical music on period instruments, long filling a void in this respect. Zsolt Kalló has been concertmaster since 1992, and artistic director since 1999. The orchestra has produced over 75 records, more than two-thirds of them world firsts.
A significant success of the ensemble was the series of 15 albums it recorded under the leadership of world-famous early music specialist Nicholas McGegan, one of which contains the passion to be heard at this concert, composed to a libretto by the German poet Barthold Heinrich Brockes. Handel's astonishingly varied masterpiece leads the listener through the story of Jesus's suffering, conjuring a kind of stageless theatre into the concert hall. The evening's conductor Howard Arman has devoted his career to the popularisation of Handel's works. In 1996, he won the 10,000-euro Handel Music Prize presented by the composer's birthplace of Halle, three years after Nicholas McGegan won the inaugural prize.

Presented by: Müpa Budapest