Arthur Honegger, who was a particularly inspired and fecund composer of choral music, set about writing a large scale passion play in 1942, but tragically, following the suicide of the librettist, he had to put it aside. Ten years later, the conductor Paul Sacher commissioned Honegger to recycle the first part of the work, which dealt with the birth of Jesus, to create the Christmas Cantata. Honegger only completed the work in early 1953, missing the twenty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of... the Basel Chamber Choir, for which the piece was commissioned. In the work, musical settings of Latin psalms frame arrangements of Christmas songs from a variety of European countries and cultures. The Bells for soloists, chorus and orchestra is not the child of the bleak Russian winter. Rachmaninov spent the Christmas of 1912 in Rome with his family when he conceived this composition. In it, the sound of bells links to feelings and occurrences in human life: birth, marriage, fear and death. The symbolic evocation of bells is something perceptible in many of Rachaminov’s earlier stage and piano works; we have only to think of the bell scenes in Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov to appreciate their importance in Russian tradition.
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.
Safe ticket purchase
Dear Visitors, please note that only tickets purchased from the Müpa website and official ticket offices are guaranteed to be valid. To avoid possible inconvenience, we suggest buying tickets to our performances and concerts via the mupa.hu website, the Interticket national network (jegy.hu) or at our official ticket offices.