Conductor: György Vashegyi Haydn: The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross Featuring: Szilvia Hamvasi, Anita Huszár, László Kálmán, István Kovács – singers “The oratorio (Hob. XX:2) setting The Seven Last Words of Christ was written in the second half of the 1790s and was the third and final form of a theme which had been intensively preoccupying Joseph Haydn for the previous decade. He received a commission from Spain to write the first version for string quartet in 1785, this was follo...wed by the second (also purely instrumental) version for large orchestra which actually became quite popular within a short period of time. It was to the credit of the choirmaster of Passau Cathedral, Joseph Freibert that by drawing on contemporary religious poetry (primarily Gellert and Ramler) he also wrote verbal choral parts above the orchestra score: thus the choir could recite the words of Christ on the cross in a simple homophonous style, and then – rather like the chorals and arias of the Bach passions – reflect on these words, interpreting them from the perspective of Haydn’s contemporary believers. Haydn travelled to England via Passau where he heard Freibert’s performance which pleased him although he made the rather subtle criticism that: “I believe I could have handled the vocal parts better”. The Passau experience gave him the inspiration to set down to work on the score for the third time and with the help of librettist Baron Gottfried van Swieten was able to finalise this marvellous oratorio in its most majestic form. This miraculous work is now heard for the first time in Hungary in a period instrument performance.” György Vashegyi
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