What could be a more beautiful musical gift a week before Christmas than a three-part oratorio little known in Hungary, which tells of a rarely discussed period of Jesus’s life: the Saviour’s childhood?
The concert of the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hungarian National Choir on 17 December at MÜPA will be conducted by Vashegyi György, a devoted champion of French musical culture. The soloists in The Childhood of Christ, Cyrille Dubois, Anna Dowsley, Lysandre Châlon and Thomas Dolié, are singers of international renown.
In recent years the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hungarian National Choir have given a number of productions that amount to exciting discoveries. Under the baton of general music director Vashegyi György, they are now preparing to present another rarity, at the Hungarian National Philharmonic’s traditional Christmas concert no less: Hector Berlioz’s large-scale, three-part oratorio The Childhood of Christ. The composer wrote the work between 1850 and 1854 to his own text, based on the episode of the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt.
A curious story is attached to the very first performance of an excerpt from the piece. Berlioz, who throughout his career often encountered hostility and ill will towards him personally, presented a later movement of the composition, which served as a forerunner of the oratorio, under a pseudonym – and those who were passionate detractors of his art received the music of “Ducré, an unknown 17th-century composer” with great enthusiasm.
Hector BERLIOZ: L’enfance du Christ (The Childhood of Christ), Op. 25
Oratorio in French
Le Récitant/Le Centurion: Cyrille Dubois
La vierge Marie: Anna Dowsley
Joseph/Polydorus: Lysandre Châlon
Hérode/Le Père de famille: Thomas Dolié
Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra
Hungarian National Choir (chorus master: Somos Csaba)
Conductor: Vashegyi György