• List Price: $15.99  
• Your Price: $15.99
• In Stock: 18

You must login to place orders.




Not purchasing for a business? See our consumer site.

The Istvánffy Chamber Choir was founded by Lőrinc Muntag in 2014. The repertoire of the group consists primarily of Gregorian chant, sacred works of the Renaissance, Bach cantatas, and Romantic and contemporary a capella works. The choir has given the world premieres of many works (particularly those of Ádám Bajnok, Máté Balogh, Lőrinc Muntag, László Sándor, Lőrinc Szécsi, Márton Szőcs, and Péter Tornyai). The Istvánffy Chamber Choir has performed with success at many festivals and competitions all over Europe. In 2017 at the London International A Capella Choir Competition they achieved an outstanding result, and that same year in Germany they made a tour as part of the Reformation 500 series. In 2018 in Košice they presented the Porta compositions that form the backbone of this CD, and they also gave an outstanding concert in 2019 in Laredo in Spain, in the 5th Ciclo de Musica Religiosa festival. As a child Lőrinc Muntag learned the violin and piano, and in addition he sang for years in Schola Hungarica under the direction of Janka Szendrei and László Dobszay, and also in the Saint Stephen Boy's Choir under the direction of Zoltán Mizsei. He studied composition at the Béla Bartók Conservatory and Grammar School with István Fekete Győr, then at the Liszt Academy under László Vidovszky, where he graduated with honours in 2015. He took part in composition courses given by Gyula Csapó, Péter Eötvös, Charles Ames, Larry Polansky, Philip Glass, and Christian Wolff, and his pieces have been played at festivals such as Ostrava Days (2011, 2013), Café Budapest (2015, 2017, 2019) and Klangraum Düsseldorf (2019, 2020, 2021). He has been a member of the following international composer's collectives: CentriFUGA, the Hermina Artists' Group, and Wandelweiser. In 2014 he founded his own ensemble, the Istvánffy Chamber Choir. Since 2020 he has participated in the postgraduate programme for conductors of the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, where his teacher is Iwan Wassilevski.

Track Listing

Sales Points

• World premiere recording of the 'Qui vult venire post me á7' motet. For fans of rare choral music.

Press Quotes

The director and several members of this choir grew up as children singing in Schola Hungarica, which was not only a prolific contributor to the Hungaroton, Budapest Music, and other record catalogs but a training ground for choral singers. In the booklet notes Zoltán Mizsei, director of St. Stephen's Basilica choir in Budapest, shares what it meant to him to grow up with the same training. His basilica in the heart of Pest is now a cathedral. Budapest was not a diocese until 1993, for the city was divided among four dioceses. That year, the primatial see of Esztergom became Esztergom-Budapest, and St. Stephen's became the co-cathedral. Now this chamber choir has made its first recording, combining the polyphony of Costanzo Porta (1528/29-1601) with Gregorian chant from the same Hungarian manuscripts that Schola Hungarica used. Porta was an exact contemporary of Palestrina, but he directed choirs in Osimo, Ravenna, Loreto, and Padua. He had studied with Willaert in Venice, where he met his fellow student Claudio Merulo, who remained a close friend. This Mass, which dates from about 1575, was recorded two decades ago but not submitted for review, one of three Masses that were recorded around the quatercentenary of the composer's death. All the Ordinary and Proper parts of the Requiem are included, adding the chant gradual Si ambulem and tract Sicut cervus that were found in 16th-century Masses for the Dead. The disc opens with a chant responsory Si bona suscepimus that was recorded by Schola Hungarica and closes with a motet by Porta for seven voices. The alternatim Dies irae sets alternate verses in chant and polyphony. The choir, founded in 2014, sings with superb tone but without the rushed tempos in the chant that I found unappealing in Schola Hungarica's recordings. This is a remarkably fine debut disc. I hope that Muntag, who recorded this disc in 2018 after concert performances, will pursue other neglected areas of Renaissance polyphony, for he has started something good here.

     —J. F. Weber, Fanfare Magazine (USA)