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The least known area of Bartók's musical legacy is his choral works, including the six male choruses. He wrote the first when he was 22 and the last when he was 54: these compositions run almost throughout his composing career - from the youthful post-Romantic blooming, through his folksong arrangements based on experiences gained on field trips, which infl uenced his whole life and outlook, to one of the greatest works ever written for male choir: a chorus suite entitled From Olden Times. After seven years of preparation by artistic director Tamás Bubnó and the 16 singers, the time seem ripe to present an unfamiliar side of this great Hungarian genius, to both his compatriots and the world at large. For Bartók's male choruses draw directly on the melodic world of Hungarians and the other peoples of the Carpathian Basin, but their message is universal, deep, and they speak to us all: a man has his place in the world; his prayers, struggles, feelings, thoughts, fears, love, mortality and strength swell, pulsate and surge within us. Between Bartók's works we hear authentic folk music and an extension of it, which gives an insight into the sources, the musical and psychological experiences that may have touched the composer on his field trips: these are played by Balázs Szokolay Dongó on the bagpipes, recorder, and tárogató, with the participation of members of the Saint Ephraim Male Choir.

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Press Quotes

...an engrossing interplay of folk and art music, intriguing and provocative by turns.

     —Richard Whitehouse, Gramophone, January 2016

The Saint Ephraim Male Choir lights up the music with their mystical voices, whose heartwarming radiance and clarity reaches levels of poignancy that I have not heard in a really long time

     —Raul da Gama, worldmusicreport.com

the performances are equally idiomatic and the numbers are interspersed here with glorious renditions of the folk tunes which the composer may have heard on his musicological field trips.

     —Graham Rickson, theartsdesk.com

The performance is deeply reverent, boldly uncompromising but also combines a certain playfulness with sombre colours, a wide range of Bartókian gestures and techniques.

     —Raul Da Gama, jazzdagama.com