The Gabrieli Choir
Welcome to the website of the Gabrieli Choir
Welcome to the website of the Gabrieli Choir, a Budapest-based amateur chamber choir specializing in the study and performance of sacred music drawn from the repertoire of Anglican Cathedrals. It has been led by its present Musical Director, Richárd Sólyom, since he re-formed it in 2005. Currently, the Choir comprises around twenty-four experienced singers, who together possess a wide variety of musical backgrounds. Many are trained musicians or music students; others simply enjoy learning and performing new music in a chamber choir environment in their spare time. Rehearsals are held once a week in St. Stephen’s Basilica.
The majority of the Choir’s repertoire will be new to Hungarian audiences. The emphasis is on English music from the sixteenth century to the present day, and so this includes works by such composers as Thomas Tallis, Robert Whyte, Orlando Gibbons, Henry and Daniel Purcell, Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, Sir Edward Bairstow, Michael Tippet, Herbert Howells, and John Tavener. In common with performance practice in England, old works are frequently juxtaposed with new; English pieces are contrasted with non-English pieces; and the whole is set the context of the Anglican tradition.
In the year-and-a-half since its re-formation the Gabrieli Choir has given more than six public concerts, two private ones and sung in a festival Mass in St. Stephen Basilica (broadcast live by the Hungarian Catholic Radio). Main works performed have included the Requiem by Herbert Howells, an intensely persoanl creative reaction to the death of the composer’s only son. The Lamentation by Sir Edward Bairstow, an esquisite setting to the Anglican Chant of words from the Old Testament book, the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and the powerfully emotive Four Lenten Motets by Francis Poulenc.
In July 2006, the Gabrieli Choir was invited to give a concert as a part of the Muveszetek Volgye festival. On a glorious summer evening, the church at Taliandorogd was packed to the rafters, and the programme of English and French sacred motets was received with great enthusiams.
In October 2006, it was Richard Solyom’s honour to host a memorable tour of his old choir from Carlisle Cathedral in the north of England. The culmination of that was a concert at St. Stephen’s Basilica given jointly by the visiting choir and the Gabrieli Choir. After first singing separately the two choirs joined together to perform the elegiac Requiem by Gabriel Fauré. The organ was played by László Gesztei-Tóth abd the conductor was Jeremy Suter, the Master of Music of Carlsile Cathedral.
We hope that you enjoy reading a bit more about the Choir on the following pages. If you have any comments or would like any further information, then don’t hesitate to get in touch: just contact us.
We hope to see you at one of our concerts.