György Orbán: Church Songs I.

for soprano (or mezzo-soprano) solo, violin (or other instrument) and piano

Published in 2023

Available at Rózsavölgyi Zeneműbolt & Webshop: HERE

György Orbán is a dedicated master of vocal music, with a very significant œuvre of church music (masses, oratorio, passion, requiem, Te Deum, Stabat mater), it seems as if he finds the best forms of self-expression in spiritually motivated pieces. He believes that music is a communal act, and the common singing of a well-known text (liturgical, mythological) is a kind of "prayer-like reproduction". The first volume of his church songs contains hymns and psalms set to music in the manner of a paraphrase, featuring the most well-known textual and melodic materials in an intimate tone. The piece published as an Appendix (Psalter version) is a setting of two József Attila's poems projected onto each other.


THREE ANTHEMS
Veni, redemptor gentium (St. Ambrose, in Latin)
Savior of the nations, come / Nun komm, der heiden Heiland (Martin Luther, in Hungarian / German)
Give peace, Lord! / Da pacem, Domine (St. Ambrose / Hungarian religious folk song, 1744)

FOUR GENEVA PSALM PARAPHRASES

No. 150. (“Praise ye the Lord!”, Hungarian text by Albert Szenczi Molnár)
No. 90. (“Lord, you have been our dwelling place”, Hungarian text by Albert Szenczi Molnár)
No. 99. (“The Lord reigneth”, Hungarian text by Albert Szenczi Molnár)
No. 42. (“As the Hart brayeth for the rivers of water”, Hungarian text by Albert Szenczi Molnár)

APPENDIX
Psalter version to poems by Attila József: Twenty-three kings – God

 
 
György Orbán: Church Songs I.