HU / EN

Opening Vespers
with plainchant and renaissance polyphony

Collegium Musicum Jaurinense — Boys’ Choir of the Benedictine Church of Győr, Máté Bruckner

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We kindly ask you to arrive on time, as we have a first come, first seated system.

Performers

Programme

Download the Order of the Service (translations provided in Hungarian only) »

About the programme

Our festival traditionally opens with a liturgy, a Vespers service, this year featuring the Collegium Musicum Jaurinense, the boys’ choir of the Benedictine Church and Grammar School of Győr. In the Catholic Church, Vespers (evening prayer) is the most solemn hour of the Divine Office, which sanctifies the different times of the day. The Vespers service has been set to music by numerous composers from the Middle Ages to the present day. The material of the liturgy this year is taken from the office of the Virgin Mary. The Gregorian plainchant (from the medieval rite of Esztergom) is complemented by polyphonic setting of the liturgical texts by Renaissance composers, as well as early Baroque organ music.

About the performers

The boys’ choir of the Benedictine Church of St. Ignatius of Loyola of Győr, the Collegium Musicum Jaurinense, is an ensemble with 17th-century roots, re-founded in 2002 by Revd Áron Kelemen OSB. The choir’s singers are students of the Benedictine Grammar School of Győr. Since September 2020, their artistic director has been Máté Bruckner. During liturgies, the choir performs Gregorian chant and Renaissance polyphony with the utmost authenticity, singing from facsimiles of original manuscripts in line with the philosophy of the early music movement.

The vocal ensemble and orchestra of the Jesuit school in Győr, founded in 1626, was established just two years after the school’s founding, in 1628, and flourished until the dissolution of the Jesuits in 1773. From its inception, our ensemble has considered liturgical singing to be its primary calling. The musicians, who inscribed the name ‘Chorus Collegi Jaurini’ into their partbooks, performed duties 52 times a year. The early period was defined by the early Baroque seconda pratica style, reflecting the taste of the era; the choirmasters, as former students of the Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum in Rome, had the opportunity to master the foundations of sacred music as pupils of Giacomo Carissimi. According to our Baroque music archive, which boasts 157 independent works—almost entirely liturgical movements—they did not only provide music for Masses, but also regularly sang Vespers and served during Holy Week services.

Shortly after the departure of the Jesuits, the ensemble began to slowly decline. In 1802, Emperor Francis I entrusted the grammar school to the Benedictine Order, who reorganized the ensemble, though they only sang ‘musical Masses’ a few times a year. Another period of prosperity followed in the first half of the 20th century; under the leadership of choirmaster Döme Németh OSB, the 80-member choir was accompanied by a 30-piece symphonic orchestra. After World War II, under the direction of Alfonz Nádasi OSB, the choir performed Renaissance polyphony, and then from 1956, Teodóz Jáki OSB led the choir for 50 years, performing mainly Romantic works and pieces by composers of the Hungarian choral movement.

In 2002, Áron Kelemen OSB reorganized the ensemble, which by then had shrunk to just a few members, re-establishing the singing of Gregorian Vespers and reintroducing Masses with Gregorian chant. On festive occasions, Carissimi’s works resounded once again in the liturgy. Between 2003 and 2017, five independent albums and nearly 150 concerts enriched the musical service of the ensemble, which had been reformed under the name Collegium Musicum Jaurinense. Since September 2020, Máté Bruckner has been leading the ensemble, and alongside Gregorian chant, Renaissance polyphony has once again taken on a prominent role.

Links

• Collegium Musicum Jaurinense