György Vashegyi founded the Purcell
Choir in 1990 for a concert-version performance of Dido and Aeneas. After the
Orfeo Orchestra was established in 1991, the two ensembles developed into
Hungary's leading interpreters of early music.
Joseph Haydn's oratorio Die
Schöpfung (The Creation) is one of the most important works in the
history of European music. Its first performance (which was not open to the
public, as only invited guests attended) took place at Vienna's Schwarzenberg
Palace in 1798. The world première of the work – conducted by Haydn himself –
along with the first public concert that followed, received tremendous acclaim,
and the oratorio exerted just as immeasurable influence on Haydn's
contemporaries as it has on posterity, remaining perhaps the composer's most
popular composition to this day. The first performance of the masterpiece
outside Vienna took place at Buda Castle on 8 March 1800, where Haydn
himself conducted the work's Hungarian première after extensive rehearsals.
This concert was part of the celebrations of the wedding of Grand Duchess
Alexandra Pavlovna, and also included a piano recital by Beethoven at the
Castle Theatre on 7 May. The memory of the concert is preserved to this day in
the name of Alkotás utca, which was the word used in Hungarian at the
time to translate the oratorio's title.
