Composition database

This is the Composition Database of BMC, which includes information about works by composers that are either Hungarian or Hungarian by origin or live in Hungary.

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Title of the work

Winter, or the Ear of the Wall

Composer
Balogh Máté
Original / Hungarian title
Tél, avagy a fal füle
Foreign language / English title
Winter, or the Ear of the Wall
Subtitle
Audio play in two acts for solo voice, mixed choir and chamber ensemble in
Year of composition
2025
Type
Solo voice(s), choir & chamber orchestra
Instrumentation
female voice - mixed choir - ensemble
Text
FEHÉR, Renátó
Language
Hungarian
Premiere information
14 October 2025, Liszt Fest - International Cultural Festival, Solti Hall, Liszt Ferenc Acadmey of Music, Budapest; Katalin Ladik (voice), Pax et Bonum Chamber Choir (choirmaster: Boldizsár Kiss), Weiner Ensemble (artistic director: Csaba Pálfi)
Publisher / Source
MS
Remarks, other info
"Part concert, part theatre, fusing a musical play with an oratorio and factual elements with fictional ones, this piece is set in the basement of the Budapest Embassy of Czechoslovakia, at the turn of 1944 and 1945. For months, Emanuel Zima (his surname means ‘winter’), the former caretaker of the embassy and his son, Josef gave shelter here to Jews who were persecuted by the German and Hungarian Nazis. As it recounts the events, Winter, or the Ear of the Wall speaks of remembering as an act forming individual and community identity. What is remembering and what does it mean, for an individual or a community, to keep silent about something? What does it mean to be a hero, a survivor, a victim? As they focus on the complex relationships between living as an individual and as part of a collective, Máté Balogh’s music, the text delivered by the narrator, and the choral movements that feature diverse techniques explore the lyrical and dramatic possibilities of Renátó Fehér’s libretto."