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The Seven Last Words of our Saviour on the Cross

1. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
2. Verily I say unto thee: today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.
3. Woman, behold thy son. And thou, behold thy mother.
4. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
5. I thirst.
6. It is finished.
7. Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.


Today we still see Viennese classical music through the lens of the 19th century – a lens that places purely instrumental music at the apex of the musical hierarchy. The church music of Haydn or Mozart is thus confined to the periphery of our musical life. Practically the only exception is the Musica instrumentale sopra le 7 ultime parole di nostro redentore in croce, ossiano 7 Sonate (...), which is unique in being both sacred and instrumental, but which thanks to its composer later grew beyond the limits of the genre. It is indeed a one-off, unclassifiable work; its composer could do more than designate it simply as “instrumental music” (the denomination “sonata” in the subtitle here means merely that the cycle consists of instrumental pieces). It is strictly speaking sacred, though not liturgical, and not related to the canonical rites. The cycle exists thanks to an ecclesiastical commission from the town of Cádiz.

In 1801 the composer recalled the strange circumstances surrounding the commission and the premiere (1787): “About fifteen years ago a canon from Cádiz asked me to compose an orchestral work for the seven words of Jesus on the cross. At the time the custom was to perform an oratorio every year at Easter in the Cádiz Cathedral, and the effectiveness of the performance was due in no small measure to the arrangements below. – The walls, windows and columns of the cathedral were covered in black cloth, and only one, large lamp hanging in the centre shone in the solemn darkness. At noon every door was closed; then the music sounded. After a suitable prelude the bishop went up to the pulpit, said one of the seven words, then added a reflection to it. When he had finished, he descended from the pulpit and knelt before the altar. This interval was filled with music. The bishop went up and down a second, and third time and so on, and every time he finished speaking, music was played.” (The recollections of the elderly Haydn, who did not take part in the ceremony, need correcting only in that the performances took place not in the cathedral, but in the cave church of Santa Cueva – a space whose intimacy and gloom would in any case offer an ideal place for mystical meditation.) Haydn’s assignment was, then, to fill out the frame of an already existing rite; the commissioning canon departed from the local tradition only in asking for purely instrumental music rather than an oratorio, more precisely, music whose text would become latent in a purely instrumental performance.

The description shows that the seven sonatas, preceded by the dark passionate tones of the D minor introduction and concluded by the depiction of the earthquake following the death on the cross, functioned as a continuation and extension of the meditation from the pulpit, and gave voice, as it were, to the silence of prayer. The idea of the wordless prayer was realized in the composition not only in the theoretical sense: the “words” of the Vulgate (sentences, in actual fact) are really there hidden in the music, for the Latin form of the first few words of the Gospel texts can be sung to the first notes of the motives that begin the movements. The various compositional procedures carried out on the motives can be understood to be a rhetorical exposition of the “words”. The canon specified that movements be slow and last ten minutes each. Surely none of Haydn’s contemporaries could so perfectly have managed to avoid monotony in eight successive slow movements.

Discounting the madrigalistic depiction of the earthquake, there is little attempt to show the visual moments of the passion story in the cycle – the only exception being the dry pizzicatos of the Sitio (“I thirst”). Rather than dramatic effects or emotional reactions, we hear meditative music filtered through Haydn’s honest, simple and folky religiosity, based on the last words of Christ compiled from the four gospels.

Haydn himself sensed how exceptional this work was, and did everything to disseminate it more widely: thus from the original orchestral version he made a string quartet transcription, which is played on this recording by a string orchestra. But the post-history of the work does not end there. After his second trip to England, coloured by encounters with Händel’s music, during 1795–96 Haydn composed choral parts for the orchestral work, to German texts by Baron van Swieten. The commentary on the holy words, which would originally have been heard in the sermon before the work, here in the vocal version is integrated into the work in poetic form. In this version the actual “seven words” are spoken in German, a cappella, between the movements. The strange fate of the work is shown by how the original concept finally matured into the oratorio sung in the national language (a genre whose flames were fanned by the cult of Händel) thus opening the way to Haydn’s two late secular oratorios.

Miklós Dolinszky
Translated by Richard Robinson

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Budapest Chamber Symphony
(Weiner–Szász Kamaraszimfonikusok)

The BCS was founded in 1992 by Judit Réger-Szász and can claim to be a unique orchestral formation in Hungary. Its aim is to present orchestral works as though they were chamber music, in the best Hungarian tradition. The artistic principals of the BSC come from the legacy of Leó Weiner and József Szász with a standard repertoire of the works of Bach, Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, Stravinsky and Britten, as well as the Hungarian composers Bartók, Kodály, Liszt and Weiner. The BCS has premiered many works in Hungary from the Baroque period until the 20th century and has recorded and performed many works of contemporary Hungarian composers. The Hungarian Radio is the media sponsor of the BCS and regularly broadcasts its concerts and recordings as well as distributing them via the European Broadcasting Union’s program exchange.

The BCS’s recordings were released under the BMC, Echiquier, Gramy, Hungaroton, Mega Records and Tibor Varga Collection labels. These include composers’ CDs (Giovanni Bottesini, Fekete Gyula, Szőllősy András, Weiner Leó), performers’ CDs (János Bálint, Tamás Érdi, Zoltán Gyöngyössy, László Hadady, Gergely Járdányi) and compositions by Lajos Huszár, György Kurtág, József Sári, László Sáry and Zsolt Serei.

The BCS has represented Hungary on several cultural and diplomatic occasions, appeared in Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Thailand, performed for the King of Spain, and the Emperor of Japan. It has worked with such outstanding musicians as Mario Cioli, Isabelle Faust, Kim Kashkashian, Cyprien Katsaris, András Keller, Zoltán Kocsis, Alexander Lonquich, Elsbeth Moser, Miklós Perényi, Jean-Marc Phillips-Varjabedian, Victor Pikayzen, László Polgár, Thomas Riebl, Andrea Rost, György Sebők, János Starker, Sándor Végh, Cantemus Mixed Choir, Trio Wanderer, and the Vienna Boys Choir.

The orchestra’s Europe via Music, On Serenades’ Wings, and Echoes of the Renaissance series with Hungarian Radio won public and critical acclaim not only in Hungary but also in several member countries of the European Broadcasting Union. Now the orchestra performs all Haydn’s named symphonies in a series ending in 2010, whose 30 concerts are recorded by Hungarian Radio.

The BCS is directed by an artistic board whose members are: Judit Réger-Szász – founding president, Imre Rohmann – pianist, conductor (Salzburg), Gábor Takács-Nagy (Geneva), Spartakus Juniki and Péter Somogyi – orchestra leaders, and Mihály Szilágyi – artistic manager.

The BCS is proud to attract financial support from Samsung Electronics Hungary Plc.(main sponsor); Hungarian Development Bank – MFB Plc. (subscription series main sponsor); Hungarian Aluminum Ltd., Hunviron Plc. (sponsors), the Ministry of Education and Culture, the National Cultural Fund, the City of Budapest and the Leó Weiner Foundation.


Gábor Takács–Nagy was born in Budapest and at the age of eight began to study the violin. As a student at the Franz Liszt Academy, he won First Prize in 1979 in the Jenő Hubay Violin Competition, after which he pursued studies with Nathan Milstein. His chamber music teachers at that time were Ferenc Rados, András Mihály and György Kurtág.

From 1975 to 1992, he was founding member and leader of the acclaimed Takács Quartet performing with legendary artists such as Lord Menuhin, Sir Georg Solti, Isaac Stern, Paul Tortelier and Mstislav Rostropovitch and made many recordings for Decca and Hungaroton. In 1982, he was awarded the Liszt Prize. In 1996, with Dénes Várjon and Péter Szabó he founded the Takács Piano Trio and went on to make world-premier recordings of the works of Hungarian composers Franz Liszt, László Lajtha and Sándor Veress.

Gábor Takács-Nagy is a dedicated and highly sought-after chamber music teacher and since 1996 is Professor of String Quartet at the Geneva Conservatoire. He regularly gives masterclasses in many international academies. In 1998 he founded the Mikrokosmos String Quartet with Zoltán Tuska, Sándor Papp and Miklós Perényi, which, in 2008, undertook the recording of the complete cycle of Bartók string quartets. Gábor Takács-Nagy is considered as one of today’s most authentic exponents of Hungarian music, and in particular, that of Béla Bartók.

In 2001, following in a long line of Hungarian musical tradition, Gábor Takács-Nagy turned to conducting and today it is his principal activity. In 2005 he created his own string ensemble, the Camerata Bellerive which is orchestra-in-residence at the annual Festival de Bellerive in Geneva, of which he is artistic director.

In August 2007 he was named Music Director of the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra with which he performs extensively throughout the year. Since September 2007 he has been principal guest conductor of both the Magyar Telekom Symphony Orchestra and the MÁV Symphony Orchestra, Budapest and is regularly invited to conduct the Irish Chamber Orchestra.

In 2009 two other recordings will be released: the Bartók viola concerto with Nobuko Imai and a CD with the works of Debussy and Ravel with Steven Isserlis and the Tapiola Sinfonietta.