For the most part, I resent electronics and computers, and the fast-moving digitized life of today’s world. Turning the clocks back inspires a helpless, incoherent rage in me. I idealize a back-to -the-land existence, in which we and our community take care of our needs, grow and prepare our own food, make our own compost, develop our own culture, and make our own music. When I was in college, many of my peers shared such an ideal. Mostly, we grew out of it as we aged— but many vestiges of that dream persist in me, and lead to the interests and preoccupations that continue to matter most to me.
One huge exception to this personal Ludditism is my love of YouTube. I spend hours parked in front of my computer screen, watching and listening to musical performances which I would never see or hear otherwise. I become acquainted with individual musicians, conductors, ensembles, styles of interpretation, and repertoire I would never be aware of, without this electronic wizardry. YouTube has become my single most important resource in programming concerts and studying repertoire, especially since I stopped singing, myself. Ones personal library of recordings could never contain all that is available at the simple click of a mouse. I keep a running list of the composers, pieces, and recordings that I run across, often randomly or by accident, and make extensive use of it. I’m hooked. I find it hard to remember how I did this work without YouTube for the greater part of my career.
Among my most important YouTube finds in the past year was a recording of a new piece (2020), a setting of the Da pacem, Domine text (Grant us peace, O Lord, in our days for there is none other who will fight for us) by Hungarian composer Péter Tóth (b.1965). Sung by Cantemus vegyeskar Nyíregyháza, it was recorded in concert October 12, 2022, just one year ago. Numerous other choirs have posted recordings of the motet, all of them Hungarian. I suspect it will soon become better known, and that other postings will appear in the future.
Tóth grew up in Budapest and received his training there, at the Béla Bartók Conservatory and the Liszt Ferenc Academy. He later graduated from the Academy of Drama and Film, and has composed extensively for film and theater. His compositional style, even in this sacred a cappella setting, reflects this interest in theatrical presentation. The indicated dynamics in this piece are extreme and very expressive, and the tessitura (usual range) in the individual voice parts is quite demanding, especially of the women’s voices. His use of dramatic rhythmic ostinato in the lower voices intensifies and graphically illustrates the implied urgency and danger in the text. Effectively, he creates a dramatic scene without ever leaving the conventions of sacred a cappella music.
Tóth is currently Dean of the School of Music at the University of Szeged and is a full member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts.