Veress: Choral Works II – for mixed choruses

Volume II of the collected edition of the choral works of Veress contains seven Hungarian folksong cycles or cantatas, a choral poem in Hungarian and a choral cycle in English. In his first creative period (1929-1939), which he spent in Hungary, Sándor Veress’s direct involvement in Hungarian folk music research played a decisive part: his folksong experience gained through personal collecting work found expression in his first period of composition for mixed choir. In the course of the 1960s, after his emigration, he returned on two occasions to the a cappella mixed choir genre: in 1962 he wrote a piece for mixed choir to mark the 60th birthday of the great Hungarian poet Gyula Illyés (Óda Európához – Ode to Europe, based on the poem by Illyés), and in 1967, at the request of the Australian Radio Company, he composed for the ‘Adelaide Singers’ chamber choir Songs of the Seasons, a seven-movement madrigal cycle making exceptional demands on the performers, to verses by the Australian poet Christopher Brennan (1870-1932).