Franck: Les Béatitudes Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, Hungarian National Choir & Gergely Madaras

• César Franck (1822 - 1890): Les Béatitudes, CFF 185: Prologue:
• 1 Franck: Les Béatitudes, CFF 185: Prologue 04:22
• 2 Franck: Les Béatitudes, CFF 185: Première Béatitude. Bienheureux les pauvres d’esprit, parce que le Royaume des cieux est à eux. 12:41
• 3 Franck: Les Béatitudes, CFF 185: Deuxième Béatitude. Bienheureux ceux qui sont doux,parce qu’ils posséderont la terre. 10:01
• 4 Franck: Les Béatitudes, CFF 185: Troisième Béatitude. Bienheureux ceux qui pleurent, parce qu’ils seront consolés. 17:23
• 5 Franck: Les Béatitudes, CFF 185: Quatrième Béatitude. Bienheureux ceux qui ont faim et soif de la justice,parce qu’ils seront rassasiés. 11:20
• 6 Franck: Les Béatitudes, CFF 185: Cinquième Béatitude. Heureux les miséricordieux,parce qu’ils obtiendront eux-mêmes miséricorde. 14:44
• 7 Franck: Les Béatitudes, CFF 185: Sixième Béatitude. Bienheureux ceux qui ont le coeur pur, parce qu’ils verront Dieu. 13:59
• 8 Franck: Les Béatitudes, CFF 185: Septième Béatitude. Bienheureux les pacifiques, parce qu’ils seront appelés enfants de Dieu. 14:27
• 9 Franck: Les Béatitudes, CFF 185: Huitième Béatitude. Bienheureux ceux qui souffrent de persécution pour la justice,parce que le Royaume des cieux est à eux. 20:26
• Total Runtime 01:59:23

Info for Franck: Les Béatitudes

César Franck considered Les Béatitudes, for soloists, choir and orchestra, to be his greatest work. It was perhaps Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion that prompted him to begin a work in 1869 that too would be dominated by the voice of Christ. Franck worked on Les Béatitudes for ten years and created an original and deeply personal renewal of the oratorio form in 19th-century France. This is no simple musical depiction of a subject taken from the Gospel: Franck, a firm believer in the precepts of the Beatitudes, was here inspired to write a bold and personal work, driven by the ideal of justice that its music unforgettable portrays.

Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège
Hungarian National Choir
Gergely Madaras, conductor

Gergely Madaras
is Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège since 2019. Together, they have performed across Belgium and toured to Europe and South America, having been regularily featured on Mezzo and Medici.tv and have been building an extensive discography ranging from César Franck through Liszt and Dohnányi for Alpha, BIS and Palazzetto Bru Zane labels. Gergely was previously Music Director of the Orchestre Dijon Bourgogne and Chief Conductor of the Savaria Symphony Orchestra.

As a guest conductor, Gergely’s recent highlights include engagements with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Philharmonia, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Bamberger Symphoniker, BBC Symphony and Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Hallé, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and Il Pomo d’Oro and Joyce DiDonato at the Concertgebouw, as part of their ‘EDEN’ tour.

The 2023-24 season sees Gergely return to the London Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Hungarian State Opera and Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra. He makes debuts with the WDR Symphonieorchester, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Turku Philharmonic and Sao Paulo State Symphony. Future plans include appearances with the Oslo Philharmonic, Gürzenich Orchestra Köln and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra.

Gergely was the inaugural Sir Charles Mackerras Fellow at the English National Opera, which culminated in his operatic debut at the London Coliseum with a new production of Die Zauberflöte with stage director Simon McBurney. Since then, he has conducted critically acclaimed productions at the Dutch National Opera, Grand Théâtre de Genève and the Hungarian State Opera. Last season, he made his debut at La Monnaie, conducting Shostakovich’s The Nose.

Whilst grounded in the core classical and romantic repertoire, Gergely maintains a close relationship with new music. He has collaborated with composers George Benjamin, Péter Eötvös, György Kurtág, Tristan Murail, Luca Francesconi, Philippe Boesmans and Pierre Boulez, for whom he served as assistant conductor at the Lucerne Festival Academy between 2011-2013.

Gergely has appeared as a regular guest at the Lucerne, Gstaad, Milano Musica, Bucharest Enescu, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Murten Classics, inClassica Dubai, Septembre Musical Montreux, MiTo Settembre Musica, Budapest Spring and the Tokyo Stradivarius music festivals and made highly praised recordings with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Born in Budapest in 1984, Gergely first began studying folk music with the last generation of authentic Hungarian gipsy and peasant musicians at the age of five. He went on to study classical flute, violin and composition, graduating from the flute faculty of the Liszt Academy in Budapest, as well as the conducting faculty of the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, where he studied with Mark Stringer.

Booklet for Franck: Les Béatitudes