In the last couple of days I have been doing two so called “Z” recordings with the MR Symphony (Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra) and Chorus. Letter “Z” stands for “Zene” which in English simply means Music. In the good old days they used to mark the tapes with a letter Z (versus radio talk shows and other non-musical recordings) for easier cataloging. In Studio 6 at the historic Hungarian Radio building, downtown Budapest we recorded two compositions. Ernst von Dohnanyi’s lively Symphonic Minutes and a contemporary composition called Requiem, Symphony #3 by young Hungarian composer Peter Zombola. Check out his website here:
http://zombolapeter.uw.hu
Zombola’s Requiem (Symphony #3) was named Classical Contemporary Composition of the Year in 2012 by the Hungarian Copyright Office, Artisjus. As for the Dohnanyi piece we recorded it for a very interesting project. Since my orchestra is celebrating its 70th anniversary season the Hungarian Radio is preparing a series of radio programs to celebrate our work. One of them is a show about how radio recording technology developed since the beginnings. They are using different recordings of Symphonic Minutes made throughout decades to demonstrate the progress. We also made a video spot for the European Broadcasting Union (including an archival news footage of Dohnanyi himself conducting the last movement of Symphonic minutes in the same Studio 6 where we did it!) that will be available on our website soon. Stay tuned!