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Transcendent

Thursday, 9th October 2008

Great music puts our lives in perspective, to say the least. Jessica Duchen listens to the Hungarian mezzo-soprano Julia Hamari singing "Erbarme dich" from the St Matthew Passion:

Her biography begins with the words: "Born 21 November 1942, Budapest, Hungary". That was not exactly an ideal time or place to enter this world. She would have been barely 16 months old when the Nazis invaded, and nearly 14 at the time of the 1956 Revolution. I'm not saying that to sing Bach like this you have to have spent your early childhood in a place as horrific as Budapest became...  but one senses a depth to this performance - something trancelike...that is far indeed from the ordinary.

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