While he was a crucial actor in the life of Hungarian music, György Kósa is not as well-known - at least at this end of Europe - as his teachers, Béla Bartók of the Budapest Academy of Music (1912-1916), Ernő Dohnányi and Zoltán Kodály. A versatile composer, he penned works in a wide variety of genres across a very long career, which included nine operas, eleven ballets/pantomimes, fifty oratorios and cantatas and a huge quantity of orchestral works including nine symphonies (amongst others!). His chamber music, choral works and his nearly 200 melodies occupy an important place in his output. This album, the second in his series Chamber music with alto by Kósa is part of a series of chamber music pieces in which, as one might have guessed, alto takes pride of place. The Prayer to Saint Blaise, 1967, based on a piece by the Hungarian poet Miháy Babits (Saint Blaise, as everyone knows, is the patron saint that one appeals to for help with throat problems, and Babits suffered from cancer of the larynx... the unfortunate poet was surely misinformed, though: Saint Blaise is said to intervene when a fishbone is lodged in the throat, and not against cancer, and sadly Babits died) is for a baritone (Kósa often uses vocals in his chamber music), alto, flute and bassoon. It is a sombre work in which the words are inexorably permeated with a sense of despair. There follows the Trio for flute, alto and cello, itself quite sombre, but always tenderly melodious - Bartók's influence seems rather distant here, it must be said. The album ends with five hymns from 1938, once again based on Kósa's poems, for baritone and tenor with accompaniment from solo alto violin (we specify alto violin so that the reader will not confuse it with alto vocals as the start of the sentence refers to baritone and tenor). A certain roughness in the language, surely due to the fact that polyphony only permits two or three voices, serves to underscore the vehemence of Kósa's writing. These are beautiful works which also expand our knowledge of Hungarian music of the 20th Century beyond just a few of the most famous names. © SM/Qobuz