Concert on the change of generations in the Salzburg cathedral music
Salzburg, August 10, 2022 (KAP) “Half a life for cathedral music”: Under this title, the Archdiocese of Salzburg referred to the farewell of Janos Czifra (70) on Wednesday, who has worked as cathedral conductor for 35 years and dies on September 1st line. His successor will be Andrea Fournier, the first woman in this position in the city of Mozart. Born in Hungary, Czifra pulled the musical strings under four archbishops, he ended his 35-year era with a farewell concert on Friday, August 12, in the Salzburg Cathedral: he conducted Haydn’s “Mass in Times of War” (also “Timpani Mass”) , as well as Dvorak’s “Stabat mater” and pieces by Mendelssohn such as “Don’t be afraid”, which are intended to encourage “looking optimistically into the future”, according to Czifra in the broadcast.
As cathedral conductor, Czifra shaped church music in Salzburg for many years. Many festive occasions included two visits to the Pope, which he accompanied on the conductor’s podium, as well as concert tours to New York and Tokyo. When asked about his best memories, Czifra named completely different atmospheric moments: “Those were always the high festivals, Easter and especially Christmas. In the afternoon the celebration in the seminary, then home to the Christmas tree, the wife and the children, then to the mass in the cathedral with the wonderful candlelight and ‘Silent Night’ at the end”, described the musician, who always gets his energy equally from faith, music and his family – with four children and eight grandchildren – drew.
As in previous years, Janos Czifra conducted a series of summer concerts in the Salzburg Cathedral. Tickets are still available for his “farewell concert” on Friday at 6:30 p.m.
Salzburg gets Domkapellmeisterin
In the future, a woman will lead the Salzburg Cathedral Music in the Archdiocese of Salzburg. The German church musician Andrea Fournier (48), who has worked as a church musician, organist and specialist for children’s and youth choirs in Graz for the past 25 years, prevailed in the “intensive selection process” from among 26 applicants from more than ten nations. Domkustos Johann Reißmeier praised the Allgäu native as “highly qualified, charismatic and musically a very mature personality”. Fournier has received several awards, for her choral work at the highest level she was awarded the Erwin Ortner Prize in 2019, and just this year the state of Styria recognized her for her commitment to children’s and youth choirs with the “Nikolaus-Harnoncourt-Scholarship for musical education of young people People”.
Andrea Fournier was born on January 14, 1974 in Leutkirch im Allgäu. After the C-examination for catholic church music in Rottenburg/Neckar she studied catholic church music (choir conducting), instrumental pedagogy organ and school music in Graz. Since 1998 Fournier has been organist and choir director at the parish church of Graz. Since 2010 she has also headed the singing school at the Graz Opera.
Last week Fournier was Archbishop Franz Lackner’s guest at the summer festival in the Bishop’s Garden. She referred to the comforting and at the same time activating power of art: One of her most beautiful experiences as a musician was “to reach people in a way that words cannot do and to give them comfort,” said Fournier. In Salzburg they are hoping for similar experiences – and she not only wants to cultivate the classics of church music and get young people excited about these works, but also to open up new music for liturgy.