Singing Hungarians

In 1702 the president of Budapest University was getting ready to open the institution for its 66th year. To sing at that occasion he invited a group of students who had been harmonizing in taverns and public squares. In more than two centuries that followed this first formal recognition, the Budapest University Chorus extended its fame far beyond Hungary, is today hailed as one of the finest choirs in the world. At the invitation of the Yale Glee Club, the 42 men who make up the present chorus arrived last fortnight in the U. S. for the first time, to go on a concert tour. In Carnegie Hall last week they made their Manhattan debut.

The Budapest choristers' songs ranged from the latest works of Hungarian moderns to old folksongs about the Virgin, a farmer boy. a mourning dove. They sang them all in Hungarian, showing a meticulous concern for every phrase. Auditors marveled at the chorus's pitch and perfect time, the way it negotiated the most intricate part-singing without a slip.

Particular praise went to Soloist Ferenc Farago's fine baritone. Young Dr. Farago (32) is head of the Institute of Bacteriology at Budapest University. After graduating from the University's Medical School, he studied at Johns Hopkins, Harvard and Chicago, is the only singer in the group who ever saw the U. S. before. He has been with the chorus since he was 19, never misses a rehearsal, takes no pay.

Many another Budapest alumnus or graduate student sings in the chorus. Oldest member is Basso Karoly Balla, 44, vice president of a Budapest insurance company. Youngest is Tenor Laszlo Nagypal, 21, a student at the Royal Hungarian Franz Liszt Academy of Music. Thirty-three-year-old Viktor Vaszy directs the chorus. He also directs the Budapest Symphony Orchestra and is known in Hungary as a composer of distinction. He likes to boast of the time the chorus sang Mass with Pope Pius XI during Holy Year (1925). The Pope was so pleased that he gave them a large gold cross and special diplomas. Two years later the students of Rome University got so excited over them that they founded a similar organization at Rome.

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