The church music of the future, wrote a young Ferenc Liszt, will ‘unite – on a colossal scale – the Theatre and the Church, dramatic and sacred, superb and simple, fiery and free, stormy and calm, translucent and emotional.’ After a 1938 performance of the Christus oratorio in the Budapest Opera House, a critic wrote: ‘Liszt’s soul knew no bounds – his passion for Christ was boundless. Which is why this oratorio turned out so honest, so entranced. It is all but the music of the celestial realm, with all the spiritual beauty of the St Francis of nineteenth-century music on display.’ Featuring Hungarian, Austrian, Slovak and Swiss soloists, the Liszt Fest’s production of this monumental work will be performed twice, first in Vienna’s Musikverein, and then a few days later in Müpa Budapest, with Gergely Kesselyák standing on the rostrum on both occasions.