Liszt’s experiences in Rome had a profound influence on his choral art. As early as 1839, he was fascinated by the musical practice at the Cappella Sistina, and he really intensively studied the repertoire itself between 1861 and 1865. ‘The services at the Sistine Chapel and St Peter’s Basilica,’ he wrote in a letter, ‘which especially captured my musical interest, have taken up all my time for the past two weeks.’ ‘As for musical life in Rome,’ he wrote on another occasion, ‘performances at the Sistine Chapel occupy all my attention. Everything there is great, exalted and majestic, sublime both in its totality and in its atmosphere. Every Sunday I listen to these songs as one should read one’s breviary.’
The Choir Marathon, compiled mainly from the works of Ferenc Liszt, not only offers a rich selection of the composer’s liturgical music – including such large-scale works as the Missa Choralis and the Szekszárd Mass – but also gives a taste of similar aspirations by his contemporaries, such as Erkel, Bruckner and Brahms.