“Close to Bach” – the very motto he himself once envisioned – is perhaps the most fitting way to describe the main trajectory of Salamon Kamp’s life and career. With this eloquent title, he launched in the 2000s an educational concert series through which he brought the music of Johann Sebastian Bach – together with his choir, the Lutheránia – to unconventional venues, such as Budapest high schools. While his aim was to bring Bach’s art closer to ever-wider audiences, his lectures and musical performances continually testified to how intimately he himself had come to stand beside the great composer.
The path to this closeness was, outwardly, not a long one. Only a few months separated his diploma concert – Bach’s Komm, Jesu, komm motet – from his appointment as conductor of the Lutheránia Choir and Orchestra, which had been responsible for cultivating Bach’s legacy at the Deák Square Lutheran Church since the early 20th century. Still ahead of him was a year in Vienna on a scholarship, where, as he put it, “overwhelming opera and concert performances” broadened his musical horizons. Conductors and musicians such as Mackerras, Holliger, Abbado, Végh, Schiff, and Harnoncourt were among those whose orbits he entered. The following year, Helmuth Rilling held his International Bach Academy in Budapest – a providential turn for Kamp. His own words best express his decisive turn toward Bach:
“It was during my time in Vienna that I came into closer contact with the Church at Deák Square. Jenő Weltler, already nearing eighty at the time, was conducting the St. Matthew Passion, and sent me a message: ‘Come, my son, I could use your help.’ So I came home. Österreicher tried to persuade me to stay and continue studying, but after a week of reflection I decided: it was more important to immerse myself in the musical and spiritual world of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion than to chase a conducting career.” [1]
By taking the helm of Lutheránia, Salamon Kamp not only committed himself to the noble traditions of this unique institution of the Hungarian Lutheran Church and to the heritage of Hungarian Bach performance, but also undertook the broader mission of cultivating the entire Lutheran musical legacy – using Bach’s art as a mirror held up to the modern soul thirsting for faith. Like János Pilinszky, he believes that Bach’s music is an encounter with the Creator, with the divine. [2] And here the circle closes: “... besides the Word of God, the Lutheran chorale treasury is the greatest sustaining force. And so it was for Johann Sebastian Bach as well... Let us draw nearer, then, and follow the Master!” [3]
He did not wait long to begin building upon these spiritual foundations. In 1990 he initiated and organized the Budapest Bach Week at the Deák Square Lutheran Church, an event that has since been held successfully thirty-three times. Each year, during the first week of June, the festival serves as a magnetic attraction for lovers of Baroque and Bach’s music – bringing genuine vitality to the city’s summer musical life. Its declared goal is the performance of all known surviving works by Johann Sebastian Bach and the concentration of the highest-level Bach interpretation – by international standards – in one place. The long list of distinguished domestic and international artists who have taken part in Bach Week over the decades stands as living testimony to this ambition – a list far too extensive to include here. [4]
Since its founding in 1992, Kamp has been the driving force behind the Hungarian Bach Society, which aims to connect Hungarian Bach research and performance to the main current of the world’s most authentic Bach institutions, societies, and projects (such as the Neue Bachgesellschaft and various Bach Society etc.). Last but not least, the cantata services, oratorio, and passion performances continuously realized since the 1990s – the independent series of the Lutheránia Choir and Orchestra – provide the natural context in which Bach’s music can be heard in the way the composer originally intended. Within this environment, the transcendental connection between listening and artistic expression can arise – leading toward the praise of God and the spiritual elevation longed for by Salamon Kamp: the innermost path of drawing close to Bach.
A major and fruitful chapter in Salamon Kamp’s artistic career came in the 1990s during his years with the Kodály Choir of Debrecen. It was here that he revealed himself most clearly as a man of “musical enterprises”: over the course of concert seasons built around thematic cycles, he taught and conducted the complete choral repertoire of the Viennese classics – all six of Joseph Haydn’s late mass compositions, the entirety of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s sacred works, and every mass written by Franz Schubert. Naturally, these were complemented by Bach’s large-scale cantatas and passions. His striving for universality was also evident in the way he often accompanied performances with verbal introductions, illuminating an essential aspect of his artistic credo: that music must be approached from a practical, experiential perspective rather than a purely theoretical one. Through thorough study, one must seek to reach the most authentic possible understanding of a composition by examining every historical context, document, and contemporary or modern insight attached to the notes themselves. In this way, Kamp was able to strip even the most frequently performed works of the “varnish” accumulated through tradition-bound interpretations, allowing their less conventional messages to reach the audience. Reviews of his Debrecen concerts reveal that this approach did indeed seem novel at the time. [5] From the resources at hand, he was able to build new possibilities – to awaken opportunities that had not existed before, and to fill old, rigid frameworks with new content and spirit. Those who listened attentively could hear, even in performances with the Debrecen Philharmonic Orchestra, the results of his meticulous rehearsing style – the pursuit of transparent textures, clearly drawn musical contours, and lucid articulation. Hoping to create an ensemble more suited to historically informed performance, with a leaner, more soloistic instrumentation, he founded the, composed of young students from music academies. In these early years, he was already able to express fully that interpretive approach to which he has remained faithful ever since – one often described by the labels “historically informed” or “early music,” even though he rarely used period instruments.
Narrow-mindedness or artistic one-sidedness has always been utterly foreign to Kamp Salamon’s musical practice – as his extensive conducting repertoire amply demonstrates. Also during his Debrecen years began a long series of performances of twentieth-century and contemporary works. One early highlight was a composer’s evening dedicated to Zoltán Pongrácz, culminating in the recording of his Oratorio. Decades later, in the 2010s, Kamp continued this commitment with the Hungarian premieres of Arvo Pärt’s Berliner Messe and Frank Martin’s Christmas Cantata, both performed in the Pécs Basilica.
In 2013, at the reopening of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music following its renovation, Kamp appeared alongside Zoltán Kocsis at the “Jeney 70” jubilee concert, conducting the Hungarian Radio Choir in a performance of Zoltán Jeney’s Infinitivus. Thus, it seemed only natural that, for the closing concert of the “Reformation 500” commemorative year, he himself would commission and premiere a new Jeney composition, Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir (2017). [6] Critics praised the performance – presented alongside Bach’s cantata of the same text – as artistically superb, “charged with glowing intensity,” and, above all, profoundly worthy of the contemporary masterpiece’s emotional and spiritual depth. [7]
Kamp Salamon is as far from narrow-minded or one-sided as possible when it comes to his training, performances and recordings - as his repertoire reflects. In the same way, the Debrecen years saw the beginning of a whole series of performances of 20th century and contemporary works conducted by him, one of the first highlights of which was the recital and recording of Zoltán Pongrácz's Oratory. Much later, in the 2010s, the series continued with the Hungarian premiere of Arvo Pärt's Berlin Mass and Frank Martin's Christmas Cantata, now performed in the Basilica of Pécs. In 2013, at the first public concert of the Liszt Ferenc Square Music Academy, which was reopened after renovation, he was able to bring to life a choral work by Zoltán Jeney (Infinitivos), conducting the Radio Choir alongside Zoltán Kocsis at the "Jeney 70" anniversary celebrations. After this, the gesture at the closing concert of the "Reformation 500" commemorative year, the invitation to conduct a new Jeney composition and the premiere (Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, 2017), seems almost self-evident.[6] The performance, together with the Bach cantata of the same text, was hailed by critics as high quality, "incandescent" and, most importantly, unconditionally worthy of the poignant depths of a contemporary masterpiece.
Salamon Kamp probably knew from a young age that he did not wish to squander the energy and determination of his youthful enthusiasm on small, fleeting successes. He understood that true transformation in the world of music would not come within three or four years but would require patience and humility – the building of a body of work spanning at least a lifetime to lay the foundations for lasting results. Although the opportunity for such long-term creative construction has been afforded to him almost exclusively at Deák Square, his parallel activity as a teacher has always allowed him to pass on to new generations of musicians that profound joy and future-oriented responsibility which the practice of musical art entails.
As a lecturer at the Church Music Department of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music (1998–2007), as a choral conducting teacher at the Fót Cantor Training Institute (2003–2018), and as a faculty member of the Department of Choral Conducting, Music Theory and Choral Studies at the University of Pécs (2006–2014), Kamp’s pedagogical work – it can safely be said – elevated his students, helping them realize and experience the performance of numerous masterpieces. The deep influence of his doctoral Bach seminar at the Academy is best illustrated by the fact that two of his composition students dedicated new works to him: László Sándor’s Chorale Fantasy with Flowers for flute, piano, and cello (2015, premiered in 2019) and Máté Balogh’s Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr (2019).
Yet Kamp teaches everywhere and always – even when not formally in a classroom. Whether in his concerts, which he interweaves with detailed, nuanced yet to-the-point introductions, or in his rigorously scheduled daily choir rehearsals, his role as a teacher remains ever-present. His decades of persistent, uncompromising work with his own choir, the Lutheránia – composed predominantly of amateur singers – has borne fruit in performance series such as Bach közelében (Near Bach) and the Zenebeszéd (Music Talk) broadcasts on Bartók Radio. In these, standing before a broader public with his ensemble, he was able to share – not only through his conductor’s baton – the deeply internalized, long-cultivated understanding he holds of Bach’s music.
It is only natural that for the great Bach Passion performances at Deák Square – as well as for the smaller cantatas – the participation of professional musicians is indispensable. For this reason, Lutheránia has maintained close collaboration over several decades with the Weiner–Szász Chamber Symphony Orchestra, the Budapest Strings, and numerous outstanding vocal soloists. The consistently high artistic standard achieved by the Lutheránia Choir under Salamon Kamp’s direction in these collaborations can often make the listener forget that they are not hearing a professional choir.
Among the many significant projects that have marked the conductor’s and the ensemble’s career, the jubilee concert series Our Musical Creeds – organised by the Reformation Memorial Committee as part of the “Reformation 500” celebrations – stands out as a defining event. It featured ten performances of Bach’s Mass in B minor across the entire Carpathian Basin. The tour began in October 2016 and concluded exactly one year later, on the anniversary in October 2017, with concerts not only in Hungary’s major cities but also in cross-border communities such as Révkomárom (Komárno), Szabadka (Subotica), and Brașov. By the end of the tour, the musicians had travelled a total of 4,600 kilometres – a true musical pilgrimage.
In Salamon Kamp’s career, Bach’s Mass in B minor has become a recurring milestone – a rare and precious experience for both performers and audiences. One of the earliest performances took place during the 10th Budapest Bach Week (1999), while the most recent coincided with the year he was awarded the Kossuth Prize (2017). It is no coincidence that the conductor feels a special, almost mysterious bond with this monumental work. For him, it represents the fulfilment of his artistic and spiritual calling – to make tangible for himself and for 21st-century listeners Bach’s “musical–spiritual testament,” a living encounter with the Creator, the source of all art.
[1] J. Győry László: „Számomra Bach zenéje istenbizonyíték." Beszélgetés Kamp Salamonnal. Muzsika 44. évf. (2001), 12. sz., 16. o.
[2] Kamp Salamon: Budapesti Bach-hét. Evangélikus Élet 55. évf. (1990), 28. sz. (07. 15.) Internet link: https://library.hungaricana.hu/hu/view/EvangelikusElet_1990/?pg=116&layout=s
[3] Kamp Salamon: Bizonyságot tenni és vallani az Istenről! A 7. Budapesti Bach-hét megnyitójára. Magyar Egyházzene 3. évf. (1995/1996), 4. sz., 499. o.
[4] Concert programmes on the internet: https://lutherania.lutheran.hu/bachweeks2015.php
[5] Szesztay Zsolt: A „régizenei mozgalom" és a János-passió. Hajdú-Bihari Napló 49. évf. (1992), 102. szám (04. 30.); Karasszon Dezső: Igenis, gazdagok vagyunk! Hajdú-Bihari Napló 50. évf. (1993), 41. sz. (02. 18.)
[6] Czakó Dóra: Liturgikus elemek Jeney Zoltán egyházzenéjében. DOI-azonosító: 10.23714/mza.10020_NKFIH_123819. https://zti.hu/files/mza/docs/Czako_Liturgikus_elemek_Jeney_Zoltan_egyhazzenejeben.pdf
[7] https://revizoronline.com/hu/cikk/6998/a-reformacio-500-emlekev-zarohangversenye
[2022]