2026 Oct 28th
Video release
2026 May 15th
Album releaseWith ‚Vom Willen und Tod‘ (‚Of Will and Death‘), Gellért Szabó’s Ideal Orchestra pushes even further into existential weight and musical scale after ‚Live at Berghain‘ (2025). To record the album, the ensemble from Leipzig secluded themselves in a church, where they captured four compositions by Szabó alongside two newly reworked excerpts from Brahms’ Requiem. A sense of inner struggle runs through the entire record: the drive toward transcendence in the shadow of mortality, and the pull back toward one’s own origins after the death of the father. Out of the tension between belonging and the abyss, something deeply personal takes shape. Vast walls of sound, built from layered orchestras and choirs, give way to fragile songs of mourning. At times, the music feels like the finales of all Mahler symphonies heard at once. Between fear of death, love, and grand aspiration, the album unfolds with relentless intensity, monumental in conception, existential in sentiments, and driven to the very edge of what can still be heard.
Gellért Szabó’s Ideal Orchestra is nominated for the German Jazz Price 2026 in the category Large Ensemlbe of the year:
“Under the direction of composer and conductor Gellért Szabó, expansive soundscapes between jazz, contemporary music, and sacred drama arise in real time with the help of precise hand signals. Citizen Jazz describes Szabó’s music as shaped by a pathos of the Western art music tradition — mystical, archaic, and made for large spaces. Maxi Broecking in Jazzthing calls the current album “Live At Berghain” an impressive homage to his late father. Richard Allen recognizes in it a music of “Wagnerian magnitude,” at once “tragic and uplifting,” while Jacek Brun describes the work as a “continuous suite” in which every note carries meaning. The exceptionally high live energy makes concerts of the Ideal Orchestra an intense and gripping experience.”