St Stephens Basilica on Sunday

St Stephen’s Basilica is a must see for any tourist visiting Budapest. It is of course dedicated to St Stephen who brought Christianity to Hungary and is considered the founder of Hungary. The Basilica’s building began in 1851 but foundered with the death of the first architect and the collapse of the first dome. It was eventually completed in 1906. I was lucky enough to time a visit, traveling via the Metro, for about 10.30 on a Sunday morning when mass was being celebrated. There was a choir singing and an organ voluntary at the end of the service. It was while there that I found that a performance of Mozart’s Requiem was being performed in the evening. What a great serendipitous occurrence! The Requiem was performed by a choir and orchestra from the town of Esztergom which is about 40 KM from Budapest on the Danube and on the border with Slovakia. What was noticeable about the performance was the extra ordinary acoustic delay (echo) - probably about 8 seconds in the magnificent St Stephens Basilica.