The Church
Gregorian songs of Pauline monasteries
Salföld
2020
Sound ecology has been dealing with the preservation of the beauties of sonic environments, the research and presentation of their cultural and natural values since the 1970s. This website was created within the framework of a program launched at Moholy-Nagy University of Arts and Design Budapest in cooperation with iASK (Institute for Advanced Studies Kőszeg). The subject of the program is the acoustic ecology of Transdanubia - Western Hungary, and the elements of the creative provincial music development program “Sounding City” started by the music workshop of iASK.
In its current state, the Pauline monastery in Salföld is a well-kept ruin, half an hour's walk from the village, in the thick forest. The place can associates two sound worlds: the sacred music of the historic church practice, and the sounds of nature.
// Graphics following the reconstruction of Balázs Szőke
György Somogyi is a literary translator and art writer who graduated from the Faculty of Arts of the Eötvös Loránd University Budapest and the Roman Catholic Academy of Theology. He has lived on a farm near Salföld since the 1970s. He was interviewed by our team member Lujza Nényei in the beginning of January 2021.
When have the kermis festivities for Mary Magdalene’s Day restarted at the Pauline ruins of Salföld, how did you manage to revive this tradition?
- Lujza Nényei
“The word “again” in this case is uncertain, because we know that in 1475 this Pauline monastery, which was still alive at the time, received a kermis permit, but we do not know if it was really a place of pilgrimage. In the spirit of this permission, we thought, whether there was such a tradition or not, we wanted to create it.”
- György Somogyi
