From a research perspective, a highly significant and fruitful collaboration has developed between Haydneum and Father Tamás Mórocz, parish priest of the Bodajk Pilgrimage Site of the Virgin Mary, who drew our attention to the church’s exceptional music library, preserving an 18th-century repertoire. We carefully organized and digitized the collection of nearly 300 works, which primarily consists of sacred vocal pieces, masses, mass movements, Marian antiphons, hymns, litanies, and motets by popular composers of the period, including Franz Joseph Aumann, Frantisek Xaver Brixi, Antonio Caldara, Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Joseph Haydn, Michael Haydn, Amandus Ivanschitz, Benedikt Klima, Marianus Königsperger, Joseph Kremnitzky, Franz Novotni, Valentin Rathgeber, Georg Reutter, Ferdinand Schmidt, and Johann Baptist Vanhal. Not all composers could be clearly identified, and some anonymous compositions were also included, part of which we were able to identify using RISM. About three-quarters of the works are complete, and during the organization process, numerous separate part-books were also integrated into their proper places.

On 14 June 2024 in Bodajk, and on 15 June in Budapest, as part of the 3rd Haydneum Sacred Music Festival, two selected works from the Bodajk Pilgrimage Site music library were performed for the first time in over 250 years: Benedict Anton Aufschnaiter’s motet Audite et narrabo vobis and Ferdinand Schmidt’s C minor Requiem, performed by Haydneum’s resident ensembles, the Orfeo Orchestra and the Purcell Choir, under the direction of György Vashegyi.