Organ matinée vol. I / Through the 19th and 20th Centuries with the Organ - NOSPR

The concert is organized around events related to the 70th anniversary of the death of Grzegorz Fitelberg, a composer who has long been a patron of NOSPR's activities. He made a name for himself worldwide as a charismatic conductor, achieving great successes not only in Poland but also beyond its borders. He conducted orchestras around the world in places such as Petrograd, Moscow, Vienna, Paris (where he collaborated with Diaghilev), Buenos Aires, New York, and Toronto. In 1934, he founded the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Warsaw, which he conducted until 1939. The orchestra won a gold medal at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris under his leadership. After the war, he moved the ensemble to Katowice, led the Great Symphony Orchestra of Polish Radio, and also taught at the State Higher School of Music in Katowice. That's why, precisely here with us, since 1980, the National Composer's Competition and the International Conducting Competition bearing his name have been taking place. 

The soloist for the concert will be Elżbieta Karolak. She has proposed a program that aims to showcase the richness of Polish organ music. The program is divided into three parts. The first part, starting at 10.30 PM, will feature music by Augustyn Bloch and Mieczysław Surzyński, one of the most outstanding representatives of the Romantic Polish organ music movement. This composer experimented with harmonic frameworks of 19th-century music, clearly heard in the "Chant triste" from Op. 36 - a harmonically complex piece composed on the basis of extended tonality. 

At 12:00 PM, we will hear compositions by Joseph Kromolicki and Aleksander Tansman, one of the most frequently performed Polish composers worldwide. Finally, the last part (at 1:30 PM) will feature Feliks Nowowiejski's Symphony No. 3 for Organ "Lourdes," which is undisputedly great in the realm of organ music. The piece contains programmatic elements, and the main theme of the Third Symphony is the French-originated Marian song "Po górach, dolinach" ("Through Mountains and Valleys"). The original version of the song comprises 60 verses and describes the apparitions and cult of Mary in Lourdes. 

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