Organ Matinee / Szymański / The Art of Memory - NOSPR

The history of music, like human memory, can be selective. The names above, belonging to composers who lived not so very long ago, bear eloquent witness to this. Though once widely admired, they ultimately gave way to composers whose music proved more enduring. This recital turns the spotlight on several such forgotten figures.

Felix Borowski’s strongly contrasted late-Romantic Organ Sonata No. 1 in A minor recalls the Chicago-based composer of Polish descent. Thema mit Variationen, captivating in its constantly shifting moods, is the calling card of Ernst Köhler, who helped shape Wrocław’s musical life during the second quarter of the 19th century while serving as organist at St Elizabeth’s Church. Konstanty Gorski’s virtuoso Fantasia in F minor, in turn, places its composer – a violinist from the Vilnius region – alongside masters of the stature of Nowowiejski and Surzyński. Finally, the Largo from Bolesław Szabelski’s neoclassical Organ Sonata reminds us that the distinguished Silesian composer and teacher was originally trained as an organist – and an exceptionally gifted one at that. Władysław Szymański, himself closely associated with Katowice and also a composer – as his Fantasia cromatica demonstrates – does not challenge the canon. Instead, he casts light on its margins, reminding us that preserving musical memory is itself an art.

Piotr Mika (Ruch Muzyczny)

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