Search - Boguslaw Grabowski :: Ancient & Modern: Portraits for Organ - The Lewtak Organ

THE MUSIC. The idea behind this recording was to present a musical picture of the instrument that is genuinely unique in its character. Musical selections presented on this disc give a comprehensive picture of the sonic range of the pipe organ at St. Joseph s Roman-Catholic Church in Camillus, New York. The old pipework from 1896 bears unmistaken stamp of personality of the late 19th century North-American organ building. This historic character, however, is skillfully complemented by the new sets of organ ranks that were voiced in a style typical for the North-European instruments. What seems to be perhaps a bit peculiar marriage of vastly different styles in fact resulted in the creation of an instrument that lends itself beautifully to a broad range of organ repertoire. Several pieces on the disc call for a French symphonic organ sound, which most organists associate with the distinguished French organ builder, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. Litanies for Organ and Postlude pour l office de Complies by Jehan-Ariste Alain, as well as Cantabile in B major by César Franck, and especially Carillon de Westminster by Louis Vierne all were written with the rich sound of the great French instruments in mind. All three composers had a direct contact with the existing organs and were influenced by their tonal abilities. In a similar realm of timbre, although with the slight Northern European inspiration, stays the Improvisations on the Polish hymn Holy God by Mieczyslaw Surzynski and Improvisations on Bogurodzica by Boguslaw Grabowski. All of the aforementioned compositions require solid, broad-sounding, eight-foot foundation stops in conjunction with powerful, yet not harsh pallet of treble ranks. The organ sound from the Renaissance and the Baroque era is so unmistakably untainted and crystal-clear. After all, the pipe organ found its way to churches for a reason of all existing instruments, it was capable of producing the sound of heaven, the sound of purity and, at the same time, the sound of power and might. There is plenty of force in J.S. Bachs Fantasia in G major (BWV 572), the piece which calls for the classic Organo Pleno compilation of principal chorus ranks and a great Mixture. A different aural picture is presented in Bachs Jesu, Joy of Mans Desiring, where the organ sounds mild and unforced. A variety of acoustic effects and a true burst of aural color are presented in the series of short pieces from the Polish Renaissance period. Compositions by Nicolas from Krakow, Wojciech Dlugoraj, Diomedes Cato, Andrzej Rohaczewski, Paul Siefert and several pieces by unknown composers present the artist with an opportunity to explore deeply the potential of the Lewtak instrument, and to show off the magic of its pipes. THE ARTIST. Boguslaw Grabowski is an international concert organist as well as a church organist in one of the largest churches in the world, St. Mary s of Assumption Basilica and Co-Cathedral in Gdansk, Poland a six-hundred-year-old building of monumental proportions, boasting an impressive twenty-five thousand people capacity and nearly four acres of roof! Mr. Grabowski has held the prestigious post of the Director of Music and Principal Organist at this church since 1985, the same year he joined the faculty of the Academy of Music in Gdansk. In 1998, he received full professorship in organ performance from the Academy. In 2003, Mr. Grabowski was appointed a Chairman of the Department of Sacred Music at the Academy of Music in Gdansk. Grabowski performs on a regular basis in virtually every major organ center in Poland, as well as in Germany, France, Belgium Holland, Switzerland, Sweden, Ukraine, Latvia, Belarus, Russia and the United States.