An encounter with the artistry of Karol Mossakowski is sure to be an exceptional experience. One of today's leading virtuosos, he has already achieved extraordinary success despite his young age, becoming titular organist of Saint-Sulpice in Paris – one of the foremost centres in the history of the world's organ performance and composition. Mossakowski’s performances are distinguished by their breadth of sound and dynamic sweep; he approaches his instrument as though it were a great symphony orchestra, with its vast palette of colours and expansive sense of space. As both performer and composer, he is also renowned as a superb improviser, creating, among other things, live music for silent films.
The programme brings together works for organ and wind ensemble. As Mossakowski himself explains, this unusual combination is fully justified by the close affinity between the sonorities of the two forces, intensifying the music's emotional impact while making full use of its spatial potential. He also chose this scoring for the new work presented at the concert. The arrangements of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor and Gustav Holst’s The Planets were prepared by the contemporary Austrian trombonist Mark Graal. Bach's masterpiece ranks among the finest organ works of the Baroque era. Gustav Holst’s immensely popular orchestral suite The Planets is a monumental work of strikingly cinematic character, its seven movements corresponding to the seven planets of the Solar System.
Robert Losiak