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Артист: Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Альбом: Organ & Vocal Works, 2000 Издатель: Polskie Nagrania / PNCD 486 A/B Жанр: Classical Формат файла: EAC-APE-CUE-LOG-HQCovers Ссылка: CD 78 clicks Нахождение: eDonkey Примечание: First recording on the organ of the Warsaw-Praga Diocese Cathedral

Tracklist:
CD1 - Dziela Na Organy
01. Sonata A-dur, Op. 65/3 (Con Moto Maestoso - Andante Tranquillo) [7:54]
02. Preludium i Fuga d-moll, Op. 37/3 [8:20]
03. Preludium i Fuga G-dur, Op. 37/2 [8:18]
04. Sonata c-moll, Op. 65/2 (Grave, Adagio - Allegro Maestoso e Vivace - Fuga) [9:50]
05. Sonata f-moll, Op. 65/1 (Allegro Moderato e Serioso - Adagio - Andante, Recit - Allegro Assai Vivace) [13:59]
06. Sonata B-dur, Op. 65/4 (Allegro Con Brio - Andante Religioso - Allegretto - Allegro Maestoso e Vivace) [14:07]
CD2 - Arie, Hymn, Dziela Na Organy
01. 'Hore, Israel', Aria z Oratorium 'Elias', Op. 70 [6:47]
02. Sonata D-dur, Op. 65/5 (Andante - Andante Con Moto - Allegro Maestoso) [11:01]
03. 'Hor' Mein Bitten', Hymn (1844 r.) [12:09]
04. Preludium i Fuga c-moll, Op. 37/1 [9:30]
05. 'Jerusalem', Aria z Oratorium 'Paulus', Op. 36 [3:10]
06. Sonata d-moll, Op. 65/6 (Choral - Andante Sostenuto - Allegro Molto - Fuga - Finale-Andante) [14:11]

Nagrania dokonano w trakcie trzech nocnych sesji: 12/13, 13/14, 15/16 pazdziernika 1999 roku
Realizacja nagrania i mastering: Bogdan Zywek

Personnel:
Barbara Abramowicz - soprano
Wiktor Lyjak - organ

CODE

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Review:
The musical legacy of the most prominent German Romantic composer, Felix Jakob Ludwig Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847), is seen today through the prism of only a handful of pieces. Popular memory is confined to the incidental music to Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Nighfs Dream" with its immortal "Wedding March", the overture "The Hebrides", the Violin Concerto in E minor, the Symphony in A minor (Scottish), the Symphony in A major (Italian), "Lieder ohne Worte" for piano, the String Octet in E flat major and perhaps a few more. Mendelssohn's oratorios, such as "Paulus", "Elijah" and the unfinished "Christus", have fallen into oblivion, at least in Poland. Of his songs, the once popular "Auf Flugeln des Gesanges", can now be heard only sporadically. The composer's stage works, to which he did not attach much importance, have more or less been forgotten. Instead, Mendelssohn's achievements in reviving and promoting the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, notably his "St Matthew Passion", are universally acknowledged. Mendelssohn's interest in Bach was not a matter of coincidence. From his early childhood he knew and loved Bach's music, particularly his instrumental pieces, which in his time, according to Mendelssohn's friend, Edward Devrient, "were performed as curiosities and received as antiquarian pieces". Incidentally, Bach was commonly regarded at that time as "an obscure musical arithmetician, with an incredible facility for writing fugues" (Carl Friedrich Zelter), and someone who was "no better than an old-fashioned wig, stuffed with wisdoms" (Antonin Reicha). Ali this did not prevent Mendelssohn from remaining, throughout his short life, under the overwhelming spell of Bach's music. Many of his pieces testify to his admiration or even worship of Bach. Mendels-sohn's organ compositions are surely a tribute to the genius of Bach.
Even though, as with other Romantic composers, the piano was the fundamental instrument for Mendelssohn, both as composer and virtuoso, the organ was a no less important vehicle of artistic utterance. According to the accounts of his contemporaries, Mendels-sohn was an excellent organist, with great improvisatory skills. Wherever his frequent journeys took him, be it Wroclaw (where he admired the instrument in St Elizabeth Church), Frankfurt, Leipzig (with the great Bach organ at St Thomas's), Berlin, Italy, Switzerland or England, he never missed an opportunity to play on the instruments he encountered there. During the visit to London in 1832 he took delight in playing the organ at St Paul's Cathedral, evoking genuine enthusiasm among chance listeners of that unscheduled recital. He was said to create miracles at the instruments, except for one - driving the faithful out of the church. "The mo-re he attempted it, the less they were inclined to go, the more gracefully insinuating his musi-cal hints, the more delighfully patient they became to remain. It is said that one, when he was playing at St Paul's, the vergers, wearied with endeavouring to persuade the people to retire, resorted at length to the more convincing argument of beating them over the head, and at last cleared the Cathedral". The reminiscences of Henry Chorley also contain the description of Mendelssohn's playing in a small church in Ringgenberg, at Lake Brienz in Switzerland, whe-re the composer stayed for a brief period at the end of August 1847. "It seems to me now as if he never could have played more nobly. After one or two movements by Sebastian Bach, he began an improvisation in C minor, which took the canonical form of a prelude and fugue; his fancy kindling as he went on, and his face lit up by that serene and elevated smile, the highest and most beautiful of its many expressions, which all who knew him must remember... l feel, when l think of this organ-playing, as if I had taken leave of the greatest music for ever..." Unfortunately, it was Mendelssohn's last performance.
The organ output of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy is surprisingly modest, considering the fact that the composer did not treat the instrument as peripheral to his musical interests. After all, his organ performances brought him great artistic success. His virtuosity and improvisational facility were admired. It could be that the ease with which he improvised the preludes and fugues (including ones on the immortal theme B-A-C-H), as well as fantasies and variations, did not spur him to jot down his musical ideas. As a result, excluding minor pieces, no more than two cycles of Mendelssohn's organ works are known and performed to-day: Three Preludes and Fugues and Six Sonatas.
The Three Preludes and Fugues, Op 37 (in C minor, G major and D minor) were written in 1836 and 1837. Only the Fugue in D minor dates from 1833. The collection is dedicated to Mendelssohn's long-time friend, Thomas Attwood, organist of St Paul's Cathedral in London. Mendelssohn remained in close contact with the Attwood family for many years.
He stayed with them every time he visited England and could always count on their assistance, warmth and care. When he visited the Attwoods yet again in their home in Norwood in 1832, he was evidently moved and wrote down the following remarks: "Three years have passed over them [Mendelssohn had visited the place in 1829 to recuperate after a minor accident] and their house stands as peacefully as if half the world had not been uprooted during that period... The only difference is that now it is spring, with apple- blossom and the lilacs in flower... But how much is now gone for ever, that we then still had! This gives me much food for thought". It is probably this care-free attitude and the warmth of reminiscences that prompted Mendelssohn to write these three pieces. They lack the Romantic sense of drama or rebellion against cruel fate, as these were alien to the cheerful composer. The preludes contain, however, the characteristic atmosphere of Mendelssohn's music. It is recognizable from the first bars of the composition. It is only the fugues, which strictly follow the polyphonic construction pattern, that are not fully imbued with the characteristic trait of Mendelssohnian Romanticism.
The Six Sonatas Op. 65 are of a different provenance. Written in 1844-1845 and dedicated to Dr F. Schlemmer from Frankfurt-am-Mein, the cycle constitutes a coherent whole which contains a specific intent. The idea was to pay tribute to the memory of J. S. Bach by composing six organ sonatas as a sort of equivalent to the great master's six trio sonatas. Mendelssohn freguently played Bach's organ works in public, sometimes also including his own compositions in the programme. On 6 July 1840, for instance, he gave an organ re-cital at St Thomas's in Leipzig to raise funds for a monument to Bach. The sonatas are not a copy of Bach's ideas: they are born, rather, out of the spirit of Romanticism. Realized with modern means of expression, only in a few fragments do they hark back to old techniques and forms, mainly to polyphonic forms such as the fugue. There is much to indicate that Mendelssohn attached much importance to the sonatas: for one thing, he liked to play them. In the spring of 1845, during his stay in Frankfurt, where he came having left Leipzig and the local Gewandhaus Orchestra, he was visited by the young English musician William Rockstro. Captivated by his charm, Mendelssohn came up with the following suggestion: "l have just finished a couple of sonatas for organ. I'll play them to you if you come to St Catherine's Church at ten tomorrow". The next day Rockstro went there and was strongly impressed by Mendelsson's performance. Traces of Bach's music can be found in many places in Mendelssohn's sonatas. In three of them, he employed chorales which Bach himself used many times in different versions: Was mein Gott will, das g'scheh'allzeit (I), Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir (III) and Vater unser im Himmelreich (VI). Moreover, in the Fifth Sona-ta Mendelssohn created his own version of the popular theme of the chorale Alle Menschen mussen sterben. The sonatas are multi-partite compositions but do not follow any rigid formal pattern. Mendelssohn makes ample use of the most intricate of poly-phonic forms, the fugue, and of imitative techniques. The finest example of variation technique is the last sonata, which is a cycle of variations rounded off by a fugue on the theme of the chorale Vater unser im Himmelreich. Contrary to the listener's expectations, the fugue is not the end of the piece. It is followed by a joyous Finale - Andan-te, whose atmosphere is reminiscent of the composer's Lieder ohne Worte. In almost all the sonatas the slow sections reveal an almost pastoral character. The whole cycle impresses the listener with its richness and diversity of musical ideas. It is reasonable to infer, therefore, that the sonatas chart a new trend and style in organ music, a style which may be far from Bach's concepts but which surely has its roots there. (Tadeusz Maciejewski, translated by Michal Kubicki)

The organ on which this CD of Mendelssohn's music has been recorded has a very interesting history. For many years St Florian's Church, on the right bank of the Vistula River in Warsaw, was an ordinary parish church. Following the introduction of a new administrative division of the Roman Catholic Church and the establishment of the Warsaw-Praga Borough Diocese, the church was elevated to the rank of a Cathedral. The church was built in 1886-1901, according to a design by Jozef Dziekonski. Completed in 1901 and bearing the work number 822, a fairly large organ with two manuals and one pedal board was manufactured in the Czech workshop of the Rieger Brothers. In 1944 the church and its entire contents were destroyed by the Nazis. The post-war reconstruction lasted from 1947 to 1961. For the purposes of the daily liturgy, a small organ from the Schlag & Sohne workshop in Świd-nica (south-western Poland) was installed in the gallery. A new stage in the church's musical history began in 1987 with the installation of an unfinished instrument from the Warsaw Arch-cathedral. Prior to this, its construction with mostly German-made parts had been begun by the Warsaw workshop of Czeslaw Kruszewski, according to an unsuccessful design by the organist Stanislaw Mozdzonek. After the designer's death and the cancellation of the contract with Kruszewski, the efforts to complete the Arch-cathedral project were continued by Jozef Legowski. After a commission of experts ruled that the instrument would not be suitable for use in the Arch-cathedral, the organ was transferred to St Florian's church. With the advantage of hindsight, it seems certain that the instrument was removed from the Arch-cathedral in order to make room for a new, mediocre organ ordered from the then German Democratic Republic.
The unfinished organ faced a turbulent future. It was devasted by the self-styled organist, a certain Andrzej Nagalski, a clerk from the Warsaw Metropolitan Curia. A breakthrough came in 1998, with the announcement that during his planned visit to Poland the following year Pope John Paul II was to tour the Warsaw-Praga Cathedral. It was clear to everyone that the condition of the organ was a disgrace to the dignity of its location. A tender for the completion of the organ was won by Dariusz Zych from Wolomin near Warsaw. As his first step, he designed a new ornamental case for the reconstructed instrument. A new console has been built in the Zych workshop equipped with computer-operated programming of stops and a modern system of electromagnet control. According to Dariusz Zych, an accomplished organ builder, the parts imported from West Germany many years ago were of good quality but due to an improper regulation of pressure in the slide chest the instrument could not be regulated and correctly tuned. Further efforts were, however, confined just to adapting the organ acquired from the Arch-cathedral. New additions included diapason pipes (created by Ryszard Chacinski) and the decorated front pipe in the facade (the German Killinger work-shop). The partly destroyed reeds made by Giesecke of Germany were supplemented with pipes ordered from the Laukhuff workshop. In its present shape, the organ was commissioned in June 1999. Pope John Paul II listened to it during his visit to the church. It is worth noting for future historians that the Bishop Ordinary at that time was Kazimierz Romaniuk, while the Bishop's Vicar was Father Lucjan Świeszkowski. It is to them that we owe a debt of gratitude for the Cathedral's present wonderful appearance and for undertaking the effort of reconstructing the organ, once pronounced unfit and unworthy of such an important place of worship. Dariusz Zych completed his task with a high degree of expertise. However, it is impossible to say that there was one main builder of this instrument, whose construction extended over more than three decades. This is the reason why there is no plaque with the inscription "Zych" attached to the console. Dariusz Zych gives such inscriptions only to those Instruments which are his creations from beginning to end. (Wiktor Z. Lyjak)

Barbara Abramowicz studied at the Vocal Department of the Warsaw Music Academy. She also graduated from Warsaw University's School of Archeology. She perfected her vocal skills with the prominent Polish singer Barbara Nieman.
She is a soloist of the Warsaw Chamber Opera. She has also developed a fine career as a concert singer, appearing in a diverse repertoire comprising works from the Barogue period to the present day. Foreign tours have taken her to the Philippines and - with the Chamber Opera Company - to France, Toronto and Bejrut. She has made recordings for Sony Music Polska and DUX labels. Her discography also includes a CD with pieces for voice and harp entitled "Bird of Paradise". She has appeared on numerous TV programmes, including 'Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy in the Warsaw Pro-Cathedral' (TV Polonia, with organist Wiktor Lyjak), "Lucjan Kydrynski's music show" (Polish TV 1), and operetta hits (TV Polonia).

Wiktor Lyjak was born in Skierniewice near Warsaw in 1954. He studied the organ with Professor Joachim Grubich at the Warsaw Music Academy. He has developed a fine career, with regular performances in Poland (including the prestigious organ festivals in Frombork, Kamien Pomorski, Koszalin and Oliwa) and abroad. Foreign tours have taken him to Austria, Belgium, Belarus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Norway, Germany, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine and Italy. He has made recordings of music by Brahms, A. Freyer and Polish composers (early 16th -18th century) for Polish Radio. His recordings have been released on CD in Britain, Belgium and Poland. One of his CDs, featuring the greatest organ works and transcriptions by J. S. Bach, has received the Golden Disc trophy, Wiktor Lyjak being the only organist to win such an accolade. As a joint venture with Polish TV, he produces Ars Organi, a series of programmes about Poland's historie organs. He is the author of an entry about Polish organs in the latest edition of the German music encyclopedia "Die Musik in Ge-schichte und Gegenwart". He is very active in restoring historie instruments and in the construction of new ones. His repertoire includes the complete organ works of J. S. Bach, J. Brahms, C. Franck, F. Mendelssohn and W. A. Mozart, as well as all the organ concertos of G. F. Handel. He was the organizer of summer organ seasons in Warsaw's Holy Cross Church, where he worked as organist in 1979-83. Currently he holds the position of principal organist in the pro-Cathedral (Seminary Church) in Warsaw. He is also a lecturer at the Christian Theological Academy and runs an organ class in one of the city's music schools. He is the official organ expert of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, the Society of the Conservators of Historical Monuments and the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation.

Это сообщение отредактировал(а) SurowyTato - 10-08-2007, 19:02

Review:
The musical legacy of the most prominent German Romantic composer, Felix Jakob Ludwig Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847), is seen today through the prism of only a handful of pieces. Popular memory is confined to the incidental music to Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Nighfs Dream" with its immortal "Wedding March", the overture "The Hebrides", the Violin Concerto in E minor, the Symphony in A minor (Scottish), the Symphony in A major (Italian), "Lieder ohne Worte" for piano, the String Octet in E flat major and perhaps a few more. Mendelssohn's oratorios, such as "Paulus", "Elijah" and the unfinished "Christus", have fallen into oblivion, at least in Poland. Of his songs, the once popular "Auf Flugeln des Gesanges", can now be heard only sporadically. The composer's stage works, to which he did not attach much importance, have more or less been forgotten. Instead, Mendelssohn's achievements in reviving and promoting the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, notably his "St Matthew Passion", are universally acknowledged. Mendelssohn's interest in Bach was not a matter of coincidence. From his early childhood he knew and loved Bach's music, particularly his instrumental pieces, which in his time, according to Mendelssohn's friend, Edward Devrient, "were performed as curiosities and received as antiquarian pieces". Incidentally, Bach was commonly regarded at that time as "an obscure musical arithmetician, with an incredible facility for writing fugues" (Carl Friedrich Zelter), and someone who was "no better than an old-fashioned wig, stuffed with wisdoms" (Antonin Reicha). Ali this did not prevent Mendelssohn from remaining, throughout his short life, under the overwhelming spell of Bach's music. Many of his pieces testify to his admiration or even worship of Bach. Mendels-sohn's organ compositions are surely a tribute to the genius of Bach.
Even though, as with other Romantic composers, the piano was the fundamental instrument for Mendelssohn, both as composer and virtuoso, the organ was a no less important vehicle of artistic utterance. According to the accounts of his contemporaries, Mendels-sohn was an excellent organist, with great improvisatory skills. Wherever his frequent journeys took him, be it Wroclaw (where he admired the instrument in St Elizabeth Church), Frankfurt, Leipzig (with the great Bach organ at St Thomas's), Berlin, Italy, Switzerland or England, he never missed an opportunity to play on the instruments he encountered there. During the visit to London in 1832 he took delight in playing the organ at St Paul's Cathedral, evoking genuine enthusiasm among chance listeners of that unscheduled recital. He was said to create miracles at the instruments, except for one - driving the faithful out of the church. "The mo-re he attempted it, the less they were inclined to go, the more gracefully insinuating his musi-cal hints, the more delighfully patient they became to remain. It is said that one, when he was playing at St Paul's, the vergers, wearied with endeavouring to persuade the people to retire, resorted at length to the more convincing argument of beating them over the head, and at last cleared the Cathedral". The reminiscences of Henry Chorley also contain the description of Mendelssohn's playing in a small church in Ringgenberg, at Lake Brienz in Switzerland, whe-re the composer stayed for a brief period at the end of August 1847. "It seems to me now as if he never could have played more nobly. After one or two movements by Sebastian Bach, he began an improvisation in C minor, which took the canonical form of a prelude and fugue; his fancy kindling as he went on, and his face lit up by that serene and elevated smile, the highest and most beautiful of its many expressions, which all who knew him must remember... l feel, when l think of this organ-playing, as if I had taken leave of the greatest music for ever..." Unfortunately, it was Mendelssohn's last performance.
The organ output of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy is surprisingly modest, considering the fact that the composer did not treat the instrument as peripheral to his musical interests. After all, his organ performances brought him great artistic success. His virtuosity and improvisational facility were admired. It could be that the ease with which he improvised the preludes and fugues (including ones on the immortal theme B-A-C-H), as well as fantasies and variations, did not spur him to jot down his musical ideas. As a result, excluding minor pieces, no more than two cycles of Mendelssohn's organ works are known and performed to-day: Three Preludes and Fugues and Six Sonatas.
The Three Preludes and Fugues, Op 37 (in C minor, G major and D minor) were written in 1836 and 1837. Only the Fugue in D minor dates from 1833. The collection is dedicated to Mendelssohn's long-time friend, Thomas Attwood, organist of St Paul's Cathedral in London. Mendelssohn remained in close contact with the Attwood family for many years.
He stayed with them every time he visited England and could always count on their assistance, warmth and care. When he visited the Attwoods yet again in their home in Norwood in 1832, he was evidently moved and wrote down the following remarks: "Three years have passed over them [Mendelssohn had visited the place in 1829 to recuperate after a minor accident] and their house stands as peacefully as if half the world had not been uprooted during that period... The only difference is that now it is spring, with apple- blossom and the lilacs in flower... But how much is now gone for ever, that we then still had! This gives me much food for thought". It is probably this care-free attitude and the warmth of reminiscences that prompted Mendelssohn to write these three pieces. They lack the Romantic sense of drama or rebellion against cruel fate, as these were alien to the cheerful composer. The preludes contain, however, the characteristic atmosphere of Mendelssohn's music. It is recognizable from the first bars of the composition. It is only the fugues, which strictly follow the polyphonic construction pattern, that are not fully imbued with the characteristic trait of Mendelssohnian Romanticism.
The Six Sonatas Op. 65 are of a different provenance. Written in 1844-1845 and dedicated to Dr F. Schlemmer from Frankfurt-am-Mein, the cycle constitutes a coherent whole which contains a specific intent. The idea was to pay tribute to the memory of J. S. Bach by composing six organ sonatas as a sort of equivalent to the great master's six trio sonatas. Mendelssohn freguently played Bach's organ works in public, sometimes also including his own compositions in the programme. On 6 July 1840, for instance, he gave an organ re-cital at St Thomas's in Leipzig to raise funds for a monument to Bach. The sonatas are not a copy of Bach's ideas: they are born, rather, out of the spirit of Romanticism. Realized with modern means of expression, only in a few fragments do they hark back to old techniques and forms, mainly to polyphonic forms such as the fugue. There is much to indicate that Mendelssohn attached much importance to the sonatas: for one thing, he liked to play them. In the spring of 1845, during his stay in Frankfurt, where he came having left Leipzig and the local Gewandhaus Orchestra, he was visited by the young English musician William Rockstro. Captivated by his charm, Mendelssohn came up with the following suggestion: "l have just finished a couple of sonatas for organ. I'll play them to you if you come to St Catherine's Church at ten tomorrow". The next day Rockstro went there and was strongly impressed by Mendelsson's performance. Traces of Bach's music can be found in many places in Mendelssohn's sonatas. In three of them, he employed chorales which Bach himself used many times in different versions: Was mein Gott will, das g'scheh'allzeit (I), Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir (III) and Vater unser im Himmelreich (VI). Moreover, in the Fifth Sona-ta Mendelssohn created his own version of the popular theme of the chorale Alle Menschen mussen sterben. The sonatas are multi-partite compositions but do not follow any rigid formal pattern. Mendelssohn makes ample use of the most intricate of poly-phonic forms, the fugue, and of imitative techniques. The finest example of variation technique is the last sonata, which is a cycle of variations rounded off by a fugue on the theme of the chorale Vater unser im Himmelreich. Contrary to the listener's expectations, the fugue is not the end of the piece. It is followed by a joyous Finale - Andan-te, whose atmosphere is reminiscent of the composer's Lieder ohne Worte. In almost all the sonatas the slow sections reveal an almost pastoral character. The whole cycle impresses the listener with its richness and diversity of musical ideas. It is reasonable to infer, therefore, that the sonatas chart a new trend and style in organ music, a style which may be far from Bach's concepts but which surely has its roots there. (Tadeusz Maciejewski, translated by Michal Kubicki)

The organ on which this CD of Mendelssohn's music has been recorded has a very interesting history. For many years St Florian's Church, on the right bank of the Vistula River in Warsaw, was an ordinary parish church. Following the introduction of a new administrative division of the Roman Catholic Church and the establishment of the Warsaw-Praga Borough Diocese, the church was elevated to the rank of a Cathedral. The church was built in 1886-1901, according to a design by Jozef Dziekonski. Completed in 1901 and bearing the work number 822, a fairly large organ with two manuals and one pedal board was manufactured in the Czech workshop of the Rieger Brothers. In 1944 the church and its entire contents were destroyed by the Nazis. The post-war reconstruction lasted from 1947 to 1961. For the purposes of the daily liturgy, a small organ from the Schlag & Sohne workshop in Świd-nica (south-western Poland) was installed in the gallery. A new stage in the church's musical history began in 1987 with the installation of an unfinished instrument from the Warsaw Arch-cathedral. Prior to this, its construction with mostly German-made parts had been begun by the Warsaw workshop of Czeslaw Kruszewski, according to an unsuccessful design by the organist Stanislaw Mozdzonek. After the designer's death and the cancellation of the contract with Kruszewski, the efforts to complete the Arch-cathedral project were continued by Jozef Legowski. After a commission of experts ruled that the instrument would not be suitable for use in the Arch-cathedral, the organ was transferred to St Florian's church. With the advantage of hindsight, it seems certain that the instrument was removed from the Arch-cathedral in order to make room for a new, mediocre organ ordered from the then German Democratic Republic.
The unfinished organ faced a turbulent future. It was devasted by the self-styled organist, a certain Andrzej Nagalski, a clerk from the Warsaw Metropolitan Curia. A breakthrough came in 1998, with the announcement that during his planned visit to Poland the following year Pope John Paul II was to tour the Warsaw-Praga Cathedral. It was clear to everyone that the condition of the organ was a disgrace to the dignity of its location. A tender for the completion of the organ was won by Dariusz Zych from Wolomin near Warsaw. As his first step, he designed a new ornamental case for the reconstructed instrument. A new console has been built in the Zych workshop equipped with computer-operated programming of stops and a modern system of electromagnet control. According to Dariusz Zych, an accomplished organ builder, the parts imported from West Germany many years ago were of good quality but due to an improper regulation of pressure in the slide chest the instrument could not be regulated and correctly tuned. Further efforts were, however, confined just to adapting the organ acquired from the Arch-cathedral. New additions included diapason pipes (created by Ryszard Chacinski) and the decorated front pipe in the facade (the German Killinger work-shop). The partly destroyed reeds made by Giesecke of Germany were supplemented with pipes ordered from the Laukhuff workshop. In its present shape, the organ was commissioned in June 1999. Pope John Paul II listened to it during his visit to the church. It is worth noting for future historians that the Bishop Ordinary at that time was Kazimierz Romaniuk, while the Bishop's Vicar was Father Lucjan Świeszkowski. It is to them that we owe a debt of gratitude for the Cathedral's present wonderful appearance and for undertaking the effort of reconstructing the organ, once pronounced unfit and unworthy of such an important place of worship. Dariusz Zych completed his task with a high degree of expertise. However, it is impossible to say that there was one main builder of this instrument, whose construction extended over more than three decades. This is the reason why there is no plaque with the inscription "Zych" attached to the console. Dariusz Zych gives such inscriptions only to those Instruments which are his creations from beginning to end. (Wiktor Z. Lyjak)

Barbara Abramowicz studied at the Vocal Department of the Warsaw Music Academy. She also graduated from Warsaw University's School of Archeology. She perfected her vocal skills with the prominent Polish singer Barbara Nieman.
She is a soloist of the Warsaw Chamber Opera. She has also developed a fine career as a concert singer, appearing in a diverse repertoire comprising works from the Barogue period to the present day. Foreign tours have taken her to the Philippines and - with the Chamber Opera Company - to France, Toronto and Bejrut. She has made recordings for Sony Music Polska and DUX labels. Her discography also includes a CD with pieces for voice and harp entitled "Bird of Paradise". She has appeared on numerous TV programmes, including 'Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy in the Warsaw Pro-Cathedral' (TV Polonia, with organist Wiktor Lyjak), "Lucjan Kydrynski's music show" (Polish TV 1), and operetta hits (TV Polonia).

Wiktor Lyjak was born in Skierniewice near Warsaw in 1954. He studied the organ with Professor Joachim Grubich at the Warsaw Music Academy. He has developed a fine career, with regular performances in Poland (including the prestigious organ festivals in Frombork, Kamien Pomorski, Koszalin and Oliwa) and abroad. Foreign tours have taken him to Austria, Belgium, Belarus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Norway, Germany, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine and Italy. He has made recordings of music by Brahms, A. Freyer and Polish composers (early 16th -18th century) for Polish Radio. His recordings have been released on CD in Britain, Belgium and Poland. One of his CDs, featuring the greatest organ works and transcriptions by J. S. Bach, has received the Golden Disc trophy, Wiktor Lyjak being the only organist to win such an accolade. As a joint venture with Polish TV, he produces Ars Organi, a series of programmes about Poland's historie organs. He is the author of an entry about Polish organs in the latest edition of the German music encyclopedia "Die Musik in Ge-schichte und Gegenwart". He is very active in restoring historie instruments and in the construction of new ones. His repertoire includes the complete organ works of J. S. Bach, J. Brahms, C. Franck, F. Mendelssohn and W. A. Mozart, as well as all the organ concertos of G. F. Handel. He was the organizer of summer organ seasons in Warsaw's Holy Cross Church, where he worked as organist in 1979-83. Currently he holds the position of principal organist in the pro-Cathedral (Seminary Church) in Warsaw. He is also a lecturer at the Christian Theological Academy and runs an organ class in one of the city's music schools. He is the official organ expert of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, the Society of the Conservators of Historical Monuments and the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation.

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Вот-же... "человек рассеянный с улицы бассейной" (жаль матом нельзя...) и это прозевал,и статья такая интересная,я и не знал что
Мендельсон так на органе кантует,и про приключения органа польского,правда длинная,еле осилил...