Feliks Nowowiejski - Complete Organ Symphonies (Rudolf Innig)

Information

Composer: Feliks Nowowiejski

CD1

• Organ Symphony in A minor, Op. 45 No. 1
• Organ Symphony in G minor, Op. 45 No. 2
• Organ Symphony in A minor 'Lourdes', Op. 45 No. 3

CD2

• Organ Symphony in D minor, Op. 45 No. 4
• Organ Symphony in E minor, Op. 45 No. 5
• Organ Symphony in A minor, Op. 45 No. 6

CD3

• Organ Symphony in A major 'Disputa', Op. 45 No. 7
• Organ Symphony in C major 'Mors mea - Funiralia mea', Op. 45 No. 8
• Organ Symphony in F minor, Op. 45 No. 9

Rudolf Innig, organ

Date: 1998

Label: Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm

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Description

A German organist undertakes an extensive recording of music by a Polish composer who is practically unknown in Germany. This is the sort of venture that may require a few explanatory words by way o justification and with respect to intention. I have become acquainted with the Polish “organ landscape” as the result of a number of concert tours since 1988. The tours were in the Masuria region of Poland, in a number of large cities such as Warsaw, Cracow and Wroclaw and in Southern Poland, the former Silesia…

The true significance of Nowowiejski’s organ works can only be assessed if they go on to play a role in the international music world. The new edition and this first complete recording of his organ symphonies represent only the beginning of a process that we hope will include the broader dissemination of his works. In this connection we have to issue an urgent warning about uncritical use of the new edition. The nine volumes with the Organ Symphonies op. 45 contain such an extraordinary number of errors that they could be rendered usable only after a thorough correction on the basis of the autograph as made available to me by the National Library in Warsaw. Basically, the edition is in need of thorough revision from a historical-critical standpoint.

— Rudolf Innig

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Feliks Nowowiejski (7 February 1877 – 18 January 1946) was a Polish composer. Born in Barczewo, Warmia, he studied music at Święta Lipka and in Berlin before becoming artistic director of the Kraków Music Society from 1909 to 1914. In 1919, he settled permanently in Poznań, where he taught at the conservatory, directed choirs, conducted concerts and promoted musical culture. His extensive output encompassed oratorios, symphonies, symphonic poems, concertos, chamber and choral works, songs, ballets and opera. During the Nazi occupation, he hid in Kraków before returning to Poznań, where he died in 1946.

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Rudolf Innig (born 7 June 1947) is a German organist. He studied organ, piano, church music, music education and musicology in Detmold, Cologne and Paris, working with renowned teachers including Gaston Litaize and Michael Schneider. Innig has received several competition prizes and awards for CDs featuring complete organ works by composers such as Brahms, Mendelssohn, Messiaen and Rheinberger. He has performed widely in major European and American venues. Since 2012, he has lived in Bielefeld as a concert organist. His research on Anton Bruckner led to organ transcriptions and a 2022 doctoral dissertation.

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