Franck. Łuciuk. Markull. Chopin. Widor

It was only in 1890 that French composer César Franck (1822–1890) turned to the genre of the chorale following a twelve-year-long interval in his artistic career. The three chorales are justifiably known as the composer’s spiritual legacy. Having completed the First Chorale in E Major on 7 May 1890, over the course of the summer he completed his Chorales in B Minor (No 2) and A Minor (No 3), thus summing up the results of his life in music. The character of each chorale displays a link with the symbolism of the Holy Trinity. The first is associated with the image of God the Father. Its character is personified by epic narrative. The second chorale focuses the audience on Christ’s suffering, as indicated by its tonal semantics. This chorale is based on the passacaglia, the genre of a funeral procession. The third chorale embodies the image of the Holy Spirit. This is facilitated by the style of the outer sections of the work, which create a sensation of impetuous flight.

Of all contemporary Polish composers and musicologists, Julius Łuciuk (1927) in particular stands out, his music combining various musical genres and techniques to transform them. Having completed his musical education in Paris, the composer brilliantly combines classical and contemporary aspects of composition, making active use of avant-garde techniques and effects. The composer writes a great many works for children and young people. Religious themes dominate in Julius Łuciuk’s later works. One typical example is the oratorio St Francis of Assisi. The Preludia Maryjne are a cycle of ten preludes to a theme from a well-known Catholic hymn, and they also contain vividly expressed features of contemporary composition; in 1982 the cycle was awarded second prize at the Gamberoni Lago Maggiore competition (Italy).

Organist, Pianist and composer Friedrich Wilhelm Markull (1815–1887) was born in Reichenbach, a small Prussian town in the province of Silesia. He was initially a pupil of his own father, the organist Karl Kloss, and he also studied composition under Friedrich Schneider in Dessau. Markull went on to win admiration not just as a composer and pianist, but also as a music critic whose articles were published in the German newspaper Danziger. Markull was one of those people whose art developed in a close circle of musicians. It was probably because of this that it did not have a tremendous resonance at the time. He wrote almost fifty works. They cover various genres and include three operas, two oratorios, a requiem, a psalm, several symphonies, numerous songs and pieces for piano and several works for organ, among them the Book of Chorales and a Sonata, Opus 56.

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) was one of the first to revive the genre of the prelude on a Romantic theme, freeing it from its initial purpose as an introductory piece. His preludes were independent, artistically complete works in their own right. Chopin’s series of preludes is a brilliant example of musical lyricism where all of the emotional riches of the composer’s music are on display – from intimate, lyrical moods to the furious drama of Prelude in C Minor No 20. The unique nature of Chopin’s miniatures is linked with the fact that in each prelude the listener may find signs of earlier genres: the playful and gracious mazurka (Prelude in A Major No 7), the vocal arioso song without words (No 17), the lyrically imbued nocturne (No 15) and the lofty chorale embodied in the sounds of the organ (the final Prelude in C Minor No 20). The integrity of the series was preconditioned by Chopin’s idea, which probably emerged following the November Uprising in Poland. This is where the composer’s heavy thoughts come from, the melancholic moods that weave their way across so many pages of Chopin’s preludes.

The name of Frenchman Charles-Marie Widor (1844–1937) is one of the most respected in the history of world organ music. Widor toured extensively throughout his entire life – to France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Russia. He had particularly close links with Russia. On his advice, Vasily Ilyich Safonov turned to Aristide Cavaillé-Coll’s company and commissioned an organ for the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire. The Romantic organs crafted by Cavaillé-Coll’s combine features of organs from the 18th century and new “romantic” timbres that held orchestral expressiveness. It was for this kind of instrument that Charles-Marie Widor composed his organ works. The symphony genre occupies a special place among them. For thirty years (1872–1901) Widor wrote ten works in this genre. Interestingly, the First to Eighth Symphonies have no programme sub-headings, while the Ninth and Tenth stand out because of the composer’s indication of programmes: the Ninth is entitled Gothique and the Tenth Romane.
Charles-Marie Widor wrote his symphonies first and foremost for his own concert performances. As a major virtuoso performer, he strove to shoe his impeccable mastery of all the subtleties of his profession, intensifying his symphonies with unprecedented technical complexities. In general, this trend was typical for French composing practice of the time. Typical features of the organ symphony genre are embodied in the Fourth Symphony (1872). Its sound may be compared with an ornamental picturesque mosaic that illuminates Paris’ cathedrals with a kaleidoscope of different tones.

Anna Kolenkova