Organist Mossakowski makes a mighty sound in New York debut
There are few visceral musical delights greater than an organ recital with its extraordinary display of colors and dynamics. Karol Mossakowski’s New York debut on Tuesday evening at The Brick Presbyterian Church on Manhattan’s Upper East Side provided brilliant displays of both, as well as displaying his extraordinary creativity and imagination.
The 34-year-old Mossakowski is the newly appointed titular organist of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. Born in a small town in Northern Poland on the Baltic Sea, Mossakowski had his first lessons on the piano and organ from his father at the age of three. At the age of 20, he moved to Paris to study at the Paris Conservatory. (Chopin, one of his musical heroes, moved from Poland to Paris at the same age.)
Brick Church is home to a Casavant Frères instrument of four manuals and 118 ranks with 6,288 pipes. Dedicated in 2005, the organ was designed to reproduce the sounds of 19th-century French organs, especially those of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. Unlike the great Parisian churches, Brick Church offers a more intimate atmosphere where colors, articulation, and textures emerge clear and distinct.
The first three works on the program were by titans of the Late Romantic French organ school, beginning with the Allegro from Charles-Marie Widor’s Sixth Organ Symphony. A close friend of Cavaillé-Coll, Widor was organist at Saint-Sulpice for 64 years from 1870 to 1934. He was one of the first composers to apply the name “symphony” to organ compositions in works that exploited the full range of timbres, dynamics, and technical capabilities in Cavaillé-Coll’s new generation of organs.
Widor’s Sixth Organ Symphony was inspired by a Cavaillé-Coll organ, but not a church instrument. It was composed to be played in the inaugural concerts of the Trocadéro, a venue constructed for the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1878. Mossakowski imbued a stateliness to the work, especially in the forthright march that predominates the movement. Some particularly impressive footwork on the pedals preceded the crashing finale.
For a complete contrast, Mossakowski played Louis Vierne’s “Claire de Lune’. Vierne was Widor’s assistant at Saint-Sulpice before becoming Notre Dame in Paris, a position he held Notre-Dame de Paris from 1900 until his death in 1937. In this far simpler piece, Mossakowski caught the myriad aspects of the ever-changing moon in his playing of the evocative melody in a solo flute stop above long sustained notes in the pedal.
Drama again prevailed in Mossakowski’s rendition of Maurice Duruflé’s Prélude et fugue sur le nom d’Alain. Duruflé composed it in 1942 as a tribute to the organist and composer Jehan Alain, who was killed in the early days of World War II at the age of 29. Mossakowski’s technical prowess made short work of the formidable rhythmic challenges of the complex double fugue which is at the core of the work. In true grand French style, the work ended in a blaze of glory at full volume.
The first of the organ transcriptions of piano works was of Mendelssohn’s Variations sérieuses. Its theme and 17 variations proved to be a playground for Mossakowski’s imagination to take flight. The brilliant array of colors and dynamics possible in the Brick Church organ were his to exploit and he did so with taste, as well as imagination.
Even though it is hard to separate the music of Chopin from the piano, the composer himself asked that Prelude in E Minor, Op. 28, No. 4 be played at his funeral. Liszt obliged, playing it as his friend’s funeral at Le Madeleine in Paris in 1849. Mossakowski created an overwhelming mood of sadness through sound alone in Liszt’s transcription of the piece. The simplicity of his registrations and subtle shifts in dynamics expressed sorrow as effectively as the human voice.
Mossakowski’s own transcription of Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No. 1 was not only a virtuosic tour de force, but also a dazzling display of color and drama. The showman was front and center when Mossakowski slid his fingers the entire length of one of the organ’s keyboards and in his rapid-fire articulation. His ability to paint mood through musical color alone again illuminated the more subtle aspects of this organist’s arsenal of pipes.
Improvisation is part and parcel of an organist’s tool box. In a recital, an organist is generally presented with a theme upon which to improvise. In this case, Dr. Raymond Nagem, the church’s organist and minister of music supplied him with two: something from the church—the hymn tune “Holy God We Praise Thy Name”—and something particular to New York City the Mister Smoothie Jingle. The latter tune is heard playing from ice cream trucks everywhere in the city during the summer.
Mossakowski’s creative streak was on full display as he transformed both tunes through the tricks of an organist’s trade. Each tune would emerged dancelike with a light and lilting grace, or pompous and grandiose. And when the spirit moved him, Mossakowski wasn’t above laying on the schmaltz.
Wishing to close on music appropriate to the time of day, Mossakowski played one encore, a transcription of Brahms’s “Lullaby.” His reimagining of the familiar tune was a bit bluesy, with the melodies played in the highest notes attainable on the organ. It was as intriguing, as it was soothing.
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