We may rarely remember it now, but until the end of World War II, one of the most active centres of organ music in Europe was Gdańsk. Andrzej Szadejko, an organist born there, has built his career around preserving this element of the cultural heritage of the capital of Pomerania. This excellent musician, professor of the Academy of Music in Gdańsk, has presided over the reconstruction of several historic organs – and not only in this city. The programme of his recital will therefore include Gdańsk themes alongside more broadly Baltic ones, and there will also be works evoking the spirit of Johann Sebastian Bach himself.

Among the achievements left behind by the Baroque master, we will hear a work created during his second stay in Weimar. Fantasia in C minor, BWV 537/I, in a melancholic, even elegiac mood, is based on two fundamental musical motifs. Its expressive qualities were appreciated by Edward Elgar, who orchestrated the piece in the 1920s. One of Bach’s students, although only for a short time, may have been Johann Gottfried Müthel, the creator of the next composition. In the spring of 1750, he left the court of Christian Ludwig II, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and went to Leipzig to study with the famous cantor of the church of St. Thomas. However, Bach, who was ill at that time, died in July and it is not known whether he ever managed to convey anything to Müthel. Later, the ambitious artist’s teachers included Hasse, Telemann and Johann Sebastian’s son – Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Eventually, Müthel settled in Riga, by the Baltic Sea, where he found employment as a kapellmeister and organist. The repertoire of the first part of the concert will be complemented by the work of the Gdańsk composer Andreas Schade, as well as Andrzej Szadejko’s own compositions.

The second part of the concert will be devoted to organ art in its romantic version. First, we will hear the three-movement Sonata in B flat minor by Aleksander Karczyński. The composer, born in Pelplin in Pomerania, spent almost his entire life in the United States before returning to his hometown in his old age. His most famous work – the Sonata – is sometimes compared to the works of Guilmant or Nowowiejski. At the end of the evening, Johann Sebastian Bach will return once again, to frame the event. This time, however, it will not happen thanks to the work of the Baroque master himself, but thanks to Ferenc Liszt, who paid him tribute by composing Fantasy and Fugue based on a musical motif constructed from sounds corresponding to the letters of the artist’s surname: B-A-C-H.