The genius trumpeter Reinhold Friedrich has been considered one of the world’s top instrumentalists since the 1980s and his success at the renowned ARD International Music Competition in Munich. At the NFM, we will also hear Sebastian Küchler-Blessing, organist of Essen Cathedral. In 2023, both artists released a joint album, Oh Mensch! Gib Acht!, on which they combine works referring to the crimes of the Third Reich with pieces from the Romantic era. The Wrocław concert will feature compositions recorded on this album, along with excerpts from the legacy of Johann Sebastian Bach and Johann Ulrich Steigleder, a key figure in German organ music of the early 17th century. The concert will conclude with a performance of George Gershwin’s masterpiece, which the composer himself called “America’s musical kaleidoscope”.

The concert will begin with a piece by Steigleder – the last of his forty variations on Vater unser  included in the Tabulatur Buch published in Strasbourg in 1627. This miniature, in toccata form, is one of the artist’s most distinguished achievements. Reinhold Friedrich will greet the audience with a solo performance of Kol Nidrei by Max Bruch, a German composer associated for a time with Wrocław. In this composition, the soloist, playing the cello in the original version, imitates the singing of a Jewish cantor on the eve of Yom Kippur. Immediately afterwards, we will hear Johann Sebastian Bach's Fugue in D minor BWV 539/2. It is based on the second movement of the Sonata in G minor for violin BWV 1001. Nineteenth-century music will return in in an arrangement of the mysterious fourth movement of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 3. The Leipzig cantor’s work will be heard again in a transcription of Bach’s radiant Sinfonia from Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir BWV 29, written for organ by French composer and organist Marcel Dupré. This will be followed by the latest work on the program, …ad memoriam…, composed by Hungary’s Zsigmond Szathmáry specially for Reinhold Friedrich and Sebastian Küchler-Blessing.

The concert will conclude with A Rhapsody in Blue – a brilliant translation of the jazz idiom into symphonic language. Beginning with a legendary clarinet glissando, George Gershwin’s energetic work was inspired not only by the music of the American South but also by the sounds of the train that carried the composer to Boston. Written by the then young Gershwin, this composition brought him enormous fame. It would be difficult to imagine the musical culture of the United States today without the Rhapsody. During this concert, we will hear it in an intriguing version for organ and trumpet. The evening will also feature organ improvisations.