Francis Poulenc, Joseph Jongen
The album was recorded by Karol Mossakowski (winner of an International Classical Music Award 2023), playing the organ at the NFM Main Hall and The NFM Wrocław Philharmonic conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero. The album includes the most recognizable organ works: Concerto in G minor by Francis Poulenc and Symphonie concertante by Joseph Jongen.
This is the first album entirely devoted to music for organ and orchestra, recorded on the instrument built by Orgelbau Klais Bonn and located in the NFM Main Hall.
Francis Poulenc, Joseph Jongen
The album was recorded by Karol Mossakowski (winner of an International Classical Music Award 2023), playing the organ at the NFM Main Hall and The NFM Wrocław Philharmonic conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero. The album includes the most recognizable organ works: Concerto in G minor by Francis Poulenc and Symphonie concertante by Joseph Jongen.
This is the first album entirely devoted to music for organ and orchestra, recorded on the instrument built by Orgelbau Klais Bonn and located in the NFM Main Hall.
Date of release: April 21, 2023
Publishers: National Forum of Music, CD Accord
Conductor: Giancarlo Guerrero
Performers:
Karol Mossakowski – organ, NFM Wrocław Philharmonic
Francis Poulenc, an accomplished pianist but little known in organ circles, published two works for organ: Litanies à la Vierge noire FP 82 (1936), in which the organ accompanies a women’s choir, and the Concerto in G minor FP 93 (1935–1938), with string orchestra and timpani. The latter is probably his most frequently performed and recorded concertante work, along with Concerto in D minor FP 61 (1932), for two pianos and orchestra, and Concert champêtre FP 49 (1927–1928), for harpsichord and orchestra. Besides Joseph Jongen’s Symphonie concertante for grand organ and orchestra, op. 81 (1926), it is the most popular 20th-century concerto among organists and audiences alike.
To the above-mentioned printed compositions by Poulenc should be added a short work for solo organ La Duchesse à l’orgue and the small Magnificat for female voices, organ and orchestra composed for the film La Duchesse de Langeais (1941–1942) directed by Jacques de Baroncelli. These works remain unpublished (FP 116).
Whereas Jongen’s Sinfonie concertante was conceived as a work for grand organ and large orchestra, Poulenc’s Concerto is for strings (timpani are used only sparingly throughout). It was commissioned by Princess Edmond de Polignac for her small private instrument and dedicated to her “with the highest regard”.
Renaud Machart
