NEW ARTICLE: Szostak, M. (2024) ‘Organ landscapes in Kazakhstan’, The Organ, 407 (Feb-April 2024)

Dodano 1.2.2024

Szostak, M. (2024) ‘Organ landscapes in Kazakhstan’, The Organ, 407(Feb-April 2024), pp. 32–50.

Abstract:
In August 2023, at the invitation of the Catholic bishop of Karaganda, Msgr. Adelio Dell’Oro, I visited Kazakhstan in central Asia to perform three recitals in the Karaganda region. Kazakhstan is not a place where organs are popular; I would rather even say that the majority of Kazakh society barely associates the word “organ” with a musical instrument. However, all venues (Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Fatima in Karaganda, Birth of Our Lady Church in Szachtinsk, and the church of Our Lady Mother of the Church in Karaganda- Fedorovka) were fully taken during all recitals, and the reception of organ music was enthusiastically warm. This article aims 1) to analyse the socio-cultural background of organ music in Kazakhstan, 2) to introduce very limited number of pipe organs located in this geographically enormous country, and 3) to shortly describe the history of organ-building companies (Alexander Schuke Orgelbau from Potsdam in Germany, Rieger-Kloss from Krnov in Czechoslovakia that bankrupted in 2018, Hugo Meyer Orgelbau from Heusweiler in Germany, and Pflüger Orgelbau from Feldkirch in Austrian, that finished its existence in 2015).