Enormous sounds of organ

Particularly happy are the moments when a musical work keeps up with its interpretation. Such a symbiosis could be enjoyed on Wednesday at the sixth concert of the series « Sommerorgelkonzerte » at Pauluskirche in Darmstadt. The Italian organist Giorgio Parolini (born in 1971) has spread like luxuriantly bloomed mediterranean landscapes the « Thème et Variations » Op.115 by his countryman Marco Enrico Bossi, born in 1861 on the Lake of Garda. Parolini layed an arch on around 400 years of organ music. He played Buxtehude’s Ciaccona in e minor with great precision, with the theme in the bass clearly standing out, and the fluid figurations with registrations rich in contrast. After a severe beginning the piece revealed itself with chromatic lines suddenly coming out, a typical characteristic of the progressive compositional style of Bach’s master. We heard Bach’s idyllic Chorale – Prelude « An Wasserflussen Babylon » (BWV 653b) and the Prelude and Fugue in E Flat Major (BWV 552). Parolini presented both pieces as a majestic colossus, he emphasized the huge harmonic tension of the dissonances. The sounds-falls ran at breakneck speed and now and then they poured with great vehemence. Moreover, in harmony with the optimistic and engaging tenor, suited Alexandre Pierre François Boëly’s « Fantasie et Fugue », of great sensation and plainly impressive. In this piece Parolini suggested an orchestral fullness and he enhanced clearly the theme B-A-C-H, which pays homage to the Thomaskantor. As moments of rest, the concert, rich in tension, concludes in some pieces of the Romantic period by Schumann, Brahms and César Franck – all amiable and with coloured registrations.
Albrecht Schmidt

From « Darmstaedter Echo », August the 9th, 2002