Organ Duo at Riga Cathedral

2015

06.01.2017

LMIC 047

"What does it mean to us to play in duet? It means four hands and four legs finding the right place on the four keyboards of the Riga Cathedral organ. It means two individuals meeting in music with their own peculiar experience in solo performance and two ways of grasping the feminine and masculine worldviews. It means the organ as an orchestra that can be played and is playing itself, adorns everything and is an adornment itself, it calls and bands together, it dreams and makes everything real. This is what a musician can do – and even more because there are two of us.

The album “Organ Duo at Riga Cathedral” represents classical music of the 19th and 20th centuries along with the newest Latvian organ music for organ duo, including pieces dedicated to the organists Ilze un Aigars Reinis. There is also the romantic orchestra music arrangement for the organ, thus revealing the power and extraordinary richness of sound the Riga Cathedral organ presents."

Ilze and Aigars Reiņi.

This album has been recorded in Riga Cathedral. The Riga Cathedral organ is one of the most valuable organs in the world built in the Romantic era. It was built by E.F. Walcker& Co in 1883/1884. There are 124 registers, 4 manuals, a pedal and 6718 pipes of various sizes placed on 26 wind-boxes. The sound of the instrument has inspired both composers and audiences over the centuries, therefore the new musical compositions included in the CD have been created to reveal the properties of the instrument and its unique sound - the richness of stops, specific acoustics, and the sacral atmosphere of the Cathedral.