Matinee: Organ & Harp

For Shin-Young Lee loves programs in which she combines original repertoire with organ transcriptions of famous orchestral works. Together with Marie-Pierre Langlamet, harpist with the Berlin Philharmonic, the internationally acclaimed concert organist presents a spectacular program at the Musikfest Berlin, ranging from Liszt’s virtuoso concert etude Un sospiro (which creates the impression of three hands on the keyboard) to Louis Vierne’s showpiece Carillon de Westminster.

Alexander Borodin sought to capture “the full splendor of the Orient” in his Polovtsian Dances. Behind the title lies the famous ballet music from the second act of the opera Prince Igor, whose triumphant march through international concert halls began with a performance by the Ballets Russes in 1909.

During her guest performance in Berlin, Korean organist Shin-Young Lee presents her own breathtakingly virtuosic version of this orchestral classic, before turning her attention to Liszt’s no less demanding concert etude Un sospiro with Marie-Pierre Langlamet, in which the rapid crossing of the hands is not the only source of hair-raising technical challenges.

Two works by George Frideric Handel then take us into the opulent music of the Baroque era: Shin-Young Lee’s arrangement of the famous Passacaglia from the Harpsichord Suite in G minor is followed by the Concerto for Harp in B-flat major, to which the French harpist Marcel Grandjany contributed a sonically magnificent cadenza in 1930. Shin-Young Lee’s version of Camille Saint-Saëns’s mezzo aria “Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix” from the biblical opera *Samson et Dalila* demonstrates why the organ has rightfully earned its place in music history as the “Queen of Instruments.”

Following the well-known Adagietto from Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 in the version for organ and harp, the evening concludes with Louis Vierne’s Carillon de Westminster from the Pièces de Fantaisie, Op. 54—a brilliant organ adaptation of the Westminster chimes that builds to a magnificent climax.