ALBINONI: ADAGIO - XAVER VARNUS’ HISTORIC INAUGURAL ORGAN RECITAL IN THE PALACE OF ARTS OF BUDAPEST

•●The Official Video Site of Concert Organist Xaver Varnus●• The Varnus Organ Hall needs your help. We are asking the community’s support to restoring and operating Varnus Hall, Canada’s only private organ concert venue owned by Xaver Varnus, to provide a worthy home for organists, famous artists and young talent alike, from around the world to perform, and broadcast their concerts online. We are grateful to you if you can help our work with any donations. Recorded live at the Organ Inauguration Concert in the Palace of Arts in Budapest on June 4th, 2006. The organ of the concert hall has 92 stops and 5 manuals as well as 470 wooden pipes, 5028 tin pipes and 1214 reed pipes. The extensive intonation period of the organ lasted 10 months. It is one of the largest organs in Europe. The instrument - built under the cooperation of Pécs Organ Manufaktúra and Mühleisen Orgelbau Stuttgart - was inaugurated at a ceremony attended by leading figures from Hungary’s art, economic and political scene. Tickets for this concert sold out a year earlier, in less than thirty minutes. Filmed by Mate Vargha. Xaver Varnus’ first piano teacher was Emma Németh, one of the last pupils of Debussy. He has played virtually every important organ in the world, including those in Bach’s Thomaskirche in Leipzig (2014), Berliner Dom (2013), Notre-Dame (1981), Saint-Sulpice (2006) and Saint-Eustache (1996) in Paris, National Shrine in Washington, D.C. (1985), and Canterbury Cathedral (2004), as well as the largest existing instrument in the world, the Wanamaker Organ in Philadelphia (1985). His Quadruple Platinum Disc winning album From Ravel to Vangelis (SONY, 2007), is the best-selling organ CD ever. As a Canadian citizen, Xaver Varnus resides in Berlin and Toronto. “Put simply, Varnus is a monster talent, every bit as stimulating and individual as the late Glenn Gould“ (The Globe & Mail, Canada’s National Newspaper). “He is one of the most influential figure in organ music in the early twenty-first century.“ (Mark Wigmore, The New Classical FM, Canada). Booking & Enquiries: xavervarnus@
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