Zuzana Ferjenčíková, organ

In the case of Franz Liszt’s symphonic poems, for instance, this was done by his contemporary Alexander Winterberger and the modern visionary Jean Guillou. Winterberger turned the piano variations on »Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen« into a veritable organ work – so successfully, in fact, that the original piano version is hardly ever played nowadays. Guillou, on the other hand, himself a first-rate virtuoso, took Liszt’s vision of the Orpheus saga and expanded on it to create a fabulous orgy of sound for organ.

Now the Slovak organist and former Guillou student Zuzana Ferjenčíková is just the right person to perform this repertoire. Blessed with a phenomenal technique and driven by an incessant inner passion, she breathes new life into these arrangements at her Elbphilharmonie debut – which includes Sergei Rachmaninov’s famous »Isle of the Dead« and keyboard works by Mozart, one of which Ferjenčíková has arranged herself. Finally, Guillou’s truly titanic fantasy on Hyperion, the divine messenger of light, is an original work written for the organ.