• Tracks

Friedrich Wilhelm Markull began his career as a child prodigy and was appointed to the post of organist at Danzig's magnificent St. Mary's Church when he was only twenty years old. At the time Danzig's music culture was completely decimated, but during the next fifty years of his active life as a musician he managed to revitalize it. Andrzej Szadejko's second album featuring compositions written by the industrious Baltic composer for himself and his Danzig pupils once again brings to light a previously virtually unknown chapter of music history. A good many of Markull's organ compositions must have been written for his own very practical performance goals and for the encouragement of his organ pupils. The organ in St. Mary's Church, an instrument with more than fifty stops on three manuals, offered ample opportunities for the realization of the romantic organ sound. Andrzej Szadejko has found an outstanding replacement for the early romantic Danzig instrument, which was completely destroyed during World War II, in the very expertly restored Buchholz organ in Stralsund's St. Nicholas Church.