Consolations Op. 44 No. 2, 6-9

0:00 No. 2 Molto moderato
2:03 No. 6 Andante
4:35 No. 7 Grave
7:10 No. 8 Moderato
9:35 No. 9 Andante

Louis Lewandowsi (1821-1894) - singer, conductor and one of the most important composers of synagogue music - worked at the New Synagogue on Oranienburger Street in Berlin. He is considered the greatest reformer of Jewish liturgical music and the first to establish the organ as a legitimate musical instrument in Jewish services. Today's date (9.11.) in particular brings to mind the Pogrom Night of 1938, when most of the 400 synagogues still in existence throughout Germany were vandalized and set on fire, cemeteries desecrated and Jewish businesses and homes destroyed, but also the horrors and crimes of the Third Reich that followed. With the destruction of the synagogues, the Shoah and the exodus of the Jews, the musical culture shaped by Lewandowsi was also lost almost without exception.
There are still few synagogues with organs in this country. This is quite different in my native country Romania, where, despite the exodus of the Jewish population, there are still at least five synagogues with organs within a 50 km radius of the city of Timisoara, some of which were neglected or severely damaged during the communist era and are not yet playable again (the two in Timisoara) because the small remaining religious congregations can hardly manage these tasks on their own. In the first 20 years of my life, when I was still living there, I had no idea that these hidden gems existed, neither the instruments nor Lewandowski's music, nor was I really aware of Jewish culture. In order to present these organs pictorially, I have selected six pieces from Lewandowski's Consolations, Op. 44 - Moments of Consecration, Nine Little Pieces for Harmonium, Organ or Piano - in keeping with today's memorial day.

https://youtu.be/tukYmLkhH6Q
https://www.youtube.com/@rwsonic