This album features organ works, some of which are world premiere recordings.
The compositions presented on the CD were recorded on the organ from the sanctuary on the Holy Mountain in Gostyn (Greater Poland), rebuilt in recent years after old patterns. The richness of the instrument's sound allows to show the beauty of very diverse compositions by artists formerly known in the Gostyn monastery or associated with the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri in Rome. Thus, the album features an intavolation of vocal ricercars by the master of Renaissance church music Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (15251594), Tiento by Francisco Soto (15391619), co-founder of the Roman Oratory, as well as a curio Fugue by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (17561791), whose output was known in the Gostyn community and adapted for liturgical purposes. The Preambulum in C by the Czech composer Jan Krtitel Vanhal (17391813) already comes from a later period, which is an interesting bridge between early polyphonic techniques and classicism. The latter is represented by the Sinfonia per organo by Ferdinando Gasparo Bertoni (17251813). Polish accents on the album are two Fugues by Gostyn-born Alfons Szczerbinski (18581895) and compositions by Julian Gembalski (b. 1950), who also performs all the works recorded on the album. The contemporary compositional convention shows the extraordinary sonic and textural possibilities of the organ, the so-called 'king of instruments'.
Julian Gembalski composer and organ virtuoso, awarded on a number of occasions in particular for his improvisational art; he is also an outstanding teacher and an organ expert.
