The award-winning young Latvian organist Iveta Apkalna performs selected works by J.S. Bach and Philip Glass on the organ of the picturesque Himmerod Abbey in the Eifel, valley of the Salm, in Germany.

After coming to prominence as resident organist of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Iveta Apkalna has most recently been to the Far East, where in 2018 she inaugurated Asia's largest concert organ in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. She has now recorded her new album on the organ at the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying). It is an impressive instrument: Almost 10,000 pipes in over 120 registers, located in a twin organ. On the right-hand half of the stage is the great symphonic organ, which recreates the aesthetic timbre of the French Romantic style. And on the left there is the smaller "echo organ", oriented on the German Baroque repertoire. On this new album, Iveta Apkalna has compiled a programme that unites the two organs by placing the focus on the French Romantic style and making a brief foray to the father of organ music, J.S. Bach.

The Queen of Instruments meets one of the international leading organists, Iveta Apkalna. The repertoire of the new album includes Vasks' "Viatore" and "Te Deum" as well as Part's famous "Spiegel i'm Spiegel", "Pari intervallo", "Trivium" and "Annum per annum". Two of the most important contemporary composers are united on one album, celebrating Part's 90th birthday in 2025 and Vasks' 80th birthday in 2026. Also a milestone in music history is captured on this release: it is the first ever solo organ recording made on the organ of the Ventspils Concert Hall "Latvija" - one of the most remarkable concert instruments in Norther Europe.

The Queen of Instruments meets one of the world's leading organists, Iveta Apkalna. The repertoire of the new album includes Vasks' Viatore and Te Deum, as well as P�rt's famous Spiegel i'm Spiegel, Pari intervallo, Trivium, and Annum per annum. Two of the most important contemporary composers are united on one album, celebrating P�rt's 90th birthday in 2025 and Vasks' 80th birthday in 2026. Also captured on this release is a milestone in music history: it is the first-ever solo organ recording made on the organ of the Ventspils Concert Hall "Latvija"-one of the most remarkable concert instruments in Northern Europe.

The Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the city's glittering new landmark, opened in January 2017. "Light & Dark" is the world's first recording of a solo organ recital in the Grand Hall. Featuring a range of appealing contemporary works, the album showcases the wide tonal spectrum of the Elbphilharmonie's organ. Built by the Bonn-based firm Klais, the organ is an instrument of superlatives. 4,765 pipes extend over five rows of seats, their lengths ranging from just eleven millimeters to an imposing ten meters. Thanks to the very open structure of the hall's "white skin" around the organ, audiences can actually look inside the instrument and some of the pipes have been coated such that they can be touched without leaving any marks. The organ fits perfectly into the spectacular architecture and has a very impressive sound. "There's nothing this organ can't do," Iveta Apkalna enthused. "It's warm and rich, with many beautiful fundamental tones that sound from everywhere, and from the depths. The sound embraces the audience." With it's modern selection of repertoire, seemingly tailor-made for both the organist and the instrument, the album compellingly draws listeners into a fascinating world of sound. At the heart of the recording is the work that gives the album it's name - Sofia Gubaidulina's "Light and Darkness", a piece of great extremes that penetrates every fiber of the body. Two composers, Aivars Kalejs and Lucija Garuta, hail from the organist's native Latvia, and the album also includes works by Leo� Janacek, Gyorgy Ligeti, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Thierry Escaich. Iveta Apkalna has made an album that brings to life the qualities of this organ with a modern and extremely diverse selection of works. Iveta Apkalna is one of the world's most famous organists and, as titular organist, knows the Elbphilharmonie instrument like no other musician. She is fully committed to seeing the glittering beauty of the organ better represented in concert halls. Iveta Apkalna is a cultural ambassador of Latvia and dedicates this album to her country.

Having garnered the ultimate accolades from a host of arts review pages for her premiere recording on the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie’s organ and on the double organ of the Taiwanese Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, concert organist Iveta Apkalna now presents her third release on the Berlin Classics label as a triple album. Triptychon spans three centuries and three religious confessions on one single organ: Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Liszt and Peteris Vasks can be heard on this, the first release of a recording played in Neubrandenburg’s Concert Church on the organ which she helped to develop and inaugurated. Apkalna opens the first altar panel with three works by her compatriot and personal friend: alongside Arvo Pärt, Peteris Vasks is the best known and most often played Baltic composer. “Latvia is Peteris Vasks and Peteris Vasks is Latvia,” explains the organist. “I hear the landscape of Latvia in his music, the far horizons of our flat country, the meadows and forests, birdsong and the sea. Peteris Vasks is undoubtedly a truly Latvian character, though he also breathes the ‘global air’. Otherwise people all around the world would not love his music.” Johann Sebastian Bach is at the heart of Iveta Apkalna’s triptych – just as he is central to the career of any organist. For her, his Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major BWV564, the Trio Sonata in D minor BWV527 and the six Schübler Chorales BWV645–650 represent the greatest possible stylistic, compositional and tonal variety backed up by personal motives. Franz Liszt, who achieved worldwide fame as a travelling virtuoso and visionary composer, was also a formidable organist who, towards the end of his career, took holy orders. His oeuvre too is close to Iveta Apkalna’s heart.

Andris Poga and the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra plunge into Keninš’ challenging idiom with a vengeance, turning in bracing, invigorating performances of both symphonies.

This third album release in the first complete Tālivaldis Ķeniņš (1919–2008) symphony cycle includes the composer’s final symphonic creation, Symphony No. 8, with a remarkable organ solo part performed by the award-winning organist Iveta Apkalna, alongside the composer’s dramatic and concise 5th Symphony, both conducted by Andris Poga and performed by the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra.

Tālivaldis Ķeniņš (1919–2008) wrote an impressive cycle of eight numbered symphonies. Especially the 1970s and the 1980s were fruitful years to Ķeniņš as a symphonist: both Ķeniņš’ 5th and 8th Symphonies were premiered in Toronto, the previous in 1976 and the latter in 1986. Ķeniņš 5th Symphony starts with a powerful orchestral climax and itis a work with dark undercurrents. However, here the composer balances with two different opposite materials: the robust, contemporary world meets a fairy tale landscape glittering with the magic of dusk in the Latvian countryside. The Symphony No. 8 lends itself to analysis but not to description. In this work, Ķeniņš has quite possibly attained his highest metaphysical peak. From the storms of the first part and some longed for unattainability, through the second part’s luminous chorale to the finale of the third part with its eight double and triple beats, concluding with a single beat and transcendence. This symphony-concerto for organ and orchestra calls for a combination of masterful solo organ skills. In addition to excellent technique and a deep understanding of complex forms, a fine sense of the organ’s registers is also required, so that the organ part can both blend and shine in a surprising balance of musical pattern and orchestral instrumentation.

REVIEW:

Tālivaldis Keninš (1919-2008) was born in Latvia, but spent the largest portion of his life in Canada, and his name turns up on recordings dedicated to the music of both countries. He was educated, however, in France, and his music definitely reveals the influence of his main source of inspiration, Arthur Honegger. There is that same seriousness of purpose, amounting to grimness, and a similar rugged, dissonant, vigorous idiom—only more so. Compared to his model, Keninš’ music is more percussive, less anchored in tonality, but still fundamentally melodic and at heart, lyrical. It definitely takes some getting used to, but many listeners will find it worth the effort.

The Fifth Symphony (1976) starts with a bang, and the tension scarcely lets up through four connected movements lasting about twenty minutes. Give Keninš credit for not overstaying his welcome and fatiguing his listeners with an excess of relentless, grinding turmoil. The Eighth Symphony (1986-his last) has a concertante part for organ, making for some truly scarifying climaxes alongside meditative passages of a more brooding, quasi-liturgical character. The Aria for strings impressed me least, being simply glum and grey.

However, I have to say that Andris Poga and the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra plunge into Keninš’ challenging idiom with a vengeance, turning in bracing, invigorating performances of both symphonies, very well-recorded. Iveta Apkaina presides over an appropriately forbidding sounding organ, and the ultimate impression is that of a kind of purgative tantrum. You may not want to hear it every day, but there are circumstances when this sort of thing might be just the ticket.

-- ClassicsToday.com (Dsvid Hurwitz)

The new album "Oceanic" by Iveta Apkalna is a collection of two expansive organ works and two orchestral interludes with maritime connotations, showcasing Apkalna's special relationship with the sea as a musician who grew up on the Baltic. The album features Bernd Richard Deutsch's "Okeanos," which Iveta Apkalna describes as the best contemporary organ concerto. It also includes Maurice Ravel's "Une barque sur l'océan," a key work of musical Impressionism, and Jean Sibelius's "The Oceanides," a personal "Rondo of the Waves" along similar lines to Debussy's "La mer."