SUMMER RECITAL IN VARNUS HALL: LEGENDARY ORGANIST XAVER VARNUS PLAYS BACH

"Words on paper are a flimsy medium with which to describe the eye-opening power of yesterday's performance. Put simply, Varnus is a monster talent, every bit as stimulating and individual as the late Glenn Gould. That's not a name to be invoked lightly, but Varnus, like Gould, has more than virtuosity and interpretive strength, he has the rare talent of being able to make us hear his instrument in a new way, as though he were re-inventing it on the spot."

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

May 8, 1986

"Varnus's playing is characterized above all by a high degree of awareness and a tightly controlled Romantic conception. His technical knowledge is impeccable and his articulation extremely rich: he is able to use it in a differentiated way to bring the complexity of Bach's polyphony to life more than usual. He boldly exploits the instrument's dynamic extremities in both directions. His memory is accurate and unerring. He spends more time than usual on the echoes of the last chords, and he delays the resolution of dissonances almost to the point of intolerability. His surprising, sometimes astonishing phrasing reveals hitherto undiscovered beauties of works that are already well known. Varnus's playing - even if not everyone agrees with his approach - is captivating and convincing. Varnus's art is a challenge for contemporary performers, not just organists. His playing stimulates, even forces, the rethinking and reshaping of works and a somewhat outdated performing style. It is an inescapable fact: after Xaver Varnus, it is no longer possible to play the organ in the same way as before."

SZOLNOK ÚJ NÉPLAP

April 20, 1990

"The Bach-Varnus combination is like that of Chopin-Rubinstein".

NORDBAYERISCHER KURIER
November 2, 1990

“No one who heard this performance could doubt his essential qualities as a musician. He knows what Bach is trying to say, and he delivers the message through a medium that is far more familiar to modern ears than the soft-spoken tracker-action instrument of Bach’s time.”

THE MONTREAL GAZETTE

May 25, 1987

“Varnus is one of the most influential figure in organ music in the early 21st-century.”

THE NEW CLASSICAL FM CANADA

November 19, 2019

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According to ticket offices, Xaver Varnus is among the three most popular organists in the world – it is nearly impossible to get tickets to his sell out concerts. His first piano teacher was Emma Németh, one of the last pupils of Claude Debussy. He lit up the musical firmament of the world like a shooting star. He has played virtually every important organ in the world, including those in the Berliner Dom, Canterbury Cathedral, Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., Notre Dame, Saint-Sulpice and Saint-Eustache in Paris, as well as the largest existing instrument in the world, the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ in Philadelphia. However, fate reserved the most moving invitation for Varnus until 2014, when, near to his fiftieth birthday, Thomasorganist Ullrich Böhme invited him to play the famous Sauer Organ in Leipzig's Thomaskirche, over the grave of the mighty Johann Sebastian Bach.

Organist, improviser, author, lecturer and media personality, Varnus has had a dramatic impact on audiences’ acceptance and appreciation of organ music. Over the course of his career, Varnus has played live to more than seven million people worldwide, recorded fifty-three albums, made sixty concert films, and written five books. In 2006, he played the inaugural concert of the grand organ of the Palace of Arts in Budapest, and in 2009, he gave two subsequent sold-out concerts with the iconic French jazz pianist Jacques Loussier at the Palace of Arts. In 2011, he gave two joint concerts with the legendary Rhoda Scott, which sold 30,000 tickets in a single weekend. Mr. Varnus’ videos have sur- passed 43 million views on YouTube. His Bach concert film, recorded at his recital in the Berliner Dom in 2013, has become the most watched organ concert movie in music history, with 19 million views. His “Quadruple Platinum Disc Award” winning album “From Ravel to Vangelis”, released by SONY in 2007, is the bestselling collection of organ recordings ever.

“Varnus is a monster talent, every bit as stimulating and individual as the late Glenn Gould.” These lines are by the distinguished North American critic Robert Everett-Green, which appeared in Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe & Mail on May 8, 1986. A few years later, the Toronto Star music critic Ronald Hambleton wrote: “Varnus has been called the Horowitz of the organ (The New York Times), or contrariwise the Paganini of the organ (Le Figaro). And even the Glenn Gould of the organ. But he is none of the above. Instead, he is plainly the Varnus of the organ, a self-assured prodigy with a mind of his own”. As a Canadian citizen, Varnus spends much of his time at his offi- cial residence Villa Varnus, his family’s beautiful historical country estate at Lake Balaton, as well as at his 12th century house in Italy and his home in Berlin. During the summer months Xaver Varnus resides in Nova Scotia where he is the artistic director of his international music festival hosted in his private concert hall, within a 19th century Victorian church. In 2023, Xaver Varnus also purchased another abandoned 19th century church in the Transdanubia region, which he named Adam Varnus Memorial Hall in memory of his brother, who died young. Xaver Varnus has received many honours, including the Most Excellent Order of the Republic of Hungary, the Officer’s and the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit.

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The Varnus Hall in Brooklyn, Nova Scotia is not just a concert venue, it is also a living version of 19th century Victorian life in the 21st century. Built between 1847 and 1895, Varnus Hall was originally a Congregationalist church. The ceiling design of the hall is indeed very special, resembling the inverted interior of the hull of a ship. The first church was built in 1847, and when the second church was built in 1895, it was added to the first church, which was used as a Vestry from then. The architect for the new church was Ernest McLeod and the builder was Arthur Boucher. Thanks to the huge amount of wood, the acoustics of the hall are crystal clear. The hall's magnificent concert organ was designed by the famous British organist Graham Percy Steed and built by the legendary Casavant Frères in 1977, as the company's 3338th opus. The tower's large bell was cast in the 20th century and is called The Bourdon. This bell is rung on every major public holiday in memory of the church's founders. The building complex surrounding the church includes the Canadian residence of the current owner, organist Xaver Varnus, in addition to a small cafe and museum, which tells the history of the church building and its organ. The building structure, and the nature that surrounds it, truly brings one back to the magnificence of the 19th century, while the majority of the furnishings come from the Varnus family's two centuries-old European collection. Varnus Hall's mission is to present extraordinary music and musicians on the stage of this ancient and magnificent hall, to bring the transformative power of music to the widest possible audience, and to foster the future of music through the cultivation of new works, artists, and audiences.