LAHTI ORGAN FESTIVAL GOES TO SYSMÄ!
5.8. klo 10:00 – 16:30
Join Us for a Classical Organ Excursion to Sysmä!
Travel by coach to the picturesque town of Sysmä for a day filled with music, culture, and local traditions. During the excursion, we will visit the Finnish Accordion Museum, enjoy lunch at the charming Café-Restaurant Suvi-Pinx, explore the organs of Sysmä Church, and attend an organ recital by Jaak Luts.
Before returning to Lahti, we will sample Sysmä’s famous SAHTI at Matkabaari, well known from the Finnish film One Hundred Litres of Sahti.
This is a trip not to be missed!
Schedule:
- 10:00 AM – Departure from the Marolankatu Tourist Bus Stop, Marolankatu, 15110 Lahti
- Visit to the Finnish Accordion Museum
- Lunch at Café-Restaurant Suvi-Pinx, with an opportunity to explore the art exhibition on display
- Introduction to Sysmä Church and organ recital by Jaak Luts
- Sahti tasting at Matkabaari
- 4:30 PM – Return to the Marolankatu Tourist Bus Stop, Marolankatu, 15110 Lahti
The excursion will be guided in Sysmä by Susanna Nordbeck.
Price: 99 € per person
After registering, you will receive an invoice by email. Your place on the excursion is confirmed upon payment of the invoice.
Registrations and confirmations must be completed no later than Wednesday, 22 July 2026.
Organ Recital Programme
Jaak Luts – organ
The recital features organ music ranging from the Baroque period to the Late Romantic era.
Dietrich Buxtehude (1637–1707): Praeludium in G minor, BuxWV 149
Praeludium in G minor, BuxWV 149, is one of Dietrich Buxtehude’s best-known and most dramatic organ works. Energetic and brilliant in style, it follows the North German tradition of alternating free, toccata-like passages with strict contrapuntal fugues.
The work is conventionally divided into five sections. Unusually, it opens not with a flowing toccata but with an ostinato bass theme, followed by a lively four-part fugue. Between the two fugues lies a rhapsodic, improvisatory episode. The second fugue, also in four voices, introduces a subject that subtly recalls the first. The work concludes with an improvisatory coda that grows naturally out of the second fugue before ending in a strikingly unexpected manner.
César Franck (1822–1890): Prélude, Fugue et Variation, Op. 18
Composed between 1860 and 1862, Prélude, Fugue et Variation, Op. 18, is one of César Franck’s most beloved organ works and a masterpiece of the French Romantic organ repertoire. Renowned for its lyrical melody and refined architecture, it forms part of Franck’s celebrated Six Pièces and is dedicated to organist and composer Camille Saint-Saëns.
The work consists of three continuous movements, performed attacca:
Prélude – The opening presents an intimate, gently rocking, and wistful melody accompanied by flowing broken chords. This beautiful theme serves as the unifying thread throughout the work. Near the end, a brief Lento passage, reminiscent of a church prayer, provides a bridge to the next movement.
Fugue – A concise and classically balanced four-part fugue whose subject grows naturally from the atmosphere of the Prelude. More restrained in character, it unfolds in clear polyphonic writing before culminating in a noble and radiant conclusion.
Variation – The final movement returns to the mood and principal theme of the Prelude. The melody remains essentially unchanged, while it is accompanied by a continuous stream of flowing sixteenth notes, creating the work’s characteristic atmosphere of serene, almost hypnotic beauty.
Louis Vierne (1870–1937): Carillon de Westminster, Op. 54, No. 6
Carillon de Westminster, Op. 54, No. 6, is one of the most frequently performed works in the organ repertoire. Published in 1927, it forms part of Vierne’s 24 Pièces de Fantaisie (Third Suite, Op. 54). The work is especially famous for its virtuosic transformation of the Westminster chimes associated with London’s Big Ben.
The piece begins quietly with the familiar bell motif, which gradually expands through increasingly rich harmonic and rhythmic textures toward a majestic, overwhelming climax. Vierne dedicated the work to the English organ builder Henry Willis. According to tradition, Vierne did not remember the Westminster chime melody entirely accurately from memory, which explains why the musical theme in the work differs slightly from the actual Westminster chimes.