A visit to Sankt Veit am Vogau is an integral part of the Orgelfrühling Steiermark festival. The pilgrimage church there is home to the historic Liechtenauer/Egedacher organ — an instrument of exceptional tonal beauty.

Pavao Mašić is titular organist of St. Mark's Church in Zagreb and professor at the city’s Academy of Music. The internationally acclaimed specialist in historical keyboard instruments explores, in keeping with this year’s festival theme, the emotional highs and lows of Baroque musical language. He will perform works by Michelangelo Rossi, Johann Pachelbel, Dieterich Buxtehude, George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach.
The artist himself has titled the programme “Rêveries – Passions”:

Following the festival's motto in 2026 – a paraphrase by the famous quote by French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – one is reminded of another famous French musician – François Couperin le Grand – and his equally famous quote: “Je préfère ce qui me touche à ce qui me surprend” (I prefer what touches me to what surprises me). Thus, we enter the realms of emotions, sometimes expressed in introvert, very intimate way, and sometimes conceived in rather exuberant fashion, quite extrovertly.

After the classical perfection of calm and restrained manner of Renaissance polyphony, the Baroque principles of affectation, of musique parlante, numerous recitatives and bursts of fantasy resulted in stylus phantasticus, quite a new way of expressing rich range of emotions. “One should play from the heart, and not like a trained bird”, points out Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, another suggestion that is especially valid for keyboard players, and which forces us to add the breathing, the rhythmical flexibility, the certain je-ne-sais-quoi to animate purely mechanical way of pressing the keys of an instrument. In a word, to animate the mechanism by giving it its soul and heart.

And in the end, everything in music comes from the heart: its regular beating produces the constant tempo (tempus protus), while the everlasting pumping, the contraction and relaxation process is immediately related to the way the music unfolds itself (with constant exchange of tension and repose), always connected to the very process of breathing. Finally, heart cannot be ruled, it is autonomous not only in the constant and regular way of beating, but also in those moments of the excitement, often demonstrated in a very unpredictable way, that keeps us awaked, excited, nervous and agitated, enthusiastic or annoyed, inflamed, thrilled or completely wrecked. All those passions of heart find their place in music. Everything should be possible, to allow music in finding ways to express all the matters of the heart.

Pavao Mašić

Program

Michelangelo Rossi
Toccata settima

Johann Pachelbel
Fantasia in E flats
Fuga in A
Ciacona in D

Giovanni Battista Martini
Adagio in D major

Georg Frederic Handel
Fugue in A minor

Dieterich Buxtehude
Praeludium in G minor, BuxWV 163

Johann Sebastian Bach
Pastorella, BWV 590 Toccata G Minor, BWV 915

Artist

Pavao Mašić, organ