IMPROVISATION ON "LA MARSEILLAISE" BY XAVER VARNUS - RIEGER ORGAN OF MATTHIAS CHURCH IN BUDAPEST

•●The Official Video Site of Concert Organist Xaver Varnus●•

Recorded live at the Improvisation Gala Recital of the Hungarian National Philharmonic Society in October 1993.

Xaver Varnus' first piano teacher was Emma Németh, one of the last pupils of Debussy. He has played virtually every important organ in the world, including those in Bach's Thomaskirche in Leipzig (2014), Berliner Dom (2013), Notre-Dame (1981), Saint-Sulpice (2006) and Saint-Eustache (1996) in Paris, National Shrine in Washington, D.C. (1985), and Canterbury Cathedral (2004), as well as the largest existing instrument in the world, the Wanamaker Organ in Philadelphia (1985). His Quadruple Platinum Disc winning album From Ravel to Vangelis (SONY, 2007), is the best-selling organ CD ever. As a Canadian citizen, Xaver Varnus resides in Berlin and Toronto. "Put simply, Varnus is a monster talent, every bit as stimulating and individual as the late Glenn Gould" (The Globe & Mail, Canada's National Newspaper). "He is one of the most influential figure in organ music in the early twenty-first century." (Mark Wigmore, The New Classical FM, Canada).

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The Church of the Assumption of the Buda Castle, more commonly known as the Matthias Church, or the Coronation Church of Buda, is a Roman Catholic church located in the Holy Trinity Square, Budapest, in front of the Fisherman's Bastion at the heart of Buda's Castle District. According to church tradition, it was originally built in Romanesque style in 1015, although few references exist. The current building was constructed in the florid late Gothic style in the second half of the 14th century and was extensively restored in the late 19th century. It was the second largest church of medieval Buda and the seventh largest church of the medieval Hungarian Kingdom. It is a historic building with an important history. Two Kings of Hungary were crowned within its walls: Franz Joseph I of Hungary and Elisabeth, and Charles IV of Hungary and Zita of Bourbon-Parma.