Peter Planyavsky

Planyavsky improvises on the hymn "Gelobet sei der Herr" (Rieger organ of Neanderkirche Düsseldorf 1998). Planyavsky plays his composition Fantasia in memoriam A. H. (Rieger organ of Neanderkirche Düsseldorf 1998; live). Peter Planyavsky (born 9 May 1947) is an Austrian organist and composer. He attended the Schottengymnasium. After graduating from the Vienna Academy of Music in 1966 he spent a year in an organ workshop, and has been instrumental in organ-building projects, notably the construction of the Rieger organ in the Great Hall of the Wiener Musikverein. In 1968 he was appointed organist in the Upper Austrian Stift Schlägl, and the following year organist at Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral. From 1983 until 1990 Planyavsky was their director of music, with overall responsibility for church music at the cathedral.

Planyavsky has recorded all the organ works of composers such as Johannes Brahms and Felix Mendelssohn, and has conducted not only the great works of sacred music but neglected organ concertos such as those by Alfredo Casella and Aaron Copland. He has also composed sacred music for organ, choir, and orchestra, and is known for parodies in the style of Bach, Haydn and Mozart, as P.P. Bach, J.P. Haydn and W.A.P. Mozart.

Career Born in Vienna, the son of Alfred Planyavsky, he attended the Schotten gymnasium. At the Vienna Academy of Music, he studied organ, composition and improvisation with Anton Heiller, piano with Hilde Seidlhofer, and conducting with Hans Gillesberger. He graduated with diplomas in organ and church music in 1966.