GMCD 7183 You can order this CD in our E-Shop under Instrumental/Music for Organ Review ***Sound Clips***	MARCEL DUPRÉ Volume 8 Intégrale des œuvres pour orgue Complete Organ Works Sämtliche Orgelwerke   Jeremy Filsell - Organ  www.jeremyfilsell.com

Contents:

DDD Total Time = 60.00: Recorded at St. Boniface Episcopal Church, Sarasota, Florida, USA - September 1998

Psaume XVIII, Op.47
During the 1920s Dupré composed three major works to which he gave the title of symphony - Symphonie-Passion (Volume 4 of this series), Symphony in G minor for organ and orchestra, and Deuxième Symphonie (Volume 6). He returned to large-scale composition in the Forties, and in the course of this decade he composed three more major works - not symphonies this time, but "symphonic poems". Like the orchestral symphonic poems of Liszt and César Franck, these pieces all have an element of extra-musical inspiration, and this is perhaps sufficient to justify the title. But Dupré himself made no rigid distinctions between any of these works; only a few weeks after the completion of the Symphonie-Passion in 1924 he had described it as being "more of a poem than a symphony", and while he was writing the Symphonic Poem Evocation in 1941, in memory of his father, he used to refer to it as "the organ symphony for papa".

Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei - " The heavens declare the glory of God". Dupré composed Psalm 18 in 1949, and dedicated it to the memory of his mother, who had died in 1933. The opening words of the psalm are inscribed on the title page, and their spirit illuminates the whole work, but this is not programme music in the style of Reubke’s Sonata on the 94th Psalm; Dupré once admitted that "the main theme is reminiscent of the sun", but would not be drawn any further: "as for the other movements, I could not give a precise explanation..." A more concise work than the better-known Evocation, Psalm 18 also employs a cyclic structure (although of a less complicated kind), the main theme of the first movement returning in the finale. The first movement begins with a pregnant bottom C on the pedals (the deepest note of the organ), above which a great mass of tone slowly builds up through six lento bars, in a graphic depiction of the rising sun. It bursts into a dazzling display of toccata figuration, which accompanies the succeeding exposition of the main theme, and as this subsides, a hushed reprise of the sunrise leads into the contemplative second subject, which pursues its gentle course in an expressive cantabile on Voix Celeste. An increase in animation quickly builds up to a radiant largamente reprise of the main theme, calling on the full power of the organ and the full range of the keyboard, and a brief return of the contemplative mood is unable to suppress the jubilant mood for very long; the second theme is soon caught up in an equally powerful affirmation, before the music begins to fade away until nothing remains but the deep pedal note with which the movement began.

The Adagio slow movement falls into five clearly differentiated sections in which three contrapuntal developments of a chromatic theme are separated by atmospheric chordal interludes, evoking some ghostly nocturnal procession. The first development of the main theme is in three voices, with Clarinet simply accompanied by flutes; the second development expands into one of Dupré’s favourite textures, a six-part ricercare, with the theme in two voices on the pedal Bassoon, and the third is mostly in four parts, delicately registered for four solo flutes. The avoidance of 16ft pedal tone during these three developments gives the music an elusive, ethereal quality which is soon dispelled by the finale. The main theme of the first movement becomes the subject of a brilliant Allegro in the form of a free double fugue; driving rhythmic counter-subjects and virtuoso pedal writing propel the music through a variety of contrapuntal adventures, culminating in a grand final harmonisation of the theme in a resounding C major.

Vision, Op 44
This long and in many ways rather obscure Symphonic Poem from 1947 is the only one of Dupré’s published pieces which bears no dedication; this significant omission reinforces the impression produced by the music itself, that this is an intensely personal, private work. The quotation at the head of the score is from St. John’s Gospel - "...And the light shineth in darkness...", but the music suggests even more strongly the First Chapter of Genesis: "..And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light..." This is not the kind of music that responds to or benefits from analysis, but it may be helpful to draw attention to two important themes (solo Bassoon on the 2nd page, and solo Trumpet on the 5th) that guide the vision to its luminous climax, and also to the ethereal invention for flutes that follows the first appearance of the trumpet theme; this returns - in a passage of magical, dream-like polyphony involving a duet for the pedals on a 2ft flute - as the vision fades into the darkness whence it came.... Finally, in the words of the composer’s biographer, the Abbé Délestre, "the mysterious voice which has been raised for an instant is silent, leaving behind it just a trail of light"....

Evocation, Op 37
Early in 1940 Dupré’s father Albert, Organist of the Abbey church of Saint-Ouen, was persuaded to leave his home in Rouen and retreat to safety in the south of France. On 5th July he died at the age of 80, but Dupré was not allowed to attend the funeral, the borders between German-occupied and free France being closed at that time. Shortly afterwards the Vichy regime was established, border controls were lifted, and Albert’s remains were exhumed and brought home for reburial. The grand orgue of the basilica was at this time undergoing a major cleaning and restoration; it could not be used for Albert’s memorial service in September, but during the course of the next twelve months it was carefully re-assembled, and Dupré was engaged well in advance to give the inaugural recital, which took place on 26th October 1941. It was inevitable that this recital should be part celebration, and part memorial to the departed titulaire who had presided over this great Cavaillé-Coll instrument for nearly thirty years; inevitable too that Dupré should decide to compose a new work for the occasion. Quite apart from the wealth of personal associations with his family and his childhood, the organ itself had been his greatest musical inspiration from his earliest years. "I was brought up in the organ of Saint-Ouen", he once confessed, "It is Saint-Ouen that made me."

Evocation, then, was a work of profound personal significance for Dupré. He does not, and probably could not, specify exactly what is being evoked. He did confide to Jeanne Demessieux that his intention was "to capture three aspects of my father’s character: he was a worrier (un anxieux), like me; he was tender, and he was proud, in a dignified way", but there is surely more to the music than this, and it clearly reflects the troubled times in which it was written, particularly in the finale, which mixes anger, nostalgia and defiance into a potent brew.

The first movement opens in C minor with an uneasy, angular melody in the tenor register, which gives way to the more conjunct second theme on a soft solo Trumpet. But the mood of gentle nostalgia is soon swept aside by the approach of a stormy Allegro; this rises to a savage climax and then collapses into a sombre funeral march, which echoes the opening bars as the movement draws to a close.

The slow movement is marked Adagio con tenerezza, and is in F sharp major, the furthest possible tonality from the grim C minor of the first movement; that was the reality, and this, perhaps, is the dream. The continuity of this movement is leisurely and seamless - unusually so for Dupré; unusual too is the strong melodic profile of the expressive main theme. Its two developments (the first for flute in the treble register, the second for clarinet in the tenor) are separated by passages of mysterious, evocative chords for strings, and later the two ideas are combined in music of considerable intensity. Then - a surprise: a tiny scherzo of busy figuration over dense pedal chords, "a sort of little ecstasy, a fairytale..." It is short-lived, and the movement ends with the hushed return of the solo flute, and a coda of exquisite tenderness, registered for the ethereal Voix Eolienne which is a unique feature of the Saint-Ouen organ.

Reality returns in the tempestuous rondo finale, Allegro deciso, which establishes the unity of the whole work, not through its main theme, but by means of its two softer subsidiary episodes, which bring back firstly the Trumpet theme from the first movement (but not on a Trumpet this time), and secondly the fairytale scherzo and the theme of the Adagio. Outside the context of the complete work these episodes simply sound irrelevant, and the movement becomes meaningless when performed (as it so often is) on its own. The insistent repeated chords of the rondo theme were designed for the snarling Chamade Trumpets of Saint-Ouen; on their third appearance, after the second episode, they merge into the return of the main theme of the first movement, and the symphony ends in a grandiose, triumphant C major, with the apotheosis of the Trumpet theme.

Page revised Friday May 25 2007