|
|
 |
|
 |
||
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
Contents:
DDD 77.22 Recorded at Lincoln Cathedral 1 - 4 September 2003 Th This colourful panorama of French organ music embraces three generations of composers and a period of some seventy years, ranging from the twilight of romanticism in the 1890’s to the very different world of the 1960’s. The two oldest composers, Ropartz and Vierne, were both pupils of César Franck; Marcel Dupré was a protégé of Vierne; and Langlais, Litaize and Messiaen were pupils of Dupré. These three all entered Dupré’s Organ Class at the Paris Conservatoire in 1927, and, as fate would have it, they all died within the space of a few months, in 1991-2; by this time Messiaen had conquered the world, and Langlais had won universal recognition as the successor of Franck and Tournemire at the Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde, and as one of the most prolific organ composers of the century.
Langlais and Litaize were both blind, and (like Vierne forty years earlier) they both benefited from the inspiring musical education provided by the Institut des Jeunes Aveugles in Paris. After his studies with Dupré, Langlais joined the Composition Class of Paul Dukas, who told him that he was “a born composer” – a judgment which was vindicated by the seemingly effortless flow of new works that he produced during the next 60 years, works that were never as revolutionary as the music of his friend Messiaen, but which nevertheless had a unique and instantly recognisable personality of their own. The Suite Brève (1947) was one of the first works which Langlais published as Organiste du Grande Orgue de la Basilique Ste Clotilde, soon after his appointment late in 1945. The freshness and individuality of the music won many friends in France and America, but provoked a more sceptical reaction from the conservative church musicians of Britain (“the wilful eccentricity of the writing verges on cacography”, said The Musical Times!). Part of the first movement and the whole of the third were arranged from some incidental music (for full orchestra and Ondes Martenot) which Langlais had composed the previous year for a radio play. The outer movements – a magisterial Grands Jeux for the tutti, and a high-spirited, dancing Dialogue based on unexpected juxtapositions of common chords – make an immediate impact, but it is the quiet central movements that leave the more lasting impression. The Cantilène is a pastoral theme and variations, with a good deal of contrapuntal ingenuity in the first variation, and some exquisitely delicate harmonies and textures in the second. The dense, gloom-laden sonority of the first page of the Plainte is succeeded by a flute solo in which there is more than a hint of Messiaen (“mon ami de toujours”, as Langlais described him …)
The manuscript of Messiaen’s Offrande au Saint Sacrement was discovered among his papers by his widow after his death, and this little piece was only published in 2001. It is clearly a very early work. Langlais recalled that Messiaen’s first published organ piece, Le Banquet Céleste, originated at the time of their studies with Dupré, and that it was a transcription of part of a larger orchestral work. If this is true, then the Offrande might well come from the same work. It weaves a characteristically magic spell, with an ethereal garland of semiquaver arabesques floating above a bed of richly-coloured chords; the harmonic language and the melody of the contrasting second subject are pure Messiaen, but the garland follows a simple chromatic pattern which he would never have permitted in his more mature music.
Like his mentor and predecessor Tournemire, Langlais found an inexhaustible source of inspiration in the repertory of Gregorian chant. His chant-based Incantation (1949) was inspired by the ancient liturgy of the Easter Vigil, which marks the first celebration of the resurrection of Christ during the night preceding Easter Sunday. At the beginning of the Mass, the clergy enter the darkened church bearing the lighted Easter candle; their thrice-repeated greeting “Lumen Christi – Deo Gratias” (“The light of Christ – Thanks be to God”) forms the framework of Langlais’ Incantation, appearing at the beginning, the middle, and the end of the work. In between (as Patrick Russill so memorably describes it), “the incessantly-repeated invocations of the Litany of the Saints combine prayer and dance in a crescendo of sacred fervour.”
Gaston Litaize never acquired a worldwide reputation on quite the same scale as Messiaen or Langlais, but he was a distinguished teacher and a great performing artist with an encyclopaedic repertoire; his discography amounted to over 40 LP’s, embracing four centuries of organ music. He was organist at the church of St François-Xavier, and Head of Religious Broadcasting at Radio France for more than 30 years, where he enjoyed the friendship of all the French composers of his time. Like Langlais, Litaize fell under the mystical spell of Charles Tournemire, and he wrote a good deal of liturgical organ music. But the two works in this programme are concert pieces, taken from a set of Douze Pièces composed at various times during the 1930’s, and published in 1939. The featherlight Scherzo (1932) is a worthy successor to the French tradition of concert scherzos established in the 19th century by Gigout and Widor, and then developed by Louis Vierne and Maurice Duruflé. The Lied of (1934) is a deeply-felt and beautifully-proportioned song-without-words. The three verses of the song (with some delicate canonic writing in the second and third verses) are separated by two episodes; there are touching echoes here of Ravel’s Sleeping Beauty (Ma mère l’oye), and the second episode rises to a substantial climax before the final return of the tune on soft string stops.
Langlais’ spectacular Evocation was composed in 1964 as part of a suite entitled Homage to Rameau, which was commissioned by the French Minister of Fine Arts in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the death of Rameau (the initial letters of the titles of the six movements form an acrostic which spells out his name). Langlais gives no clue as to exactly what is being evoked in this piece, but it is undeniably one of his most successful and spectacular concert works. A rhapsodic, virtuoso display-piece, it is based on three contrasting themes which are presented in turn on the rhetorical opening pages. The flowing arabesques of the central section certainly represent the composer in his most evocative mood, but poetic thoughts are dramatically dispelled by the final toccata, which sweeps up all three themes into a blazing whirlwind of sound.
The music of Guy Ropartz comes from a very different world. After his studies with Massenet and Franck, Ropartz left Paris and spent the whole of his long life fostering the musical life of provincial France; he was Director of the Conservatories at Nancy and then at Strasbourg before he retired in 1934 to his native Brittany. Ropartz was the only one of these six composers who was not a professional organist, and his organ music forms just a small part of his prolific output as a composer. His elegiac Prélude funèbre (1896) is a memorable (and rarely performed) essay in the post-Franck style, the poignant melody and intricate accompaniment recalling the introspective intensity of Franck’s own Prière. The prelude incorporates the sinister theme of the Dies Irae in the pedals, but eventually subsides to a consoling conclusion in the major key.
Louis Vierne was the great romantic among the French organist/composers of his generation. He was Organist of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame for nearly forty years, and he died there on the organ-bench during a recital in 1937. The technology of recording made rapid advances during the 1920’s, and Vierne was one of the first French organists to commit his interpretations to disc. In 1928 the microphones were set up in Notre-Dame, and he recorded several works of Bach and a fascinating set of Three Improvisations, which were later transcribed into written notation by Duruflé, and published in 1954. Vierne was apparently dismayed to discover that the capacity of the 78rpm discs would limit him to four minutes or less for each piece, and exclaimed “Allons, quelques marches bien pompières et bien républicaines feront l’affaire!” (“Oh well, some pompous republican marches will have to do!”). The Marche and Cortège fit into this category, and doubtless reflect the kind of music which he used to play for great state occasions at Notre-Dame; the Méditation, on the other hand, is much more personal, and gives us a glimpse of the true musical personality of this most lyrical of organ composers.
Marcel Dupré forms the link between the generations in this programme. Ambitious and single-minded in the pursuit of his artistic ideals, Dupré was a remarkable character; as Professor at the Paris Conservatoire, organist of Saint-Sulpice, tireless international concert artist, and prolific composer, he dominated the French organ world of his time. His symphonic poem Evocation (1941) was written in memory of his father, who had been organist of the great Cavaillé-Coll organ in the church of Saint-Ouen, Rouen until his death in 1940. Dupré gave the first performance of Evocation in Saint-Ouen the following year; composed in occupied France in the middle of the war, at a time of deep personal sorrow, this music mixes nostalgia, anger and defiance into a potent brew. The stormy Allegro deciso is the final movement of the symphony, and it takes the form of a rondo. The insistent repeated chords of the march-like main theme were inspired by the snarling Chamade Trumpets of the St-Ouen organ; the three developments of this theme are separated by quieter episodes which recall music from the earlier movements of the whole work, but the final mood is one of optimism, and the piece ends in a sequence of resounding chords in the triumphant key of C major.
Page revised 27.05.04 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
