A formidable sisterhood: a review of the 2019 Musforum Conference Northfield, Minnesota, June 13–14

University of Michigan 58th Annual Organ Conference, September 29–October 2

Joy Schroeder holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from University of Michigan in organ performance. She is currently a student, ABD, at the University of Oregon in music theory.

The fifty-eighth annual organ conference at the University of Michigan celebrated women’s contributions as performers, composers, educators, and builders of the organ, harpsichord, and carillon. Distinguished guest artists and lecturers from North America and Europe joined University of Michigan faculty, students, and alumni in presenting an impressive range of events, beginning with the annual improvisation competition and concluding with the restaging of three choreographies by the American modern dance pioneer, Doris Humphrey, set to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The conference explored not only the music, performance practices, and pedagogy of women in the field, but also how their individual careers in a male-dominated profession have helped shape the current landscape.

A prelude to the conference

Jennifer Pascual, director of music at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, performed a recital at the First Presbyterian Church of Ypsilanti on September 23. The performance was presented by the Ypsilanti Pipe Organ Festival and the Ann Arbor Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. Her program included a mixture of well-known organ works by Bach, Guilmant, Duruflé, Yon, Ravel, and Cherubini (both arranged by Machella), lesser-known pieces by Hakim and Lidon, and music by women composers Clara Schumann, Jeanne Demessieux, Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn, and Sr. Mary David Callahan, serving as an introduction to the conference the following weekend.

Saturday, September 29

The First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor hosted the Seventh Annual Improvisation Competition, and three contestants had been selected to enter the final round. The contestants improvised on the hymntune, Wondrous Love, and a selected chromatic theme. First place and audience prizes were awarded to David Simon, currently a student at Yale University; second prize to Alejandro D. Consolación, II, from Manila; and third to Christopher Ganza from Minnesota. The judges were James Biery, Ann Labounsky, and Anne Laver. Kola Owolabi chaired the event with assistance from preliminary round judges Joseph Gascho, Darlene Kuperus, and Stephanie Nofar-Kelly. Timothy Huth of the American Center of Church Music provided historical anecdotes along with host representative Richard Ingram.

Sunday, September 30

First Presbyterian Church hosted a hymn festival titled “Sing Justice! Proclaim Justice! Hymnody in Word and Song by Women Poets and Composers.” Scott Hyslop served as the organist, while the Reverend Kendra Mohn gave several meditations on injustice, with support from the First Presbyterian Choir and interim director of music, Richard Ingram. The program featured works by Catherine McMichael (prelude), Jane Marshall (anthem), with hymn texts by Mary Louise Bringle, Carolyn Winfrey Gilette,
Shirley Erena Murray, Jaroslav Vajda, and Rusty Edwards, arranged by Alice Parker and Hyslop.

That evening, the faculty recital featuring works by Pamela Decker, Rachel Laurin, and a world premiere of a work by Catherine McMichael was presented at Hill Auditorium with Susan Clark Joul, soprano; Joan Holland, harp; James Kibbie and Kola Owolabi, organ. McMichael’s The Apostle: A Symphony in Three Linked Movements drew thematically from the biblical character of Paul of Tarsus—persecutor, poet, and apostle. The last piece by Rachel Laurin, Fantasy and Fugue on the Genevan Psalm 47, op. 62, was a duet performed by Kibbie and Owolabi. The work has contrasting registrations and themes utilizing four manuals and pedal of the organ.

Monday, October 1

The day began with two lectures. Michael Barone discussed women organists past and present (including music presented during the conference) in “Ladies Be Good: One Guy’s Overview of Women Organists and Composers.” Sylvia Wall presented “Call Me Fran: Harpsichordist Frances Elaine Cole.” An American harpsichordist, Frances Cole (1937–1983) was a musician from Cleveland, Ohio, who taught at Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey, and died in New York. She organized numerous harpsichord festivals, and her life was commemorated in the lecture by Wall and by Cole’s niece, Mia Cole Washington. Following, Annie Laver discussed and performed “An Introduction to the Organ Works of Judith Bingham.” Bingham has written about 300 works of which some twenty are for organ.

In the afternoon, conference attendees heard music in a program entitled “Élizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre: Claveciniste Extraordinaire,” including the Chamber Sonata in D Major, the Harpsichord Suite in A Minor (played by Nico Canzano), and the dramatic cantata Semelé. The recitalists, Nico Canzano, Ellen Sauer, Leah Pemick, Leo Singer, Antona Yost, Alyssa Campbell, Alex Baker, and Neil Robertson are all students of Joseph Gascho.

Following the performance, a lecture, “Sylvia’s Little Black Book: an Intimate View into the Pioneering Life of Harpsichordist Sylvia Marlowe,” was presented by Christina Scott Edelen. Marlowe (1908–1981) was an American harpsichordist who commissioned many works from leading composers and performed Baroque repertoire. This recital included works by Virgil Thomson, François Couperin, Vittorio Rieti, and Henri Sanguer. Italian virtuoso Letizia Romiti completed the afternoon’s events with a recital, “Women, Italy, and the ‘Queen of Instruments.’” The program featured works by Andrea Gabrieli, Merulo, Majone, Frescobaldi, Madame Ravissa de Turin, a manuscript from the Convent of Notre-Dame de Vitre, and Clara Schumann.

The evening began with a carillon recital at Burton Memorial Tower performed by Margaret Pan of Boston, Massachusetts. The pieces played were mainly by late twentieth-century women composers and included Reflections from the Tower (1990) by Emma Lou Diemer. The evening concluded with a recital at Hill Auditorium, “Music by Women Composers,” presented by students of James Kibbie and Kola Owolabi, including Jenna Moon, Kaelan Hansson, Joseph Mutone, Sarah Simko, Joseph Moss, and Julian Goods, with featured works by Pamela Decker, Judith Bingham, Libby Larsen, and Florence Beatrice Price.

Tuesday, October 2

The last day of the conference began with Ana Elias and Sara Elias presenting “An Evolution of Women’s Role in the Carillon World and Its Implications for Arts Entrepreneurship.” Starting with the historical evolution of women’s role in the carillon, the current state of the profession in Portugal was discussed. Female entrepreneurship was encouraged, and the presenters’ traveling carillon was exhibited. Following, “Florence Price: The First African-American Woman Composer Successful in Classical Music: Newly Found Organ Works” was presented in lecture and recital by Calvert Johnson. In particular, Johnson discussed Price’s Passacaglia and Fugue of 1927.

Later that morning, the panel “The ‘Solo’ Keyboardist: When You’re the Only ____ In Your Workplace—Professional Perspectives” was moderated by Tiffany Ng, university carillonist, and featured panelists Anne Laver (Syracuse University), Susan Tattershall (ID Project at Colorado Legal Services), Elena Tsai (freelance harpsichordist and technician), Colin Knapp (Michigan Opera Theatre), and Anne Huhman (associate director of University of Michigan Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center).

In the afternoon, students of James Kibbie and Kola Owolabi played music by women composers at the First Congregational Church. The recitalists were James Renfer, Matthew Durham, Allison Barone, Samuel Ronning, Clayton Farmer, and Emily Solomon performing the music of Pamela Decker, Ruth Zechlin, Erzsébet Szönyi, Brenda Portman, and Efrida Andrée.

“Living Legends . . . Lasting Legacies: Emma Lou Diemer, Marilyn Mason, and Alice Parker” was presented by Darlene Kuperus and Marcia Van Oyen, with music by Diemer, Parker, Larry Visser, and Joe Utterback, along with videos and remembrances of each “legend.” The afternoon concluded with a presentation of “The Work of Dana Hull, Organ Builder & Restorer” by Tom Curry and Elgin Clingaman, followed by a reception in honor of Hull.

Tiffany Ng began the final evening with a carillon recital that utilized added electronics. The recital, “Women Who Rock the Bells,” was divided into sections: “#METOO: The Movement to Support Survivors and End Sexual Violence” (music of Pamela Reiter-Feenstra); “Breaking the Tower Ceiling: Black Composers” (music of Yvette Jackson and Jessie Montgomery—both Michigan premieres); “Frontiers of Space and Imagination” (music of Laura Steenberge, Margo Halsted, Agniezka Stulginska), and “Not Your Quiet Model Minority” (music by Carolyn Chen).

The conference concluded with University of Michigan Dancers, the University of Michigan Baroque Chamber Orchestra (Aaron Berofsky and Joseph Gascho, directors), and James Kibbie on organ, recreating choreography staged by Gail Corbin, Jillian Hopper, and Michela Esteban of Doris Humphrey (1895–1958) to the music of Bach. Non-danced music of de la Guerre was also included in “An Evening of Doris Humphrey and J. S. Bach:  Romantic Post-Modernism in Dance and Music.” The final piece, Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 582, was played by Kibbie with stunning choreography by Humphrey from 1938. Jillian Hopper and Christian Matijas-Mecca are directors of the Dance Legacy Project.

The conference was one of trailblazers, presenting music chiefly by women, many of whom are unknown. Indeed, the conference itself was a trailblazer in its presentation of women composers, the breadth and varied scope of the offerings, and the immense educational benefits to all attendees.

Photo credits: Sherri Brown

Lorraine Brugh is professor of music and Kruse Organ Fellow at Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana. She recently served as director of the university’s study abroad program in Cambridge, England.

Prelude

Filled with sunshine and warm temperatures, June 17 in Lyon was a day Olivier Messiaen would certainly have approved. The cavernous dark room of the Church of Saint Pothin would have also certainly met with the master’s approval, its mosaic dome crowning the apse and the organ filling the entire east end of the nave.

The simple, modern organ case with dark red and brown wood, crowned with white and gold molding, did not give away what was inside. The organ was built by Joseph Merklin et Cie in 1876. It was completely renovated in 2004 by Daniel Kern Manufacture d’Orgues of Strasbourg. While Merklin built a two-manual instrument, it is now three manuals.

The resonance of Saint Pothin, with its two to three second reverberation, created an ideal aural space for the first round of the competition, which featured the works of Marcel Dupré and Olivier Messiaen. The ability to time an entrance following a rest or fermata became a distinguishing feature of the performers. Some were able to make the music just flow out of the reverberation; others were too eager to get on with the music.

More than fifty people gathered for this opening round of the competition. The usual motley crew of organists and enthusiasts, mostly over sixty, eagerly awaited the first candidate. A panel of nine judges, seven men and two women, held forth in front of the altar, conveniently blocking the console from view. The contestants sat in the nave, watching and listening to each other play. The six candidates, chosen from a field of seventeen applicants, were required to choose a prelude and fugue of Marcel Dupré and a piece of Messiaen. The contestants and their repertoire were:

Fanny Cousseau, France

Marcel Dupré, Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, opus 7, number 3

Olivier Messiaen, “Offrande et Alleluia final,” from Le Livre du Saint-Sacrement

Yanis Dubois, France

Marcel Dupré, Prelude and Fugue in F Minor, opus 7, number 2

Olivier Messiaen, “Dieu parmi nous,” from La Nativité

Charlotte Dumas, France

Marcel Dupré, Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, opus 7, number 3

Olivier Messiaen, “Alleluias sereins d’une âme qui désire le ciel,” from L’Ascension

Jacobus Gladziwa, Germany

Marcel Dupré, Prelude and Fugue in B Major, opus 7, number 1

Olivier Messiaen, “Alleluias sereins d’une âme qui désire le ciel,” from L’Ascension

Thomas Kientz, France

Olivier Messiaen “Dieu parmi nous”, from La Nativité

Marcel Dupré, Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, opus 7, number 3

Eszter Szedmák, Hungary

Olivier Messiaen, “Alleluias sereins d’une âme qui désire le ciel,” from L’Ascension

Marcel Dupré, Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, opus 7, number 3

The Olivier-Messiaen Competition, originally created in 1967 as a contemporary piano festival, was held in Paris until 2007. Now, in 2019, Bruno Messina, director of the Isère Agency for Artistic Dissemination (AIDA), is responsible for recreating it in the spirit allowed by the artistic project of Maison Messiaen, the artist’s residence in Matheysine. The Auditorium-Orchestre National de Lyon has become the home for this new international interpretation competition for the organ, under the chairmanship of Claude Samuel, founder of the Olivier-Messiaen Competition, former director of music at Radio France, and author of interview books with the composer.

The organ in the auditorium of Lyon was originally installed in Paris, built for the 1878 World’s Fair. It was situated in the large concert hall in the (former) Palais du Trocadéro and was the first Aristide Cavaillé-Coll organ to be installed in a French concert hall. The instrument was inaugurated with concerts in which Charles Marie Widor played the premiere of his Symphony No. 6 for Organ.

The organ was modernized and reassembled for the Exposition Internationale of 1937, part of the renovation of the Palais du Trocadéro into the Palais de Chaillot. Many works have had their premiere on this instrument, including Messiaen’s Les Corps Glorieux, performed by the composer himself on April 15, 1945.

The organ was moved and installed in Lyon in 1977 and most recently rebuilt in 2013 by Michel Gaillard, Manufacture Bernard Aubertin. The auditorium is today the only large organ room in France outside Paris.

The 2019 competition featured a newly commissioned work by Phillippe Hersant, a compulsory work in the competition’s final round. Mr. Hersant was present at the competition, serving as a jury member alongside several international Messiaen performers and scholars. Through the works of Hersant, Messiaen, and others, the competition offered a range of high level yet accessible organ literature to the audience. The competition was part of two weeks of programming that showcased the instrument for family outings, festive concerts, and high-profile recitals.

Olivier Latry served as president of the jury. On the day after the competition’s final round I asked him about his relationship to the competition’s revival. “I wasn’t involved in the planning of the competition from the beginning,” he explained:

"Others like Bruno Messina and Claude Samuel were central to transforming the event. I didn’t have to do anything with that; I was just asked to be president of the jury. The repertoire choices were also not mine, which was nice because it gave me new eyes and new ears. The planners eventually decided to make a competition for the organ, created out of the piano competition of twenty years ago. I think it’s more about the relation between Messiaen and the Trocadéro organ from the Palais du Chaillot that is the connection with Lyon than anything else. On that organ Messiaen played and dedicated some of his works when it was at the Palais du Chaillot. That connection as well has made a sort of comparison between the piano, the organ, and the competition."

Intermezzo

Where but in France could one walk into a laundromat at 8:30 in the morning and meet someone who had attended Thierry Escaich’s organ concert two nights before? As I struggled to figure out how to make the washer start, a French woman came to my aid and guided me through the complex maze on the wall to get soap and pay for the washer. As we waited interminably for our clothes to dry, we struck up a little conversation. Little was the only possibility as my French was un peu. I told her I was here for an organ festival, and she said she had just attended an organ recital two nights before. “Thierry Escaich,” I asked? “Oui, madame.” She and her husband are admirers and friends of Escaich and have known him for nearly thirty years. She told me Escaich was instrumental in the 2013 project to renovate the organ.

Her husband arrived and we chatted a bit more about the unusual duo concert we heard with Escaich and comédien Lambert Wilson. They said Wilson is one of the most celebrated actors in France, and what an honor it was for him to perform in Lyon. As the husband picked up the laundry bags, he said, “Well, we all have to get back to daily life sometime.”

Allegro assai

The second round of the competition moved to the auditorium, where the now five finalists each played a 20–25 minute program. This time there were two movements of a Bach trio sonata, a compulsory Messiaen piece from Livre d’Orgue, and a contemporary work. It was beginning to feel like a marathon to me, as fingers flew through the fast movements, carefully playing Messiaen’s many and intricate bird calls. The performers worked through their technically demanding literature quite deftly. At the conclusion of this round, four finalists were chosen to compete in the final round.

Final

The four finalists played again at the auditorium with a combination of compulsory and chosen works:

• In exitu Israel, a compulsory piece composed by Philippe Hersant, commissioned by the Olivier Messiaen Competition;

• a piece or pieces by Olivier Messiaen of eight to fifteen minutes in length chosen by the candidate; these pieces can have been played in the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds (the quarterfinal round by recording, the semifinal round at St. Pothin);

• a composition written between 1830 and 1945 chosen by the candidate.

This repertory must not have been played in a previous round.

Sortie

On the day following the finals, the competition was complete, and the judges presented an afternoon concert. As I had already left Lyon, I spoke with Olivier Latry by phone and asked about the results of the judges. The judges awarded no first prize. The second prize was awarded to Thomas Kientz, the third prize to Yanis Dubois, the Messaien prize to Fanny Cousseau, the audience prize presented to Eszter Szedmák, and the contemporary prize to Yanis Dubois. As to why there was no first prize, Latry explained, “I really must confess that some of my colleagues in the jury and I were disappointed in the playing in the final round, which was not as strong to me as the previous rounds. The performances were not at the level of an international competition. In order to continue the level of the competition, we need to raise the level of the first prize.”

I asked him about the rigor of the competition, its pressures, and the amount of literature required of the players. He responded, “I must say that it was not that strenuous, compared to Chartres or Montreal. It was normal. When we play literature for a concert tour it is normal for us to have three hours in our fingers, sometimes more. So the rounds were 1½ hours of playing. That is normal for someone who wants to make a career as a concert organist.”

In noting the importance of expressiveness in playing French literature, I asked how much the technicalities matter, for example, the micro-rhythms in Messiaen. Latry replied:

"With Messiaen, one cannot avoid the notes and the rhythms. This is the basis of his music. They are givens, and Messiaen is specific about that. It is important to follow those and not change them at that level. Then, when the notes and rhythms are correctly done, the performers can make their own interpretive decisions with things like registration, rubato, agogic, etc. But all of that should not interfere anymore with this first step; notes and rhythms have to be kept."

We closed the conversation with Latry musing about the importance of competitions. I found that he had some surprising comments:

"I’m not a great fan of competitions. Usually I refuse to adjudicate a competition. The difference this time was that it featured the music of Messiaen, for which I have a deep affection. Who am I to judge someone? Why would my judgment be better than someone else’s? How can I say that one player is better in music than another one? Unfortunately that is the only way for young musicians to become known.

"I think we need new ways for young musicians to be known. What can we do to create a venue for them? There are certain young players that we know, and many that we don’t. In fact I would like to imagine some kind of meeting (not called a competition) where we can invite ten to sixteen young players, and we all listen to them. Then, after their performances, we could organize some masterclasses on the pieces they played, telling them what we liked, what we didn’t, what could be improved, etc. Towards the end I might say, ‘I really love what they do,’ and I might relay that name to someone who would not know of this young player.

"The pressure created in that kind of meeting, even without being a competition, however, is very important. When we create a performance situation, the pressure is part of the whole situation. It needs to be part of the player’s strategy to handle it. On various occasions, for example, when I premiered a new organ/orchestra piece with the Philadelphia Symphony, there was incredible pressure. I think it’s the same kind of thing. I haven’t judged before, but I think it’s the same way. Any competition, or a jury exam for a doctoral degree even in other fields than music would require the same thing. I think it is part of the skill to be able, in spite of the stress of the performance, to go to another dimension in those situations. Most people stay at the level of the composition, ‘playing the notes,’ but they really need to go further. The jury members are looking for something ‘more.’ I’m speaking about that other dimension needed for a complete, successful, and touching performance."

I was taken by these words from one of the world’s greatest players. The combination of high expectation and a calling to give new young organists a venue to be heard impressed me. The combined need for heeding the composer’s intentions and adding one’s own expressiveness and interpretation calls for the highest level of musicianship. The fact that no first prize was awarded was evidence to me of the need for all of us who teach young organists to encourage and support, while, at the same time, keep the bar high for the next generation.

Joyce Johnson Robinson is a past editor of The Diapason.

Photo caption: Paul Jacobs stands between George Rau and Susan Woodard, his high school organ and piano teachers, respectively. The ceremony was for the honorary doctorate given to Jacobs by Washington & Jefferson College in 2017.

Paul Jacobs’s name first appeared in the November 1998 issue of The Diapason, which noted that he won first prize in the Young Professional Division of the Albert Schweitzer Organ Competition in its inaugural year. His marathon performance in Chicago of the organ works of Olivier Messiaen was described in detail by Frank Ferko (“An Extraordinary Musical Odyssey: Paul Jacobs’ Messiaen Marathon,” The Diapason, April 2002, Vol. 93, No. 4, pages 14–15). Over a decade ago, The Diapason presented an interview with Jacobs, which focused on his development as a musician and his views of music within American culture (“Challenging the Culture: A Conversation with Paul Jacobs,” The Diapason, February 2006, Vol. 97, No. 2, pages. 22–25).

Jacobs has become a vocal champion of the organ and of art music, as evidenced by interviews and articles in such publications as The New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. He is the only organ soloist to have won a Grammy Award, and is recognized as a musician of unique stature through his performances in each of the fifty United States and around the world, as well as his performances with major orchestras, including Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony, to name just a few. Jacobs also serves as chair of the organ department at the Juilliard School in Manhattan. Last season Jacobs toured in Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

We were able to discuss his work and thoughts during a visit of his with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in May of 2018, and present an edited version of his comments here.

The Grammy

Joyce Johnson Robinson: Your awards include a Grammy award—the first and only organ soloist to receive a Grammy award.¹

Paul Jacobs: The Grammy was entirely unexpected. I was shocked by the nomination and utterly convinced that it would never materialize.

You didn’t even go to the ceremony.

It would have been difficult to attend, because I was performing with an orchestra the same weekend and didn’t want to cancel; besides, I wouldn’t receive it [the award] anyway. Well, I was wrong about that! This honor was something good not only for me, but for the entire organ profession, for organ playing to be recognized by such a mainstream institution.

Do you think it’s led to additional opportunities, or brought more attention?

On some level, perhaps. But I don’t believe that any one accolade or accomplishment is a silver bullet, which is what I tell my students. Young musicians, understandably, want to be successful and recognized immediately for their work, but there isn’t just one ingredient that’s going to make this happen—one has to commit for the long haul and be patient. Intense dedication to the art form—pursuing it for the right reasons—is crucial, because this isn’t always an easy or lucrative path. But if you genuinely love music, it will sustain you through difficult, even discouraging, times. If you tenaciously persist in the journey, your vocation to music will eventually bear fruit.

People have approached me over the years—many who have stable work and a healthy paycheck—and expressed some degree of envy that I can make a living doing what I actually love to do. It’s a reminder that shouldn’t be taken lightly: making beautiful music for others is a rare joy and a privilege. Be grateful for the music that has been bequeathed to us, that is under our care to pass to future generations. We’re the custodians of timeless works of art and must be fully dedicated to studying and sharing them with the world in any way that we can, large and small.

Collaborations

How did this all get going with orchestras?²

Oh, I’ve always had a strong desire to collaborate with other musicians. The organ can be—but need not be—a lonely instrument. There’s an abundance of fine repertoire for organ and various combinations of instruments. As a student, I played a good deal of chamber music, so much so that, as an undergraduate, I was inspired to double-major in both organ and harpsichord, primarily for the opportunity to play continuo. This cultivated relationships with many musicians who weren’t organists, which has always been important to me. As time progressed, I was increasingly invited by important orchestras to perform with them, something that has brought tremendous satisfaction.

You’ve worked with such important conductors as Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Franz Welser-Most. Many conductors haven’t worked very closely with organ soloists. Is this correct?

That’s right. Let me consider how to best phrase this—my desire is for organists to be taken as seriously as other musicians. But we must earn respect; it doesn’t come automatically. And we have to deliver at the highest artistic level—consistently, every time—while always remaining flexible to the fluid circumstances of live performance. We also have to be easy to work with, personally speaking.

Several conductors have indicated to me that they’ve had less than flattering experiences with organists in the past. Sometimes organists do not help themselves or the art form, which is marginalized enough already. I think it’s crucial that organists become more self-aware of the quality of their playing and how they relate (or not) to other people, particularly those not in their own field.

What do you think about the growth of your work with orchestras, and these new concertos and pieces that are being written for organ and orchestra? Do you see this starting to spread, with other organists doing this? Right now it seems to be just you.

I know, it’s true; but this is also something that I’ve worked very hard to achieve. None of this has occurred without extraordinary effort, not to mention occasional frustrations. To begin with, it takes a bold willingness to want to understand the world of orchestras—entirely different from the organ community—its structure and needs, and what its audiences expect. And usually these audiences do not comprise the same people who attend organ recitals.

Additionally, organists must be capable of overcoming any idiosyncrasies of a given instrument, quickly overriding any problems, which are bound to arise given the non-standardized nature of our instrument and everything that this entails. Frankly, the conductor and hundred or so musicians on stage don’t give a hoot about the very legitimate problems organists face; an organist must simply be able to deliver with the same ease and confidence as they do, no questions asked.

Some of the new works that you’ve premiered, such as Wayne Oquin’s Resilience, were written for you or with you in mind.³

Some of them were, yes. I’m always looking for composers who are eager to write effectively for the organ and encourage my students to do the same. To survive, an art form must evolve and each generation must contribute to it; therefore, it’s important to encourage living composers—composers of our time—to consider the instrument and its unique expressive potential. Maybe not every piece of new music is going to stand the test of time, but a few will. And sometimes contemporary music connects with certain listeners in a way that the old warhorses do not.

And what about future recordings?

Recently released on the Hyperion label is a recording made with the Utah Symphony of Saint-Saëns’ ever-popular “Organ” Symphony. Also to be released later next season on the Harmonia Mundi label is Samuel Barber’s Toccata Festiva, performed in Switzerland with the Lucerne Symphony. And I’m excited by another recording project with Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony, one which will include Hindemith’s rarely heard Organ Concerto, Horatio Parker’s Organ Concerto, and Wayne Oquin’s Resilience.

International Touring

Having performed on five continents, including his recent European tour, Jacobs traveled to China to perform and to serve as president of the jury for the country’s first-ever international organ festival and competition, held at the Oriental Arts Centre in Shanghai.

What are your impressions of the organ world in China?

There is an exciting and increasing curiosity about the organ among Chinese musicians and audiences alike. Something that I experienced in Shanghai was that the audiences comprise primarily young people—to identify gray hairs is actually tricky! Children and their parents and young adults routinely fill the concert halls in China.

Can you explain that?

Not entirely, but it’s inspiring to witness the emergence of an organ culture in the world’s most populous country. Just as we’ve seen in other Asian countries in recent decades, now we observe something similar in China. Where it will lead, however, we do not know. But there is definitely some very genuine interest in the organ; the Shanghai Conservatory just instituted its first classical organ major degree. Of course, a problem is that there are few churches to employ trained organists. Nonetheless, it was encouraging to witness what is happening on the other side of the world, and to experience firsthand Chinese culture, which has retained some traditions and values that we’ve lost or forgotten in the West—civility, a profound respect for one’s elders and teachers, common courtesy and decorum.

Surprisingly, I actually returned to New York after a sixteen-hour flight feeling somewhat relaxed, and this sense of calm remained with me for a few days. Shanghai’s population is a staggering twenty-three million people, and New York, by contrast, is a mere eight million. Yet, in many ways, Shanghai felt calmer than New York, or many other large American cities, for that matter. Despite the tremendous activity of Shanghai, one isn’t bombarded by honking horns or aggressive pedestrians or motorists. Rather, a Confucian attitude seems to pervade daily life. The Chinese just find their place in society and work into it. Overall, it strikes me as a quieter, more serene culture, despite such a large population.

You’ve done a good deal of international touring, including in Europe. In your experience, how do the American and European organ cultures relate to one another?

Of course, I love Europe. How could one not? Its culture has given the world Dante, Rembrandt, and Wagner. And there’s an undeniable indebtedness that American organists, in particular, acknowledge toward Europe—the spectacular historic instruments and the impressive traditions and performers that have emerged over generations. However, I think we have reached a point in time when American organists need not feel subservient toward the Europeans; rather, we should view ourselves as friendly colleagues and peers. Yes, we can learn from them, but they can also learn from us.

Some American buildings in which organs are situated might be more modest in scale than the imposing, reverberant cathedrals of Europe. This could be just one reason that reflexively prompts some organists to esteem what occurs on the other side of the Atlantic more favorably. It’s true, some American churches or halls might possess a different acoustic or aesthetic character, but this doesn’t mean that the organs within them are any less valuable or effective, if they’re used properly. A Cavaillé-Coll and a Skinner can be equally magnificent, but the organist must be willing and able to play them quite differently. Today in the world, some of the finest organists—and organbuilders—are Americans. And America continues, rightly, to recognize extraordinary European talent; now, we’d appreciate a similar open-mindedness.

Teaching

Paul Jacobs remains the chair of the organ department at the Juilliard School, a position he assumed at age 26, one of the youngest faculty appointments in the school’s history. Former students of his now occupy notable positions. In academia, Isabelle Demers, noted concert organist, serves as organ professor at Baylor University; Christopher Houlihan, also an active concert organist, holds the Distinguished Chair of Chapel Music at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut; David Crean serves as professor of organ at Wright State University and is also a radio host.

Students of Jacobs also hold positions at prominent churches: in New York City, Michael Hey is associate organist at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Benjamin Sheen is associate organist at Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, Ryan Jackson is director of music at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, and Raymond Nagem serves as associate organist of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine; in Orange County, California, David Ball is associate organist at Christ Cathedral (formerly Crystal Cathedral). Other Jacobs students include Greg Zelek, the recently appointed principal organist of the Madison Symphony and curator of the Overture Concert Series in Madison, Wisconsin, noted performing and recording artist Cameron Carpenter, and Chelsea Chen, a successful concert organist and composer.⁴ In addition to Juilliard, for the past six years Jacobs has also directed the Organ Institute of the Oregon Bach Festival.

In your teaching, have you noticed any changes in students over the years, either in the way they’re prepared, or outlooks?

Yes. The students with whom I work tend to be less naive, perhaps, than when I was their age. Part of this, perhaps, comes from their experience of living in New York City. And I wonder, too, if technology has had something to do with this—social media and interconnectedness, everything out in the open, no secrets kept. Many young organists are savvy, perceptive, and hard-working. But I’ve also found it necessary to stimulate discussion about the problems young organists face, some of which they themselves could help resolve. For example, it’s my belief is that there’s an unfortunate separation between the organ world and the broader world of classical music, which is something that I’ve attempted to rectify through my own work, and strongly support my students to do the same. Many of them are already making a positive impact. Another imposing hurdle organists face beyond “organ versus classical music” is the larger cultural problem (at least as I see it) of the enveloping secularization of our society, which I believe will continue to increase the already formidable challenges to the arts, and certainly to classical musicians—not only to organists whose primary employer happens to be religious institutions. This, of course, is an all-encompassing topic, one that can elicit impassioned points of view; nevertheless, it needs to be discussed openly and honestly, especially by dedicated young musicians.

Beyond the decline of traditional church music, what do you think are some of the challenges facing young organists?

I am concerned by the inward-looking attitude that some organists have adopted. There is a sense of parochialism that often suffuses the profession, and it’s time to break out of that mold. In some quarters of teaching, the primary concern is that the students learn the “correct” way to play and interpret music from a panel of “experts.” How stifling! Many young organists spend their entire careers seeking their approval, at the same time showing disregard and even disdain for other dedicated musicians who might choose to do things a bit differently. The world of organists seems, at times, to be made up of fiefdoms, each guarding its own camp. There’s often a lack of unity, which contributes to a certain amount of unnecessary infighting. All this makes it difficult to reel in new lovers for organ music.

The insularity of our profession is a problem. This needs to be said. Too many organists are stuck exclusively in the organ world. To my mind organists need to step out of the organ loft. We should regularly visit museums, attend the opera, the symphony, and chamber music concerts, befriending other musicians who are not organists. Read literature, explore architecture, painting, and philosophy. I feel the need for the organ world academy to open its churchly doors onto a broader landscape that includes all of these things.

I recall hearing my high school organ teacher, George Rau, who studied at Fontainebleau one summer with Nadia Boulanger, say that, in the past, it was almost expected for serious organists to go and study with a European master, and that would “validate” them. But this is not the case anymore. Of course, I would never discourage a student from spending time in Europe—this would be very valuable. It’s simply no longer obligatory, however, in the formation of a fine musician.

We now have our own master teachers.

Yes, and master builders. America has its own impressive, rich tradition, so there’s no reason to possess an inferiority complex, subconsciously or otherwise. We now boast of some of the most versatile organists and organbuilders in the world, pursuing different styles, doing different things, but many with the highest degree of artistic integrity.

Further thoughts

What’s next on your agenda?

I anticipate another exciting season of music-making, of course, always continuing to expand my repertoire. In addition to the recording projects previously mentioned, I anticipate offering a special series of French recitals in New York, then joining several American orchestras as well as ones in Germany and Poland. I’m also looking forward to playing the organ at Maison de la Radio in Paris and dedicating the Hazel Wright organ at the new Christ Cathedral in California, among other adventures.

Do you get any break during the summer?

Yes. There are pockets during the summer that are a bit lighter, thankfully, particularly in August—but much of this period is spent preparing repertoire for the upcoming season. At least these days are not so rigorously structured; the hours can be taken more leisurely. But I long for uninterrupted time to read, reflect, and think about life. (Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov has been on my reading list for some time!) It’s tempting, when the gerbil wheel is spinning faster and faster, to neglect one’s spiritual growth. But I believe that a true creative artist must take special care of his or her soul, which is different from a person’s physical and mental health.

How do you recharge? Do you go home to Pennsylvania?

Yes, I definitely spend some time there, and it will be refreshing to be with family, both immediate and extended, as well as old friends. I remain deeply fond of the outdoors, taking long walks in the woods, which purifies the spirit and provides time for thought, reflection, and inspiration. I don’t think it’s our job to “change the world”—whatever that means, anyway; it’s impossible, in fact. But I do believe it’s our duty to live in such a way that sets an edifying example to those whom we encounter each day, bestowing in our personal interactions an increased love for music and sensitivity to beauty in life. This we must do.

Thomas Murray, John Weaver, Lionel Party, as well as going back to my high school teachers, George Rau and Susan Woodard—they’ve each set a sterling example, not only regarding excellence in musicianship, but also in how to treat people with sincerity and empathy, never losing sight of the larger picture. Our ultimate goal shouldn’t be mere professional success. I remain exceedingly grateful to have been influenced by these generous and caring individuals, and hopefully I succeed at passing along similar wisdom to my own students.

I remember saying to John Weaver at some point, “You know, John, I’ll never be able to repay you for all that you’ve done for me.” And he said, “Well, you can’t, so don’t try. But do it for somebody else.” That’s the way to look at it. We’ll never be able to adequately repay our mentors, but they don’t care. They just hope we will pass it on.

Notes

1. In 2011 Paul Jacobs received a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra) for his recording of Messiaen’s Livre du Saint-Sacrement (Naxos), the first time that a solo recording of classical organ music has been recognized by the Recording Academy. Other awards include the Arthur W. Foote Award of the Harvard Musical Association in 2003, and an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, Pennsylvania, in 2017.

2. Jacobs has also collaborated with dramatic soprano Christine Brewer; touring together, they also recorded Divine Redeemer (Naxos 8.573524).

3. Jacobs’s work with new music includes premieres of works by Christopher Rouse, Samuel Adler, Mason Bates, Michael Daugherty, Wayne Oquin, Stephen Paulus, Christopher Theofanidis, and John Harbison, among others.

In October 2017, Jacobs, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Nézet-Séguin presented the East Coast premiere of Wayne Oquin’s Resilience for organ and orchestra. Commissioned by the Pacific Symphony as part of their American Music Festival, Resilience received its world premiere on February 4, 2016, at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Costa Mesa, California. The work is a 13-minute call and response between organ and orchestra and is dedicated to Paul Jacobs and conductor Carl St. Clair.

4. On November 22, 2014, Jacobs and his current and former students from Juilliard presented the complete organ works of J. S. Bach in an 18-hour marathon concert at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Manhattan, presented by the country’s largest classical radio station, WQXR. Many of the time slots in the six-hour event sold out.

The human touch

Choral music is not one of life’s frills. It’s something that goes to the very heart of our humanity, our sense of community, and our souls. You express, when you sing, your soul in song. And when you get together with a group of other singers, it becomes more than the sum of the parts. All of those people are pouring out their hearts and souls in perfect harmony, which is kind of an emblem for what we need in the world, when so much of the world is at odds with itself. That’s just to express in symbolic terms what it’s like when human beings are in harmony. That’s a lesson for our times, and for all time.

When I was writing for the July 2015 issue of The Diapason, I was in the thrall of a video interview with John Rutter just released on YouTube by his American distributer, J. W. Pepper. (Type “john rutter the importance of choir” in the YouTube search bar.) This simple statement, presented as a matter of fact, says everything about why we work so hard to nurture parish choirs. Maybe not quite everything. He goes on,

Musical excellence is, of course, at the heart of it, but even if a choir is not the greatest in the world, it has a social value, a communal value . . . . [A] church or a school without a choir is like a body without a soul.

Recently, a blog post appeared on the website of the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas with the title, “The Future of the Organ for Church Worship,” written by the Reverend Marc Dobson. The piece opens with an overview of various chapters in the movement of contemporary music in worship including the Pentecostal movement, Folk Masses, Charismatic worship, television evangelists, and the Willow Creek movement. We are all well aware that many worshippers are moved by styles of music other than the organ-and-choir tradition in which I grew up. My first job playing the organ in church was in a Roman Catholic parish (I was thirteen years old) where the 5:00 Mass on Sunday afternoon featured folk music. I played traditional music on Sunday mornings on the Conn Artiste. (Get it?)

Fr. Dobson continues with other truths, such as, “Finding a good church organist is hard, given the nature of the church and where things are at today.” He states, fairly enough,

. . . many organists are not easily adaptable to a changing worship culture. Finding an organist who is willing to ‘give and take’ is certainly a challenge. Many organists are ‘purists’ when it comes to music, making the challenge even more difficult. They are Kings and Queens of their domain and will certainly let you know that very thing!

I have witnessed many musicians insisting that their way is correct, and I have participated in many dinner table conversations about working with difficult clergy. I know that what Fr. Dobson says here is based in truth. But when he continues by suggesting that if your church “finds itself without an organist,” a weekly subscription service, or “organ in a box,” is a viable solution, I think he has gone off the rails. Among advantages of this plan, he lists, “Pastoral control over weekly content,” “Accurate and professional sounding organ led worship,” and “Reliability.” These ideas carry negative connotations for organists, especially when taken out of context. In that light, it is important to mention that Fr. Dobson implies that he would prefer to have a “real” organist: “While it’s great to have a real organist, like I said, they’re not easy to find.” Fake organists need not apply.

§

Wendy and I moved to New York City four years ago, but I still have quite a few organ-service clients in the Boston area where I have been maintaining organs since 1984—I have been visiting eight of those organs for all that time. Thirty-five years is more than a generation, and I have seen many changes. I remember a formidable list of musicians who occupied the great organ benches of Boston, like George Faxon, John Ferris, Max Miller, Yuko Hayashi, Donald Teeters, and Daniel Pinkham, now all deceased; each led brilliant music programs and influenced the generation that followed them. University organ departments, notably the New England Conservatory of Music, fed churches with energetic ambitious young organists, many of whom are now the senior musicians in the area.

Unfortunately, NEC has closed its organ department, and perhaps not coincidentally, many of the churches where I maintain organs struggle to retain organists. More than a few congregations that I served and admired have disbanded, and quite a few of my clients have informed me that they will stop maintaining their organ because they have not been able to find an organist. I often learn that when the prominent incumbent musician retired, the church advertised the position at a lower salary, believing that such a transition was a good time to cut the budget. The next generation of organists, eager to apply for that plumb position, is disappointed to learn that the salary offered is low and moves on to the next opportunity.

Another symptom of a church that is cutting budgets is the unattended office. Thirty years ago, it was typical for every church to have at least one full-time person in the office. Of course, those were also the days before voicemail, call waiting, call forwarding, and all the technological advances that allow us to stay in touch without answering the phone. But today, at least where I live and work, when calling a church office, there is someone in the office only two or three mornings a week, so it is usual to reach a voicemail system. Scheduling a tuning visit and being sure that the heat will be turned up is done by voicemail, email, and text messages. In some ways, that is the same as replacing the organist with a subscription service, as in both cases the personal connection is removed from the equation.

I have been in countless church buildings where the ubiquitous church secretary ran an important ministry that was the bustling, cheerful, comforting traffic of parishioners coming and going during the week. The coffee was never very good, but there was always a bowl of candies or a plate of cookies and plenty of good cheer. It is a little sad for the organ tuner to open the building with his own key and walk alone down dark corridors past bulletin boards festooned with yellowing minutes of meetings held four months ago, and it is frustrating to find that in spite of numerous emails and voice messages, they failed to turn up the heat—again. It is especially sad in those buildings where I remember the bustle and conviviality of a rollicking church office, where running jokes lasted from year to year.

§

I’ll do my best to shine a positive light on Fr. Dobson’s blog and read it as a plea for good organists rather than a plan to replace them. Every good organist deserves a proper position, and every church that wants a good organist deserves to have one. However, there are some ground rules. The musicians and the clergy all must strive to be creative colleagues and constructive leaders in the life of the church, not the “King or Queen” of impregnable domains. And just as clergy should be well compensated, the church must offer reasonable compensation to the musician that reflects the requisite education and experience. Good organists are trained seriously and creatively. Planning a vibrant and varied music program requires deep knowledge of the literature and lots of skill, and church organists are among the most prolific of performing musicians, often playing fifteen or twenty different “numbers” before the public each week.

In many parishes, the choir (or choirs) is the most active volunteer activity. Dozens of people arrive cheerfully twice a week to give their effort and talents to the enhancement of worship. There are choir parties, retreats, and special programs of outreach to members who are suffering illness in their families or other of life’s complications. Some parish choirs even go on international tours, carrying the ministries of a local parish across oceans to sing in European cathedrals. To sustain all this excitement, it is the responsibility of the choir director to program music that is stimulating and challenging. Squandering that powerful volunteer effort by wasting hours is unthinkable. It is impossible to imagine any or all of this being replaced with a subscription service.

The important thing here is that we are all working for institutions that are not as strong as they were a generation ago. The musician who fails to be a constructive colleague is hastening the day when another good position vanishes.

§

I admit freely that I have heard very little contemporary worship music, and none of what I have heard merits much praise. I have never gone out of my way to hear it. My only exposures have been the several occasions when I have been working in an organ through a Saturday afternoon, agreeing that the praise band can rehearse while I am there. I have heard young volunteers with powerful amplifiers, no ears, no skill, and no sense of trying to improve plodding through four-chord, four-note, four-word songs over and over, making the same mistakes each time. (Just keep turning leather nuts, John.) I am sure there are skilled professional ensembles that lead contemporary music in worship, but I have not had an opportunity to witness in person.

If a parish judges that their congregation would thrive on a diet of contemporary music, wouldn’t it be appropriate for it to be offered with the highest professionalism possible, rather than allow it to serve as an excuse not to pay musicians? Joseph W. Clokey (1890–1960), professor of organ at Miami University and Pomona College and dean of the School of the Fine Arts at Miami University, said:

The purpose of worship is to elevate, not degrade. The quality of music used should be above, not below the cultural level of the congregation. If the music seems to be ‘over your heads’ the best plan is to raise your head.

I have had another experience with the diminution of excellence. A member of the clergy on staff with me did not approve of my assigning solos to members of the youth choir, saying that it was not fair to kids of lesser ability. I understand that kids do not want to be left out, but didn’t Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Leontyne Price, and Jessye Norman all start their singing careers in church choirs? Would their artistry have thrived if they were held back to be like the others? Isn’t a church choir a good place to encourage natural talents? And isn’t it a responsibility of the choir director to recognize and encourage extraordinary abilities?

I know that I have always been involved with skillful church musicians; I am grateful for that. When I was directing choirs, it was my privilege to work with talented and dedicated singers, both volunteer amateurs and hired professionals, who were willing to work hard and who were excited each time by the challenge of learning a new piece. I also know that many churches present more modest music programs, but unless they are really horrible, the human element will always bring depth and warmth to the music.

Besides working with choirs to present music during regular worship, the church musician can fulfill another important pastoral role: working with families to plan music in times of joy and sorrow. Among the odd collection of memorabilia that has collected in the top drawers of my dresser is a note of appreciation I received from a couple a few days after I met with them to plan the music for their wedding. It is written in a childish hand with several strangely placed commas and misspelled words, but it simply thanks me for being nice and helping them to choose such nice music. They were certain that their wedding would be wonderful. Maybe it was a simple service with another round of Wagner, Pachelbel, and Mendelssohn. Maybe it was bit of a bore for me. But it was an important day for them, and they had the chance to choose special music for themselves. It might be the only time in their lives that they chose music for a celebration. I am happy that I had the chance to provide that for them. Sure, someone could have played recordings of the same pieces, but it would not be the same.

The last church I served had a traditional “chancel plan,” with the organ console on the right side. There was a door behind the bench that opened into the stairway to the choir room below, and it was usual for the groom and best man to hang out there waiting for the processional march. While playing preludes for the wedding of two beloved children of the parish (the bride had babysat for our kids), the groom was standing by the open door, marveling at the organ. I remember hearing him say to his best man, “we should let him ply his trade,” as he quietly closed the door. No subscription service could have done all that.

§

Allow me a sassy moment. If an organist can be replaced by a subscription service, so can a pastor. I bet I could find a service that would provide recorded sermons based on the lectionary, as if preaching was all the pastor did. And CDs are so yesterday. Each week you would receive an email with a WAV file to download. The laptop or tablet would feed Bluetooth speakers, and Bob’s your uncle.

But that is not the point. In response to Fr. Dobson’s essay, I would like to remind all of us that, at best, the church musician is called to the work in ways comparable to a call to join the clergy. Musicians get specialized educations, they practice many hours each week to maintain and hone their skills and to learn new literature, they read and study to keep current with new trends and styles, and with the work of serious new composers. Church musicians add life and color to worship, from mystery to majesty. They can inspire awe and wonder or interject a touch of humor. A huge proportion of the history of the fine arts has been devoted to public worship, from soaring architecture to the great settings of the Latin Mass, and from pictorial art to ecclesiastical symbolism.

Remember those words of Joseph W. Clokey, “The purpose of worship is to elevate, not degrade.” And remember the words of John Rutter, “. . . a church or school without a choir is like a body without a soul.”

I am thinking and writing about the best of things. Not all church musicians have conservatory degrees. Not all churches can afford or produce sophisticated music programs. But clergy and musicians should always be ready to work with each other and respect each other, to create constructive environments without animosity, envy, or competition, and to present a unified worship experience for the benefit and betterment of the communities in which they work.

Musicians, live up to the challenge! Raise the bar, work toward the best. Work to be sure you are a valued colleague and a valued part of staff. Would that it could be that no member of the clergy could feel that the local musician was overlord of an impregnable domain. You will be the one who is always offered a job.

Note: I contacted the communications director of the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas to ask why Fr. Dobson’s blog post had been removed. I was told that they received many responses in a short period and did not have a mechanism through which to make it be a discussion. ν

Born in New York City, Sally Gordon-Mark has French and American citizenships, lives in Europe, and is an independent writer, researcher, and translator. She is also a musician—her professional life began in Hollywood as the soprano of a teenage girl group, The Murmaids, whose hit record, Popsicles & Icicles, is still played on air and sold on CDs. Eventually she worked for Warner Bros. Records, Francis Coppola, and finally Lucasfilm Ltd., in charge of public relations and promotions, before a life-changing move to Paris in 1987. There Sally played harpsichord for the first time, thanks to American concert artist Jory Vinikour, her friend and first teacher. He recommended she study with Huguette Dreyfus, which she had the good fortune to do during the last three years before Huguette retired from the superieur regional conservatory of Rueil-Malmaison, remaining a devoted friend until Huguette passed away.

During Sally’s residence in France, she organized a dozen Baroque concerts for the historical city of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, worked as a researcher for books published by several authors and Yale University, and being trilingual, served as a translator of early music CD booklets for musicians and Warner Classic Records. She also taught piano privately and at the British School of Paris on a regular basis. In September 2020 she settled in Perugia, Italy. In March 2023 Sally was the guest editor of the British Harpsichord Society’s e-magazine Sounding Board, No. 19, devoted entirely to the memory of Huguette Dreyfus. For more information: www.sallygordonmark.com.

Editor’s note: Part 1 of this series appeared in the March 2023 issue of The Diapason, pages 18–20; part 2 appeared in the April 2023 issue, pages 14–19.

“I was very attached to her, as one is to teachers who allow you to make huge strides in little time.” —Judith Andreyev²

By the 1980s, it had become customary for harpsichordists and organists from all over the world to come to France or the Netherlands to study and perfect their technique with Huguette Dreyfus, Kenneth Gilbert, and Gustav Leonhardt. Huguette’s concert tours and recordings had brought her international renown. She had a great gift for teaching, and with foreign students she could speak English, German, and Italian fluently. “Huguette has an absolutely fabulous sense of teaching, and she can communicate what she knows with enthusiasm.”³ Many of her students who had succeeded professionally continued to play for her before concerts, recordings, and tours. But Huguette would say in an interview late in life that her students did not need her as much as she needed them.⁴ Her students who became concert artists include harpsichordists Olivier Baumont, Emer Buckley, Jocelyne Cuiller, Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, Gaby Delfiner, Yves-Marie Deshays, Matthew Dirst, Elisabeth Joyé, Yannick LeGaillard, Laure Morabito, Pamela Nash, Kristian Nyquist, Mariko Oikawa, Joël Pontet, Christophe Rousset, Heather Slade-Lipkin, Noëlle Spieth, Ann Cecilia Tavares, Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard, Blandine Verlet, Jory Vinikour, Ilton Wjuniski, as well as organists Philippe Bardon, Véronique LeGuen, Frank Mento, and David Noël-Hudson.

Huguette began teaching when she was only fourteen years old, during her family’s stay in Switzerland with relatives after they had fled France over the Alps in December 1942. This was after she had received a first prize in her piano exam at a superior level from the Conservatory of Clermont-Ferrand. When she entered the Conservatory of Lausanne, she enrolled at the virtuoso level and was allowed to pass her final exams in Clermont-Ferrand when the war ended, winning another first prize. After settling in Paris in 1945, she taught privately while she pursued her own studies at the Paris Conservatory, the Ecole Normale de Musique (she also received top prizes at the two schools),⁵ and in Ruggero Gerlin’s two-month summer harpsichord course at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. Teaching would remain very important to her all her life, even when she became one of the most important French harpsichordist of her generation. 

It is not commonly known that her earliest protégé was Blandine Verlet, whose individual and distinctive way of playing would have found sustenance in Huguette’s tendency to encourage her students to think for themselves and find their own interpretative styles. Blandine took private lessons with her regularly beginning in 1958, when she was enrolled in Marcelle Delacour’s class at the Paris Conservatory, until as late as 1969 (although less frequently once her own career took off).⁶ It is clear from Huguette’s agendas and documents that she gave her particular attention. On September 16, 1962, Blandine’s father, the distinguished Dr. Pierre Verlet, chief conservator of the Louvre Museum and renowned art historian, wrote: 

Please allow me to express our gratitude to you for all you have done for Blandine. You were a mother to her in Siena, from which she returned this morning, delighted.⁷

In 1963 Blandine was awarded a unanimous first prize from the judges as well as a special prize at the International Competition of Munich. Huguette not only coached her for the competition, but would promote her career in general by introducing her to her own mentors, Alexis Roland-Manuel and Norbert Dufourcq, inviting her to programs on which she was featured, proposing she study with Gerlin in Siena, and inviting her to play on a recording of the Bach concerti in 1965.⁸ In 1969 Dr. Verlet would write regarding a radio program on which Blandine had appeared with Huguette, after having returned from studying with Ralph Kirkpatrick at Yale University:

How to thank you too for the place that you gave to Blandine in the [radio] program. A little secret: in a quick word, two days after her arrival home she said: “I’ve already taken the piece to heart again. . . . Mademoiselle Dreyfus has magnificently made me work. . . .”  Again all my admiration and my gratitude.⁹

In later years, the two women would become estranged, and as a result, Huguette’s teaching and nurturing of Blandine have been overlooked.

From July 1 through August 9, 1966, Huguette gave harpsichord lessons along with Pauline Aubert and Marguerite Roesgen-Champion during an early music event, “Summer in France,” sponsored by the Paris American Academy of Music in Fontainebleau, at the invitation of Nadia Boulanger, its director.¹⁰ In 1967 she was named professor of harpsichord at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, a position that she kept until 1990. Her students included a young Christophe Rousset, who ended up taking his lessons in her home on Saturdays, because his school schedule did not permit them during the week.¹¹

From 1971 until 1982, Huguette taught basso continuo at the Sorbonne where Olivier Papillon was in her class.¹² When she left there, she asked harpsichordist Richard Siegel to take her place.¹³ During that period Huguette was also the harpsichord professor of what was then a municipal conservatory in Bobigny, just north of Paris. Students in that class included Maria de Lourdes Cutolo and Ilton Wjuniski, who were scholarship recipients from Brazil, Elisabeth Joyé, Joël Pontet, Gaby Delfiner, Renaud Digonnet, and Yannick LeGaillard. In 1982 she was named harpsichord professor at two major conservatories in France: what were then called the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique in Lyon and the Conservatoire supérieur de région in Rueil-Malmaison. A harpsichord class was created at the latter specifically for her, and also an organ class for Marie-Claire Alain.¹⁴ When it came time to retire, Huguette left the Lyon conservatory in June 1993 (Françoise Lengellé took her place) and then a year later the Rueil-Malmaison conservatory, where Olivier Baumont, a former student and now the professor of harpsichord at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris, replaced her.

In addition to her regular teaching positions, Huguette gave annual summer workshops in the Provence region of France, first in Saint-Maximin-La-Baume and then in Villecroze. Claude Mercier-Ythier described how it came about:

An event happened that would be very important for us: the creation of early music classes at Saint-Maximin’s former monastery . . . where there is an extraordinary organ. The young man who should have taught there was Louis Saguer. [However, shortly before he was supposed to start teaching,] he had been invited to give an important series of concerts in Argentina. The organizer, Dr. Pierre Rochas . . . looked desperately for a replacement. So I took him to see Huguette Dreyfus who immediately took on the classes, without knowing that we would spend [15 summers there]. Huguette was a pedagogue without equal, with an international reputation.¹⁵

In 1964, five lecture recitals were held by Huguette. They were so successful that a year later, harpsichord classes were organized.¹⁶ Claude Mercier-Ythier provided the instruments. Her frequent collaborator at the time, Christian Lardé, joined her. He taught flute, and together they gave classes in ensemble playing. The classes were given under the auspices of the French Organ Academy for the Interpretation of 17th and 18th century music (l’Académie de l’orgue français pour l’interprétation de la musique des XVIIème et XVIIIème siècles), which was created not only by Dr. Pierre Rochas, but by a Dominican priest, Father Henri Jarrié, as part of their efforts to save the convent from destruction and restore the famous organ in the basilica. 

Father Jarrié’s contribution to the early music revival in France seems to be unknown; his story is worth telling. Born in 1924, he began his theology studies in the Saint-Maximin monastery. A musician, he had taken piano lessons from the age of six and also composed music. Among the many artists and intellectuals who visited Saint-Maximin was André Coeuroy, a musicologist and critic, who took a look at his compositions and encouraged him. Then at the music festival in Aix-en-Provence, he met Louis Saguer, also a composer, and arranged to study musical analysis and composition with him. In 1952 he received the unusual post of “Chaplain to the Artists” in Nice, coming into contact with Cocteau, Picasso, and Matisse, among others. Then in 1961, Père Jarrié was named parish priest of the village of Saint-Maximin. 

The Dominican order was preparing to sell the monastery there, which they had already left. Father Jarrié and others formed a group to safeguard it, and by the end of the 1960s it had become a cultural center. Father Jarrié inaugurated a series of concerts in the cloisters that became the first festival to focus on early music; at the time, the only music festival that existed in France was in Aix-en-Provence. The Dominican priest and Dr. Pierre Rochas were also responsible for the restoration of the Basilica of Saint Marie-Madeleine’s historic eighteenth-century organ built by Frère Isnard and the creation of the Academy, which together with the concert series would be important not only for Huguette’s career, but also for the international dissemination of early music. For fifteen years, Huguette went there every summer to teach and concertize. Eventually Eduard Melkus joined her and Christian to teach violin. In 1971 Jarrié left the priesthood to consecrate his life to music and teaching:

There were so many students who frequented my courses during 15 years. They came from all over the world and then spread the knowledge that they had acquired in their own respective countries.¹⁷

There were many lighthearted moments that eased the intensity of the lessons. Among Huguette’s archived documents is a Certificat St Maximin: “The Jury certifies that Mlle Huguette Dreyfus and Christian Lardé took the Viennese Waltz class in the performance course at the 15th Summer Academy of St-Maximin. Ed. Melkus.”¹⁸ A participant, harpsichordist Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, remembers playing Brazilian music for Huguette, which she loved, while Eduard improvised on the violin.¹⁹

Maria de Lourdes Cutolo and Ilton Wjuniski were two young Brazilian harpsichordists whom Huguette had met in São Paôlo, then the capital of Brazil, on the occasion of the “Course-Festival of Harpsichord Interpretation” held in São Paôlo’s major art museum (MASP) from October to December 1975. The courses were taught by Helena Jank, Maria Helena Silveira, and Felipe Silvestre. New works for solo harpsichord were commissioned from composers Souza Lima, Osvaldo Lacerda, and Almeida Prado. Huguette was invited to give classes and recitals from October 3 through 26. During her stay, she flew to Rio to meet Roberto de Regina, an important harpsichordist, teacher, and the first to build a harpsichord in Brazil.²⁰ He also created the first early music group there.²¹

Huguette’s teaching influenced several pupils profoundly. “Stimulated by this contact, some young artists pursued training with the harpsichordist in France, such as Ilton Wjuniski, Maria Lucia Nogueira, and Maria de Lourdes Cutolo.”²² They were awarded scholarships by the festival sponsor, the Secretary of Culture, Science, and Technology, to come to France.²³ A decade later, Ana Cecilia Tavares, another Brazilian artist, would also go to study with Huguette at the Rueil-Malmaison conservatory near Paris.²⁴ Harpsichordist, teacher, and author Marcelo Fagerlande credits Huguette with the surge in interest for the harpsichord in Brazil after her stay there.

Maria Lourdes de Cutolo wrote to Huguette several times in early 1976 to solicit her help in finding lodgings in Paris and a spinet to use. Huguette sent her information on spinets, but in the end, moved her own spinet into a spare bedroom, where Maria could practice every day if she liked.²⁵ Huguette often helped students with practical concerns as well as with personal problems, at the same time guarding a professional distance. She maintained the reserve between people of different positions, or those who do not know each other well, that prevails in European culture: the maestro or maestra is treated with respect, and familiarity would be inappropriate. Her students were invited to address her by her first name, but never would have thought to address her by the familiar “tu.”

Another country important to Huguette was Japan, where she made lifelong friendships. She met a Japanese student, Miwako Shiraï, at Saint-Maximin where the flautist was studying with Christian Lardé. When Huguette was invited in 1979 by Mariko Oikawa, a former student in France, to play concerts in Japan and record an album with the group, Tokyo Solisten, of which Mariko was the harpsichordist, she called upon Miwako to accompany her and act as translator. In Japan, Huguette was welcomed by the father of another of her students, Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard, who had come to France in 1976. Her father, wanting to introduce the ever-curious Huguette to Japanese culture, invited her to an “exceptional restaurant where there is Shiki-botyo, the knife ceremony, which was performed in the past by the cook to the Japanese court. The cook prepares fish without touching it with his hands.”

Huguette returned to Japan in 1981. During Huguette’s free time, Mariko and her husband Shigeru, with their daughter Reine, about three, took her on visits. Yasuko came from France to stay for a week at the urging of her father who, grateful that Yasuko had won first prize at the Festival Estival international harpsichord competition in Paris in 1979, wanted to honor Huguette. He presented her with a stay at a traditional Japanese hotel. Yasuko went with Huguette and Mariko to Nara Park (Shigeru had to take Reine back to Tokyo), where thousands of deer run free and it is possible to feed and pet them.²⁶

In 1983 Huguette spent nearly a month in Japan from October 8 through November 4, recording for Denon and performing in Tokyo, Nagoya, and Kyoto. In her free time, she went sightseeing often with the Oikawa family:

The trip that left the biggest impression was our voyage to Kyoto. We visited Nara Park the day before her concert in Kyoto. She found herself surrounded by deer and she said that she was astonished that the most easily frightened animals in the world would eat out of the palm of a man’s hand. She spent a good amount of time playing with them. We also went by car to Hakone. Descending Mount Hakone, we encountered the historic Daimyô procession. We watched it and then walking in the city of Odawara, we visited the chrysanthemum festival.²⁷

Huguette would return to Japan in the future, but sadly, Mariko would not be there to welcome her. Only thirty-nine-years old, she passed away from cancer on July 25, 1988, leaving behind two children, Reine, and a boy, Kentaro,  born in 1984. Fifteen years later, Reine would become a harpsichordist herself and come to France intermittently to study with Huguette at Villecroze and in her home on Quai d’Orsay in Paris.

In 1979 Huguette left the Academy in Saint-Maximin. In 1983 she joined the Académie de Musique Ancienne in Villecroze to give summer masterclasses, which she did until 2008. Claude Mercier-Ythier, who had loaned his historic 1754 Henri Hemsch, Huguette’s favorite instrument, for the Saint-Maximin sessions, continued to supply it and other harpsichords for the classes at Villecroze. At both academies, friends, including Melkus, Lardé, and his wife, harpist Marie-Claire Jamet, joined her to concertize and give instrumental and chamber music classes. In Villecroze classes were held in the morning, and afternoons were free, when students practiced and swam in the pool. Sunday was a day off, and there were group outings organized for them, such as boat rides and sightseeing. It was “paradise on earth,” according to one of the students, Kristian Nyquist.²⁸

In addition to masterclasses in France during the summer, Huguette was invited regularly to give them all over the world. She also sat on juries for harpsichord exams at conservatories and for harpsichord festivals. For at least twenty-five years, there was a biennial international harpsichord festival in October in Paris, the Festival Estival. Huguette was often on the jury, and in February 1990 she was invited to write a page for the brochure celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of its creation on March 7 that year.²⁹ Often she sat on juries with friends, former students, and other distinguished colleagues, such as Colin Tilney, Zuzana Ružicková, Rafael Puyana, Gustav Leonhardt, Scott Ross, Kenneth Gilbert, and Luciano Sgrizzi.

Three radio programs in 1979³⁰ featured her and some of her students at the Bobigny Conservatory: Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, Christophe Rousset, and Ilton Wjuniski. When asked what she told students who express a desire to pursue a career, she called it a very big responsibility and said she tended to discourage the idea. By discouraging them, she meant that she did not want to “throw rose powder in their eyes and mislead” anyone. She would tell a student, “A career is very difficult even if you are very talented and are supported by your family. Your field has to be well learned, which takes a lot of time. It takes time to launch a career, and it requires a lot of courage.” Huguette herself had suffered big obstacles to her own career and had worked very hard and made sacrifices. But she knew that if the student was possessed “by the demon of music, by the demon of the stage, by the demon of a career,” nothing she said could change his or her mind. “The true, the pure artist will remain.” She recognized that the mere fact of playing before one’s peers in a classroom was already very intimidating, and she took her role very seriously. “The tighter the relationship between student and teacher is, the more the teacher has to pay attention.”³¹

When possible, Huguette gave her students the chance to perform publicly on radio programs where she herself was featured, and a few played on recordings of hers. Among her documents is a letter from a well-known French harpsichordist who was her student in the 1970s, “I know what I owe you, . . . you are the person who counts most in my harpsichord vocation.”³² Her kindness and generosity is still remembered today. She often gave students rides to the summer workshops in Saint-Maximin and Villecroze, which could not be reached directly by train. One of her American students, Ellen Haskil Maserati, remembers their trip to Siena to take Gerlin’s class, “She was really nice when we drove down. We stopped overnight in Lyon. She took me to dinner and had me try all the local food. She was very motherly.”³³

Her genius for teaching resided in her wanting to respond personally to her students, feeling that a teacher should always understand the personality of the student and determine what possibilities there were to develop. During the lessons she was demanding, but she did not ask for obedience. Her intention was not to impose her ideas; she preferred that the student have his or her own. In this approach, it is possible to see the influence of her teachers at the Paris Conservatory. One teacher, Norbert Dufourcq, when grading an essay she had written on the “different manifestations of choral music in the vocal works of Bach,” noted, “You have read many texts . . . to the point where [your essay ends up sounding] a bit like a catalog sometimes. What is lacking is a personal judgment, a thought that is yours and the fruit of your reflections as a good musician.” Also, Huguette’s pedagogy teacher, a Mr. Norpain, had given advice that she clearly had taken to heart, “Before speaking, listen to the student with so much attention that you immediately get a clear idea of his strengths and weaknesses.”³⁴

During a radio broadcast from Ville-croze on November 9, 2000,³⁵ Huguette said in the course of a masterclass: 

As far as I’m concerned, you arrive at technique through the music and not the other way around. . . . When you have something you want to express but you don’t have the technical means to express it, it’s up to you to find exercises that will permit acquiring those means. . . . To learn a sensitive touch, the finger has to feel the plectrum scratch the string. [She felt that “plucking the string” was not an accurate term.] There is an important relationship between the sensitivity of the fingers and the ear, and that’s what you must work on. The ear must hear differences. . . that makes part of the everyday work when you’re doing finger exercises. In fact, it’s musical, and I personally feel that no exercise should ever be done mechanically. You must always be in conversation with the music. Even if you do so-called daily exercises, you can always find these passages in pieces. You have to consider them musically. I always use as a reference the human voice or a wind instrument for understanding how to let the music breathe.³⁶

Huguette was famous with her students for her frequently repeated “proverbes dreyfusiens.” One student, Chiao Pin Kuo, remembered some of these aphorisms in a tribute to her after her death: 

The notes are not the music, the music lies between them.

When you play a piece, the listener has to understand everything as if he has the music in front of his eyes.

Without respiration, the music is dead.

To breathe is not to slow down, slowing down is not breathing.

It’s not enough to know how to play, you have to have a wide knowledge of not only harpsichord music but of all forms of art. If you are small-minded, you won’t ever be a great musician.

Practice, listen, converse, and feel the composer speaking.³⁷

Up until now, I have spoken in the third person. But now, as one of Huguette’s former students and friends, I will speak in the first person. It has been nearly a quarter of a century since I studied with her during her last three years at the Conservatoire de Rueil-Malmaison. But she made such an impact on me that I still recall most of her teachings. I had never had the opportunity to study with someone of her caliber before and must have realized that every bit of the experience was precious and needed to be carefully stored away in my memory. I was a middle-aged amateur pianist, and the first chance I ever had even to touch a harpsichord came the year before when I started taking lessons from the American harpsichordist, Jory Vinikour. He was in Paris on a Fulbright scholarship to perfect his prior training with Huguette and Kenneth Gilbert. It was Jory who encouraged me to audition for Huguette to enter her class at the conservatory. Despite trembling hands, I played for her and was accepted.

In our class at Rueil-Malmaison, we always celebrated birthdays, especially hers. One year, we threw a surprise party for her in the apartment of her cousin, Nicole Dreyfus (a famous attorney in France). Four students played variations of “Happy Birthday,” squeezed together at Nicole’s piano, I and another improvised a tango, and four held up one of her aphorisms, written out on pieces of paper. Huguette would have all her students over to dinner after the year-end exams, serving chocolate cake she had baked herself. At the conservatory, it was forbidden to eat in the teaching room, but Huguette installed a coffee maker, and we often ate our lunches there and celebrated birthdays and holidays with cake and champagne.

What Huguette taught me did not only concern the keyboard and written notes—it had to do with how to practice, making the instrument sing, acquiring the confidence to play difficult pieces, performing. . . . She said I could go as far as I wanted to in my playing, and I ended up being able to play pieces that I never would have been able to before. Her observations were always accurate, and her comments always constructive; Huguette could also say much with just an evocative gesture. All of this advice enabled me to play in public and be awarded a unanimous first prize in a jury exam, which would have been impossible before I studied with her: 

Listen to the bass.

To feel the beat and speed of a piece, walk ‘round the room, singing the melody.

To perform a piece, it needs to be more than 100% ready.

Be aware of the environment in which you’re practicing at home. When you’re learning a piece, the brain is storing it, not as isolated bits of information, but in its whole context, which will be reproduced when you perform.

Have everything prepared for performance, including the music so there are no loose pages to get lost or fall on the floor.

Listen to what you play all the way to the end. 

When one hand is playing a tricky passage, listen to the other one. (This was particularly effective when I was learning how to play ornaments.)

All that counts is the music.

Learning a fugue, sing each part separately. As you play one voice, add a second one with the other hand. Practice playing one voice while you sing with the other. While you play all the voices, follow each one individually. 

Playing each part hands together strengthens how it’s learned in the brain.

Don’t think about the notes. Imagine the trouble a centipede would have walking if it thought about how it moved!

Huguette rarely noted anything on my music, except to circle rests and add fingering—but only occasionally. More often, she would come by and tap on my shoulders, which had risen up to my ears with tension (terror, because of playing in front of the class, might be the more accurate word!). This recurring at every lesson, she showed me some exercises to relax them. She did not insist about fingering, saying that it was an individual decision, given that hands are different. Giving Glenn Gould as an example, Huguette pointed out that artists could sit or hold their arms in the “wrong ways” and still be brilliant.

Her own musicality was extraordinary. Once when I was playing in class, a woman from the conservatory office came to the door. Huguette told me to keep playing and went to speak to her. Suddenly she interrupted herself to call out to me, “B-flat!” I had made a mistake, and she heard it despite their conversation.

Referring to her practice of going to see something beautiful at a museum before giving a concert, she said in an interview with an Italian reporter, “It’s like giving water to a flower for it to bloom easily.”³⁸ To me, this quote could be a metaphor for her teaching. Once, when I was visiting her in the hospital before her death—some of her other students and I were in touch so as to maintain a continuous flow of visits—a nurse asked me if we were Huguette’s family members. “No,” I responded, “we’re the flowers in her garden,” knowing I’d puzzle her, but not finding any other apt way to put it in my distress. Now that I have gathered testimonials for a commemorative issue, I see that others felt as inspired and nurtured by her as I did, such as Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard who wrote, “She transmitted her love of music to me.”³⁹ Huguette could draw the best out of a student, and in my case, it changed the way I thought about myself and my capacities. Her next step was to help give me the capabilities to play the music I chose. Huguette took me as seriously as she would have if I had been young and a prospective professional. As another adult amateur student said, “Gratitude is the greatest homage that one can pay her.”⁴⁰

To be continued.

Notes

1. “The budding lilies,” title of the first piece by François Couperin in his 13ème Ordre, Troisième Livre. 

2. Email to author, December 7, 2016.

3. Radio interview, “Denis Herlin,” Les traversés du temps, France Musique, March 21, 2012.

4. Radio interview by Marcel Quillévère, “Huguette Dreyfus claveciniste,” Les traversés du temps, France Musique, March 7, 2012.

5. BnF VM FONDS 145 DRE-3 (12).

6. Agendes, BnF VM FONDS DRE-3 (5).

7. Letter from Pierre Verlet to Huguette Dreyfus, September 16, 1962, BnF VM Fonds 145-DRE (23). 

8. LP, The complete concerti for harpsichord, J. S. Bach, “A Critère recording,” Paris. Musidisc, France. New York: Nonesuch, HE 73001, 1965. Complete discography of Huguette Dreyfus compiled by the author. dolmetsch.com/huguettedreyfusdiscography.htm. 

9. Letter from Pierre Verlet to Huguette Dreyfus, July 15, 1969, op. cit.

10. Brochure, Paris American Academy of Music, “Summer in France,” 1966. BnF VM FONDS 145 DRE-3 (12).

11. Christophe Rousset, in emails to the author between 2016 and 2023.

12. Olivier Papillon, phone interviews with author, December 16, 2016, April 6 and
10, 2017.

13. Richard Siegel, interview with author, November 17, 2016, Paris, France.

14. Susan Lansdale, interview with author, March 23, 2018, Le Pecq, France. 

15. Claude Mercier-Ythier, in tribute to Huguette Dreyfus, Clavecins en France (CLEF) clavecin-en-france.org/spip.php?article288. Translated from French by the author.

16. Huguette Dreyfus, radio interview, Les traversés du temps, op. cit.

17. “Toujours jeune, L’Académie d’été, 40 ans déja.” Orgues Nouvelles, No. 15, Summer 2008, Lyon.

18. BnF, VM FONDS 145 DRE-3 (12).

19. Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, email to author, March 20, 2022.

20. Marcelo Fagerlande, phone interview with author, October 21, 2022.

21. bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Regina-Roberto.htm. 

22. Marcelo Fagerlande, Mayra Pereira, and Maria Aida Barroso, O Cravo no Rio de Janeiro do século XX. Rio de Janeiro: Rio Books, 2020. 

23. Ilton Wjuniski, tribute to Huguette Dreyfus, 2013.

24. Ana Cecilia Tavares, tribute to Huguette Dreyfus, 2022.

25. Letters from Maria de Lourdes Cutolo to Huguette Dreyfus, January 14 and February 2, 1976 BNF VM FONDS 145 DRE-1 (17).

26. Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard, emails to author, January 2023.

27. Shigeru Oikawa, letter to author, September 25, 2017, and tribute, January 2023.

28. Kristian Nyquist, interview on April 27, 2017, and later phone calls and emails. 

29. BnF, VM FONDS 145 DRE-3 (12). 

30. ‘Musiciens pour demain,” François Serrette, France Musique, February 15 and 22, 1979. 

31. “Musiciens pour demain,” op.cit., radiofrance.fr/francemusique/podcasts/les-tresors-de-france-musique/musiciens-pour-demain-avec-huguette-dreyfus-et-christophe-rousset-une-archive-de-1979-4597434.

32. Letter from Noëlle Spieth to Huguette Dreyfus, BnF VM Fonds 145 DRE-1 (17).

33. Ellen Haskil Maserati, interview with author, June 2018, Paris.

34. BnF VM FONDS DRE-3 (1).

35. Villecroze: l’atelier de clavecin de Huguette Dreyfus, Les chemins de la musique,  France Culture, Radio France, broadcast November 9, 2000.

36. Huguette Dreyfus, radio interview, L’Académie musicale de Villecroze, November 22, 2000. 

37. Translated from French by the author.  clavecin-en-france.org/spip.php?article288. 

38. Huguette Dreyfus interview, Corriere dell’Umbria, February 18, 1999. Translated from Italian to English by the author.

39. Email to author, January 5, 2023.

40. Pascal da Silva Texeira, email to author, December 2016.