Györgi Ligeti’s organ works and the spirit of innovation within tradition

Jonathan Bezdegian

Jonathan Bezdegian, DMA, is the instructor of organ and campus minister for liturgical music and mission trips at Assumption University, in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Sitting on the parapet of the story where the towers arise from the massive corpus are all kinds of devilish things that were contrived by a grandiose imagination and captured in the grinning stone by a forceful and strict hand. Wondrous animals with long beaks, pointy claws, with misshapen ears and distorted mouths, devils with devout wings, midgets with long beards sit there and gape at the city with large, vicious, lurking eyes.¹

While the history of Louis Vierne’s Sixième Symphonie (Sixth Symphony), opus 59, is well documented, the actual harmonic construction of the thematic material leaves interested performers in a bit of a predicament. Traditional and functional harmonic analysis is not the correct method for deciphering this music. Occasionally, one will find evidence in Vierne’s music that successfully allows this method. However, modal material will always be present. Thus, the use of the Modes of Limited Transposition becomes important. To date, no sources directly address this approach.² The intent of this article is to apply the Modes of Limited Transposition and to prove their importance in the study of Louis Vierne’s organ works, focusing on the “Scherzo” from his Sixth Symphony.

Intriguingly during the time between the 24 Pièces de Fantaisie and the Sixth Symphony (1927–1930), Olivier Messiaen published Le Banquet céleste (1928) and Diptyque (1930). Both of these pieces use the Modes of Limited Transposition. Michael Murray makes reference to this in his book, French Masters of the Organ:

Though he was not yet twenty when he wrote Le Banquet céleste, he had already turned from prescribed harmony to the Modes of Limited Transposition that were to be a main feature of his early work, and it is these, or, more precisely, his uses of one of these, that create a distinctive harmonic movement dominant and tonic only by analogy.³

Based on the principle of modal evolution, the chronology of these works does not appear to be merely “coincidental.” However, the actual genesis of the Modes of Limited Transposition still remains a mystery.

It is impossible to tell if Vierne is responsible for the genesis of this modal material (later codified as the Modes of Limited Transposition by Messiaen). There is no known documentary evidence that allows this assertion. Messiaen also denied creating all of them.⁴ It is also unlikely that Vierne and Dupré collaborated on the use of these modes via improvisation practices.⁵ However, the evolution in composition regarding the use of these modern harmonies is evident. From evidence germane to this research, this evolution stems from the Paris Conservatoire.

Vierne remarked in his Mémoires about his excitement upon learning new, looser, and modern improvisational techniques from Adolphe Marty at the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles in 1889. Later, Vierne drew on this inspiration while studying with his fellow pupils at the Paris Conservatoire. They all desired to be original. Charles Tournemire, in particular, was a prime example.⁶

The development of Vierne’s own original voice in regard to improvisation reached its initial height in 1897, when he took over Guilmant’s studio at the Conservatoire (he was leaving to go on a concert tour to the United States). Vierne’s enthusiasm was palpable: “I was . . . delighted to be able to express unrestrained my own ideas on free improvisation. We would ‘whoop it up’ with modern harmonies.”⁷

Through Vierne’s studies, collaborations, and improvisations, he would gradually incorporate all of his findings in his own music compositions. His modal usage began gradually. It is found extensively in his 24 Pièces de Fantaisie (1926–1927). However, at the time, for Vierne, this method was in its infancy. As his music progressed, more consistency in his dense modal writing is observed—at least thematically.

A close analysis of Vierne’s “Scherzo” from the Sixth Symphony, composed in 1930, exemplifies that his modal awareness has evolved. Thus, the modal usage becomes more logical in his writing. This is evident in the opening measures of “Scherzo.” There are no passing tones or chromatic alterations in the opening material. Modes 3 and 7 dominate the composition. (See Example 1. Mode 3 uses two transposition levels: 2 and 4. Mode 7 uses transposition 1, 2, and 5).⁸ Their common tone relationships are displayed in the examples of the main theme. However, for this opening material, the common tone of G is found in all transposition levels used by Vierne, thus allowing the free movement between each level on the opening measures (Example 1a).

Analytical chart of the opening page (measures 1–10):

Measure 1: M3, T4 (eighth-note opening flourish); sixteenth-note group: M3, T2

Measure 2: first sixteenth note: M3, T2; second group: M7, T1.

Measure 3: flourish: M3, T4; sixteenth notes: T2

Measure 4: sixteenth notes: M3, T2; 2nd group: M7, T1

Measure 5: flourish: M3, T4; sixteenth notes: M7, T2

Measure 6: flourish: M3, T2; sixteenth notes: M7, T1

Measure 7: first group of six notes: M3, T1; group of 4: M3, T2

Measure 8: first group of six: M3, T4; group of 4: M3, T2

Measure 9: flourish: M3, T4; sixteenth notes: M7, T2

Measure 10: first sixteenth notes: M7, T5; second group: M7, T2

While this article is not intended to provide an exhaustive analysis accounting for every note in each measure of the eighteen pages of “Scherzo”, a detailed analysis of page one illustrates a clear lack of functional harmony. One does not sense, aurally or visually, any traditional voice leading or harmonic progression. Thus, claiming that “Scherzo” is written “in the key of G minor” is erroneous. The material is modal, and knowledge of the Modes of Limited Transposition is paramount for understanding this music.

The most important analysis of “Scherzo” pertains to the main, cyclical theme (meaning, it is present in all five movements of the symphony).⁹ It comprises two parts—the first is six measures in duration; the second is ten measures.¹⁰ Here is the layout:

First statement

Part 1, measures 41–46: Mode 3, T1. See Examples 2 and 2a.

Part 2, measures 47–56: Mode 7, T2 (passing tone B in measure 55). See Example 3. (Mode 7, T2 is written in Example 1.)

Common tones (measure 46): E, D, C (allowing for modal shift).

Second statement (common tones G, D from previous measure)

Part 1, measures 57–62: Mode 3, T1, measures 41–46.

Part 2, measures 63–72: Mode 7, T2 (passing tone B in measure 71), measures 47–56. Common tones, E, D, C (from measure 62, allowing for modal shift).¹¹

Third statement

Part 1, measures 113–118: Mode 3, T4. See Example 4 (M3, T4 is written in Example 1).

Part 2, measures 119–128: Mode 7, T1 (passing tone B-flat in measure 127).

Common tones (measure 118): E-flat, D-flat, C-flat. See Example 5.

Fourth statement (common tones: C, G-flat, D-flat, D from previous measure).

Part 1, measures 129–134: Mode 3, T2. See Example 6.

Part 2, measures 135–144: Mode 7, T6 (passing tone C-sharp in measure 143).

Common tones (measure 134): F-sharp, E, D. See Examples 7a and 7b.

Fifth statement

Part 1, measures 153–158: Mode 3, T4.¹² See Example 8.

Part 2, measures 159–168: Mode 7, T3 (passing tone F-sharp in measure 167).

Common tones (measure 158): B, A, G. See Example 9.

Sixth statement (common tones: C-sharp, A, B-flat from previous measure)

Theme is inverted with a different accompaniment pattern; theme becomes segmented into three parts:

Part 1, measures 169–174: Mode 3, T4 (six measures). See Example 10a.

Part 2, measures 175–180: Mode 7, T5 (six measures).

Common tones (measure 174): A, B, C-sharp. See Example 10b.

Part 3, measures 181–184: Mode 7, T3 (passing tone C in measure 183) (four measures).

Common tones (measure 180): B-flat, C-sharp. See Example 10c.

Compared to Vierne’s earlier works in 24 Pièces de Fantaisie, “Scherzo” from Sixth Symphony is more modally consistent.¹³ The theme has virtually no chromatic alterations as seen in his previous compositions. Also, Sixth Symphony is Vierne’s last piece for solo organ. Rollin Smith states that “Vierne’s harmonic vocabulary by this time had become so intensely chromatic that one of the themes in each of the first two movements of this symphony utilizes all twelve notes of the chromatic scale.”¹⁴

We can conclude, then, that as the years progressed, these modal elements that were once used rather loosely took on a new structure and identity, one that piqued the interest of Olivier Messiaen. Through this interest, Messiaen wrote two compositions (between Vierne’s aforementioned pieces) and later codified these modal elements into the Modes of Limited Transposition. This codification was published in his La Nativité du Seigneur in 1936—one year prior to Vierne’s death.

Notes

1. Louis Vierne, Pièces de Fantaisie en quatre suites, Livre III, opus 53, ed. Helga Schauerte-Maubouet (Kassel: Bärenreiter-Verlag, 2008), XXII. A fitting quote to describe the imagery of “Scherzo.” This is further emphasized by Maurice Duruflé’s description of: “The Scherzo, although wishing to jest, neither succeeds in finding a true gaiety nor makes one forget the somber nightmares that haunt the Aria [Movement 2]. Instead, the composer, with sparkling verve, depicts the diabolical giggles of grimacing gargoyles.” Rollin Smith, Louis Vierne: Organist of Notre Dame Cathedral (New York: Pendragon Press, 1999), page 567.
2. The most recent document that analyzes Vierne’s Sixth Symphony is the dissertation of Emily Marie Meixner: Meixner, Emily Marie. n.d. “The Sixth Organ Symphony of Louis Vierne (1870–1937): An Analysis.” doi:10.7274/2227mp50s8q. It is a significant achievement and an interesting approach. Meixner does make reference to Vierne’s common use of the whole-tone scale (Mode 1 of the Modes of Limited Transposition) and the Gregorian modes (Phrygian and Mixolydian, respectively). My published articles in The Diapason and my dissertation, “Louis Vierne and the Evolution of His Modal Consciousness,” 2018, clearly outline my approach and methods. I will continue in this manner.

3. Michael Murray, French Masters of the Organ: Saint-Saëns, Franck, Widor, Vierne, Dupré, Messiaen (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), page 186.

4. Also, “Messiaen says he became fluent in his modes by often improvising on them in Dupré’s class. But he takes no credit for contriving them all.” Ibid., page 188.

5. By 1924 Vierne and Dupré, once close friends, were bitter enemies. The crux of the dispute was over the title of “Organiste titulaire de Notre-Dame de Paris.” This misuse by Dupré during his first American concert tour (he was Vierne’s assistant, not the sole organist of the cathedral) drove a wedge between these two men. The animosity lasted until Vierne’s death. Dupré even forbade any of his students to play Vierne’s compositions during their organ lessons at the Conservatoire. Smith, Louis Vierne, pages 330–343.

6. At this time (1890), César Franck was Vierne’s first teacher at the Paris Conservatoire. Vierne and Tournemire were also classmates. Regarding Tournemire, Vierne remarked that he was “a born improvisor” and the entire studio was “captivated by the harmonies he had discovered for the free theme,” in reference to a studio competition in 1890, where Tournemire was awarded “first accessit.” Smith, Louis Vierne, page 47.

7. Ibid., 125.

8. Be mindful of enharmonic equivalence when comparing music passages to scales. Having your own corrected score for study while reading this article is advised.

9. Maurice Duruflé referenced this in his description of the Sixth Symphony for the Paris premiere at Notre-Dame Cathedral in 1935. The full description is found in Smith, Louis Vierne, page 567.

10. This division is more for clarity than for phrasing/musicality. The mode changes at the created divisions.

11. The second statement is identical to the first, it is just written in the treble octaves. There are some notational changes in comparison. However, they are just enharmonic.

12. In the original score (published by Henry Lemoine in 1931), there is an error in the pedal theme in measure 155. The first pedal note in Lemoine’s score is an “E” moving down to “D.” This does not fit the regular pattern of the theme in previous statements. Also, it does not fit the Mode 3, T4 scale. On hearing this, it is an obvious engraving error. While Rollin Smith’s list of “Textual Corrections for the Six Symphonies” (Smith, Louis Vierne, Appendix E, pages 719–734) does not mention this correction, it is clearly made in Bärenreiter’s new 2010 edition (BA 9226). The correct pattern of measure 155 is “B” moving up to “D.” This also highlights the importance of understanding the Modes of Limited Transposition for analysis of Vierne’s organ works.

13. A composition of note is “Feux Follets.” The writing Vierne uses can best be described as a modally dense quilt patchwork of the work’s main theme and figurations. It is so highly chromatic that even the Modes of Limited Transposition do not work well as a form of analysis; it is chromatic writing.

14. Smith, Louis Vierne, page 565.

Michael McNeil

Michael McNeil has designed, constructed, voiced, and researched pipe organs since 1973. Stimulating work as a research engineer in magnetic recording paid the bills. He is working on his Opus 5, which explores how an understanding of the human sensitivity to the changes in sound can be used to increase emotional impact. Opus 5 includes double expression, a controllable wind dynamic, chorus phase shifting, and meantone. Stay tuned.

Editor’s note: The Diapason offers here a feature at our digital edition—four sound clips. Any subscriber can access this by logging into our website (thediapason.com), click on Magazine, then this issue, View Digital Edition, scroll to this page, and click on each <soundclip> in the text.

Many American organists have traveled to Europe and heard the sounds of older organs that make Bach a revelation. American organ building was for much of its history rooted in the Anglican tradition and the Romantic sounds of organbuilders like Ernest M. Skinner, and neither of those great art forms are an ideal medium for Bach. Tentative steps in the Anglican tradition were made as early as the 1930s to recreate this European sound, but they did not amount to a revelation. The revelation occurred with a British-born virtuoso, E. Power Biggs, who brought a sound to America that would convincingly play Bach in the form of an organ built by D. A. Flentrop. Biggs paid for this organ out of his own pocket and in 1958 found a home for it in the very reverberant acoustics of what was known at the time as the Busch Reisinger Museum.¹ His recordings of this Flentrop energized the budding Organ Reform Movement in the United States and inspired many American organbuilders. Listen to the end of the Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543ii <Soundclip 1>.

Dirk Andries Flentrop (1910–2003) worked in his father’s organbuilding shop and with Theodor Frobenius in Denmark, eventually taking over his father’s business. He was intensely interested in classical organ design, and he gave a lecture at a very young age in 1927 in which he promoted the use of mechanical action and slider windchests.² A conversation with Flentrop in the 1970s turned to his earlier career, and he recalled that he was traveling on a streetcar in Rotterdam when bombs started falling on that city in World War II. Everyone on the streetcar agreed there was no point in getting off, and they continued traveling to their destinations as bombs fell. The date was May 10, 1940, the year he took over his father’s business. I sailed with my parents on the SS Rotterdam in 1964 and still remember the shock of seeing upturned docks as we approached the harbor at Rotterdam and whole city blocks of uncleared rubble decades after the bombing.

Flentrop’s sound

The sound of pipe organs can be described subjectively and objectively. Subjectively, the sound of D. A. Flentrop is bright and “instrumental,” where individual pipes in the principal chorus have rich harmonic content. This is very different from what is today called vocale voicing, which emphasizes less harmonic power. Flentrop’s richly harmonic sound creates a scintillating principal chorus with clarity of pitch.

A key component of this sound, and a strong departure from the Romantic and Anglican traditions, is the expression of “chiff.” E. Power Biggs described chiff as the articulate “ictus” of a sound, adding clarity to rhythm and contrapuntal harmony. Chiff is not just percussive noise. It consists of higher natural harmonics to which the human ear is very sensitive, quickly defining the pitch. Flentrop was a master of this percussive speech, and it was always musical and fast. Chiff can be modulated with a sensitive mechanical action and low wind pressures (i.e., with little or no key pluck). Biggs was adept at this on his Flentrop, easing the pallets open for a smooth treble line while crisply opening the pallets to delineate inner voices with more chiff.

Later expressions of this articulation in what became known as neo-Baroque voicing are often heard as a slow, gulping sound. You never hear slow, gulping speech in a Flentrop organ, and as the data will show, Flentrop’s voicing exhibits no relationship to neo-Baroque voicing recipes.³

There is ample evidence that much of D. A. Flentrop’s sound is based on examination of the work of Arp Schnitger, and Schnitger’s sound is much more instrumental in character than modern vocale voicing. The similarity to Schnitger extends also to the design of the reeds, whose basses are the source of a smooth and powerful fundamental.

Flentrop organs have considerable presence, due in large part to the shallowness of the casework found in all of his organs. Flentrop related that the maximum depth of a case should be no deeper than the reach of an arm from the back doors of the case to its façade pipes. Deep cases and chambers will tend to absorb sound, especially the higher harmonics that create the sense of presence. I find it interesting that unaltered manual divisions of Cavaillé-Coll organs, while using higher pressures with Romantic scaling and voicing, almost never exceeded twelve stops and always used slider chests with mechanical action, reflecting some of the important design features of Flentrop organs.

The generosity of D. A. Flentrop

D. A. Flentrop was secure in his knowledge and very willing to share it. I was the recipient of his generosity on several occasions when he toured the United States with his senior voicer, Sijmen “Siem” Doot, to maintain and tune his organs. Doot, born in 1924, entered Flentrop’s service in 1939 and retired in 1988. Ed Lustig at Flentrop Orgelbouw confirmed that Franz Rietsch, Rob Oudejans, Johannes Steketee, and Doot assembled the Flentrop organ in Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral, Seattle, Washington, in 1965, while Steketee and Doot remained to voice the organ. The voicing data in this article is a testament to their skill. I was introduced to Flentrop by Albert Campbell in 1971. After scouring the literature and finding mostly subjective opinions with very little data, I quickly discovered that Flentrop was genuinely interested in answering the detailed questions of a budding organbuilder. When I asked him if he would grant me permission to take measurements of his organs, he replied, “imitation is the finest form of flattery. Your ears will be different than mine, and you will use your observations to find your own sound.” He was right, but it took quite some time before I began to understand some of those observations, and the data continues to generate insights.

I again met Flentrop in the Campbell home after completion of my Opus 1, and by that time I had learned enough to ask deeper questions. Flentrop had nearly completed the tuning of his organ at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and in a further gesture of generosity, Flentrop said, “If you finish the cone tuning of the Hoofdwerk Mixtuur, we can answer your questions.” I agreed to finish the tuning work on the Flentrop organ, and both he and Mr. Doot spent the whole day answering my questions.

Flentrop slider windchests

D. A. Flentrop organs have exclusively featured mechanical key action and slider windchests since 1949. Stop actions were mechanical, as well, and only in his larger organs do we find electric slider motors and combination actions. Organbuilders who looked to the literature for the design principles of slider chests in the 1970s often found the effort frustrating. Flentrop willingly shared a great deal of his design practice. In Figure 1 we see a drawing made by the author from notes of a conversation with Flentrop regarding channel design. Flentrop recommended that the cross-sectional area of the key channel should have about 20–30% more area than the combined areas of all of the pipe toes it would need to wind. A small vent hole at the end of the channel served two functions—to prevent ciphering and to dampen resonances in the channel that would interfere with reeds. Reeds that are equal in length to the channel that feeds wind to them may get much louder, and those not quite equal to that length may get much weaker and more dull in timbre from channel resonance. I noted that the bottom of the key channels in the Flentrop organ at the University of California, Santa Barbara, were covered in a thick paper that had pin pricks in a few channels in various positions, likely done to reduce channel resonance.

Flentrop stated that pallets did not need to exceed 200 millimeters (about eight inches) in length, but I have found much longer pallets in Hook organs. I did not ask how to trade off key channel widths and heights for a given area, nor the flow areas of the pallets, and these tradeoffs can be complex. Suffice it to say that the flow area of a pallet is the length of its opening times the distance the pallet is pulled open by the key (an open pallet has a triangle of flow at each side, and when combined, these triangles make a rectangle). It is also interesting to note that a pallet will not flow significantly more wind to a channel when its pull is more than half of the channel width (think about the height of those triangles that flow wind relative to the width of the channel). For a given pallet pull and a key channel width that is twice the pull, only a longer pallet will flow more wind to the channel.

The 1863 Hook organ at the former Church of the Immaculate Conception in Boston, Massachusetts, has roughly 460-millimeters-long pallets feeding 406-millimeters-long flue and reed channel openings in the Great bass octave (there are two pallets per note). The Romantic voicing of the Hook organ requires a very large volume of wind to feed its very deep flueways and very widely opened toes, which are much larger than Flentrop’s. At Saint Mark’s, Flentrop likewise used two pallets for the six bass notes of the Hoofdwerk, with pallet opening lengths of 155 millimeters, flue and reed channel widths of 21 millimeters and 17 millimeters, respectively, and a channel height of 79 millimeters. Readers who are interested in comparing the differences in the voicing of Flentrop and Hook organs can find the Hook data in The Diapason.⁴

Flentrop’s patented slider

Slider windchests in ancient organs often suffered from the advent of central heating. Topboard bearers are shimmed with layers of paper for a close fit between the slider, the windchest table on which it rests, and the topboard above it. With central heating and the resulting low humidity, shrinking wood caused these sliders to leak wind and impair the tuning. Many different forms of slider seals were invented in the twentieth century, most of which worked quite well. Flentrop’s system is patented and rather complex, but it is extremely reliable. Flentrop used two sliders, separated by springs with a leather-faced conduit for the wind between the two sliders. Figure 2 (see page 15) shows this slider seal mechanism in relation to the pallets, key channels, and topboards.

An objective approach to Flentrop’s sound

If you want to discover how to achieve a certain sound, it is often educational to closely observe the organs you like and those you do not. The objective differences will teach you what matters. Readers who want some perspective on the following Flentrop data will find a description of the voicing of several historic organs in The Diapason.⁵

The absolute minimum data needed to understand the sound of an organ is:

• pipe diameters (inside);

• mouth widths;

• toe diameters;

• mouth heights (also known as “cutups”)

• flueway depths.

Complete descriptions of these parameters can be found in the article mentioned above.⁶ In a nutshell, larger pipe diameters, wider mouth widths, larger toe diameters, and deeper flueways yield more power. Mouth heights control timbre, and higher mouths reduce harmonic power and brightness. Flutes typically have much higher mouths than more harmonically rich principals.

Wider scales produce an “ah” timbre, and narrower scales will progress towards an “ee” timbre, emphasizing higher harmonics. Flentrop stated that he used a constant scale of pipe diameters and mouth widths for the principal chorus in most environments and acoustics, which meant that he wanted a specific vowel timbre for all of the pipes at the same pitch and a specific power balance across the range of frequencies from bass to treble.

For different acoustics Flentrop used different pressures and voicing, adjusting the toe diameters and cutups. Ascending trebles were achieved in the toe diameters. Figure 3 shows Flentrop’s chorus scaling written in his own hand in 1971 with numerical values he had memorized.

Flentrop reeds were often made by the firm of Giesecke to Flentrop’s specifications. A description of the data needed to understand the sound of a reed can be found in an article in The Diapason.⁷ The author’s measurements of the Saint Mark’s reeds were not taken in sufficient detail to merit showing them. Flentrop reed designs are very similar to Schnitger’s and use tin-lead plates with restricted openings soldered to wide, lightly tapered, and deeply cut shallots for powerful, smooth basses. These typically transition to open, parallel shallots without plates in the tenor.

Taking the data at Saint Mark’s

I have been fortunate that many of those who are a gate to the access to some important organs have granted me permission to measure them. In 1972 that good fortune allowed me to take measurements of Flentrop’s organ at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral, Seattle, Washington, the organ Flentrop considered his largest by virtue of its 32′ façade pipes. The stoplist of the Saint Mark’s organ is easily found on the internet.⁸

The cathedral measures an estimated 150 feet in length and width, with a flat, wooden ceiling about 90 feet high. The walls are very thick concrete, yielding an acoustical reverberation of about five plainly audible seconds in the soprano range.⁹ The reverberation drops dramatically in the tenor and bass as a consequence of the very large windows, through which the lower frequencies easily pass.

Richard Frickmann, a life-long friend, and I drove over a thousand miles to visit this organ, and upon arrival in the early morning we sat in the pews in the empty cathedral, looking back at the organ. Glenn White, who maintained the organ, noticed our interest in this magnificent Flentrop and struck up a conversation. Learning that we were eager to find scaling data of the pipes, he questioned us for about five minutes and admitted that no one had taken the time to measure the pipework. He took us to the office and gave us the keys to the Flentrop casework, the organ loft, and the cathedral, asking that we return them when we were done. This was a stunning opportunity and one rarely offered. Mr. Frickmann and I took over fifty pages of data, interspersed with trips to the local twenty-four-hour pancake house to refuel with food and coffee. I had brought with me copies of scaling sheets and measuring tools, and Mr. Frickmann wrote down the numbers as I called them out from the walkways behind the windchests. After about twenty-four continuous hours of work, we handed in the keys to the office.

A word of caution on the data is in order. I took this data in 1972, very early in my career. I had experience with Flentrop’s organ at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and I understood basic scaling and data collection. But what I did not yet appreciate at the time was the importance of measuring the depth of the flueway. My general observations of the flueways of the Saint Mark’s organ were that “they tend to be consistent throughout the organ relative to pitch, much wider than current neo-Baroque work, but narrower than the voicing of the early American builders like Johnson and the Hooks.” Later measurements of Flentrop flueways provided a generalized model of the flueways for the Saint Mark’s organ. Please be aware that these are probably in the ballpark, but they are assumptions.

I was very careful in the handling of the pipes and making sure that their mouths faced in their original directions (this affects tuning on larger pipes whose mouths can be close to other pipes and shaded by them, lowering their pitch). The measurements of these pipes will have some inaccuracy from the time constraints. For larger pipes the measurements are likely better than +/- 1 millimeter, and for the very smallest pipes, about +/- 0.2 millimeter. The data is presented in halftone deviations from Normal Scale to make the relationships clear, as tables of numbers do not easily convey their meaning. These Normal Scales were published in the author’s article, “1863 E. & G. G. Hook Opus 322: Church of the Immaculate Conception, Boston, Massachusetts,” Part 1.¹⁰ Those who want actual measurements can use those tables to convert the Normal Scale data into dimensions, or they can email the author for a copy of the Excel spreadsheet with the more accurate raw dimensional data.¹¹

The Hoofdwerk

Larger pipe diameters generate more power, and smaller diameters generate a brighter timbre. Flentrop’s principal chorus scales combine these factors into the sound he wanted. His scaling model in Figure 3 is seen as a dashed blue line in Figure 4. The model generally follows the Saint Mark’s data. As Flentrop noted, the mixtures are narrower. Flutes trend much wider as the pitch ascends.

Sound clips of the Saint Mark’s Flentrop in the digital edition of this article allow one to hear these power and timbre balances. They were derived from 1981 recordings of James Welch, organist, another life-long friend. The recording engineer, Dave Wilson, was known as one of the world’s best, and he recorded Welch on Flentrop organs. I was present in 1981 for the Saint Mark’s recordings, mostly to help with touching up the tuning of the reeds. I also made suggestions for stop registrations that ran counter to the prevailing wisdom of the time, dictating a minimal use of foundations to aid in clarity of pitch. This was not necessary on a Flentrop, whose foundations can be combined to any degree and still maintain clarity of pitch. Amassing foundations, as any Romantic organist knows well, is a source of rich chorus depth, and it is heard to great effect in Charles-Marie Widor’s “Andante cantabile” from Symphonie IV in <Soundclip 2>.

We made many experiments with microphone placement. The proper power balances of the different Flentrop divisions were finally achieved by placing microphones on very tall stands about twenty to thirty feet in front of the Rugwerk, the division that has the most presence for the congregation. Having been accustomed to the practice of using fast tempos in dry acoustics, Welch and I discussed appropriate tempos for the reverberant acoustic of Saint Mark’s. Borrowing headphones from the recording engineer to hear what the sound was like in the room at the microphones, he arrived at the tempo we hear in C. P. E. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, which takes full advantage of Saint Mark’s long reverberation <Soundclip 3>.

Late in the all-night recording session a note went dead in the Rugwerk. The organ had been in service for only sixteen years at this time, and a failure was unexpected. I pulled up the floor panels in the choir loft, which gave access to the Rugwerk trackers, and the culprit was a torn piece of weak leather that connected a long horizontal tracker at a suspension point. None of the other connectors showed the slightest sign of wear. I made a temporary fix, adjusted the action, and we continued recording well into the next morning.

Figure 5 shows the scales of the mouth widths, and these generally imitate the diameter scales. Normal Scale mouth widths are based on 1⁄4 of the circumferences of Normal Scale diameters, and as Flentrop almost exclusively used 1⁄4 mouths, we would expect a similarity to the diameter scales. Some of these mouth widths appear to be a bit wider than 1⁄4 of the circumference, and this may indicate that the pipes were slightly tapered, something I did not measure, and which is not uncommon. Inside diameters were measured at the top of the pipes. If the pipes have a slight taper, the true diameter scales at the bottom will be larger and will more closely match the Flentrop model in Figure 4, as well as the mouth scales in Figure 5.

Figure 6 shows mouth heights, or what is more commonly known as “cutups.” The cutup controls timbre. A higher mouth will reduce the harmonic content, and smooth flutes have higher cutups. These can be clearly seen in the lofty cutups of the 8′ Roerfluit. Normal Scale mouth heights are calculated as 1⁄4 of the Normal Scale Mouth Width, a common recipe in neo-Baroque voicing. In Figure 6 we see that Flentrop did not use this recipe. The Saint Mark’s cutups are much higher, and they have no relationship to the mouth width scales. They are also highly variable as a free voicing parameter. Flentrop raised the cutup until the desired timbre was achieved and the speech was fast. This is why you do not hear slow, gulping speech in a Flentrop organ.

The soaring cutups of the Roerfluit

The soaring cutups of the 8′ Roerfluit illustrate how Flentrop achieved a rich harmonic timbre in his principal chorus and a smoother, warmer timbre in the flutes. While Flentrop is noted for a brighter, “instrumental” timbre, which strongly implies lower cutups, Figure 6 clearly shows that his cutups were much higher than the neo-Baroque recipe. As an example, the cutup of the 8′ Roerfluit tenor C pipe in Figure 6 is +5 halftones, while its mouth width in Figure 5 is -5 halftones, revealing a cutup that is a stunning 10 halftones higher than the neo-Baroque recipe.

Figure 7 (see page 18) shows the relative flow of wind in the pipe toes. Larger pipe toes will flow more wind and yield more power. Received wisdom relates that Flentrop used “open toe” voicing, but Flentrop toes are in most cases quite restricted. Much more open toes can be found in Hook organs. Hook toe diameters also have high variability at a specific pitch, very unlike the more regular wind flow patterns we see with D. A. Flentrop and Gottfried Silbermann.¹³

The values in Figure 7 are toe constants, a number that represents relative flow. Flentrop suggested to me that a reasonable starting point for a toe diameter is the square root of its resonator diameter. The area of that closed toe represents a constant of “1,” and as you can see in Figure 7, Flentrop converged on that number at about 1′ pitch and increased the flow in both deeper and higher pitches. The area of the toe is proportional to the toe constant, i.e., a toe constant of “2” has twice the area of a toe with a constant of “1.” One added feature is that the toe constant compensates for mouths that are wider or narrower than the Normal Scale mouth of 1⁄4 of the circumference. For Flentrop this does not matter, because he used 1⁄4 mouths, but for a builder like Gottfried Silbermann who used 2⁄7 mouths, or Ernest M. Skinner who used 1⁄5 mouths, this compensation is critical, because wider mouths need more wind and narrower mouths need less. The toe constant allows us to compare the relative flow of wind in pipes with different diameters and different mouth widths. A good example in Figure 7 is the 8′ Roerfluit, which has slightly more wind than the 8′ Octaaf. Although it has a much smoother timbre, the 8′ Roerfluit’s slightly more powerful fundamental adds chorus depth to the much brighter 8′ Octaaf.

Toes control power, and in Flentrop organs designed for smaller acoustics I have found toe constants of 0.6 in the lowest mixture pitches, and this is a very restricted toe. A fully open toe has a toe constant of about 4, which we see in the highest pitches of the 2′ Octaaf and III Scherp in Figure 7.

Note the consistency of wind flow in the Flentrop principal chorus pipes at a given pitch, with a minimum flow of wind at about 1′ in pitch and much more flow in the bass and treble. This represents a voicing model for the Saint Mark’s acoustic. Similar patterns of wind flow exist in the 1692 Schnitger organ in the Hamburg Jacobikirche.¹⁴

The wind flow of the 4′ Speelfluit in Figure 7 is very instructive. Its lower cutups, relative to the 8′ Roerfluit, are explained by its more restricted toes. Closing the toe has the tonal effect of raising the cutup for a much warmer timbre at a lower power. The Speelfluit adds color to the more powerful Roerfluit, while restraining the power of the combined flutes as accompanimental stops.

Figure 8 data are estimated flueway depths based on observation of other work by Flentrop. In 1972 I did not have tapered wedges for measuring flueway depths. Wooden wedges are the safest material for documentation, but for a voicer, brass or steel wedges will last longer.¹⁵ The important feature of Flentrop flueways is that they are not used as a primary means of controlling power. Flentrop flueways do vary, but they vary within a restricted range at a given pitch. Neo-Baroque voicing emphasized a cutup recipe set to 1⁄4 of the mouth width with “open toes.” The result was that a voicer was often forced to use very narrow flueways to regulate both power and timbre, and the resulting sound was typically thin in fundamental warmth with a slow, gulping speech on the verge of overblowing. Flentrop used wind pressures and toes to control power, not the flueways, and he adjusted the cutup to achieve the desired timbres with fast speech.

In both modern and ancient work we will find an enormous variation in flueway depths. Although it is very rarely measured, flueway depth is of critical importance in understanding the different sounds of pipe organs. As the flueway deepens, more breathiness is heard in the sound. This is corrected by an increasing amount and boldness of nicking as the flueway depth increases. This is one of the reasons you will find many bold nicks in deep Romantic flueways. Flentrop’s voicing finds the flueway depth that will yield a tolerable breathiness with a minimum degree of nicking, and this is the optimum point for chiff. This is not a deep flueway, but it is much deeper than the razor-thin neo-Baroque flueways that resulted from arbitrarily low cutups. Both Andreas and Gottfried Silbermann used much deeper flueways than Flentrop, and their milder chiff is the result of their bolder nicking. Readers can find the flueway depths for some important historical styles in The Diapason.¹⁶

Figure 9 shows what happens when we divide the area of the pipe toe (the radius of the toe, squared, times π) by the area of the flueway it feeds (the flueway depth times the mouth width). In Figure 9 we see this data as a ratio of those areas. This tells us a great deal about the speech onset of the pipes. If the pipe toe is closed to the point where its area is less than the flueway area, the pressure will drop in both the foot and the flueway.¹⁷ We often see this in organs with higher wind pressures where the toes are strongly reduced to control power. In this situation, however, not only does the pressure drop at the flueway, the buildup of pressure in the foot is slower, and this can lead to slower speech. This form of slower speech is not immediately obvious, but a chorus with ratios above 1.0 will have a prompt attack, while pipes with ratios of 0.5 will have a noticeably slower attack, as is often heard in the smooth solo voice of the classical French cornet.¹⁸ When we look at theatre organs with extremely high wind pressures and deep Romantic flueways, we also find extremely small toes that produce ratios well below 0.5. This is why the attack of theatre organ flue pipes is much slower than what we hear in a Flentrop.

Ultra-low area ratios also explain in part why theatre organ pipes never have chiff. A fast rise in pressure in the foot and flueway is essential to the production of chiff, and we hear this when Biggs crisply opens the pallets on his 1958 Flentrop. Ratios close to 1 or above will be conducive to a fast pressure rise and the production of chiff, and in Figure 9 we can see that no Flentrop pipes have values below 1, and most pipes have values well above 1. This is a feature of Flentrop voicing in all of his organs for which I have data, and it is a significant factor in Flentrop’s fast, articulate voicing. Flentrop flueways are not deep in the Romantic style, and their areas are relatively small, with the result that even Flentrop’s more restricted toes still supply much more wind than the flueways need, and the fast pressure rise produces chiff.

Chiff can be eliminated in any ratio of toe and flueway areas by simply applying many bold nicks, but Flentrop used nicking sparingly, and when it is used, it is typically very fine in nature. Hook voicing also features relatively high area ratios, but the voicers used many bold nicks on every pipe, and no chiff is audible in their voicing. Theatre organs combine ultra-low area ratios with very bold nicking and unsurprisingly never exhibit chiff.

Figure 10 shows the mouth of a Flentrop pipe from about 1980, which is articulate, even with its two bolder nicks. The finest nicking in the center of the languid is more typical of the Saint Mark’s organ. Note that the flueway, while not deeply open in the Romantic style, is much deeper than typical neo- Baroque voicing.

The Pedaal

Figure 11 shows the diameter scales of the Pedaal. The scales of the larger pipes are consistent with the Flentrop model in Figure 3, and the diameters of the larger pipes were measured at the bottom. The Mixtuur is also consistent with the model notes. Like the Hoofdwerk, the flutes trend much wider as the pitch ascends.

The wind pressure of the Hoofdwerk is 80 millimeters, which is interestingly the same pressure found in the restored 1692 Hamburg Jacobikirche Schnitger. All other divisions at Saint Mark’s are winded on a very modest 68 millimeters of pressure, including the Pedaal. Flentrop once commented that wind pressure in a pipe organ is analogous to the tension of strings on a violin, with similar effects in the sound.

When I visited in 1972, the 32′ Prestant featured large ears at the sides of the mouths, and a few years later I observed that large wooden rollers had been added between the ears. This was perhaps an effort to make the 32′ sound more audible, as human hearing is very poor in the deep bass. At about 20 cycles per second we feel sound as much as we hear it, and a 32′ pipe resonates at 16 cycles per second. The addition of the rollers increases audible harmonic power to the sound, just as they add harmonic power to very narrow string pipes. Joseph Gabler found an elegant solution to this problem in his organ of 1750 at Weingarten: drawing the 32′ stop also draws the 16′ stop at the same time, making the sound both felt and more easily heard.

Tin was very expensive when Saint Mark’s Flentrop was constructed, the result of a powerful tin mining cartel. Many Flentrop organs utilized copper for larger façade pipes during this time as an alternative to zinc. The colorful patina on Flentrop copper pipes exhibits reddish earth tones and subtle greens. I asked Flentrop how he achieved this, and he laughed. The process was the result of long experimentation, and it involved strongly heating the pipes and applying the urine of cows to the heated metal. Flentrop smiled when he said that the smell in the shop was not at all pleasant. The lovely pastel colors of those copper pipes enhance the deep reds of the mahogany used in the casework, which Flentrop carefully selected from his supplier in Africa.

The full principal chorus of Flentrop’s magnum opus in its 1981 configuration is electrifying in the Praeludium in E Major by Vincent Lübeck <Soundclip 4>. The organ today features some wonderful additions by the shop of Paul Fritts.¹⁹

Paul Fritts and Company Organ Builders

Additions and changes to pipe organs can result in irreparable harm to the original sound. The additions and changes by the Fritts shop, however, are sympathetic to Flentrop’s original concept. They are exceedingly well executed, and Flentrop’s original voicing was left unchanged.²⁰

In 1991 the console action was replaced with a suspended action. Germanic reeds were added at 16′ and 8′ to the Hoofdwerk, and the horizontal reeds were replaced at their original pitches with designs based on the 1762 work of the Iberian organbuilder Jordi Bosch. The original Flentrop reeds have been carefully packed and stored. The addition of a 32′ Pedaal Bazuin on the back wall to the rear of the Pedaal casework is a welcome one in a room whose large windows consume a great deal of bass sound. These alterations will hopefully diminish future appetites for changes to Flentrop’s historic magnum opus.

The precarious life of historic sounds

D. A. Flentrop’s organs are probably a very good representation of the sound of Arp Schnitger, which has very rarely if ever survived in its original form. Between 1953 and 1955 Flentrop undertook a major restoration of the 1720 Schnitger organ at Saint Michael’s Kerk in Zwolle to return it to its original condition, and Biggs recorded that magnificent sound in the 1960s.²¹ History teaches us that original sounds only survive in the very rarest of circumstances, and these are often found in depressed economies where there is no funding for restorations. Historically important sounds quickly disappear with the good intentions of restorers who change wind pressures, temperaments, pitch, and voicing to suit their own ears.²² This is why early documentation is so important, and it can expose later changes.

This article features a sample of scaling and voicing data from D. A. Flentrop’s magnum opus taken in its original form in 1972.²³ It has hopefully provided readers with a better appreciation of the sound of D. A. Flentrop. Astute readers will also no doubt notice that fifty-one years elapsed before I carefully analyzed this data. I should have done this long ago. Tempus fugit, carpe diem.

Notes and references

All images are found in the collection of the author unless otherwise noted.

1. Barbara Owen, E. Power Biggs: Concert Organist (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1987), pages 128–133.

2. wikiwand.com/en/Dirk_Andries_Flentrop, accessed July 6, 2023. From their reference: Kerala J. Snyder (Spring 2005), Symposium in Honor of Dirk A. Flentrop, Resonance.

3. Michael McNeil, “The Sound of Gottfried Silbermann,” Part 2, The Diapason, January 2023, pages 13–19.

4. Michael McNeil, “1863 E. & G. G. Hook, Opus 322, Church of the Immaculate Conception, Boston, Massachusetts,” The Diapason, Part 1, July 2017, pages 17–19, and Part 2, August 2017, pages 18–21.

5. McNeil, “The Sound of Gottfried Silbermann,” Part 2.

6. McNeil, “The Sound of Gottfried Silbermann,” Part 2.

7. Michael McNeil, “Designing an Historic Reed,” The Diapason, June 2023, pages 14–20.

8. saintmarks.org/music-arts/organs/the-flentrop-organ/ accessed July 12, 2023.

9. “Plainly audible” reverberation is measured at about -26 dB. The -60 dB architectural standard does not take into account the audibility of reverberation in the context of music, and it is also a source of grave disappointment for musicians and organbuilders. The standard needs to be revised for music.

10. Michael McNeil, “1863 E. & G. G. Hook Opus 322: Church of the Immaculate Conception, Boston, Massachusetts,” Part 1, The Diapason, July 2017, page 18.

11. Email the author for Excel files with the Saint Mark’s Flentrop data and/or the Jacobikirche Schnitger data at no charge at: [email protected]. The Schnitger data is derived and graphed from: Heimo Reinitzer, Die Arp Schnitger-Orgel der Hauptkirche St. Jacobi in Hamburg (Hamburg: Christians Verlag, 1995), with restoration by Jürgen Ahrend and data measurements by Cor Edskes.

12. Ibid.

13. McNeil, “The Sound of Gottfried Silbermann,” Part 2; McNeil, “1863 E. & G. G. Hook, Opus 322, Church of the Immaculate Conception, Boston, Massachusetts,” Part 1.

14. Email the author for Excel files with the Saint Mark’s Flentrop data and/or the Jakobikirche Schnitger data at no charge at: [email protected]

15. Michael McNeil, “The Sound of Gottfried Silbermann,” Part 2, The Diapason, January 2023, see Figure 15 on page 14 for an illustration of a wedge for measuring flueway depth.

16. McNeil, “The Sound of Gottfried Silbermann,” Part 2.

17. Email the author for Excel files with the Saint Mark’s Flentrop data and/or the Jacobikirche Schnitger data at no charge at: [email protected]. The Schnitger data is derived and graphed from: Heimo Reinitzer, Die Arp Schnitger-Orgel der Hauptkirche St. Jacobi in Hamburg, (Hamburg: Christians Verlag, 1995), with restoration by Jürgen Ahrend and data measurements by Cor Edskes.

18. McNeil, “The Sound of Gottfried Silbermann,” Part 2.

19. saintmarks.org/music-arts/organs/the-flentrop-organ/.

20. saintmarks.org/music-arts/organs/the-flentrop-organ/.

21. E. Power Biggs, The Organ in Sight and Sound, Columbia Masterworks, KS 7263, ca. 1969. Many examples of Schnitger organs are included in this landmark recording. D. A. Flentrop wrote a primer on classical organ design for the twenty-eight-page book included with this vinyl recording.

22. Flentrop was right when he remarked that I would use my observations of his work to find my own sound. The temptation to modify organs to the taste of the restorer is very strong, and I have regrettably succumbed to that temptation, too. I carefully documented a Wm. A. Johnson organ and described the changes I made to it in these articles, “The 1864 William A. Johnson Opus 161: Piru Community United Methodist Church, Piru, California,” The Diapason, Part 1, August 2018, pages 16–20; Part 2, September, 2018, pages 20–25; Part 3, October, 2018, pages 26–28; and Part 4, November 2018, pages 20–24.

23. Email the author for Excel files with the Saint Mark’s Flentrop data and/or the Jakobikirche Schnitger data at no charge at: [email protected].

Sound clips

1. [00:34] Johann Sebastian Bach, Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543, E. Power Biggs, Bach, the Great Preludes and Fugues, Volume 2, CBS Records, 42648, recorded in 1964 at the Busch Reisinger Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

2. [00:30] Charles-Marie Widor, “Andante cantabile,” from Symphonie IV, opus 13, number 4 (1872), James Welch, Magnum Opus, Volume 2, Wilson Audiophile, WCD-8314, recorded in 1981 at Saint Mark’s Cathedral, Seattle, Washington.

3. [01:01] Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (often attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach, BWV 565), Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, James Welch, Magnum Opus, Volume 1, Wilson Audiophile, WCD-8111, recorded in 1981 at Saint Mark’s Cathedral, Seattle, Washington. Exhaustive research by Michael Gailit has convincingly shown C. P. E. Bach as the most likely composer of this work. See “Exploring the unknown of BWV 565,” The Diapason, Part 1, June 2021, pages 18–19; Part 2, July 2021, pages 12–14; Part 3, December 2021, pages 16–18; Part 4, August 2022, pages 15–17; Part 5, September 2022, pages 19–21; and Part 6, October 2022, pages 15–17.

4. [00:40] Vincent Lübeck, Praeludium in E Major, James Welch, Magnum Opus, Volume 2, Wilson Audiophile, WCD-8314, recorded in 1981 at Saint Mark’s Cathedral, Seattle, Washington.

—It is strongly recommended to use Sony MDR 7506 headphones for the sound clips. Earbuds will not generate bass sound.

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral website: saintmarks.org.

Flentrop Orgelbouw website: flentrop.nl.

Ludger Lohmann

As one of the most renowned organ virtuosos and organ pedagogues Ludger Lohmann has exerted a lasting influence on organ culture. His career as a recitalist, which has brought him to many churches, cathedrals, and concert halls all over the world, started with awards at important international competitions, such as the competition of the German Broadcasting Corporation in Munich 1979 and the Grand Prix de Chartres 1982.

Born in Herne, Germany, in 1954 he studied organ with Wolfgang Stockmeier and harpsichord with Hugo Ruf at Cologne Musikhochschule. While writing a musicological doctoral thesis on “Articulation on Keyboard Instruments of the 16.–18. Centuries,” he received important artistic stimuli from Anton Heiller in Vienna and Marie-Claire Alain in Paris. The dedication to this artistic legacy motivated him to regard his own pedagogical work as equally important in his recitalist career. In more than forty years, first at Cologne Musikhochschule, and since 1983 as professor at Stuttgart Musikhochschule, he has educated numerous talented young organists from all over the world, many of whom are now doing remarkable artistic and pedagogical work themselves. A central concern was always striving for an interpretation of musical works according to the stylistic conventions of the times of their origin, departing from the insights gathered in his doctoral dissertation, which became standard reading, and later broadened by many publications concerning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Musically they are documented in his numerous CD recordings.

His artistic and pedagogical impact has led Ludger Lohmann throughout the world as guest professor, teacher of masterclasses, and jury member of international competitions. He was part of the organ research project GOArt of Göteborg University as senior researcher. As organ consultant he has led organbuilding and restoration projects in several countries. To honor his manifold activities the British Royal College of Organists awarded him its first honors medal. In 2023 he received the prestigious German “Prize of European Church Music.”

Editor’s note: the scores to works mentioned in this article may be found online for free access.

Max Reger, Zwölf Stücke, opus 59

Reger, Introduction, Passacaglia, und Fugue in E Minor, opus 127

Reger, Fantasie und Fuge über B-A-C-H, opus 46

Reger, Organ Sonata No. 2, opus 60

Franz Liszt, Präludium und Fuge über B-A-C-H, S. 260

J. S. Bach, Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542

The sesquicentennial of the birth of Max Reger (1873–1916) has given new life to the reception of his enormous oeuvre. Among the many works of this astonishingly productive composer, only the organ pieces—the number and importance of which are rivaled only by Johann Sebastian Bach’s organ works—have enjoyed a constant presence in public concerts. This fact is not the least due to the efforts of Karl Straube (1873–1950), Reger’s closest friend and arguably his most important advocate during his short life. As the most influential German organ pedagogue of the first half of the twentieth century, Straube motivated generations of the most talented young German organists to become avid Reger performers. Their influence, in turn, can still be felt today particularly regarding certain parameters of Reger performance, since they tended to emulate Straube’s teaching method, which relied heavily on the principle of copying the master, usually starting to learn a new piece by literally copying all indications (fingering, articulation, and phrasing) from the teacher’s personal copy. Thus many details of Straube’s personal performance style, which sometimes are not consistent with Reger’s own indications, are still firmly entrenched in what might be called mainstream Reger performance practice. Straube’s students never, at least not in principle, questioned their validity but regarded them with a kind of Biblical faith, given the fact that Reger always heaped high praise on his friend’s performances of his music.

Straube’s ideas became a second layer of performance indications, sometimes overriding those given by the composer. As the authority that he was in German organ culture, Straube might even have contributed inadvertently or intentionally to the canonization of his ideas. We will never know whether Reger, in cases of conflicting indications, really preferred Straube’s ideas over his own. This must remain in doubt, particularly since Straube did not preserve Reger’s letters from the Weiden years, i.e., Reger’s most productive period regarding organ music, ostensibly because he did not want future generations to get an insight into an intimate exchange touching many aspects of the genesis of Reger’s music—possibly also not due to potential disagreements on matters not only of composition but also of performance practice.

In his monumental doctoral dissertation, “Reger, Straube, and the Leipzig school’s tradition of organ pedagogy: 1898–1948,”¹ Christopher Anderson has described the Straube-Reger relationship with its many positive but also problematic aspects in detail. The new and definitive biography Max Reger: Werk Statt Leben² by Susanne Popp touches this subject only briefly. Some basic problems of Straube’s style of Reger performance have been commented upon by Wolfgang Stockmeier in a volume, Max Reger 1873–1973—Ein Symposion,³ published on the occasion of Reger’s 100th birthday. Some of Stockmeier’s observations will be further developed in the present article, the aim of which is not in the first place to criticize Straube but to point out some very common clichés of present-day Reger performance, some—but certainly not all—of which might have originated in Straube’s practices. These practices can be learned from Straube’s editions of some Reger pieces published during the composer’s lifetime and also from listening to recordings made by some of Straube’s students.

When looking at the editions, some blatant contradictions, particularly regarding dynamics and agogics, can be noted. They expose some fundamental differences of opinion about how to deal with certain musical phenomena like the preparation of a culmination point. Here the name of Hugo Riemann (1849–1919), the most influential German music theorist of the late Romantic period and Reger’s composition teacher, comes into play.⁴ Reger very closely adheres to Riemann’s performance recipes, which can be found in his various treatises,⁵ whereas Straube, while generally being in agreement with Riemann’s theories, sometimes appears to come from a different school of thought. The fact that a performer would change a composer’s detailed performance indications in an edition of his own seems almost unthinkable today, but was all too common a century ago.

Certainly Straube’s aim in the first place was to make some of Reger’s best-known pieces more accessible; he might even have seen a justification for his interventions in Reger’s compositional process, or at least in his way of preparing a final fair copy of his works as the basis for an edition. Reger first wrote the musical text proper in black ink and later added all instructions pertaining to performance in red ink. Of course, it would be naive to assume that the genesis of a piece’s overall musical structure did not already include at least a rough concept of dynamics and movement, but details were probably determined only during this late “red ink stage,” thus easily leading to the impression that they were accessories rather than essential elements of the composition.

As a concert organist who has regularly played Reger’s works all over the world throughout a fifty-year career, I had many opportunities to observe typical problems of the reception of Reger’s music, problems that might have led a majority of colleagues mainly in English- and French-speaking countries to reject this music altogether. According to my experience the single biggest problem, apart from listeners’ difficulties of following Reger’s often over-complex musical textures, is what I would call a lack of coherence. This is first of all due to Reger’s tendency to compose free works like preludes or fantasias in a patchwork style: rather short musical phrases in certain textures are separated from each other by concluding chords. Even when the player goes from one passage to the next in an organic way by letting the listener feel a continuous metrical flow (albeit shaped by rubato twists and turns), the danger is that the piece falls apart, the all-too-frequent “stop and go” effect, tiring the listener and preventing an effective emotional buildup.

“Toccata in D Minor,” opus 59 (Zwölf Stücke), number 5

Looking at “Toccata in D Minor,” opus 59 (Zwölf Stücke), number 5, will illustrate this problem.⁶ The first part of this short tripartite composition consists of only twenty measures that contain, depending on how one counts, between four (in measures 4, 7, 15, and 20) and seven (the additional ones in measures 10, 11, and 12) such subdivisions. If the dynamic culminations in Organo Pleno reached at the end of all of the dynamic waves always starting at ff are any clue Reger would have regarded measure 12 as one of the important breaks in spite of the fact that the sixteenth-note triplet movement continues. Among the four clear breaks, all indicated by a large quarter-note chord, the one in measure 20 is marked by a fermata, the one in measure 4 by a fermata with the word kurz, or short. The other two breaks do not bear any indication. The common way of realizing these four transitions, experienced in dozens of performances by students and competition participants without exception, is holding the respective chords for about two beats instead of one as notated. While this is obviously acceptable for the chords marked by a fermata it is clearly not correct in the other two cases.

Apart from the resulting lack of stringency there is a consequence for the dynamic perception of harmonies, which prevents the buildup of tension as probably intended by Reger. The A-major seventh chord in measure 7 is followed by a D-minor harmony on the next beat, by the way a harmonic concept (a traditional dominant-tonic cadence) that Reger employs in a vast majority of formal transitions, even major ones (see measures 20–21: the B-major dominant seventh chord in measure 20 is followed by an E-minor harmony implied at the beginning of the soft middle section of the piece). Since the A-major seventh chord is in an accentuated metrical position (beat 3), holding it for a half note will inevitably give the ensuing D-minor harmony a metrical accent, particularly if the player gives it a strong dose of initially hesitating rubato, a gradual speeding up, with the aim of making his performance expressive.

Both player and listener are satisfied with an accent on the tonic, which might be the reason for this metrical misreading in the first place. If, however, the A-major chord is given its proper value, the D-minor harmony can be perceived as an upbeat to the much more interesting chord on the following beat 1, which consists of a double suspension (B sharp and D sharp) before an A-major sixth chord, thus keeping up the harmonic tension of the A-major seventh chord in measure 7 by preventing the succession of A major and D minor to be perceived as a definite cadence. It goes without saying that this is extremely consequential with regard to the perception of form, in other words to coherence or a lack thereof. The situation in measure 15 is different but comparable: the F-major 3-4 chord is continued chromatically by the implied bass line of the ensuing broken chords.

The question is why Reger notated fermatas in measures 4 and 20, but not in 7 and 15. The answer for measure 20 is clear: in measure 21 the middle section of the piece starts. In measure 4 the fermata marks an E-major chord that is followed by a new statement of the toccata’s opening passage in A minor, the dominant. This fact gives the E-major chord a higher formal relevance than the chords in measures 7 and 15, but not of the same degree as in measure 20, which is why Reger cautioned the player with kurz in measure 4. Since the opening passage starts on beat 4 (and should consequently be played with an upbeat feeling, not easy to achieve particularly when too much initial rubato is involved, as is very common) the “short” fermata should still allow the listener to perceive the value of the E-major chord as one (quarter note) beat in order to maintain the upbeat feeling for the new beginning. Even in measure 20 it is to be recommended to keep the B-major chord only for one beat (albeit somewhat longer than the E-major chord in measure 4, by means of a larger ritardando preparation) in order to clarify its upbeat metrical position.

This upbeat position, the first of its kind after so many seemingly comparable chords concluding phrases in downbeat positions, is undoubtedly a formal ploy to bridge the most incisive formal transition of the whole piece, another example of Reger striving for formal coherence.

“Benedictus,” opus 59 (Zwölf Stücke), number 9

It should by now be clear that Reger’s notation of transitional places is by no means accidental but highly differentiated and precisely responding to the formal structure. The question is now whether the consequences for the dynamic or metrical perception of harmonies were also on his mind. This can be answered more easily by looking at the equally famous “Benedictus” from the same collection, opus 59, number 9.

This piece is based on two motives, both exposing the interval of a fourth, the second of which outlining the fugue subject (which could easily be sung to “Hosanna in excelsis”) with two ascending fourths, the first with two descending fourths, thus probably meant to be the inverted idea. In its first appearance with the notes D flat, A natural, B flat, F, it enters three times alla stretta, the entrances always coinciding with the fourth note of the preceding entrance. As a consequence the entrances occur on different beats of the first two measures: 1, 4, and 3. The listener might be misled into assuming that the piece is in 3/4 rather than in the 4/4 that Reger notated. Another misunderstanding—this will immediately show its relevance—is that the listener will understand the first two notes as C sharp and A, i.e., a falling major third in A major.

This strange opening has to be viewed in light of Riemann’s teachings. Riemann develops his ideas about the dynamics of phrases, so crucial for his theories, starting with motives of two or three notes.⁷ According to his principles static dynamics are unthinkable: a melodic line always moves either in crescendo or decrescendo. Accordingly a two-note motive can be crescendo or decrescendo.⁸ For a three-note motive there is a third possibility: first crescendo, then decrescendo9 (the fourth theoretically possible variant, decrescendo-crescendo, is not really considered). This is also his favorite dynamic shape for any musical phrase: starting with a crescendo, which leads to a dynamic climax, then relaxation in decrescendo. Though Riemann generally opposes the late Baroque system of metrically oriented accentuation he still maintains the primate of beat one, in his musical examples always placing the dynamic climax on beat one. Hence we may assume that Reger’s dynamic thinking also respects bar lines.

This explains the opening of the “Benedictus.” Reger’s intention probably is to present his central motive in various possible dynamic shapes: the first entrance is thought decrescendo throughout. This can easily be accepted by the listener who de facto hears a falling major third.

The problem here is that the player knows that this interval is supposed to be a diminished fourth, and that the second note is longer than the first, so he will intuitively intend these two notes rather to be felt as a crescendo. In fact a trained ear can identify the player’s respective intention. The motive’s second entrance places the first note in an upbeat position, leading to the second note in crescendo. The third entrance uses still another option: here the dynamic climax is meant to be on the tied-over part of the second note. Since this is not really communicable on the organ Reger employs the swellbox, ending the crescendo sign exactly at the bar line and thus underlining the harmonic tension of the chord on the following beat one, which converts the originally consonant A natural into a dissonant suspension.

According to general compositional principles the moment has come where the composer should change the motive at the very latest: the fourth entrance starts one note higher on E flat, and thus is the loudest entrance. (Note that in the final short part of the piece, in measure 51, the corresponding entrance on the high E flat arrives after the swellbox has been closed, another dynamic-motivic refinement!) Straube¹⁰ displaces the dynamic indications: his crescendo sign starts not on the first note of the third entrance (D flat), but on the second, and continues till the end of the following measure, resulting in a dynamic climax on the first beat of measure 4 on a totally consonant B-flat major chord. He obviously did not see the refinement of Reger’s dynamic strategy and probably also did not understand Reger’s intention to present the motive in three different dynamic versions, an intention very essential to late Romantic musical thinking.

The first appearance in this piece of a solo line on the second manual (measure 8, beat 3) reveals another misreading of Reger’s intentions: Reger continues a diminuendo throughout the first solo notes, which start in a tonality of D major, finishing it on the lowest note of the solo when the tonality has returned to the tonic of D flat (measure 9, beat 4). Straube, however, lets the solo line begin at the end of a diminuendo, which on the first glimpse seems to be more convincing, but Reger’s concept is clearly motivated by considerations both melodic and harmonic and thus certainly more logical from a composer’s perspective.

This excursion into the “Benedictus” was supposed to demonstrate Reger’s refined dynamic intentions and to underscore the importance of playing the transition in measure 7 of the “Toccata” in a metrically correct way. In his edition¹¹ Straube does not add a fermata to the respective A-major chord, but his rallentando covering the first three beats of this measure and the sudden dynamic drop from forte to piano (including switching to another combination and moving back the Rollschweller device quite considerably), which he prescribes, clearly result in an interruption of the metric flow. The same can be said about the transition in measure 13: whereas Reger goes from Organo Pleno to a mere meno ff Straube goes from fff to p. Additionally already in measure 10 he prescribes Sostenuto, eighth note equals 84, and ritenuto in measure 12, thus probably resulting in a tempo only half of the initial eighth note equals 120, which he again suddenly prescribes in the middle of measure 12. This is obviously not the uninterrupted flow of sixteenth-note triplets, which is implied in Reger’s notation, but a clear break.

It might be said in defense of Straube’s apparent handling of these transitions that it separates sections and thus clarifies the structure of the piece very efficiently. However, the question is whether Reger’s way of writing is not structurally clear enough anyway, even considering possible acoustic issues with reverberation, which should be negligible in light of the limited dynamic contrasts, except for measures 20–21.

Looking into a piece by a different composer will show a similar problem. In Straube’s edition of some of the major organ works by Franz Liszt¹² the diminished seventh chord at the end of measure 12 in Präludium und Fuge über B-A-C-H is enlarged from six to eight notes, followed by a manual change,¹³ implying a break between this seventh chord and the ensuing sixth chord of G-flat major. This is a crucial moment in the piece that may be interpreted as a reference to a strikingly similar harmonic adventure in measures 20–21 of Bach’s Fantasia in G Minor, BWV 542i. Since this harmonic progression is a correct but totally unexpected resolution of the seventh chord it is important for the player to present the seventh chord as leading to the following chord. Liszt’s notation of a fermata on the sixteenth-note rest on beat one probably intends to give the listener a moment to digest the surprise, and Bach’s soprano tie across the bar line clearly aims to connect the chords.

It thus appears that Straube’s style of performance had a tendency of accentuating formal incisions of a piece rather than bridging them for the sake of holding together larger sections or the piece as a whole. Whether the motivation for this is purely musical or the result of resignation in the face of technically difficult registration manipulations (some of these self-inflicted by his disrespect for the composer’s dynamic indications) is impossible to decide.

Returning to Reger’s “Toccata in D Minor,” looking at the final two pages will reveal another problem with respect to Straube’s treatment of the musical form, but even more with respect to what might be called the emotional curve. Reger marks the broken-chord passage starting in measure 29 stringendo. The latter continues up to the A-major 6/5 chord in measure 33, which is followed by a dynamic drop to meno ff and an ensuing diminuendo until measure 35. In the middle of measure 35, while the chordal sequence of measures 33–35 still continues for a half measure, Reger turns the diminuendo into a crescendo, thus dynamically bridging the transition to a totally different figurative pattern.

Straube’s concept of the same passages is drastically different. Instead of an accelerando he prescribes an allargando; instead of meno ff plus diminuendo in measure 33 he prescribes pp and then a sudden and quick crescendo starting in measure 36. While on the first glimpse his solution seems to be more convincing than Reger’s rather surprising, in fact counterintuitive one, a second look leads to the conclusion that Reger’s concept might actually be considered artistically superior, at least more interesting, since instead of underlining the formal incisions it rather blurs them, resulting in a far more stringent ending of the piece.

The arpeggiando passage is not majestic (Straube writes sostenuto plus ritenuto) but breathless, the A-major 6/5 chord does not become an opportunity for a satisfied rest (Straube gives it a fermata), but spills over its accumulated energy into the ensuing chordal passage, which because of its falling bass line should rather be diminuendo, during which this energy is gradually spent. Obviously this concept is much more dramatic than Straube’s; it also shows a clear intention to keep the whole third part of “Toccata” coherent.¹⁴

“Kyrie,” opus 59 (Zwölf Stücke), number 7

In replacing Reger’s stringendo of measures 29–33 with sostenuto/ritenuto Straube shows an attitude toward preparing a dynamic climax that is fundamentally opposed to Reger’s own. In fact he seems to adhere to a different school of thought in this respect since he does exactly the same thing in measures 17–18 and 31–32 of “Kyrie,” opus 59, number 7, and in measures 41–46 of “Benedictus,” or in a totally different musical situation, in measures 35 and 98 of the first movement of Reger’s Second Organ Sonata, opus 60, where the crescendo and accelerando of the short transition between what might be called the second and third main thematic ideas is replaced by diminuendo and ritardando, separating the respective sections rather than connecting them as is clearly Reger’s aim.¹⁵ Reger follows his teacher Riemann’s recipe: a crescendo is naturally accompanied by an accelerando (correspondingly a diminuendo by a ritardando);¹⁶ a dynamic climax is reached with an accelerando, holding back the tempo briefly on the climax itself before the energy is released a tempo, the ensuing diminuendo eventually accompanied by a ritardando.¹⁷ Straube’s approach can be found in some late Romantic organ treatises, for example, Karl Matthaei, who states that an agogic dwelling causes an increase of intensity; when playing in forte registration it may even been extended to longer stretches.¹⁸

Perhaps this fundamentally different approach to presenting climactic moments of a composition reveals differences between the respective personalities: Reger’s radical, dramatic pushing forward versus Straube’s more civilized (if not to say more bourgeois), relaxed basking in a glowing Organo Pleno sound.

Passacaglia in E Minor, opus 127, and Fantasie und Fuge über B-A-C-H, opus 46

Different opinions about separation/contrast versus blending/overlapping may occasionally work the other way. In measure 64 of Passacaglia in E Minor, opus 127, Reger originally closed a variation in diminuendo and pp and abruptly began the new variation in f, as can be seen in his extant autograph manuscript. The first edition, which was already informed or influenced by Straube’s first performance of this work, commissioned for the inauguration of the world’s then largest organ, built by W. Sauer Orgelbau of Frankfurt/Oder, in the Breslau (Wrocław) Jahrhunderthalle on September 24, 1913, replaces this dynamic contrast by a more modest beginning of the new variation in p;¹⁹ again an example of Straube’s diplomatic mollifying of an emanation of his friend’s more radical personality?

The comparison of autograph manuscript and first edition of opus 127 sheds light on a possible practical explanation of some of the two men’s differing opinions. The original tempo indication for the fugue was quarter note equals 66–84. The first edition indicates eighth note equals 116–132. Though the two indications meet at 66/132 (actually a fairly realistic tempo), the edition’s indication is generally considerably slower. This, however, is not the main point. When listening to performances of the piece it can usually be recognized whether the player feels a quarter-note or an eighth-note pulse, in the latter case resulting in a loss of the dance-like character probably on Reger’s mind, even when there is not a large difference in metronomic tempo. Considering the fact that Straube had to learn this long and difficult piece on rather short notice it may very well be that his studies were in a phase when he was still thinking in an eighth-note pulse, as would be typical for a player facing such a daunting task. The player’s way of thinking will affect the listener’s reaction: thinking in a quarter-note pulse will point his perception toward the larger picture more easily and will consequently lead to a better formal coherence of the piece.²⁰

A comparable problem of learning a difficult piece quickly may have led to two famous instructions Straube used to give his students concerning two short passages of Reger’s “Fantasie” from Fantasie und Fuge über B-A-C-H, opus 46: Straube recommended to play the chordal diminuendo passage from measure 19, beat 4, to measure 20, beat 2, twice as slow as notated, in spite of the fact that Reger, knowing that this would be difficult to achieve, prescribes Vivace assai, and to the contrary, the four final chords (measure 55, beat 4 onwards) twice as fast as notated, which means that the concluding chords of the fantasia, notated in eighth notes, are performed at the same speed as the chords preceding the eighth-note rest (measure 55, beat 3).

As I could observe numerous students (almost without any exception) doing the same at the end of the fantasia without having the slightest idea of a corresponding tradition, my suspicion has grown that Straube’s recommendation was the eventual result of an original miscounting that he codified, possibly as a face-saving ploy. Notwithstanding the possibility that the resulting performance of the fantasia’s end might be considered as more natural than the one indicated by the composer’s notation, a miscounting would be a very human error that can easily happen even to a distinguished musician like Straube.

A similar mistake might have occurred in measure 10 of the “Toccata in D Minor” where Straube suddenly reduces the tempo to almost only fifty percent. The same can be observed in most students’ performances of the second half of measure 14, there (unfortunately) also in an otherwise quite convincing performance by Straube’s famous contemporary Alfred Sittard (1878–1942), who by the way, makes fine distinctions concerning the transitions in measures 4, 7, 15, and 20. He does, however, keep the first fermata quite long so that the perceived note value becomes something like a half note, whereas his A-Major seventh chord in measure 7 can be perceived very well as a quarter note. Otherwise he generally respects Reger’s indications quite precisely; only his phrasing caesurae are rather too long, possibly a reaction either to the large acoustic of Saint Michael’s Church in Hamburg or to the difficulties of handling registration on its huge Walcker instrument.²¹

As can be seen from the example of Sittard’s performance of this ostensibly “small” piece, Reger’s refined dynamic and agogic indications, certainly at least partly conceived with the aim of guaranteeing formal coherence and a stringent emotional curve of the piece, presents the player with many technical and musical difficulties. The changes that Straube made in his edition eliminate some of these difficulties; additionally they are easily acceptable to a musical player or listener. In fact some of them seem to be more natural than Reger’s original indications. The question of whether they are musically superior may have to be answered individually by anybody experiencing the piece. For Reger his friend Straube was the ultimate authority concerning organ performance in general. His belief in his friend’s opinions went far enough to accept Straube’s suggestions regarding questions of composition proper, the most unfortunate example of this being Reger’s Requiem, which remained unfinished. It should not be forgotten, however, that at least during Reger’s lifetime Straube was active and renowned only as an organist, whereas Reger himself had an enormous reputation as an orchestral conductor and as a pianist, particularly in chamber music and Lied accompaniment. Thus we have to accept that his meticulous performance instructions were informed by vast experiences gained during a very busy and successful career as a performing musician, and that these instructions deserve to be taken seriously despite the inherent difficulties.

Reger’s oeuvre is the fruit of a short, busy, and stressful life taken anything but easily. As responsible performers we should honor his efforts with a matching respect for detail.

Notes

1. Ann Arbor (UMI), 1999.

2. Wiesbaden (Breitkopf & Härtel), 2015.

3. Ed. Klaus Röhring, Wiesbaden (Breitkopf & Härtel) 1974, pages 21–30.

4. See “Hugo Riemann and the Development of Musical Performance Practice,” Ludger Lohmann, in Proceedings of the Göteborg International Organ Academy 1994, edited by Hans Davidsson and Sverker Jullander, Skrifter fran Musikvetenskapliga avdelingen, Göteborgs universitet, Göteborg 1995, pages 251–284. Riemann’s ideas are also to be found in Orgelschule zur historischen Aufführungspraxis, Teil 2, Romantik, Jon Laukvik, Carus, Stuttgart, 2000. The respective passages seem to be quite dependent on my Göteborg article.

5. The two most important ones are: Lehrbuch der musikalischen Phrasirung auf Grund einer Revision der Lehre von der musikalischen Metrik und Rhythmik, Hugo Riemann, Breitkopf & Härtel, Hamburg/Leipzig/St. Petersburg, 1884, and System der musikalischen Rhythmik und Metrik, Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig, 1903.

6. Since the scores of Reger’s organ works are easily accessible and probably present in many organists’ libraries I have refrained from giving musical examples. The measure numbers refer to the Breitkopf edition, but other editions may as well be used since they differ only in small textual details not relevant here.

7. Lehrbuch der musikalischen Phrasirung auf Grund einer Revision der Lehre von der musikalischen Metrik und Rhythmik, Hugo Riemann, pages 11ff.

8. According to his terminology “anbetont” or “abbetont.”

9. “inbetont.”

10. Zwölf Stücke für die Orgel von Max Reger. Op. 59. Hieraus in Einzel-Ausgabe: No. 9. Benedictus. Im Einverständnis mit dem Komponisten herausgegeben von Karl Straube. Leipzig: Peters 1913; London-Frankfurt-New York: Peters, 1949.

11. Präludien und Fugen für die Orgel von Max Reger, herausgegeben von Karl Straube, Leipzig: Peters 1912, Nr. 1. I thank Mrs. Ursula Wild of the library of the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg for providing me with a scan.

12. Orgelkompositionen von Franz Liszt, herausgegeben von Karl Straube. Band II, Leipzig: Peters 1917, pages 55–56.

13. In the first (1855) version of the piece Liszt also indicated a manual change, the right hand moving to the Oberwerk. This does not necessarily result in a dynamic break since the Oberwerk of the Merseburg organ for which the piece is intended is as powerful as the Hauptwerk. It is also interesting to see that the manual change was omitted in the second (1869) version. Additionally the fact that the lowest note of the right-hand chord has a shorter value than the rest of the chord, allowing the left-hand passage to interfere with it, implies that the manual change was not Liszt’s original intention anyway. Whether Straube knew the first version at all is doubtful, his edition concerns the second version, of course.

14. Reger seems to have liked the effect of overlapping musical passages, as can be seen on a smaller scale, e.g., on the last page of his Second Organ Sonata, opus 60. The numerous entrances alla stretta of at least the fugue subject’s opening motive are rarely marked by the beginning of new slurs. Reger once (measures 87–88) places a new slur on the two notes preceding the first thematic note, and more frequently on the second note of the subject, thus indicating respectively that the subject is prepared by a short upbeat, or that the initial note has the double function of ending the preceding phrase and starting the new phrase. In any case his clear intention is that there should be no break in the legato—as most players would do, reacting intuitively to the notation—in accordance with Riemann’s advice that phrasing does not necessarily have to be shown by articulation, but sometimes only by slight rubato nuances in order not to interrupt the longer legato line in the sense of a Wagnerian “infinite melody:” “Es ist etwas ganz bekanntes, dass die Schlusstöne der Phrasen oder wo die Verkettung loser ist, auch der Motive, zumeist abgesetzt, d.h. nicht in ununterbrochenem Tonflusse zu den Anfangstönen der folgenden Phrasen oder Motive fortgeführt, sondern von diesen durch kleine Pausen geschieden werden. Vielfach sind diese Pausen nicht anders, als durch das Ende eines Bogens oder auch gar nicht angedeutet und müssen also ad libitum, d.h. nach Massgabe des guten Geschmacks, durch Abzüge vom Werthe der letzten Note gewonnen werden; Gesichtspunkte, welche mangels einer Andeutung von Seiten des Komponisten dafür entscheidend werden können, ob man überhaupt die Phrasen- resp. Motivtrennung durch wirkliches Absetzen oder aber nur durch eine unbedeutende Verlängerung der letzten Note bewirkt, werden wir weiterhin kennen lernen.” (Riemann 1884, 145)

This way of indicating what Riemann would call “Phrasenverschränkung” (roughly to be translated as “joining of phrases”) or “Phrasenverkettung” is a bit unusual; Reger almost never uses the more conventional notation of letting two slurs meet on one note.

15. The described handling of this transition is not documented anywhere, but I clearly remember it from a radio recording of the piece by Michael Schneider, one of Straube’s most important students, to which I listened several times years ago.

16. See Reger’s footnote on page 8 (first edition, Aibl, later republished by UE) of the Choralfantasie über Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele, opus 30: “Die < > beziehen sich auf den Gebrauch des Jalousieschwellers; doch kann man auch im Tempo bei < etwas string. u. bei > etwas ritard. (Tempo rubato),” which is the practical implementation of a passage in Lehrbuch der musikalischen Phrasirung auf Grund einer Revision der Lehre von der musikalischen Metrik und Rhythmik, Hugo Riemann, page 11: “Mit dem crescendo der metrischen Motive ist stets eine (selbstverständlich geringe) Steigerung der Geschwindigkeit der Tonfolge und mit dem diminuendo eine entsprechende Verlangsamung verbunden.” Reger’s remark even goes one step further, giving an important hint to situations where no Swell division is at hand: dynamic inflections may be replaced by agogic ones.

17. “Die merkliche agogische Schattirung der Werte, nämlich eine gelinde Beschleunigung im Hineinlaufen in die Schwerpunktsnote, merkliche Dehnung der auf den Schwerpunkt selbst fallenden kurzen Note und abnehmende Dehnung der weiter bis zu Ende folgenden Werte.” Hugo Riemann, System der musikalischen Rhythmik und Metrik, Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig, 1903, page 17.

18. “Die agogische Stauung, eine bewußt herbeigeführte Verbreiterung des Grundtempos, bewirkt auf der Orgel, dem Instrument unendlichen Atems, eine Verdichtung der Intensität, welche bei stärker registriertem Spiel sich sogar auf längere Strecken auszudehnen vermag.” Vom Orgelspiel. Eine kurzgefaßte Würdigung der künstlerisch orgelgemäßen Interpretationsweise und ihrer klanglichen Ausdrucksmittel, Handbücher der Musiklehre XV, Karl Matthaei, Breitkopf & Härtel. Leipzig, 1936, page 52. Matthaei was a Straube student; his remarks on rubato otherwise follow Riemann’s teachings.

19. A similar contrast mp–f is to be found measure 80, which in the first edition is changed to the f being prepared by a crescendo ending of the preceding variation.

20. I do not want to address tempo questions in general, which in the case of “Benedictus” would be quite interesting. See my article in the Festschrift for Wolfgang Stockmeier.

21. The recording is accessible on YouTube. It has been described in detail by Hans Martin Balz in an article in Ars Organi 1/2017 (journal of Gesellschaft der Orgelfreunde), pages 50–52. I thank Dr. Balz for providing me with the link.

This article originally appeared in Ars et Usus Musicae Organicae: Juhlakirja Olli Porthanille (Essays in Honour of Olli Porthanille), edited by Jan Lehtola and Peter Peitsalo, Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland, 2020, and is reprinted here with permission.

Carolyn Shuster Fournier

A French American organist and musicologist living in Paris, Carolyn Shuster Fournier was organist at the American Cathedral in 1988 and 1989. After thirty-three years of faithful service at Église de la Sainte-Trinité, where she had directed a weekly noontime concert series, she was named honorary titular of their 1867 Cavaillé-Coll choir organ. A recitalist, she has made recordings and contributed articles to specialized reviews, on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2007 the French Cultural Minister awarded her the distinction of Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters.

Editor’s note: Part 1 of this series appeared in the February 2024 issue, pages 10–16.

The repertoire of César Franck’s organ students

What organ repertoire did César Franck’s students play, and how did they play it? Many of them stated that he did not give them any indications concerning tempi, style, technique, and registrations.⁸⁷ Let us examine if this is true by beginning with their repertoire, which was founded on the works of the great master Johann Sebastian Bach, the absolute spiritual reference for these budding organists. Franck’s students played the following Bach works during their exams and competitions:⁸⁸

Played once: Well-Tempered Clavier, Part 1, “Fugue in C-sharp Minor,” BWV 849ii, and “Fugue in F Minor,” BWV 857ii; Well-Tempered Clavier, Part II, “Fugue in C Minor”, BWV 871ii; “Fugue in D Major,” BWV 874ii, “Fugue in D-sharp Minor,” BWV 877ii; “Fugue in E Major,” BWV 878ii; “Fugue in F Minor,” BWV 857ii or BWV 881ii; “Fugue in A-flat Major,” BWV 862ii or BWV 886ii; “Fugue in B-flat Minor,” BWV 891ii. Aria in F Major, BWV 587; fugue of the Passacaglia in C Minor, BWV 582; Canzona and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 588; Prelude in E Minor, BWV 555i; Fantasy in C Minor, BWV 562i; Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542; Pastorale in F Major, BWV 590; Prelude in E Minor, BWV 533i; and Prelude in G Major, BWV 568; Fugue in C Major, BWV 545ii, and either BWV 564iii or BWV 566; Fugue in C Minor (unspecified); Fugue in D Minor (unspecified); “Toccata” from Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C Major, BWV 564; “Allegro,” first movement of Sonata in E-flat Major, BWV 525.

Played twice: Well-Tempered Keyboard, Part I, “Fugue in B-Flat Minor,” BWV 867ii. Fugue in E Minor, BWV 555ii; Prelude and Fugue in G Major, BWV 557; Prelude and Fugue G Minor, BWV 558; Prelude and Fugue B-flat Major, BWV 560; Prelude in C Minor, BWV 546i; Prelude in C Minor; Prelude in D Major, BWV 532i; Prelude in G Major, BWV 541i; Prelude in B Minor, BWV 544i; Fugue in D Minor, BWV 539ii; Fugue in E Minor, BWV 548ii; Fugue in F Major, BWV 540ii; Fugue in F Minor, BWV 534ii; Fugue in G Minor, BWV 131a; Fugue in B Minor on a Theme by Corelli, BWV 579; Fugue in B Minor, BWV 544ii; Fantasy in G Minor, BWV 542ii; Passacaglia in C Minor, BWV 582; Prelude and Fugue in E Minor, BWV 533; Toccata in D Minor, BWV 565i; Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565; first movement of Concerto in A Minor after Vivaldi, BWV 593; O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig, BWV 656; O Mensch, bewein’ dein’ Sünde gross, BWV 622.

Played three times: Prelude in E-flat Major, BWV 552i; Fugue in C Major, BWV 566ii; Fugue in C Minor on a Theme by Legrenzi, BWV 574; Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542ii; Prelude and Fugue in C Major, BWV 566; Prelude and Fugue C Minor, BWV 546; Toccata in F Major, BWV 540i; last movement of Concerto in A Minor after Vivaldi, BWV 593.

Played four times: Concerto in G Major after Prince Johann Ernst, BWV 592; Fantasy in C Minor, BWV 537; Fugue in C Minor, BWV 546ii; Toccata in D Minor (“Dorian”), BWV 538i.

Played six times: Concerto in A Minor after Vivaldi, BWV 593; Fugue in G Minor, BWV 578.

Played eight times: Fugue in C Minor, BWV 537.

In 1887 Franck prepared five volumes with thirty-one Bach pieces in a Braille edition for the National Institute for the Blind in Paris. It used heels, heel and toe crossings, finger, foot, and hand substitutions, finger, foot, and thumb glissandi, which favored a complete legato.⁸⁹ All pieces included in this collection were performed by Franck’s students at the Paris Conservatory, except for the chorales An Wasserflüssen Babylon, BWV 653, and Wir glauben all an einen Gott, Vater, BWV 740. On the other hand, they had performed the following works that were not in Franck’s Braille edition of Bach’s organ works: selections from Well-Tempered Clavier, parts 1 and 2; Aria in F Major, BWV 587; Concerto in G Major after Prince Johann Ernst, BWV 592; Fugue in G Minor, BWV 131a; Pastorale in F Major, BWV 590; Toccata in D Minor (“Dorian”), BWV 538i; and the first movement (“Allegro”) of Sonata in E-flat, BWV 525.

Franck’s ten students who had previously studied at the Niedermeyer School and at the National Institute of Blind Youth had immediately played Bach’s virtuosic works: Fugue in D Major, BWV 532 (played by Albert Mahaut and Adolphe Marty); Fugue in E Minor, BWV 548 (played by Joséphine Boulay); Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542 (played by Mahaut). They won their first prizes rapidly, except for Henri Letocart. As at the Niedermeyer School, Franck’s students likely used the C. F. Peters edition of Bach’s organ works. Many of his long-term students had begun with Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and Eight Little Preludes and Fugues. Franck had inscribed in John Hinson’s copy of the Well-Tempered Clavier numerous “optional” pedal indications for the first twelve preludes and fugues in this collection.⁹⁰ Charles-Valentin Alkan’s performances of Bach chorales and trio sonatas in his Les Petits Concerts in the Salons Érard between 1873 and 1880⁹¹ certainly inspired Franck’s students to play the two chorales and a movement of a trio sonata.

Franck’s students thoroughly studied the construction of Bach’s fugues, more than his preludes—for example, the combination of themes in the Fugue in C Minor, BWV 574.⁹² This truly inspired his students’ improvisations and compositions as well as those of his own, as shown in his Prélude, Fugue et Variation, Grande Pièce Symphonique, and Trois Chorals.⁹³ Bach’s fugues were indeed “the model for all music.”⁹⁴ During the bicentenary of J. S. Bach’s birth in 1885, René de Récy had indicated the importance of the fugue in Bach’s works: “The fugue is . . . the first complete type of musical composition.”⁹⁵ Mel Bonis, who attended his class as an auditor around 1878, remembers having heard him say, “Bach is the oldest of the future musicians.”⁹⁶

In addition to their substantial Bach repertoire, Franck’s students played Handel’s Concerto in B-flat Major, a short piece by Lemmens, Schumann’s Canonic Study in A-flat Major, opus 56, number 4 (played twice), and movements from Felix Mendelssohn’s sonatas, notably Sonata VI, based on the Lutheran hymn, “Vater unser im Himmelreich,” played six times. Franck’s teaching, based on these German masters, was faithful to that of Alexis Chauvet, François Benoist, and Charles-Valentin Alkan, who had composed works based on Protestant chorales, such as his Impromptu sur le Choral de Luther (“Ein Feste Burg”), dedicated to François Benoist.

For Franck, improvisation was an “authentic compositional act.”⁹⁷ Vincent d’Indy and Charles Tournemire considered it to be “an infinitely precious advantage to work for two years in his organ class, a center of true studies in composition.”⁹⁸ According to his composition student, Charles Bordes (1863–1909), “Father Franck was formed by his students.”⁹⁹

Franck’s students became pioneers when they played their master’s works, which were relatively unknown then. When Georges Bizet heard a student play Franck’s Prélude, Fugue et Variation during an exam, he confided to Franck, “Your piece is exquisite. I did not know that you were a composer.”¹⁰⁰ Franck’s following fourteen students promoted and encouraged him by performing his works for their exams and their competitions:

Adèle Billaut: Prélude, Fugue et Variation (January 1875)

Marie Renaud: Prélude, Fugue et Variation (July 1876)

Georges Verschneider: Fantaisie in C (January 1874), ^Pastorale (January 1877), and ^Prière (June 1877)

Henri Dallier: Fantaisie in C (June 1878)101

Gabriel Pierné: Final (July 1882)

Henri Kaiser: Grande Pièce Symphonique (July 1884)

François Pinot: Fantaisie in A (June 1885)

Adolphe Marty: Fantaisie in C (June 1886)

Jean-Joseph Jemain: Cantabile (January 1887), the beginning of Grande Pièce Symphonique (June 1887)

Georges Aubry: Cantabile (June 1888)

Georges Bondon: Prière (July 1888), Grande Pièce Symphonique (July 1889)

Albert Mahaut: Prière (June 1889)

Marie Prestat: Prélude, Fugue et Variation (July 1889), Fantaisie in A (January 1890), and Prière (July 1890)

Henri Letocart: Pastorale (July 1890).

For Tournemire, his master’s “Prière,” the most remarkable of his Six Pièces, is an uninterrupted large fresco. Its “Andante sostenuto” theme is played at the tempo of 55 to the quarter note. Its animated central melismatic recitative sections, played with great liberty and at a livelier tempo, at 76 to the quarter note, “provide the necessary calm to express the initial theme when it returns with more ardent intensity. One must interpret its conclusion with fantasy.”¹⁰² Jean Langlais regretted that he never heard Albert Mahaut play it. Mahaut revered it so much that he had stopped playing it when he was seventy-five years old.¹⁰³ Dedicated to François Benoist, it was played four times, which duly rendered homage to Franck’s predecessor.

Charles Tournemire’s indications in his book César Franck prove that Franck did indeed deal with expressive interpretational matters. In accordance with his master’s approach, he analyzes the basic form and structure of each piece, its musical expression, its tempos, and its mystical meaning. The exquisite Prélude, Fugue et Variation, a sweet Bach-like cantilena, was dedicated to Camille Saint-Saëns. The “Andantino” should be played without rigor at the tempo of 60 to the quarter note, the “Fugue” at 88, and the “Variation” without haste, very clearly, “at the tip of your fingertips.”¹⁰⁴ In the Grande Pièce Symphonique, the first Romantic sonata conceived for the organ, dedicated to Charles-Valentin Alkan, Tournemire provides the following tempi: “Andante serioso” with the quarter note at 69, “Allegro non troppo e maestoso” with a half note at 80; quarter notes in the “Andante” at 60; in the “Scherzo-Allegro” quarter notes at 96; in the final grand choeur quarter notes at 80; and the final fugue with a half note at 60; after the final subject in the pedal, one should broaden the tempo until the end. In the pure Fantaisie in C, dedicated to Alexis Chauvet, the “Quasi lento” is “a small, calm intense poem;”¹⁰⁵ the quarter notes in its “Poco Lento” can be played at 66 without dragging, and its pastorale-like “Allegretto cantando” around 76, with great suppleness. Its calm, contemplative final “Adagio” rejects any metronomic movement. In the charming Pastorale, the quarter notes of the “Andantino” are at 58; in the “Quasi Allegretto,” the quarter notes are at 100, and slightly less rapidly during the exposition of the fugue. In the Fantaisie in A, the quarter note of “Andantino” is at 88, and the movement should fluctuate with much liberty; after “Très largement,” at measure 214, one returns to the initial tempo with “a feeling of infinite calm”¹⁰⁶ until its delicate ending. In the remarkable Cantabile, with the general movement of a quarter note at 69, each interpreter should “follow his own interiority!”¹⁰⁷

Charles Tournemire’s disciple Maurice Duruflé indicated Tournemire’s advice in brackets in his own edition of Franck’s works, published in Paris by Bornemann. He wrote the following concerning the general interpretations of this music: “It is certain that one must bring to it a wide-awake sensitivity, but a sensitivity the measure of which must be ceaselessly controlled. Even though, it is delicate and even dangerous to give too precise indications in this realm, which remains personal. . . .”¹⁰⁸ One must always remain faithful to César Franck’s musical intentions, which means that one may need to change the registrations and even rewrite the score. When Marie Prestat played Franck’s Pièce héroïque on the studio organ at the conservatory, since it had no 16′ stops in the manuals, she had to play the piece’s theme in octaves in the manuals, leaving out a low B that did not exist.¹⁰⁹ As Rollin Smith indicated, according to Franck’s private student, R. Huntington Woodman, Franck did deal with details such as touch because he insisted that in measure 27 of this piece, the eighth notes should be played with “a crisp, short, staccato” (Example 3).¹¹⁰

Organists must adapt the tempo of his Prélude, Fugue et Variation, originally written for piano and harmonium, to the acoustics in churches and concert halls. André Marchal (1894–1980), who had studied with Adolphe Marty and Albert Mahaut at the Institute for Blind Youth from 1909 until 1911, played Franck’s works in a very supple and expressive manner. A true artist never plays music in the same manner, but continually evolves and adapts each of his interpretations to each particular situation, to each organ, and to the building’s acoustics. This is shown in Tournemire’s annotated scores.

Like their master, Franck’s students certainly played his works in accordance with their own personalities, each organ, and acoustic, but always very musically. Vital musical expression cannot be acquired by imitating others, but by understanding and expressing music freely and with conviction. According to Tournemire, Franck admonished his students “not to imitate him, but to search within oneself.”¹¹² During his lessons, his only criteria, “I love it” and “I don’t love it,” made his students understand that music is a science of producing and hearing pleasant, enchanting sounds that deeply touch and transform humanity.

Each student’s repertoire is very interesting. To give one example, Georges Verschneider had earned no organ prizes because he had difficulty improvising, and his whitlow illness had prevented him playing his exam on June 24, 1878. Nonetheless, Franck found him to be a very interesting student and really appreciated his hard work, his distinctive interpretations, and his innovative repertoire. During his six years in Franck’s class (1873–1879), in addition to the above mentioned three Franck pieces, he played the following works during his exams: Bach’s Fugue in C Minor, BWV 546, the virtuosic Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542, and his Prelude and Fugue in B Minor, BWV 544 (each of these four pieces in separate exams), as well as the flamboyant Toccata in F Major, BWV 540. An Alsatian, he was Franck’s first student to play the first movement of Sonata in E-flat, BWV 525, the chorale, O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig, BWV 656, and Mendelssohn’s Sonata III and Sonata VI.

In order to play this repertoire, Franck’s students had already acquired an excellent piano technique when they had entered his class, but they absolutely needed to acquire an excellent pedal technique as well. Since the Paris Conservatory had no practice instruments and they could not rehearse in churches, they were obliged to practice on pianos equipped with pedalboards. Pierre Érard began to rent them out in 1873.¹¹³ Louis Vierne’s aunt Colin had purchased a Pleyel pedalboard for him in 1889, the year he had begun to attend Franck’s class.¹¹⁴ In addition, Franck’s students could practice in piano and organ manufacturing firms.¹¹⁵

According to Henri Büsser, “To tell the truth, Franck neglected to teach technique, notably that of the pedalboard.” (À dire vrai, l’enseignement technique était assez négligé, notamment l’étude du pédalier.)¹¹⁶ Was this true? While no written technical organ method by Franck is known, his approach to acquiring an excellent pedal technique is nonetheless revealed in Adolphe Marty’s L’art de la pédale du grand orgue (Art of the Pedal for the Great Organ), published in 1891 and dedicated “To my Master, Monsieur César Franck, Organ Professor at the National Conservatory in Paris.”¹¹⁷ In its preface Marty explains that,

without the pedal, the sound of the Grand Organ is lacking in roundness and a full sonority, also because the more one is a walking virtuoso, the more one can achieve the true style of the organ, thus being able to play together all of its harmonic voices, because after all the execution of modern compositions especially requires a deep knowledge of manipulating this part of the organ.¹¹⁸

Divided into four series, the first series presents twenty-five exercises destined to give suppleness and technique to the pedal lines played by both feet, learning glissandi and substitutions. The second series deals with the technique of the toes, in order to play large intervals with the same foot, then presents the chromatic scale, the trill, and arpeggios. Highly musical, a manual accompaniment is added to each exercise that enables students to think harmonically. It was expected that each should be transposed into all major and minor keys (see Example 4).

In the third series, one learns how to play octaves. The fourth series deals with the independence of the two feet, glissandi, and substitutions, as well as scales and arpeggios, which should be practiced in fragments. Above all, this method was not based on plainchant and was not applied to the harmonium, as in École d’orgue of Lemmens, but was closer in spirit to Alkan’s highly virtuosic Douze Études pour les Pieds Seulement (Twelve Etudes for the Feet Alone, published by Richault, ca. 1866), which were dedicated to Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély, as was Franck’s Final with its long pedal solos. The two brief excerpts, Examples 5 and 6, illustrate the polyrhythms found in the pedal studies by Alkan and by Marty.

Franck’s students possibly practiced on Charles-Valentin Alkan’s grand concert piano equipped with a pedalboard in Pierre Érard’s workshop at 11–13, rue du Mail, located near Notre-Dame-des-Victoires Church. According to Albert Mahaud, they attended a performance of Franck’s Prélude, Choral et Fugue for piano there.¹²² In 1818 the Érard piano builders erected a concert hall on the ground floor of their mansion, now located on the right side of 13, rue du Mail. On January 10, 1839, Franck performed a traditional piano concert there, and in 1843 his Trio in F-sharp Minor, dedicated to S. M. le Roi des Belges (His Majesty, the King of Belgium). In November 1845 his Ruth was performed there.

In 1860 a second prestigious concert hall with 300 seats was built at the far end of this building. In 1877 Charles Garnier restored its ceiling and enlarged it to 572 seats. Both halls had excellent acoustics. On March 31, 1883, a concert given by the National Society of Music conducted by Édouard Colonne premiered two orchestral symphonic poems: César Franck’s Le Chasseur maudit (The Accursed Huntsman) and Viviane, opus 5, by his student Ernest Chausson. In 1894 when Louis Vierne assisted Widor’s organ class, he gave lessons on Alkan’s piano, which had remained there after his death in 1888.¹²³ Immediately following Alkan’s death, Franck expressed his immense gratitude to him by arranging ten of his keyboard pieces for organ, which were published in Paris by Richault in 1889: seven excerpts, numbers 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 11, of his 13 Prières, opus 64, for piano with a pedalboard, dedicated to Pierre Érard (Richault, 1866); two (numbers 3 and 7) of his 11 Grands Préludes, opus 66, for piano with a pedalboard, dedicated to C. A. Franck (Richault, published in 1866); as well number 3 of his 11 Pièces dans le style religieux, opus 72, for harmonium, dedicated to Simon Richault (Richault, published in 1867).

How did César Franck’s teaching differ from that of Charles-Marie Widor? Widor had warned Louis Vierne about the attacks by Franck’s former pupils against his reforms of their organ technique and confided to him: “Concerning improvisation, I have nothing to change from what Franck taught you: he was the greatest improviser of his time . . . only some details in the forms, nothing in the procedures.”¹²⁴ For Vierne, while Franck was more severe in his requirements for the fugue than Widor, his interest in detailed melodic invention, harmonic discoveries, and subtle modulations all promoted the musical expression.

For Widor, being a musician was not enough: one must be a virtuoso as well. In June 1891, before Jules Bouval played his exam, Widor mentioned that unfortunately he had not acquired a good organ technique. However, in January 1892 he observed that he had gained the virtuosity that he had lacked during the preceding year. Henri Libert, who played mechanically, became an intelligent musician and an excellent virtuoso, performing Bach’s Toccata in F Major in January 1892. In 1894 he won a first prize in organ, the same year as Louis Vierne.

In addition, Widor had encouraged his students to compete for the Grand Prix de Rome: Paul Ternisien, Jules Bouval, and Henri Büsser, who won it in 1893. However, none of them won an organ prize at the Paris Conservatory. In January 1892 Ternisien was extremely nervous and lost control of himself during his exam as he played Franck’s Cantabile. Bouval was so upset that he did not compete in June 1894. Büsser, although he was very intelligent and a good musician, had difficulty improvising. Contrary to Widor, who was to become the Secrétaire Perpétuel of the Institut de France in July 1914, Franck had discouraged some of his students from attempting to go to Rome. In 1884, while Claude Debussy had won the Grand Prix de Rome, Franck’s organ student, Henri Kaiser, had only received his first prize in organ. Only two of his “true” organ students, Samuel Rousseau and Gabriel Pierné, obtained the Grand Prix de Rome, in 1878 and 1882.¹²⁵ Tournemire later expressed his gratitude to Franck for having discouraged him to follow this path:

The most beautiful nature that I ever met, during my long career, was naturally that of Franck. I owe him my direction and how much I bless him each day for having advised me, when I began, to not dream of the Prix de Rome. . . . Since then, I have had the time to reflect. . . . I wonder what I would have become if I had had the disrespect to not follow his advice. . . . I would have undoubtedly made conventional music, false theater, and I would have been lost . . . irremediably.¹²⁶

César Franck’s artistic legacy

Many of Franck’s organ students at the Paris Conservatory composed works in various genres. The following exhaustive list will illustrate this.

Organ works: Alfred Bachelet, Édouard Bopp, Joséphine Boulay, Jules Bouval, Henri Büsser, Auguste Chapuis, Hedwige Chrétien (even though she was not a liturgical organist), Henri Dallier, Georges Deslandres, Vincent d’Indy, Dynam-Victor Fumet, Louis Ganne, Georges Guiraud, Georges Hüe, Henri Letocart, Henri Libert, Adolphe Marty, Gabriel Pierné, Marie Prestat, Paul Rougnon, Marcel Rouher, Samuel Rousseau, Francis Thomé, Charles Tournemire, Paul Vidal, Louis Vierne, and Paul Wachs.

Religious vocal music: Joséphine Boulay, Georges Guiraud, Henri Letocart, Albert Pillard, Marcel Rouher, Achille Runner, Arnal de Serres, and Théophile Sourilas.

Vocal works: Hedwige Chrétien.

Piano works: Bazile Benoît, Hedwige Chrétien, Aimé Féry, Louis Frémaux, Georges Guiraud, and Carlos Mesquita.

Works for harmonium and piano: Marie Prestat and Théophile Sourilas.

Chamber music: Auguste Chapuis, Hedwige Chrétien, Jean-Joseph Jemain, and Marie Prestat.

Melodies: Amédée Dutacq, Georges Guiraud, Jean-Joseph Jemain, Henri Letocart, Carlos Mesquita, Albert Pillard, Marcel Rouher, Achille Runner, Arnal de Serres, Paul Ternisien, and Paul Wachs.

Light music: Émile Fournier.

Lyrical works: Alfred Bachelet, Émile Fournier, Louis Frémaux, Jean-Joseph Jemain, and Marie Prestat.

Operettas: Louis Frémaux and Louis Ganne.

Symphonic works: Hedwige Chrétien, Jean-Joseph Jemain, Henri Letocart, and Paul Wachs.

Music for all genres: Camille Benoît, Pierre de Bréville, Henri Büsser, Auguste Chapuis, Henri Dallier, Vincent d’Indy, Cesarino Galeotti, Lucien Grandjany, Georges Hüe, Henri Kaiser, Adolphe Marty, Gabriel Pierné, Marie Renaud, Paul Rougnon, Samuel Rousseau, Jean-Ferdinand Schneider, Théophile Sourilas, Francis Thomé, Charles Tournemire, and Louis Vierne.

Editions of early music: Auguste Chapuis and Vincent d’Indy (Rameau), Jean-Joseph Jemain (Baroque works), and Henri Letocart (Jean-Baptiste Lully).

Transcriptions: Henri Büsser, Charles Tournemire, Louis Vierne, and Paul Wachs.

Louis Vierne had transcribed for organ five of Franck’s Pieces for Harmonium (Pérégally et Parvy, 1901/Leduc, 1905); Charles Tournemire transcribed his “March” and “Prelude” of the Second Act of Ghiselle, as well as the Chanson de l’Hermine d’Hulda (Choudens, 1927).

Many of Franck’s students, in addition to Adolphe Marty and Charles Tournemire, were authors of pedagogical music methods, and others were administrators in conservatories. Some of Franck’s students wrote books on harmony (André-Paul Burgat) or solfège manuals (Marie Renaud, Paul Rougnon). Paul Wachs wrote a manual on organ improvisation, “in homage to his Master Monsieur César Franck, Organ Professor at the Paris Conservatory,” as well as a treatise on plainchant, written for organists who accompany the liturgy.¹²⁷ Some were members of the Institut de France: Georges Hüe, Officier d’Académie; André Paul Burgat; Louis Ganne, president of Société des auteurs, compositeurs, et éditeurs de musique. Auguste Chapuis was a music inspector. Jean-Joseph Jemain and Camille Benoît were music critics. Lucien Grandjany, Georges Guiraud, Georges Marty, Samuel Rousseau, and Vincent d’Indy were choir directors. Louis Ganne, Jean-Joseph Jemain, Georges Marty, Gabriel Pierné, and Vincent d’Indy were orchestral conductors. Alfred Bachelet succeeded Guy Ropartz as director of the Nancy Conservatory, who had been there from 1894 until 1919 before directing the Strasbourg Conservatory from 1919 until 1929. Some became inspectors of music in the city of Paris, such as Auguste Chapuis (1895–1928).

Some of Franck’s other students became music professors. Georges Guiraud taught harmony at the Toulouse Conservatory from 1912 until 1928. Bruno Maurel taught music in Marseille. Jean-Joseph Jemain was a piano professor at the Lyon Conservatory from 1888 to 1901. In Parisian schools Paul Jeannin taught music and Césarino Galeotti taught piano. Henri Dallier taught organ at the Niedermeyer School beginning in 1905. Henri Libert taught organ there as well as at the American Conservatory in 1937.

At the Paris Conservatory, Paul Rougnon taught solfège; Marie Renaud (1876–1893), Lucien Grandjany (1883), Paul Vidal (1884), Hedwige Chrétien (in the class for women, 1890–1892), Henri Kaiser (1891), and Georges Bondon (1898) taught there. Louis Vierne assisted both Charles-Marie Widor and Alexandre Guilmant’s organ classes (1894–1911). Paul Vidal taught accompaniment at the piano (1886) and composition (1910) there. Georges Marty taught the vocal ensemble class (1892) and harmony (1904). Both Auguste Chapuis (1894) and Henri Dallier (1908–1928) taught harmony to women: their student, Nadia Boulanger, then trained musicians from all over the world at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau. Henri Büsser was a professor of vocal ensembles (1904–1930) and composition (1930–1948) there; his student, Gaston Litaize, highly appreciated his remarkable teaching. Like César Franck, Büsser recommended his students to “work, work, always work.”¹²⁸ Charles Tournemire taught chamber music there (1928–1935). In 1935 he wrote in a rather severe manner to his private organ student from Liège, Pierre Froidebise, as his own master César Franck had corrected him:

I read your music with interest. You have ideas, many ideas. You are only missing the art of presenting them with more subtlety. . . . 
I am returning your works with several corrections. . . . Accept them!! Don’t get tense!! When for the first time, César Franck corrected my works at the beginning, I found that odious!!? Because he dared to alter my harmonies. . . . And since, I have acknowledged the soundness of his remarks! This may be learned. You have what may not be learned. Thank God. . . .¹²⁹
 

From 1891–1899, Arthur Coquard, Franck’s former composition student,¹³⁰ directed the National Institute for Blind Youth, where three of César Franck’s students also perpetuated his legacy: Adolphe Marty, Albert Mahaut, and Joséphine Boulay. When Adolphe Marty was organ professor there (1888–1930), he opened up new horizons to an entire generation of blind organists, teaching them counterpoint and fugue, improvisation, and interpretation of the works of J. S. Bach. According to Louis Vierne, his open-minded and enthusiastic manner of teaching illustrated that of his master, César Franck: “I found joy with my professors. Marty, always very affectionate, treated me like a friend, not like a student. He continued to largely make me profit from his experience as a student at the Conservatory and predicted a likely success in this establishment.”¹³¹

Albert Mahaut, who taught harmony there (1889–1924), wrote the following just after Franck was buried at the Grand-Montrouge Cemetery on November 10, 1890: “We had encircled a tomb, it is true, but this tomb ought to be glorious. . . . We gathered courage to work, each in our sphere, to the triumph of the master who, unknown during his lifetime, ought to be soon the object of enthusiastic acclamations.”¹³²

Eight years after Franck’s death, Albert Mahaut was the first to perform Franck’s entire twelve organ pieces at the Trocadéro on April 28, 1898, and again in 1899. He also played them at Saint-Léon Church in Nancy on March 24 and 27, 1905, the year he wrote his book, César Franck, and continued to perform them throughout his life. During his fifty-three years of volunteer social work for the Valentin Haüy Association for the Blind (1890–1943),¹³³ he developed the musical notation in Braille and encouraged young blind organists throughout France to study in Paris. Josephine Boulay taught harmony and piano there from 1888 to 1925. This institution produced hundreds of other future church musicians, music professors, and piano tuners. André Marchal, Augustin Barié, Gaston Litaize, and Jean Langlais faithfully transmitted the teaching principles of Adolphe Marty and Albert Mahaud to an entire generation of blind organists, among them: Xavier Dufresse, Jean-Pierre Leguay, Antoine Reboulot, Georges Robert, and Louis Thiry. These then transmitted their knowledge to their own students. The organ professor there since 2002, Dominique Levacque, had studied in Rouen with Louis Thiry. Gaston Litaize later taught at the conservatory in Saint-Maur (1974–1990), where he was succeeded by his organ student, Olivier Latry, who, in 1985, became the youngest titular organist at the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris and, in 1995, was appointed organ professor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris. Litaize’s student, Éric Lebrun, succeeded Olivier Latry at the Saint-Maur Conservatory.

In 1894 Charles Bordes, with the collaboration of Vincent d’Indy and Alexandre Guilmant, founded the Schola Cantorum and taught choral direction there. Vincent d’Indy directed it from 1900 to 1931. Pierre de Bréville taught counterpoint from 1898 to 1902. Jean-Joseph Jemain was a piano professor beginning in 1901. Marie Prestat taught organ in 1901 and 1902 and also piano from 1901 until 1922. Louis Vierne taught organ there (1911–ca. 1925). Opposed to the academic programs at the Paris Conservatory and known for its high artistic morals, the Schola Cantorum’s monthly review, La Tribune de Saint-Gervais, published articles on religious music, as had the Niedermeyer School. After d’Indy’s death in 1931, four of Franck’s composition students who were artistic advisers there—Gabriel Pierné, Paul Dukas, Guy Ropartz, and Pierre de Bréville—along with Albert Roussel, resigned and founded the École César Franck on January 7, 1935. Louis d’Arnal de Serres directed it until 1942 according to the spirit of Franck, with strictness and musicality. Among Édouard Souberbielle’s organ students there, Michel Chapuis became organ professor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris from 1986 to 1995.

Finally, in accordance with an 1870 modification of Article 29 at the Paris Conservatory, which had stipulated that the organ should be taught both technically and liturgically,¹³⁴ Franck had inspired and trained an entire generation of church musicians in Paris; several indications concerning his private students are provided in brackets:¹³⁵

Choirmasters and organists at:

La Madeleine: Achille Runner (1904–1938);

Sainte-Anne-de-la-Maison-Blanche: Dynam-Victor Fumet (1914 or 1917–1948);

Saint-Denis-de-la-Chapelle: Joseph Humblot (c. 1873–1903).

Choirmasters at:

Notre-Dame d’Auteuil: Stéphane Gaurion;

Sainte-Clotilde: Stéphane Gaurion (1869?–1875),¹³⁶ Samuel Rousseau (1882–1904)¹³⁷;

Saint-Esprit Reformed Protestant Church: Jean-Joseph Jemain (beginning in 1901);

Saint-Gervais: Charles Bordes (1890–1902), where he founded the Chanteurs de Saint-Gervais in 1892;

Saint-Roch: Louis Landry (beginning in 1897)¹³⁸;

Saint-Vincent-de-Paul: Marcel Rouher (1890–1900).

Choir accompanists:

Sainte-Clotilde: Stéphane Gaurion (1863?–1869), Samuel Rousseau (1870–1878, 1881–1882); Georges Verschneider (1882?–ca. 1891); Dynam-Victor Fumet (1884, in the Chapelle de Jésus-Enfant, also known as the Catechism Chapel);

Saint-Eugène: Albert Pillard (1900);

Sainte-Marie des Batignolles: Georges Deslandres (ca. 1870);

Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois: Marcel Rouher (1882–1910);

Saint-Philippe-du-Roule: Georges Bondon (in 1900);

Saint-Vincent-de-Paul: François Pinot (1887–1891, succeeding Léon Boëllmann), Lucien Grandjany (1891–1892), and Henri Letocart (1892–1900).

Titular organists at:

La Madeleine: Henri Dallier (1905–1934), for whom Achille Runner substituted;

Notre-Dame Cathedral: Louis Vierne (1900–1937);

Notre-Dame-des-Champs: Auguste Chapuis (1884–1888);

Sainte-Clotilde: Gabriel Pierné (1890–1898); Charles Tournemire (1898–1939;

Sainte-Trinité: Marie Prestat substituted for Alexandre Guilmant on August 30, 1896;

Saint-Eustache: Henri Dallier (1878–1905);

Saint-François Xavier: Albert Renaud (1879–1891), Adolphe Marty (1891–1941);

Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois: Marcel Rouher (1910–1913);

Saint-Jean-Saint-François: Georges Guiraud (1889–1896) [Camille Rage (1906–1919?)];

Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Grenelle: Albert Pillard (1929);

Saint-Joseph’s English-speaking Catholic Church: Louis de Serres;

Saint-Leu-Saint-Gilles: Camille Rage (1901–1906);

Saint-Louis-en-l’Île: François Pinot;

Saint-Mérri: Paul Wachs (1874–1896);

Saint-Philippe-du-Roule: Cesarino Galeotti;

Saint-Pierre-de-Chaillot: Jules Bouval (1900–1914);

Saint-Roch: Auguste Chapuis (1888–1906);

Saint-Sulpice: Louis Vierne substituted for Charles-Marie Widor (1892–1890);

Saint-Vincent-de-Paul: Albert Mahaut (1897–1899), succeeded Léon Boëllmann.

Some played in Parisian suburbs at:

Charenton-le-Pont: Georges Guiraud;

in Nogent-sur-Marne: Charles Bordes, organist and choirmaster (1887–1890);

Saint-Clodoald in Saint-Cloud: Henri Büsser (1892–1906) [Bruno Maurel substituted for him (1893–1895)];

Saint-Nicolas in Issy-les-Moulineaux: Louis Ganne (in 1882);

in Meudon: Albert Mahaut (1888);

in Saint-Leu-la-Forêt: Vincent d’Indy (1874);

Saint-Pierre in Montrouge: Albert Mahaut (1892–1897);

Saint-Pierre in Neuilly: Henri Letocart (1900–1944), organist and choirmaster; director of the chorale society, Amis des Cathédrale [Friends of the Cathedral];

Saint-Denis Basilica: Henri Libert (1896–1937).

Some of his students were active as organists in provincial cities, at:

Saint-Pierre in Dreux: Henri Huvey (1887–1944); succeeded by his daughter Anne-Marie Huvey (1944–2005);

Saint-Paul in Orléans: Adolphe Marty (1887–1891);

Saint-Germain in Rennes: Charles-Auguste Collin;

Saint-Pierre in Rennes: Albert Renaud (1873–1878);

Saint-Germain in Saint-Germain-en-Laye: Albert Renaud (1891–1924), who had succeeded Saint-René Taillandier;

Saint-Rémy-de-Provence: Saint-René Taillandier (1891–1931?);

Basilica in Saint-Quentin: Henri Rougnon (until 1934);

Saint-Pierre in Toulouse: Georges Guiraud (1896–1912);

Saint-Sernin in Toulouse: Georges Guiraud (1912–1928);

His private organ student, Raymond Huntington Woodman, was organist and choirmaster at First Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, New York (1880–1941).

Among Franck’s disciples who played at Sainte-Clotilde Basilica in Paris, Samuel Rousseau possibly accompanied the choir before he was appointed choir organist in 1877. He then left for Rome after winning the Grand Prix de Rome. On February 20, 1888, Georges Verschneider, Franck, Dubois, and Rousseau inaugurated the new Merklin choir organ.¹³⁹ Rousseau’s Libera me, premiered in 1885, was played during Franck’s funeral. His Fantaisie, opus 73 (1889, published in 1894), which closely resembles Franck’s Trois Chorals, was dedicated “to the memory of his dear Master, César Franck.”¹⁴⁰ After César’s death, his son Georges Franck entrusted him with the orchestration of the third act of Ghiselle and the revision of Hulda. In 1884 Franck had turned over the accompaniments in the Catechism Chapel of Sainte-Clotilde to Dynam-Victor Fumet.¹⁴¹ Surnamed “Dynam” due to his “dynamite playing,” he was appreciated by Franck for his original spirit, and this had encouraged him: “I was still in César Franck’s organ class . . . when I sought to make known a very rich music; also, I invented music with one beat time so that each beat rested on a rich harmony. The purpose of art . . . is to humanize the universal life, that is to say, to render it proportional to mankind’s fallen kingdom.”¹⁴² Gabriel Pierné began to substitute for Franck in 1882 and became his successor (1890–1898).

Charles Tournemire, a true dignified disciple of Franck, succeeded Gabriel Pierné (1898–1939). In 1910 he dedicated his Triple Choral (Sancta Trinitas), opus 41, “to the memory of my venerable Master César Franck.” In 1930 and 1931 he became the first organist to record at Sainte-Clotilde Basilica for Polydor some of Franck’s works (Cantabile, Chant de la Creuse, Noël angevin, and Choral in A Minor) as well as five of his own improvisations (Petite Rapsodie improvisée, Cantilène improvisé, Improvisation sur le Te Deum, Fantaisie-improvisation sur l’Ave Maris Stella, and Choral-Improvisation sur le Victimae Paschali), proving that interpretation and improvisation are inseparable.¹⁴³ Tournemire also prepared an edition of Franck’s L’Organiste and Pièces Posthumes with his own fingerings, metronome markings, and annotations (Enoch, 1933: volume 2, and 1934: volume 1). Maurice Emmanuel, Franck’s disciple who had not been his student, was choirmaster at Sainte-Clotilde from 1904 to 1907, thus described Tournemire’s dignified succession to his master César Franck:

After the service had ended, the parishioners fled the church during the “postludes,” which were true treasures that César Franck played for them. Have times changed? Do the parishioners hear the artist who today [1926], through a close bond between the liturgy and art, and equally respecting the religious and musical functions, edified them on the themes taken from the service of the day, as noble, as disciplined in their structure as those by César Franck, of whom he was one of his last students? His master bequeathed to him the gifts of these contemplative and impassioned improvisations, sometimes calm, sometimes tumultuous, and which are like mystical dramas conceived in the secret recesses of the soul. The successor of the Master of the Béatitudes also retreats to the contemplation of labor, and comes out of his reserve only to give flight to the thousand voices of his organ, in a lyrical exhilaration, with which the congregation seems to associate little. . . .¹⁴⁴

During the inauguration of a monument in homage to César Franck in the small garden placed in front of Sainte-Clotilde Church on October 22, 1904, named as the Square Samuel-Rousseau in 1935, Théodore Dubois, director of the Paris Conservatory since 1896, expressed the Conservatory’s gratitude to César Franck:

If there was, as one had pretended, some coldness, or rather some indifference of certain colleagues of César Franck, I ignore this, and even I do not believe it, but I insist on officially proclaiming that the Conservatory is very proud to have counted among its professors such an artist, and the actual director considers it a great honor to have been his friend and colleague during all these years. And in my name and in the name of the Conservatory, I bring here a moving homage of admiration to the memory of a noble and powerful artist to whom we erect this monument today.¹⁴⁵

Conclusion

An ardent, prolific music teacher with an open-minded spirit, César Franck faithfully accomplished his duties as an organ professor at the Paris Conservatory. Due to a lack of funds, its Cavaillé-Coll organs were limited, but they were equipped with a thirty-note pedalboard, indispensable to playing Bach and contemporary works. In this institution founded on the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, he respected his students, understood their potential, gave them practical advice, encouraged them to constantly work with rigor, and guided them with suppleness in the right direction.

To become accomplished artistic organists and excellent church musicians, Franck’s students needed to acquire a solid pedal technique, internalize their musicianship by memorizing their repertoire, and study harmony, counterpoint, fugue, and composition to be able to realize subtle plainchant accompaniments and master the art of improvisation, which helped them to compose. His private organ and composition students who audited his class benefited from his wise advice. Johann Sebastian Bach’s music inspired and influenced the improvisations and compositions of both the master and his students. Franck’s impassioned quest for artistic beauty and spiritual approach to teaching produced a lasting legacy.

Notes

87. Jacques Viret, “César Franck vu par ses élèves,” La Tribune de l’Orgue, 1990, No. 3, page 11, quoted in Fauquet, page 477.

88. Prepared with A. N., AJ37 283 and Russell Stinson, J. S. Bach at His Royal Instrument (New York: Oxford University Press 2021), pages 159–172.

89. Karen Hastings, “New Franck Fingerings Brought to Light,” The American Organist (December 1990), pages 92–101.

90. Stinson, page 74.

91. Constance Himelfarb, “Chronologie,” in Charles-Valentin Alkan, sous la direction de Brigitte François-Sappey (Paris: Arthème Fayard, 1991), page 21.

92. Ibid.

93. Vallas, “César Franck,” Histoire de la musique, Encyclopédie de la Pléiade (Paris: Gallimard, 1960), page 894, and Stinson, pages 81–88.

94. Joël-Marie Fauquet and Antoine Hennion, La grandeur de Bach (Paris: Arthème Fayard, 2000), page 115.

95. Cited in Fauquet and Hennion, page 115. See René de Récy, “Jean-Sébastien Bach et ses derniers biographes,” Revue des deux mondes (September 15, 1885), pages 406–427.

96. Mel Bonis, Souvenirs et Réflexions (Paris: Éditions du Nant d’Enfer, s.d.), page 38, quoted by Norbert Dufourcq in L’Orgue, No. 185 (1983), page 5, by Fauquet, page 574, and by Fauquet and Hennion, page 132.

97. Fauquet, page 485.

98. Tournemire, page 70. After Franck’s death, Tournemire studied composition with Vincent d’Indy at the Schola Cantorum.

99. Tournemire, page 72.

100. Vallas, page 244.

101. On June 1, 1889, Henri Dallier performed Prélude, Fugue et Variation at the Trocadéro for the World’s Fair.

102. Tournemire, page 24.

103. Jean Langlais, “Propos sur le style de César Franck dans son œuvre pour orgue,” Jeunesse et Orgue (Automne 1878, page 6), mentioned in Smith, page 134.

104. Tournemire, page 23.

105. Tournemire, page 21.

106. Tournemire, page 25.

107. Tournemire, page 26. For more information on Franck’s metronomic markings, see Rollin Smith in The American Organist (September 2003), pages 59–60.

108. Maurice Duruflé, “Notes to the Performer,” César Franck, Volume IV, Les Trois Chorals (Paris: Durand & Cie, D. & F. 13.794), undated.

109. Viret, page 11, cited in Fauquet, page 179.

110. Winslow Cheney, “A Lesson in Playing Franck: Measure-by-Measure Outline of Technical Details Involved in Attaining an Artistic Interpretation of Pièce héroïque,” The American Organist (August 1937), page 264.

111. César Franck, Pièce héroïque, measure 27 (Paris, September 19, 1878), B. N. Music Department, Ms. 20151 (3), page 2.

112. Tournemire, page 63.

113. See François Sabatier, “L’œuvre d’orgue et de piano-pédalier,” in Charles Valentin Alkan, 233, and in Georges Guillard, “Le piano-pédalier,” R. I. M. F., No. 13, February 1984.

114. Vierne, Mes Souvenirs, page 20.

115. According to Gustave Lyon, “Letter to Ambroise Thomas,” October 31, 1893, A. N., AJ37 81 12. In 1893, this director of the Pleyel, Wolff et Cie. firm opened his workshop to Widor’s students and gave such a pedalboard to the Conservatory.

116. Büsser, pages 33–34.

117. Marty, L’Art de la Pédale du Grand Orgue (Paris: Mackar et Noël, 1891/Philippo et M. Combre, 1958), on the cover. It was printed in braille just after Franck’s death.

118. Published in Marty, page 1.

119. Published in Marty, page 22.

120. Published in Sabatier, page 240.

121. Published in Marty, page 37.

122. Mahaut, “Souvenirs personnels sur César Franck,” Bibliothèque Valentin Haüy in Paris, MTP138, 4066, page 587. This work was composed in 1884.

123. Vierne, Journal, page 165.

124. Vierne, Journal, page 164.

125. See Fauquet, page 491.

126. Tournemire, “Letter to Alice Lesur,” L’Herbe, September 21, 1930, Collection Christian Lesur, published in “Mémoires de Charles Tournemire,” Critical Edition by Jean-Marc Leblanc, L’Orgue, No. 321–324, 2018—I–IV, XXI. At least three of Franck’s organ students received the Grand Prix de Rome: Samuel Rousseau (1878), Gabriel Pierné (1882), and Henri Büsser (1893).

127. Paul Wachs, L’organiste improvisateur: traité d’improvisation, Paris, Schott (1878) and Petit traité de plain-chant, Énoch (undated).

128. Alain Litaize, Fantaisie et Fugue sur le nom de Gaston LITAIZE, Souvenirs et témoignages (Sampzon: Delatour France, 2012), page 38.

129. Tournemire, letter to Pierre Froidebise, April 17, 1935, published in Pierre Froidebise, “Grande rencontre: Charles Tournemire,” Exposition itinérante, Art & Orgue en Wallonie, undated, page 13. Pierre Froidebise took private organ and composition lessons with Charles Tournemire in his Parisian home beginning in April 1935.

130. Arthur Coquard (1846–1910), a composer, also earned a Doctor in Law degree and was a music critic for Le Temps and L’Écho de Paris. He wrote Franck in 1890.

131. Vierne, Journal II, page 157.

132. Mahaut, page 588. Two years later, his body was transferred to the Montparnasse Cemetery.

133. This association was founded in 1889 by Maurice de la Sizeranne. Albert Mahaut succeeded him as its director (1918–1943).

134. See Fauquet, page 476.

135. This list was established thanks to Pierre Guillot, Dictionnaire des organistes français des XIXe et XXe siècles (Sprimont, 2003), and the assistance of Vincent Thauziès from the Archives Historiques de l’Archevêché de Paris.

136. See Denis Havard de la Montagne and Carolyn Shuster Fournier, “Maîtres de chapelle et organistes de la Basilique Sainte-Clotilde,” in “La Tradition musicale de la Basilique Sainte-Clotilde de Paris,” L’Orgue, No. 278–279, 2007—II–III, page 5.

137. Samuel Rousseau also directed the women’s choir at the Société des Concerts at the Paris Conservatory.

138. He was also a choir director at the Opéra-Comique.

139. Cf. Smith, page 45.

140. Kurt Lueders, “Samuel Rousseau: simple figure marginale ou témoin privilégié d’un ‘Esprit Sainte-Clotilde’?,” in Carolyn Shuster Fournier, L’Orgue, No. 278–279, 2007—II–III, page 23.

141. According to Denis Havard de la Montagne, who had spoken with D.-V. Fumet’s organ student, Odette Allouard-Carny, in March 2007 Sainte-Clotilde’s annexed Catechism Chapel, located at 29, rue Las-Cases, had been inaugurated in 1881. According to Shuster Fournier, page 159, from 1861–1885 their choir was accompanied on a Victor Mustel harmonium, previously placed in their Sainte-Valère annexed chapel (rue de Bourgogne). According to Smith, page 43, around 1885 this parish acquired another Victor Mustel harmonium, a Model K with 19 stops. In 1888 a fourteen-stop Merklin choir organ was installed in Sainte-Clotilde’s chancel area. Thanks to its electro-pneumatic action, it was divided into two elevated sections in the side arches of the sanctuary; its console was located on the left side, at the end of the choir stalls, and its bellows were placed behind the high altar.

142. Philippe Rambaud, “D.-V. Fumet,” Bibliothèque des Lettres françaises, No. 4, February 15, 1914, published in Pierre Guillot, 223.

143. See Joël-Marie Fauquet, Catalogue de l’œuvre de Charles Tournemire (Geneva: Minkoff, 1979), page 99. These five improvisations were reconstituted by Tournemire’s disciple Maurice Duruflé and published by Durand in 1958.

144. Emmanuel, page 124.

145. Julien Tiersot, “Inauguration du monument de César Franck,” Le Ménestrel, No. 44 (October 30, 1904), page 34, and in Théodore Dubois, Souvenirs de ma vie, annotated by Christine Collette-Kléo (Lyon: Symétrie, 2009), page 194.

Editor’s note: an earlier version of this article, “César Francks orgelklas aan het Parijse conservatorium, zijn gepassioneerde zoektocht naar artistieke schoonheid,” appeared in Orgelkunst, issue 179, 2022, pages 168–191.

Sandro Da Silva

Sandro Da Silva studied at East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, earning a master’s degree in sacred music and organ concentration. From 2019 until 2024, he was organist at The Memorial Baptist Church, Greenville.

Throughout the history of music, composers have not only influenced and enriched the cultural life in their communities, but they have also influenced each other. The focus of this article is the influence of Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) on Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) and specifically how that influence is manifest in Bach’s organ concerto transcriptions. We will explore Vivaldi’s concerto style and his L’estro armonico, opus 3. Finally, we will explore some facets of how Bach approached the Vivaldi concerto style and ritornello form in his transcriptions.

Among the many fine composers of the Italian Baroque period, Vivaldi is recognized to be among the greatest. He was seen as an outstanding composer even by such towering figures as Bach. The respect one composer had for another can be seen in their transcriptions of works for other instruments. Bach was thus demonstrating his respect for Vivaldi’s music when he transcribed for organ several of Vivaldi’s orchestral works. This began when Prince Johann Ernest introduced Bach to Vivaldi’s compositions during Bach’s time in Weimar. During this period, Bach arranged numerous keyboard reductions and transcriptions.

These works were intended for use in church. As the German musicologist and theorist Johann Nikolaus Forkel noted, “In his [Bach’s] time, it was usual for a concerto or a solo on some instrument to be played in church during the Communion.”¹ Scholars have noted that the practice of transcription established by Bach caused him to absorb musical-technical principles that later showed up in his own compositions. Robert L. Marshall notes, “Whether prepared primarily for practical performance by the Duke of Weimar or himself, or for purposes of study, the transcriptions represent the composer’s first known sustained encounter with the modern Italian concerto style.”²

Italian instrumental music

The Italian Baroque was populated with great composers: Claudio Monteverdi, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Arcangelo Corelli, Tomaso Albinoni, and many others. Scholars note that Italian instrumental music in this period led the development of a number of new musical forms and styles, such as the Venetian concerto style that brought heightened maturity to orchestral music. In the work of Vivaldi, the trend toward the solo concerto and chamber orchestra found its apex. Throughout his oeuvre, examples of mature sonatas, concertos, and sinfonias abound. Vivaldi’s approach to the concerto grosso led him to envision flexible ensembles with several independent soloists. Running the full gamut, Vivaldi’s double, triple, and quadruple concertos stand midway between concerto grosso and solo concerto.

Vivaldi’s period of instrumental composition extends from 1705 through 1730, during which time he produced a number of concertos for various combinations of solo violin, cello, flute, oboe, and trumpet. Vivaldi produced a variety of pieces for ensembles and soloists. Nicholas Anderson writes: “Vivaldi unquestionably was a composer for the voice; however, it was as an instrumental composer that he made his most original and far-reaching contribution.”³ Some of his most important contributions to orchestral music were the introduction of multiple solo instruments, three-movement cycles, and ritornello form.

Concerto grosso genre

The concerto grosso was characterized by the juxtaposition of the full (tutti) orchestra against a smaller group of solo instruments (ripieno). Often Vivaldi employed the harpsichord as a continuo instrument realizing a figured bass line.

Historically, the genre of concerto grosso originates from the Italian operatic sinfonia. The first composer to use the concerto form was Giuseppe Torelli, and the great era of the genre of the concerto grosso was found in the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century. According to Wilhelm Fischer, “The form of the Baroque solo concerto was the most influential form of instrumental music in the High Baroque.”⁴

With reference to the concerto grosso genre, Vivaldi adapted the relatively new three-movement form to develop his concerto style. Karl Heller states: “Significantly, the early works are distinguished by Vivaldi’s treatment of the opening tutti ritornello and the artful construction of the opening solo passage.”⁵ As a result, sources draw the evolution of this concerto form through Vivaldi’s twelve concertos that comprise L’estro armonico, opus 3.

Original orchestral music: L’estro armonico, opus 3

These orchestral works were written during Vivaldi’s tenure as Maestro di violino at the Venetian female orphanage, Ospedale della Pietá, beginning in 1703. The collection of concertos included in L’estro armonico was dedicated to the prince of Tuscany, Ferdinando de Medici. In addition, the first performances were at the Pietá during the period of 1709 and 1710. The works were performed as collaborative ventures with the students at the Ospedale.

According to H. C. Robbins Landon, “Opus 3 was published by Estienne Roger in Amsterdam in 1711, with the title L’estro armonico,” which can be translated as the harmonious inspiration, impulse, or frenzy. “It embraced a set of twelve magnificent concertos for sometimes extremely odd combinations of instruments. In 1715 the concertos were reprinted by the London firm of Walsh and Hare, and by 1717 Roger was obliged to reprint.”⁶

Vivaldi set the twelve concertos in a tonal arrangement alternating major and minor keys and consisting of groups of one, two, and four violin soloists in symmetrical groupings. In addition, each of the concertos within opus 3 contains three movements, fast-slow-fast. Referring to opus 3, Steven Zohn stated: “Vivaldi’s works often widen the book’s focus to encompass tonal practice in early eighteenth-century Italy, thereby leading to a deepened understanding of both a crucial aspect of Vivaldian style and a historical period in which modal principles were rapidly yielding to harmonic tonality.”⁷ Heller further notes, “The uniqueness of L’estro armonico is due also to both the popularity and the historical importance of the concertos, which, as far as we can now determine, were reprinted or republished in at least fourteen editions in subsequent decades (by John Walsh of London and by Le Clerc le Cadet of Paris as well as by Roger).”⁸

The concerto is marked by spectacular tuttis, the central slow movements with great cantabile melodies. Landon wrote: “What can explain the immediate success of L’estro armonico? It was, of course, not any one element. Rather it was the freshness, the vigour, the variety, and, in the slow movements, the mysterious tenderness that captivated [people’s] minds.”⁹

Ritornello form

Another compositional technique present in many movements of opus 3 is the ritornello form. According to Michael Talbot, “Ritornello form is the quasi-automatic choice for the first movement in a Vivaldi concerto. It is the most common choice for finales, and appears in a few slow movements, where it may be reduced to a simple frame around what would otherwise be a through-composed movement for soloists, lightly accompanied.”¹⁰

Vivaldi recycled the ritornello form to combine diverse parts, allowing for structural cohesion. As Walter Kolneder states: “With the freedom of modulation gained in about 1680, and the tempered scale that was its inevitable consequence, it was possible to bring the ritornello on different harmonic degrees in accordance with a scheme planned on the basis of a large form.”¹¹

Process and problems of transcriptions

Transcriptions are adaptations of vocal, choral, or instrumental music for an instrumentation other than originally intended by the composer. For example, it is reasonable to play Bach flute sonatas on the violin with only minimal adjustments. In the same manner, adapting clavier works to organ require only the transcription for manualiter.

With reference to the original orchestral music from Vivaldi, Bach arranged the various instrumental parts of the concertos to be played on manuals and pedals. In creating the transcriptions, however, we note that Bach often crafted textures that differed from those of the original concertos. Peter Williams observed: “The passagework typical of Italian string concertos gave new ideas for textures often, in practice, rather different from the string originals. This goes, too, for Bach’s version of the Concerto in G Major, BWV 592, in which the violinistic figuration is replaced by something more appropriate for organ.”¹² Leslie Paul noted that, in addition to technical adaptations made by Bach, “Harmonies were often amplified by the addition of an inner part so cunningly derived as to appear essential, added passing and grace notes.”¹³

Bach’s organ transcriptions

The setting of organ transcriptions in the Italian style includes five works, manualiter and pedaliter, from BWV 592–596. The collection showed up in Weimar between July 1713 and 1714. According to Williams, “The young prince Johann Ernst von Sachsen-Weimar visited Amsterdam and sent Italian music back to Weimar that included the original music from L’estro armonico, opus 3.”¹⁴ As mentioned earlier, the setting includes five organ concertos. However, from Vivaldi’s opus 3, Bach arranged only two double violin concertos for organ. Even though the number of Bach’s transcriptions from opus 3 were small, Weber points out that “[f]rom these pieces Bach learned the essential tools that he would use for the expansion and transformation of seventeenth-century genres into large-scale forms.”¹⁵

One of these transcriptions, the Concerto in A Minor, BWV 593, has become a part of the standard organ repertoire, with a level of complexity and interpretive possibilities that provide ample challenge to the organist. Example 1 demonstrates basic music information regarding the music score archive of the transcription and original works.

Regarding the process of Bach’s organ transcription, Joseph H. Butler states: “The manualiter transcriptions were transposed and adapted to fit the range of the organ played by Bach in the Weimar region, which was four octaves, from C to c.”¹⁶ The two manuals and pedal of the organ were used to create dynamic effects and contrasts between solos and accompaniment, with further contrasts within the two solo lines and tutti. David Schulenberg has written: “Whatever the instrument, the use of two manuals [was] an obvious necessity [in the transcriptions], not only in order to reflect the tutti/solo distinctions of the original but to facilitate performance in several passages where voices cross.”¹⁷

Delving more deeply into the first movement (“Allegro”) of BWV 593, we see that the original orchestral composition was set up by Vivaldi for two violin soloists and orchestra. In the transcription, Bach used a second manual to distinguish each solo part and create the interaction within the two solo parts from the tutti. In addition, Bach added notes in some passages that differ from the original. In reference to Example 2, Williams observes, “particularly interesting is that Bach partly filled in the gaps of the original sequence” in measures nineteen and twenty.¹⁸

Bach used manual indications of Oberwerk and Rückpositiv to instruct for specific passages. Brenda Lynne Leach notes: “Bach used the manual indications to distinguish tutti from solo passages. While tutti sections are to be played both hands on the Oberwerk, Bach treated solo episodes in three ways:

1. Solo and accompaniment played on the Rückpositiv;

2. Solo on the Rückpositiv with accompaniment on the Oberwerk;

3. Solo on the Oberwerk with accompaniment on the Rückpositiv.”¹⁹

The examples mentioned here from the organ transcriptions are clearly regarding the functions of manual changes to bring out the voice leading with accompaniment and tutti. In addition, the transcriptions approach the natural use of the manualiter to establish the music dynamic contrasts ranging from forte to piano.

From the process of transcribing Vivaldi’s works for organ solo, it is clear that Bach gained skill in treating the solo lines individually as they returned in different keys. This process also seems to have given Bach a facility in employing the ritornello form, which he utilized repeatedly in other works as well.        

Italian music influences in Bach’s later organ works      

It is not overstated to say that the Italian influence, particularly that of Vivaldi, had a major impact on Bach’s works. Following his years in Weimar when he was introduced to much music from the Italian Baroque, Bach continued to deepen and develop ideas that he drew from Italian Baroque influences, of which he had sustained exposure while in Weimar. The court during this time was open to and encouraged the incorporation of foreign innovations in music composition. Geoffrey Webber has observed that “[t]he concentration of musical material found in the Orgelbüchlein complements the other great development of Bach’s adoption of compositional techniques learned from Vivaldi.”²⁰

Vivaldi’s influence is also clear in Bach’s six trio sonatas for organ, BWV 525–530, which include both the three-movement structure and ritornello form. According to Karl Geiringer, “Bach was strongly impressed by the natural grade of the Italian style and fascinated by the results that could be achieved by using Vivaldi’s concerto form in compositions for solo organ.”²¹ Bach shows even more mature understandings of the Italian influence and ritornello elements in such organ works such as Toccata in F Major, BWV 540i, and Toccata in C Major, BWV 564i.

Conclusion

It is possible to conclude that many of Bach’s works show the impact of Vivaldi and the Italian Baroque. To a large extent, that influence is grounded in Bach’s organ transcriptions of Vivaldi’s concertos. Peter Williams stated: “J. S. Bach’s experience of making organ transcriptions affected his composition much more deeply and widely, certainly well beyond the organ music itself.”²² Beyond the transcriptions, we see the Italian influence in many of Bach’s original works, including sonatas for solo instruments, harpsichord works, and ensemble music.

Bach’s sizable oeuvre reflects a growth and understanding of the varied sounds available to him that could be used to draw an almost orchestral approach to writing for the instrument. It is logical to conclude that his transcriptions of Vivaldi’s orchestral works contributed to this development.

Notes

1. Walter Kolneder, Antonio Vivaldi, His Life and Work (University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1970), page 109.

2. Robert L. Marshall, Eighteenth-Century Keyboard Music, Routledge Studies in Musical Genres, Second Edition (Routledge, New York, 2003), page 90.

3. Nicholas Anderson, Baroque Music from Monteverdi to Handel (Thames and Hudson, Inc., New York, 1994), page 110.

4. Kolneder, page 54.

5. Karl Heller, Antonio Vivaldi: The Red Priest of Venice (Amadeus Press, Portland, Oregon, 1997), page 62.

6. H. C. Robbins Landon, Vivaldi, Voice of the Baroque (Thames and Hudson, Inc., New York, 1993), page 42.

7. Steven Zohn, “The Baroque Concerto in Theory and Practice,” The Journal of Musicology, volume 26, number 4 (Fall 2009), page 569. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jm.2009.26.4.566.

8. Heller, page 67.

9. Landon, page 44.

10. Michael Talbot, The Master Musicians: Vivaldi (Schirmer Books, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1992), page 111.

11. Kolneder, page 55.

12. Peter Williams, “Some thoughts on Italian elements in certain music of Johann Sebastian Bach,” FIMA-Fondazione Italiana per la Musica Antica. Source: Recercare, volume 11 (1999), page 197. htps://www.jstor.org/stable/41701304.

13. Leslie D. Paul, “Bach as Transcriber,” Oxford Journals, Oxford University Press, Source: Music & Letters, volume 34, number 4 (October 1953), page 308.

14. Peter Williams, The Organ Music of J. S. Bach, BBC Music Guides (BBC Publications, second edition, London, 2002), page 202.

15. Geoffrey Webber and Nicholas Thistlethwaite, The Cambridge Companion to the Organ (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998), page 241.

16. Joseph H. Butler, “Emulation and Inspiration: J. S. Bach’s Transcriptions from Vivaldi’s,” The Diapason, volume 102, number 8, whole number 1221 (August 2011), page 20.

17. David Schulenberg, The Keyboard Music of J. S. Bach (Schirmer Books, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1992), page 93.

18. Peter Williams, The Organ Music of J. S. Bach: Preludes, Toccatas, Fantasias, Fugues, Sonatas, Concertos, and Miscellaneous Pieces, volume I (Cambridge University Press, New York, 1980), page 298.

19. Brenda Lynne Leach, “Bach’s Organ Transcriptions: Influence of Italian Masters,”  The Diapason, volume 85, number 5, whole number 1014 (May 1994), page 11.

20. Webber and Thistlethwaite, page 241.

21. Karl Geiringer, Johann Sebastian Bach: The Culmination of an Era (Oxford University Press, New York, 1966), page 222.

22. Peter Williams, The Organ Music of J. S. Bach: A Background, volume III (Cambridge University Press, New York, 1984), page 93.

Michael McNeil

Michael McNeil has designed, constructed, voiced, and researched pipe organs since 1973. Stimulating work as a research engineer in magnetic recording paid the bills. He is working on his Opus 5, which explores how an understanding of the human sensitivity to the changes in sound can be used to increase emotional impact. Opus 5 includes double expression, a controllable wind dynamic, chorus phase shifting, and meantone. Stay tuned.

Many of the organ compositions of Dieterich Buxtehude (c. 1637–1707) and Nicolaus Bruhns (1665–1697) contain bass accidentals that are not playable on the short-octave manual and pedal basses of the late-seventeenth-century organs of Lübeck. The bass octave of Buxtehude’s organs contained just eight notes—C, D, E, F, G, A, A-sharp, and B—a consequence of meantone tuning. It is impossible to imagine that these wonderful and dramatic compositions were not played in some manner on those organs, but that is the extraordinary claim of at least one modern researcher.¹

A solution to this problem might lie in its history. The original scores of the organ works of Buxtehude and Bruhns were written in tablature, an older form of notation that looks nothing like modern notation. Figure 1 shows an example of tablature and modern notation for the same composition. And here is the key point: none of the tablature originals have survived. All extant versions in tablature are copies, and copies often contain errors. Our modern scores are transcriptions from tablature to modern notation. Transcriptions may contain errors, not the least of which is that the intended octave in tablature is often ambiguous.^{2, 3, 4} Figure 2 shows an example of a tablature copy of Bruhns’s Praeludium in E Minor (the smaller of the two E minor praeludia).

What might have motivated eighteenth- and nineteenth-century musicians to modify the original tablature manuscripts to be unplayable on the organs for which they were composed? The musicians who later copied or transcribed the originals were familiar with later organs that had full-compass basses, or perhaps only a missing low C-sharp. We should also note that the later shift toward equal temperament eliminated the intense gravity of meantone’s pure major thirds, whose resultants sound a full two octaves lower in pitch. The disappearance of this gravity may have influenced the desire to shift tenor accidentals and the phrases in which they were embedded to the bass octave. The ambiguity of the intended octave in tablature may have also provided the rationalization to do so. Equal temperament’s loss of gravity was a strong motivation for eighteenth-century organ builders to include deeper and very costly pitches in their stoplists.⁵

Meantone, unlike equal temperament, has intense key color. Modern-received wisdom relates that the strong dissonances in meantone were avoided in practice; history teaches us otherwise. Dom Bédos argued that meantone was more musical than equal temperament because it presented the composer with useful tensions between the purity of its eight major thirds and the dissonance of its four Pythagorean thirds. Bédos was explicitly referring to quarter-comma meantone.⁶ Restoring bass accidentals to the tenor heightens their dissonance (beat rates will double), setting up tension for later resolution with meantone’s pure thirds.

The short bass octave is an essential feature of the great meantone organs of Lübeck on which the compositions of Buxtehude and Bruhns were most logically composed and played. The short octave with its four missing accidentals has an unusual key order:

         D     E     A#

C  F     G     A     B

This indicates the use of an original form of meantone, i.e., quarter-syntonic comma, not the later and much less colorful versions like Gottfried Silbermann’s fifth-comma meantone. Dissonances were used to good effect, but dissonances in quarter-comma meantone also supported the elimination of accidental bass pipes, saving space in their layouts and considerable cost. Later versions of meantone in the eighteenth century reduced both the dissonances and the purity of meantone; this supported the use of more accidentals in the bass of new organs, often omitting only the C-sharp in a normal order of the bass keys:

           D#          F#      G#     A#

C     D     E   F       G        A       B

We know that the organ compositions of Buxtehude and Bruhns were composed when the large organs of Lübeck had short bass octaves, and there is evidence that those organs were not retuned from their original meantone in Buxtehude’s time.⁷ This suggests that the presence of any bass accidentals other than A-sharp in the organ works of Buxtehude and Bruhns very likely denotes deliberate changes in modern transcriptions to accommodate later organs with more complete bass octaves and much less colorful temperaments.

We will never know if any of our reconstructions are faithful to the originals—they are all lost. But we can use our knowledge of meantone’s inherent dissonant tension and majestic purity to aim for a reconstruction that heightens the emotional impact of these compositions. This is completely in character with the stylus phantasticus, a term coined for the freely composed organ works of Buxtehude and Bruhns—works that speak to modern ears with emotional intensity and dramatic rhythms. These works perfectly express the unique sound of a pipe organ’s principal chorus and thundering pedal bass. And unlike modern compositions, these works feature the musicality and gravity of seventeenth-century meantone.

I am an organbuilder, not a musician skilled in composition. I built my Opus 5 for, among other things, the purpose of showcasing the effect of quarter-comma meantone on the works of Buxtehude and Bruhns, only to discover that many of the modern scores are deeply flawed. Finding no one willing to address this problem, I have evaluated and restored the following scores:

Dieterich Buxtehude: Praeludium in C Major, BuxWV 137, restored; Toccata in D Minor, BuxWV 155, restored; Toccata in F Major, BuxWV 157, no issues; Ciaccona in E Minor, BuxWV 160, no issues; Fuga in C Major, BuxWV 174, no issues;

Nicolaus Bruhns: Praeludium in E Minor (“Little”), restored.

At the end of this article you will find my suggested corrections, all of which are in the pedal, noting the editions I used. If a reader objects that others are much more qualified to make these corrections, I could not agree with you more, and I wholeheartedly welcome those with more skill to propose solutions that are playable on historically correct, short-octave organs.

We can debate how much of a phrase containing bass accidentals needs to be moved to the tenor. We can debate whether the bass accidentals are themselves errors that represent different notes. But if we accept that Buxtehude and Bruhns created their compositions on the organs of their time, we must also accept that the accidentals C-sharp, D-sharp, F-sharp, and G-sharp in the bass octaves of modern scores are not faithful to the original compositions.

Claiming that these compositions were not meant to be played on the large and grand late-seventeenth-century organs of Lübeck is analogous to saying that the Scherer family and Friedrich Stellwagen made and maintained beautiful organs with wonderful sounds, but those short-octave organs were not meant to be played—they were just exercises in thought.

Notes

1. Ibo Ortgies, Die Praxis der Orgelstimmung in Norddeutschland im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert und ihr Verhältnis zur zeitgenössischen Musik, Göteborgs universitet, 2007, page 2, Abstract: “An analysis of payments to bellows pumpers as recorded in church account books shows that the organs of St. Marien, Lübeck, were not retuned during the tenures of Franz Tunder and Dieterich Buxtehude. Thus, some of their organ works could not have been played on the organs available to them during their lifetimes.” [translated by John Brombaugh]

2. organscore.com/buxtehude-complete-organ-works, accessed June 2022. “Editing Buxtehude’s organ work is a delicate task because we do not have access to any holographic source of these works. The available manuscripts are all copies by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century organists, mostly written in modern notation system—the originals were probably in German organ tablature—and contain transcription errors such as missing notes, confused voices, incorrect note heights or accidentals, and poorly placed bars. In places where the music is obviously corrupted and no complementary source is available, the editor must reconstruct the music by guessing at the original idea. Because of this, no modern edition can claim to be the genuine composer’s text.”
3. en.opera-scores.com/O/Dieterich+Buxtehude/Herr%2C+ich+lasse+dich+nicht%2C+BuxWV+36.html, accessed June 2022. “Copies made by various composers are the only extant sources for the organ works: chorale settings are mostly transmitted in copies by Johann Gottfried Walther, while Gottfried Lindemann’s and others’ copies concentrate on free works. Johann Christoph Bach’s manuscript is particularly important, as it includes the three known ostinato works and the famous Praeludium in C Major, BuxWV 
137. Although Buxtehude himself most probably wrote in organ tablature, the majority of the copies are in standard staff notation.

“The nineteen organ praeludia form the core of Buxtehude’s work and are ultimately considered his most important contributions to the music literature of the seventeenth century. They are sectional compositions that alternate between free improvisation and strict counterpoint. They are usually either fugues or pieces written in fugal manner; all make heavy use of pedal and are idiomatic to the organ. These preludes, together with pieces by Nicolaus Bruhns, represent the highest point in the evolution of the north German organ prelude and the so-called stylus phantasticus. They were undoubtedly among the influences on J. S. 
Bach, whose organ preludes, toccatas, and fugues frequently employ similar techniques.

“Occasionally the introduction will engage in parallel thirds, sixths, etc. For example, BuxWV 149 begins with a single voice, proceeds to parallel counterpoint for nine bars, and then segues into the kind of texture described above. . . . [Note the reference to writing in parallel thirds and sixths. This works extremely well with meantone’s pure thirds. All of equal temperament’s major thirds are very, and equally, dissonant.]

“Buxtehude’s other pieces that employ free writing or sectional structure include works titled toccata, praeambulum, etc. A well-known piece is BuxWV 146, in the rare key of F-sharp minor; it is believed that this prelude was written by Buxtehude especially for himself and his organ, and that he had his own way of tuning the instrument to allow for the tonality rarely used because of meantone temperament.” [The key of F-sharp minor in Pietro Aron’s quarter-comma meantone, with the wolf placed on the interval G-sharp to D-sharp, is very useful; its minor third is much less dissonant than an equal temperament minor third. Furthermore, the minor third beats at exactly twice the rate of the fifth. This is a sonorous key in meantone. (See the beat rate chart on page 131 in The Sound of Pipe Organs, Michael McNeil, 2012.) As there were no pedal F-sharp bass keys on Buxtehude’s organs, this note would have been played in the tenor.]

4. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_tablature, accessed June 2022. “. . . The feature of organ tablature that distinguishes it from modern musical notation is the absence of staves, noteheads, and key signatures. Pitches are denoted by letter names written in script, durations by flags (much like modern notation), although in early notations durations were shown using mensural indications, and octave displacement by octave lines drawn above a letter. There was some variation in the notation of accidentals, but sometimes sharps were specified by the addition of a loop to the end of the letter. B-natural and B-flat were represented by h and b respectively. Naturals are not indicated, as accidentals do not carry through the entire measure as in modern notation. Key signatures are not specified; they are implied by the indicated sharps.

“. . . Repertoire originally written in tablature has been translated into modern notation. However, this translation carries a risk of error. In German script an A and an E can become confused, as can an F and a G. Likewise, an octave line over a series of notes can begin or end ambiguously. Different solutions are given by different editors, and this is one manifestation of the improvisatory tradition of organ performance of the period.”

5. Michael McNeil, “The elusive and sonorous meantone of Dom Bédos,” The Diapason, September 2020, pages 14–17.

6. John Brombaugh analyzed Bédos’s tables of meantone intervals, and McNeil found the result was virtually identical to Pietro Aron’s equal-beating quarter-syntonic-comma meantone (see Owen Jorgensen, Tuning the Historical Temperaments by Ear, Northern Michigan University Press, 1977, pages 173–177).

7. Ibo Ortgies. See quotation in Note 1.

 

 

Restorations for performance on meantone organs with short bass octaves, C, D, E, F, G, A, A-sharp, and B

All examples are in the bass clef in the pedal.

 

Edition Peters 4855, Nicolaus Bruhns, 1968

Nr. 3, Praeludium und Fuge e-moll (“Little”), pages 20–24. See Examples 1 and 2.

Edition Renaud Vergnet, D. Buxtehude, Volume 1, 2018

Praeludium in C Major, BuxWV 137, pages 5–7. See Examples 3 through 16.

 

Edition Renaud Vergnet, D. Buxtehude, Volume 2, 2018

Toccata in D Minor, BuxWV 155, pages 2–5. See Examples 17 
through 19.