Haarlem International Organ Festival

In the second half of July, leading figures from the international organ world gathered again in Haarlem, the Netherlands, for the 49th edition of the Haarlem International Organ Festival

Stephen Taylor was a chorister at Bristol Cathedral and organ scholar of Jesus College, Oxford. In the Netherlands he studied with Ewald Kooiman, Nico van den Hooven, and Jan Welmers, and was awarded the Prix d’Excellence in 1977. He was organist of the Nicolaïkerk in Utrecht for more than twenty years and is active as a soloist and continuo player and as an author and translator. Taylor joined the Haarlem Festival organization in 2007. His translation of Ton de Leeuw’s Music of the Twentieth Century was published by Amsterdam University Press. In 2006 he was awarded the St. Martin Medal of the city of Utrecht for his contribution to its cultural life. His three-volume tutor on practical harmonization, The Lost Chord, has recently been published for the first time in English.

In the second half of July, leading figures from the international organ world gathered again in Haarlem, the Netherlands, for the 49th edition of the Haarlem International Organ Festival. It was here, in this wonderfully picturesque town very near Amsterdam, that the first Haarlem improvisation competition was held in 1951. Four years later, in 1955, the summer academy was launched, and the two events were held annually until 1986, and thereafter biennially. 

Improvisation competition

The competition is unique in its focus on contemporary improvisation. In each round, after an hour’s preparation with pencil and paper only, competitors offer a 10-minute concert improvisation. Eight participants from France, Poland, the USA (Jason Roberts, Connecticut), and Holland were selected in the spring of 2012 by means of submitted recorded improvisations on short motifs by Louis Maillié (Lyon and Paris). In the first two rounds, all eight selected competitors showed their skills first on the monumental Müller organ in St. Bavo’s and then on the Cavaillé-Coll instrument in the Philharmonie Concert Hall. The theme in Round 1 was a melody from the 16th-century Antwerp Liedboek. Round 2 was something of a surprise: instead of a musical idea, a semi-abstract, 90-second film served to inspire the competitors! The three finalists were presented with the following theme from the hand of the Viennese organist (and Haarlem veteran!) Peter Planyavsky. 

The five-member jury (Lionel Rogg, Wolfgang Seifen, Naji Hakim, Joost Langeveld, and the Dutch composer Klaas de Vries) reflected different schools of thought. Winner of the 2012 competition was the Frenchman Paul Goussot, who competed in the grand finale against French colleague Noël Hazebroucq and the Polish organist Edyta Müller (at last, a female improviser!). The Dutch national daily De Volkskrant wrote: 

Although the three finalists were a good match, Goussot achieved the most convincing balance between the virtues of ‘organistic’ freedom and the binding power of the theme. He employed lucid rhythms, well-sounding harmonies, and did not shy away from adventurous harmonic progressions. Just before the end, chords erupted from the pipes like flashes of fire, but then he suddenly slowed, finishing his improvisation in a whispering coda. This winner of the 49th improvisation competition is a man who combines musical instinct and craftsmanship with a sense of theatre. 

Another leading national daily added: “With the Haarlem International Organ Improvisation Competition many great organ careers have been launched . . . ” 

The International
Summer Academy

The Haarlem Summer Academy 2012 offered an 11-day program of masterclasses plus a two-day symposium. In daily two-hour sessions, capita selecta from more than four centuries of organ repertory were discussed in depth. Center stage in the academy is the Müller organ in St. Bavo’s (where the gallery fortunately accommodates up to 30!) But other important historic and modern instruments in the town are also used, all within walking distance. 

Teachers at the 2012 summer academy were Harald Vogel on Sweelinck, Margaret Phillips on early English music, Ton Koopman, Jean-Claude Zehnder, Jacques van Oortmerssen and James David Christie on J. S. Bach, Olivier Latry and Louis Robilliard on French and German Romantics, Martin Sander on Max Reger, Roman Summereder on contemporary ‘keystones’, Zsigmond Szathmáry (working with young composers), Jos van der Kooy and Peter Planyavsky on improvisation, and Leo van Doeselaar on repertory for organ and strings.

This year’s academy was attended by 85 students from 27 countries and five continents. In addition to a group of young Russian players (regular guests for some years), a new group of Chinese students included young teachers from Beijing and Shanghai. Previously officially a postgraduate program, the academy now accepts undergraduate music students, reflecting the festival’s policy to attract the very best young players. Daily lectures and discussions allowed both students and the general public to meet and hear all the academy teachers. 

Festival symposium

Midway between the two academy weeks, the festival symposium “From Sweelinck to Bach” took the entire academy to the famous organs at Oosthuizen and Edam and to Amsterdam (Oude and Nieuwe Kerk), where lectures and recitals were given by Harald Vogel, Margaret Phillips, Jean-Claude Zehnder, and Christoph Wolff, among others. 

Young talents

For the second time, the Haarlem summer academy included a six-day course for young talents aged 13 to 18. After an international call, six players were selected on the basis of a written recommendation from their teachers and a submitted recording (a fast movement from a Bach trio sonata and a Pièce de Fantaisie by Vierne). In six two-hour sessions, the young players (from Holland, Germany, France, Croatia, Ireland, Portugal, and the USA) were coached by Olivier Latry and Margaret Phillips. These young organists made good use of the opportunity to attend all festival activities and to visit other masterclasses. No fewer than three of the young talents from the 2010 course returned to Haarlem to take part in other masterclasses—the Haarlem disease is highly contagious!

Young composers

The Haarlem young composers’ course took place again under the inspirational direction of the Hungarian-German Ligeti pupil Zsigmond Szathmáry. After an international call, three new organ pieces by young Dutch and German composers were selected for discussion during the six-session masterclass. Important considerations in the selection process were composition technique, originality, and whether a work was idiomatically suited to the organ. The new works were discussed with the composers (two of whom performed their own works) and presented to the public during a festival recital in St. Bavo’s. 

For the second time, the Leipzig Summer Academy will include this concert and a preparatory course under Szathmáry in its 2013 program. Thus young composers are assured of repeat performances of their new works at prominent international venues. 

New music

The festival concert programs featured many premieres: Zsigmond Szathmáry’s Fukushima Requiem was broadcast live on Dutch national radio; Dutch premieres included EOOS for organ and panpipes by Klaas de Vries, Radulescu’s Madrigali, Kagel’s Phantasie für Orgel mit Obbligati for organ and tape, Der Dom und das Meer for organ and tape by Mesías Maiguashca, and Szathmáry’s Leichte Brise—grosser Orkan. In a spectacular closing recital, Olivier Latry and Shin-Young Lee performed Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. 

50th anniversary

The 50th edition of the Haarlem International Organ Festival will take place July 11–26, 2014. Newcomers to the festival—and Haarlem veterans—will be warmly welcomed!

Note

Many of the items referred to in this article, including competition themes (and film), academy repertoire, and audio and video recordings of recitals and concerts (including Fukushima Requiem and The Rite of Spring), are available through www.organfestival.nl, where news of the 2014 festival will appear in the coming months.

The McGill Summer Organ Academy took place in Montreal from July 8–18, 2013 during a fearsome heat wave. This biennial two-week event, which was founded in 1997 by Artistic Director John Grew, brings together teachers and students from all over the world and takes advantage of the great variety of first-rate organs in a small area of downtown Montreal near the McGill University campus. On the McGill campus itself is the marvelous 1981 Hellmuth Wolff organ at Redpath Hall, the first “authentic” French Baroque organ in North America and the first organ built by Wolff with suspended action. John Grew, who arrived at McGill in 1976 and whose distinguished career has focused on French organ music, was prescient in bringing the instrument into existence years before the general public’s reawakening of interest in the French Baroque, which began, perhaps, with the production of Lully’s Atys by Les Arts Florissants in the late 1980s. 

There were seven two-week seminars on seven different instruments: John Grew on French Classical repertory, Hans-Ola Ericsson on Messiaen, Olivier Latry on Vierne, William Porter on 17th-century North German repertory, James David Christie on Bach, Sietze de Vries on improvisation, and Hank Knox on harpsichord repertory. The Academy included evening recitals by all the faculty on the instruments they used in teaching  their classes, and a Saturday excursion to two churches outside of Montreal: Saint-Alexandre Presbytere, where Jonathan Oldengarm played a short recital on the 1896 mechanical-action Casavant restored by Juget-Sinclair, and the Old Brick Church in West Brome, where Bill Porter played a concert of Italian music on the Hiroshi Tsuji organ, the first organ exported from Japan.

Along the way there was a stop at the Juget-Sinclair workshop, where their work on a 58-stop organ for Dallas was explained. There was yet another excursion to see the large, not-yet-completed Casavant at the Maison Symphonique, a new concert hall in downtown Montreal, that will be inaugurated this May by Olivier Latry. The Academy kicked off with a lecture by Elizabeth Gallat-Morin, the scholar who in 1988 discovered the Livre d’Orgue de Montreal, the largest extant manuscript collection of French Baroque organ music, and whose talk included a fascinating account of the early history of importing French organs to Canada.

I heard excellent reports from fellow students about their classes. The two I attended, Grew’s French Classical and Porter’s North German, offered a wealth of information on scholarship and interpretation, and despite the different national styles naturally shared an attention to Baroque articulation, fingering, pedaling, score-reading and registration. Grew commented at the first class that students have been coming to the Academies with increasing background in French Baroque style. Certainly recordings and research in the last few decades have given us all great resources, including most recently David Ponsford’s book, French Organ Music in the Reign of Louis XIV. Grew was, characteristically, being generous; the resources are there but many of us rely on our teachers and adopt their horizons, which may only sometimes include an awareness of performance practices. But nothing trumps charismatic teaching and demonstration. 

Grew often showed us how early fingering can produce elegant and natural articulation. He played the first four bars of the Duo of Grigny’s Veni Creator with only the second and third fingers, using the fourth finger for the first time on the last note of the fourth bar, and noting that the pinky is usually a termination (a “stop sign”). He spent much time on questions of ornamentation, registration and articulation. Couperin said “we write differently from the way we play” and the task of the performer is to know how to read the notation. Students in the class were constantly rewriting their scores: prefixes to trills should be played faster than the sixteenths with which they were notated; notes inégales should be applied where appropriate, sometimes sharp, sometimes gentle; thirds might be split and filled in as coulées; fast scales (tirades) should be played on white keys only and the prevailing accidentals cancelled; cadential accidentals, such as raised leading tones, should be applied retroactively to their quick prefix notes; notes with mordents, which are always played quickly, can be rendered more expressive with slow appoggiaturas; the pedal might take over the bass line for a few notes when tenor and bass diverge by more than an octave. None of these things is indicated the score.

Sometimes this extended to substantial correction, as in the famous bar in Grigny’s Recit de tierce en taille where the melody is notated a step too high, resulting in some pungent but erroneous dissonances (Grew’s recording is one of only two, along with Kimberly Marshall’s, which corrects the mistake). This correction comes with a conundrum, however: J. G. Walther and J. S. Bach both copied Grigny’s Livre d’Orgue, and although Walther corrected the mistake, Bach didn’t. Was the composer of the most powerful but logical dissonances yet written somehow tickled by this unintentional one? 

One other element of this class was the interchangeable pedalboards: a fairly conventional German-style pedalboard and a French pedalboard with smaller keys, which thankfully was not as difficult to play as it looked. At the end of the two-week session Grew exhorted everyone to read Couperin’s L’art de toucher le clavecin—indeed, to keep it on our bedside table. 

The natural expressivity of early fingering was one element in Porter’s teaching as well. He showed how the second variation in Böhm’s Freu Dich Sehr, O Meine Seele, which repeats a short-short-long figure in various positions over the interval of a major ninth, can be played with the middle fingers only, not turning the wrist and reaching for a new position “like a spider,” but by keeping the center of gravity in the middle of the hand and “dancing on the keys,” thereby revealing the music to be a “narrative of figures.” Porter’s class continually shunted back and forth between scholarship and interpretation, and he showed how they fertilize each other, starting with: What are we looking at in a printed edition—ostensibly an Urtext—where only flawed manuscripts exist? Porter made sure we knew, for example, that Klaus Beckmann’s Buxtehude edition utilizes techniques of criticism he learned as a theologian and that he constructed hypothetical originals that exist in no source, presenting what he thought Buxtehude might have meant to say.

Porter showed how articulation was related to bowing techniques, which in turn were related to metrical stress patterns, and in turn again to the idea of inflecting music like speech. The interaction of strong and weak beats was shown to have many ramifications, including pedaling: for weak-to-strong beats use the same foot, for strong-to-weak beats the other foot. We examined what a plenum meant in the 17th century, and how the plenum depended on the quality of the mixtures and the degree to which they were suited to polyphony. He pointed out that we know Praetorius played free pieces on two manuals, and that Johann Kortkamp, a student of Weckmann, said that Weckmann pulled stops for his teacher Praetorius, all implying somewhat more varied registrations than we often now hear.

To prepare for the class on Scheidemann’s Magnifact Primi Toni we sang that chant as it was notated by Franz Eler in his Cantica Sacra of 1588—slowly! Porter pointed out that slowly sung chant better balances the organ versets and leads to alternatim settings that are not as dominated by the organ as we currently often hear. Porter exhorted us not to worry so much about the spaces between notes, but more about achieving the right character, a useful reminder to be less fussy. Altogether this class was a goldmine of information and insight, and the scores I used now have more of my class notes on them than musical notes. And what a pleasure it was to hear and play the beautiful 1961 Beckerath at the Church of the Immaculate Conception.

The next McGill Summer Organ Academy will be held in 2015 and will be co-directed by John Grew and Hans-Ola Ericsson. Ericsson is now in his third year on the McGill faculty and before relocating to Montreal was in Pitea, Sweden, where he inaugurated the Gerald Woehl Studio Acusticum organ (see Kimberly Marshall’s article in the February 2013 issue of The American Organist). Until then a great way to keep developing early music score-reading skills via charismatic teaching would be to view the two videos by fortepianist Malcolm Bilson, Knowing the Score and Performing the Score. 

Martin Goldray teaches at Sarah Lawrence College. As a pianist and conductor he has recorded music by Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Philip Glass, and numerous others. For many years he was a member of the Philip Glass Ensemble.

The late Jacques van Oortmerssen’s four-day Bach Academy in Amsterdam last summer ran from July 6–9. It consisted of morning and afternoon classes on the beautiful 1734 Müller organ at the Waalse Kerk (the Walloon Church), where he had been organist since 1982. It followed the International Organ Academy in Alkmaar, which ran from June 29 to July 4. Oortmerssen had been hoping to expand his Bach Academy in future years to include orchestra concerts, lectures, and trips to museums. His concerns as a teacher and player invariably went beyond the score and into many areas of cultural and intellectual life. This loss, for students and lovers of organ music all over the world, is a great one.

His masterclasses were four days of continual inspiration and challenge. Teachers often evoke other instruments as models for organists but Oortmerssen was the most uncompromising teacher I have encountered, always with the end being greater depth of expression. As a pianist coming recently to the organ the continual question for me is: how can you translate the dynamics, timbres, and colors—in short, everything one can do at the piano or most other instruments—to the organ? Oortmerssen’s answer was unequivocal: you should try to do it all. A student played the Gigue Fugue brilliantly, but in this class it was merely brilliant, without nearly enough attention to how a violinist, for example, would shape the lines and give eloquence to the phrasing. He told the student not to be afraid—this was a ubiquitous piece of advice—to take time, to let expressive articulations come naturally from changes in hand position as early fingerings suggest, and to approach them with a relaxed hand and not try to finger your way out of them. 

Oortmerssen continually invoked elements of musical symbolism and rhetoric, and showed how these might relate to tempo, character, articulation, and expression. But it is difficult to convey the spirit of his classes, his humor, tact, and ability to inspire a more meaningful performance from the student while also involving the whole class. You could assemble a dictionary of his wry aphorisms (“don’t challenge gravity;” “a good articulation you cannot hear;” “every move you make is one too much;” “relax in your body and soul—they are married”).  These were four invaluable days that brought every aspect of music-making at the organ into focus.

Alkmaar Academy

At the Alkmaar Academy the principal faculty were Pieter van Dijk, organist at the Grote Kerk in Alkmaar, and Frank van Wijk, organist at the Ruïnekerk in Bergen. The academy ran concurrently with the Holland Organ Festival (www.orgelfestivalholland.nl) and the International Schnitger Organ Competition. The jury for the competition also appeared as guest performers, lecturers, and master class teachers; they were Albrecht Koch, Kimberly Marshall, Karin Nelson, Reitze Smits, and Krzstof Urbaniak. 

Alkmaar is a beautiful city around 40 minutes by train from Amsterdam with lovely canals (of course) and medieval architecture, and a variety of historic organs. The Grote Kerk (The Great Church, also known as the St. Lawrence church) has two important instruments: the Jan van Covelens of 1511 and the Van Hagerbeer organ of 1645 that was rebuilt in 1723 by Schnitger (the son, Frans Caspar, not Arp the father). Pieter van Dijk and Frank van Wijk were tirelessly informative about the history, pipework, and registration possibilities of the two instruments (This information is available on a DVD/CD set they made in 2013, Alkmaar: The Organs of the Laurenskerk, released by Fugue State Films). Concerts and classes were also held at other churches, including two with Müller organs: the 1762 organ at the Kapelkerk and the 1755 organ (subsequently expanded and rebuilt) at the Lutheran church. 

The daily schedule included morning and afternoon master classes, lunchtime lectures and concerts, as well as evening concerts by the faculty and the Schnitger Prize competitors and guests. The first prize winner was Adriaan Hoek from the Netherlands; second prize went to Megumi Hamaya from Japan; third prize went to Manuel Schuen from Austria. There was an excursion at the end of the week for concerts in the nearby towns of Schermerhorn and De Rijp. It was a treat to observe the faculty as performers, lecturers, and master class teachers. Two highlights for me were the lectures of Karin Nelson, who has made beautiful recordings of Scheidemann on Naxos, and Kimberly Marshall, who has recently been focusing on early organ repertory. Nelson pointed out that when examining a manuscript one needs to keep in mind its particular function, as there were different ones (and not necessarily the one we are used to, which is as a fixed text for performance). Was the manuscript intended for teaching (Lehrhandschrift), for use as a model for improvising (Gebrauchshandschrift), or a presentation edition (Sammlungshandschrift)? Kimberly Marshall in her lecture brought her consummate musicianship and scholarship to the earliest organ repetory and to questions of ornaments, temperament, and iconography.

James Kibbie is Chair of the Organ Department and University Organist at the University of Michigan.

Daniel Roth is widely acclaimed as a leading French organ recitalist, recording artist, improviser, teacher, and composer. He is titular organist of the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, where his predecessors included Widor and Dupré, and he has held teaching positions at major institutions in France, Germany, and the United States. He has won prestigious competitions, including the Grand Prix de Chartres, and is a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Organists. I spoke with him in Ann Arbor, Michigan, during his appointment as visiting artist in organ at the University of Michigan.

James Kibbie: Daniel, it’s been an honor to have you work with our students at the University of Michigan as visiting artist. What are your impressions of organ study in the United States?

Daniel Roth: I think there has always been a very high level in the States. Many teachers at different universities have a wonderful background by having had lessons in Europe with several great masters, then coming back to the States. Also, in the States you have organists who have studied musicology besides their training on the instrument. In Europe, we sometimes have teachers who are only wonderful players; there is not always a basis of research.

Wasn’t it Widor’s idea that musicians must also study history and other subjects? Organ students in American colleges and universities have other course requirements such as music theory, history, and general studies. Is it the same in France?

Today, and for a number of years, things are changing. We had in France the conservatoire system, and really in this system there are many interpreters who did not have much experience with musicological research. The conservatoire system is a system of music interpretation. It’s difficult to generalize because musicians are very different, but you found in the conservatoire system many organists who did not have this base of musicology.

Are the organ students in France today different than when you were a student?

Oh, yes. The two great conservatoires, Paris and Lyon, now have the university system. In my days you could do only an instrument in the conservatoire, no harmony, no music history. Music students arranged their studies as they wanted. When I was in the Paris Conservatoire in the 1960s, I did the classes of harmony with Maurice Duruflé, counterpoint and fugue with Marcel Bitsch, accompaniment with Henriette Puig-Roget, and organ and improvisation with Rolande Falcinelli. In 1960 there was a strict director of the conservatoire, and every student had to take a class in music history with Norbert Dufourcq. This was very new!

Does it hurt the students’ organ performance to require other studies?

It depends—some students are able to study many things together, others not. Achieving a high level in music performance needs a lot of time. It’s a matter of organization . . . 

Your improvisation at your recital this week was truly moving. This is so interesting to us in the United States. How do you teach your students to improvise?

I don’t anymore—I’m retired! [laughs]

Well then, how did you?

Of course, teaching improvisation is not an easy task. You must begin with much hope, and the student must be encouraged. Training in improvisation involves so many things together. You need much training in writing music. In the Paris Conservatoire harmony class, every week we had to realize a given bass and a given chant, counterpoint exercises, and a fugue. The best thing when you want to become a good improviser is to study the different major styles of music history, starting with Monteverdi and going up to our time, study the evolution of harmony, and improvise in the different styles. Counterpoint is very important in our field of organ, of course. 

Did you use Marcel Dupré’s Traité d’improvisation?

Yes, I used that even before coming to Paris. In Mulhouse, I started the little preparatory exercises for improvisation by Marcel Dupré with my organ teacher. Dupré’s exercises are very good to train beginning improvisation. He starts with harmonizing melodies and then quickly moves to improvising commentary to a melody. He eventually gets to a sonata movement. The theme (four measures) ends on the dominant, you improvise several commentaries modulating to the neighboring keys, a bridge on an element of the theme, the whole theme comes back, this builds the exposition, then comes the development on another element and the recapitulation.

When we had dinner at Jim and Mary Ann Wilkes’ home, you told a wonderful story of how you became an organist because of a film about Albert Schweitzer.

When I was a little boy, we went to church in a little village near Mulhouse in Alsace. There was a big organ, so I heard the organ, but until the age of 10, I was only interested in painting and drawing. It was my great passion. Then my father bought a piano. He wanted me to play the piano, but I had no great interest, I must say. I didn’t have a very kind teacher, you know, so piano was a little burden. But Albert Schweitzer was becoming well known, and I was born in Alsace, and Albert Schweitzer was also from Alsace. I was absolutely fascinated by his personality. Besides being a theologian and a medical doctor in Africa, he was also an organist, a specialist in Bach, and in organbuilding—it’s amazing. The movie “Il est minuit, docteur Schweitzer” (“It’s Midnight, Dr. Schweitzer”) came out when I was 11. The actor was a wonderful actor from Alsace, Pierre Fresney. In the middle of the movie you see Albert Schweitzer playing his piano in Lambaréné, which was a piano with a pedalboard attached, and in his mind he was in a great cathedral with a nice organ. As a little child, I was very much impressed by this. When I left this movie with my mother, I told her, “Maman, I absolutely want to become an organist.” I then got another piano teacher, a wonderful lady, and was practicing the organ for six hours a day.

How did you come to study with Rolande Falcinelli?

In my hometown of Mulhouse I had a teacher who was a great admirer of Dupré, and during these years I only heard great compliments for the Dupré school. When I came to Paris, I had lessons with Rolande Falcinelli, a student of Dupré, and she was wonderful with me. She organized all my studies and presented me to the teachers of counterpoint and harmony. She prepared me for the entrance exam for the conservatoire.

What was the entrance examination?

In those days in the organ class (it’s different now), we had to improvise a sonata andante on one theme as explained in the first volume of Dupré’s Traité d’improvisation. We had also to improvise the exposition, first divertissement, and relative key of a fugue, but with a countersubject, which you had to retain. This needs great training, which I didn’t have in Mulhouse. Also, all the organ pieces had to be played by memory, which had not been asked in the organ class in Mulhouse. 

So you were accepted into Rolande Falcinelli’s class at the conservatory?

Yes, I entered the organ class in 1961. In 1960, I had entered the class of Duruflé for harmony, and then in 1962 I started the counterpoint and fugue class. I stayed two years in the organ class with Rolande Falcinelli and got my First Prize in 1963. I was very happy to get her ideas, and still today I am very grateful to her because her teaching and improvisation were most perfect. She was an excellent teacher, and of course I learned everything about the Dupré tradition, Widor and so on. I am very grateful to Rolande Falcinelli for all I learned from her.

You also studied with Marie-Claire Alain?

In 1963, when I graduated from the organ class of the conservatoire, it was the time in Haarlem when the great movement for the real interpretation of old music started. You remember these three famous teachers, Anton Heiller, Luigi Tagliavini (who is still alive), and Marie-Claire Alain. At that time I felt the desire to go deeper into the interpretation of old music. With Rolande Falcinelli it was the Dupré tradition, you played the whole repertoire with the same touch, absolute legato or staccato (half-value). I felt the desire to learn more about the real interpretation of old music, so I went to have lessons with Marie-Claire Alain. She was a wonderful teacher. First of all, she was always very happy, very kind. Rolande Falcinelli was quite formal: “Mon petit, comment allez-vous?” You know Marie-Claire—with her, it was, “Ha-ha-ha, comment ça va, comment ça va?” 

I was extremely happy to study the completely new kind of interpretation with Marie-Claire. You have to research the composer, his instrument, his touch, not playing all the repertoire with the same touch. And then of course there’s the difference between the composers who want you to play the music straight and the composers who use rubato, like César Franck. Marie-Claire opened to me this world of research into the personality of each composer. Serve the composer, in the same way as Nikolaus Harnoncourt writes in his book, “The composer should be the highest authority.” I was fascinated by this and continued with it my whole life.

Your first church position was as the assistant to Mme. Falcinelli at Sacré-Cœur?

At Easter 1963, Rolande Falcinelli asked me to be her assistant at Sacré-Cœur Basilica because she was having great problems with the head priest there, a very difficult person. He did not like her way of playing, he didn’t like modern music at all. I often went to hear her, and she improvised in a wonderful way, but he didn’t like this in the liturgy. They agreed together she should have an assistant, and this is what I became on the Sunday after Easter, 1963. 

And then you became the titulaire of Sacré-Cœur?

At first, the head priest and Rolande Falcinelli agreed she would play one Sunday a month, and I would play the rest of the time. Finally in 1973, she told me, “Now I have had enough.” This probably was because Marcel Dupré had died in 1971, and he had the wish that Rolande Falcinelli would be his successor at Saint-Sulpice. The head priest of Saint-Sulpice formed a commission of organists to select the titulaire, he read them the letter of Dupré saying he wanted Rolande Falcinelli as his successor, and the commission voted. But at the end of this vote, the head priest took the ballots and said, “I am going to give these to the cardinal.” Then of course all the organists were unhappy—“What is the result of our vote?” After that, Jean-Jacques Grunenwald was named. Of course, Rolande Falcinelli was very bitter about this, and she told me, “I will quit now at Sacré-Cœur, and you will be my successor.” 

By this time, you had already won the Grand Prix de Chartres. In 1971, you won the grand prix for both interpretation and improvisation.

There were two of us. My good friend Yves Devernay and I both received the grand prix. The program was completely crazy, impossible, all by memory, and then we had to improvise a symphony. We shared the grand prix, and after he became one of the four organists at Notre-Dame. He was a wonderful person and a very good friend. He died in 1990.

How did it happen that you then went to Saint-Sulpice?

In 1974, I was invited to Washington, D.C., for two years to be the organist of the National Shrine and to teach at Catholic University. Then I came back to Sacré-Cœur, and we restored the organ because it was in very bad shape. In 1982, Jean-Jacques Grunenwald died, so the position at Saint-Sulpice was open. I was at Sacré-Cœur, I love this organ very much, and I did not think about changing, but I had several friends who pushed me, “You have to be a candidate at Saint-Sulpice. We are very worried about who will be there, and the organ,” and so on. Finally, I agreed to be a candidate. There were many candidates, and the exam for the post took a long time. This was in 1982. By 1984, when Pierre Cochereau died, there were still no rules about how to name an organist and still no organist in Saint-Sulpice. Finally, after the death of Cochereau, the cardinal redid the text on the nomination of organists in Paris. The cardinal wrote that the curé is the head of the parish, and he makes the final decision, but he has to get as consultants a commission of composers, organists, and liturgists. The text says that the curé may do this in two ways, either by organizing an official competition in interpretation and improvisation, or by an examination based on the curriculum vitae. The curé at Saint-Sulpice wanted to do it the second way, by curriculum vitae. I remember in February 1985, I was playing vespers at Sacré-Cœur, and my wife came and whispered in my ear, “You just have been named at Saint-Sulpice.” Oh, I lost the key!

Are the organs in the churches of Paris maintained by a city commission?

In France in 1905 there was separation of state and church. From this time on, all churches and their furniture belong to the towns. All cathedrals belong to the state. So when there is an organ restoration to be made, the town pays, or for a cathedral, the state, not the church. When the organ in a town is also an historic monument, then the state and the town divide the cost of restoration. For organ maintenance, it depends. In some places, it’s the town that pays for tuning. In other places, Saint-Sulpice for example, it’s the church.

I read an article in The Guardian newspaper that said the city commission does not have enough money to maintain the organs of Paris. Is it true?

Of course, as you know, there’s a financial crisis right now, a difficult time for the economy. There is a lack of money for restoration and for new organs, this is sure, but the maintenance in general is done.

What are your favorite organs?

Oh, I like in general all kinds of organs which are in a true aesthetic. I like very much historic organs all over the world. I am very fascinated by a North German organ, or an organ from Middle Germany or South Germany, or a typical Italian or Spanish organ. I like also new organs when they have a good aesthetic. I am sad when I see an historic organ that has been changed.

Yes, I think particularly of the many changes to César Franck’s organ at Sainte-Clotilde.

Yes, a catastrophe, and also Notre-Dame.

I wish the organ of Sainte-Clotilde could be restored to its original state.

I wish this also. The state commission for historic organs is interested in this, but in Paris it’s always politics, you know; the organs of Sainte-Clotilde and Notre-Dame have not been restored back to the original because of the organists. In Leipzig, for instance, you have the great organ of the Thomaskirche, by Sauer originally. It had been very much changed by the Orgelbewegung, taking out beautiful principals with nice scaling and putting in their place little mixtures and mutations. Years ago they organized the complete return to the original disposition of the organ. Or look at the Dom in Berlin, also a Sauer. After communism, they decided to restore that organ as it was originally, with pneumatic action and so on, beautifully poetic. 

Before we finish, we should talk a little about your children.

Yes! We have four children. The oldest is a girl, Anne-Marie, and she has completed fine arts school and is a specialist in mosaic. She lives now in Geneva and has done mosaics in schools and other places. Then we have three boys. The oldest boy is François-Xavier, and he has a wonderful career as a conductor. Then we have Vincent; he plays viola and is professor of viola at the Conservatoire of Metz in Lorraine. The last one, born in Washington, D.C. in 1976 (a bicentennial baby!) is not at all an artist. He is a professor of mathematics in Laval. And we have nine grandchildren from 4 to 17 years old, among them students in horn, trombone, flute, harpsichord, clarinet, percussion, and tuba. We are very proud!

Daniel, thank you so much. It’s been a delight visiting with you. 

Recital programming: Program notes

Seated one day at the harpsichord, I was weary and ill at ease because the mid-July deadline for this column was approaching too rapidly, and my mind, in its summer mode, seemed frail as a lily, too weak for a thought as I searched for a topic. And then, a miracle: the printed program from my harpsichord recital at the 2012 East Texas Pipe Organ Festival fell out of a score. Rereading it brought not only a wave of nostalgia, but also a sense of continued satisfaction at both the balance and variety of the chosen pieces, selected painstakingly to present contrasting musical styles as well as offering a bit of respite to the ears of the festival participants who heard a number of organ recitals each day.

Some vignettes about the unusual logistics required to present this program at Trinity Episcopal Church in Longview on my 74th birthday may be found in The Diapason’s Harpsichord News column published in February 2013 (page 20). If any readers are curious, I refer them to that issue, which also contains Neal Campbell’s thoughtful commentaries on the entire 2012 festival. What follows in this month’s column has not appeared previously in The Diapason. These are my “notes to the program.” I present them now as examples of brief word pictures intended to aid a listener’s understanding of music that, for many, was probably being heard for the first time. As for the selections, I specifically tried to choose at least some works by composers who might be familiar to organists, while offering a variety of musical styles, durations, and tonalities both major and minor. 

The program notes

Introduction to the Program: The Italian composer Giovanni Maria Trabaci wrote in the Preface to Book II of his Pieces ‘per ogni (all) strumenti, ma ispecialmente per i Cimbali e gli Organi’ [1615]: “the harpsichord is the lord of all instruments in the world and on it everything may be played with ease.” [“il Cimbalo è Signor di tutti l’istromenti del mondo, et in lui si possono sonare ogni  cosa con facilità.”]  

While I am not totally convinced of the ease of playing offered by some of these contrasting selections from the contemporary and Baroque repertoires, I do suggest that each one of them has musical interest. The pieces by John Challis and Duke Ellington are probably unique to my repertoire since they remain unpublished.

The program

A Triptych for Harpsichord (1982)—Gerald Near (b. 1942). In addition to writing a wonderful Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings for me to premiere at the American Guild of Organists national convention in the Twin Cities in 1980, Gerald responded to my request for a new work to play at a recital for the Dallas Museum of Art’s major El Greco exhibition in 1983. The three brief contrasting movements suggest bells (“Carillon”), an amorous dance (“Siciliano”), and a homage to the harpsichord works of Domenico Scarlatti and Manuel de Falla (“Final”). 

Sonate pour Claveçin (1958)—Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959). During the final year of his life, in response to a commission from the Swiss harpsichordist Antoinette Vischer, Martinů composed this compact, but major, Sonate. Essentially it is a piece in one movement with three sections: the first and last are kaleidoscopic, filled with brief colorful musical ideas; the second is gentle and nostalgic, as the homesick expatriate composer makes short allusions to two beloved iconic Czech works: the Wenceslaus Chorale and Dvorák’s Cello Concerto. While quite “pianistic” in its demands, the Sonate also allows brilliant use of the harpsichord’s two keyboards in realizing both Martinů’s magical sonorities and his occasional use of bitonality.

“Chaconne in D Minor” (Partita for Solo Violin, BWV 1004)—Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), arranged for harpsichord solo by John Challis (1907–1974). One of Bach’s most-often transcribed works, this particular setting for harpsichord by the pioneering American early instrument maker survives only in a manuscript submitted for copyright (on Bach’s birthday in 1944), now preserved in the Library of Congress, Washington D.C., Challis also was an early advocate of variable tempi in Baroque music, serving as a mentor in that respect to organist E. Power Biggs, who proudly owned one of the builder’s impressive large pedal instruments.¹

A Single Petal of a Rose (1965)—Duke Ellington (1899–1974), edited in 1985 by Igor Kipnis and Dave Brubeck, and by Larry Palmer in 2012. Edward Kennedy Ellington responded to Antoinette Vischer’s request for a piece by sending her a piano transcription of his A Single Petal of a Rose, a work already dedicated to the British monarch Queen Elizabeth II. When American harpsichordist Kipnis asked if I could point him to Ellington’s unique work for harpsichord, I referred him to the facsimile of Ellington’s manuscript published in Ule Troxler’s book Antoinette Vischer, which details the works to be found in the Vischer Collection at the Sacher Foundation in Basel, Switzerland. (See “The A-Team,” The Diapason, February 2017, pp. 12–13.) Years later, Kipnis sent me his one-page transcription for harpsichord, an arrangement made in collaboration with his friend, the jazz great Dave Brubeck. To fit my hands and harpsichord I have made some further adjustments to their arrangement of this lovely, gentle work.²

La D’Héricourt; La Lugeac—Claude-Bénigne Balbastre (1727–1799). These are two of the most idiomatic of French harpsichord works from the eighteenth century, and none is more so than the one honoring M. l’Abbé d’Héricourt, Conseiller de Grand’ Chambre. With the tempo marking “noblement,” this composition stays mostly in the middle range of the harpsichord, a particularly resonant glory of the eighteenth-century French instruments. In contrast, the boisterous, “music-hall” qualities of La Lugeac suggest that it may be named for Charles-Antoine de Guerin, a page to King Louis XV. Known subsequently as the Marquis de Lugeac, the former page became secretary and companion to the Marquis de Valery, the king’s representative to the court of Frederick the Great. The American harpsichordist and conductor Alan Curtis, who edited Balbastre’s keyboard works, noted that “few Italianate jigs—Scarlatti not even excepted—can match the outrageously bumptious and attractive La Lugeac.”

“Lambert’s Fireside,” “De la Mare’s Pavane,” and “Hughes’ Ballet” (from the collection Lambert’s Clavichord, 1926–1928)—Herbert Howells (1892–1983). The composer was the next to youngest person pictured in a 1923 book of Modern British Composers comprising 17 master portraits by the photographer and clavichord maker Herbert Lambert of Bath. As a tangible expression of gratitude for this honor, Howells requested 11 of his fellow sitters each to contribute a short characteristic piece to be presented to the photographer. All acquiesced, but one year later, only Howells had composed anything for the project, so he wrote the additional 11 pieces himself. Issued in 1928 by Oxford University Press, Lambert’s Clavichord was the first new music for clavichord to be published in the twentieth century. Several questions regarding names found in the titles as well as a few printed notes that were suspect led me to schedule a London interview with the composer during a 1974 trip to the UK, a meeting that led ultimately to my commissioning the Dallas Canticles, as well as a respectful, unforgettable friendship with the elderly master.³

Toccata in E Minor, BWV 914—J. S.
Bach. The shortest of the composer’s seven toccatas for harpsichord, the E Minor consists of an introduction (with an organ-pedal-like opening figure insistently repeated six times); a contrapuntal   “poco” Allegro; a dramatic recitative (Adagio); and a driving, perpetual motion three-voice fugue. Musicologist David Schulenberg (in The Keyboard Music of J. S. Bach; Schirmer Books, New York, 1992) noted the close similarity of the fugue’s opening and some subsequent passages to an anonymous work from a Naples manuscript ascribed to Benedetto Marcello. While it was not unusual for Baroque composers to borrow from (and improve upon) existing works, the amount of pre-existing material utilized in this particular fugue is greater than normal; however, as Schulenberg concludes, “[Bach] nevertheless made characteristic alterations.” I would add that in no way do these borrowings detract from the visceral excitement of Bach’s propulsive and dramatic conclusion.

Heads up: Registration for the 2017 ETPOF

According to the East Texas Pipe Organ Festival website there is still an opportunity to register (at discounted prices) for the star-studded programs planned for this year’s festival. But do not delay: the opportunity for savings expires on September 15. Visit: http://easttexaspipeorganfestival.com.

Recent losses 

Elizabeth Chojnacka (born September 10, 1939, in Warsaw) died in Paris on May 28. Celebrated for her virtuosic keyboard technique, Chojnacka was known primarily as an avid and exciting performer of contemporary harpsichord music. Her renderings of all three of the solo harpsichord works by Ligeti are highly lauded, and the composer honored her by dedicating the third, Hungarian Rock, to her.

Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini (born October 7, 1929, in Bologna) died in that Italian city on July 11. Organist, harpsichordist, scholar, and instrument collector, Luigi was well known to us in Dallas, having been a guest at Southern Methodist University on several occasions. Most memorably, he was part of the so-designated “Haarlem Trio” organized by Robert Anderson as a week-long postscript to the 1972 American Guild of Organists convention in Dallas. The three major European visiting artists for that event—Marie-Claire Alain, Anton Heiller, and Tagliavini—each gave daily masterclasses for the large number of participants who remained in Dallas for a second week of study with these annual leaders of the Haarlem Summer Academies in the Netherlands, resulting in what may be the only time in Southern Methodist University history that the organ department achieved a financial surplus rather than a deficit!

Two vignettes from that stellar week have become an unforgettable part of   Dallas’s musical history: Luigi’s chosen workshop topic was the organ music of Girolamo Frescobaldi, and he had assigned to the prize-winning finalists from the AGO Young Organists’ Competition all of the pieces contained in that composer’s liturgical settings for organ, known as Fiori Musicali. One of the finalists who had not won an AGO prize left Dallas in high dudgeon. Unfortunately, this participant had been assigned the very first piece in this set of “Musical Flowers.” Professor Tagliavini began his afternoon class with a brief overview of the work’s history and importance, and then peered over his glasses as he announced, “And now we will hear the first piece, Frescobaldi’s ‘Toccata avanti della Messa’.”

The total lack of response became embarrassing; there was no respondent. So our guest teacher moved on to the next piece. And thus it was that each afternoon session began with the same question from Luigi: “And who will play the ‘Toccata avanti della Messa’?”—always followed by total silence. A stickler for completeness, on the fifth and final day of the course Luigi made his same query, again to no avail. So with his usual smile and slight lisp he intoned, “Then I shall play the ‘Toccata avanti della Messa’!” And so he did with total mastery and grace. And all was well within the Italian Baroque solar system,  for Frescobaldi’s magnum opus was, at last, complete in Dallas!

The second vignette, equally Luigi-esque, occurred when Dr. Anderson, always volatile and energetic, and I were awaiting Tagliavini’s arrival to play an evening organ recital for the workshop audience. It was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. and by five minutes before that hour Dr. Anderson was pacing the corridor near the door to the Caruth Auditorium stage. With less than two minutes to spare, Luigi ambled down the hallway. Bob called out, “Luigi, hurry!” To which the unflappable Italian stopped walking, carefully placed his leather briefcase on the floor, and, with his characteristically kindly smile, said, “Why, Bob? Has the recital already begun?” ν

Notes

1. For further information see my essay, “John Challis and Bach’s Chaconne in D Minor,” in Music and Its Questions: Essays in Honor of Peter Williams, edited by Thomas Donahue (Organ Historical Society Press, 2007); and my CD recording of the Bach transcription on Hommages for Harpsichord (SoundBoard 2008).

2. Concerning Lambert’s Clavichord, see my chapter on Herbert Howells in Twentieth Century Organ Music, edited by Christopher Anderson (Routledge, 2012).