Licht im Dunkel— Lumière dans les ténèbres: Festschrift for Daniel Roth

Carolyn Shuster Fournier

A French-American organist and musicologist, Carolyn Shuster was organist at the American Cathedral in Paris. In 1989, she was appointed titular of the Cavaillé-Coll choir organ at the Trinité Church and founded their weekly concert series. She has performed over 500 concerts in Europe and in the United States. She has also contributed articles to Revue de musicologie, La Flûte Harmonique, L’Orgue, Orgues Nouvelles, The American Organist, and The Diapason. Her recordings have been published by EMA, Ligia Digital, Schott, and Fugue State Films. In 2007, the French Cultural Minister awarded her the distinction of Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters.

On November 12, 2017, the liturgical and international concert organist Michel Chapuis died. Also an eminent professor, historian, and organ reformer impassioned by architecture, acoustics, and organbuilding, he immensely contributed to the renaissance, conservation, and restoration of early French organs. He delighted in supporting artistic beauty: his noble, graceful, and poetic interpretations vibrated with rhythmic pulsation, a natural flowing expression, and a spiritual elevation that was filled with mystery and joy.

 

His inspiration to become an
organist and initial training

Michel Chapuis was born January 15, 1930, in Dole, situated in the Burgundy-Franche-Comté region in eastern France. His father was a primary school teacher, and his mother worked as a telephone operator at the post office. In 1938, when his grandmother brought him to a Mass celebrating First Communion in Notre-Dame Collegiate Church,¹ he was overwhelmed by its historic organ by Karl Joseph Riepp (1754)/François Callinet (1788)/Joseph Stiehr (1830, 1855, 1858).² Its grandiose sonorities, which resonate beautifully in such marvelous acoustics, inspired him to become an organist. The organ possesses one of the finest examples of the French Grand Plein-Jeu. This characteristic combination of the Fourniture and Cymbale mixtures with the foundation stops is a full, brilliant, and noble sound that contains all its various inherent harmonics—with up to fifteen pipes that sound on a single note. For Michel Chapuis, this sonority symbolized God, eternity, and the entire color spectrum.

Noting their son was extremely talented, his parents purchased a piano for him at the music shop of Jacques Gardien, an ardent defender of the Dole organ.³ Michel Chapuis acquired a firm and supple piano technique with Miss Palluy, a disciple of Alfred Cortot. For six months, he took lessons with Father Barreau on the harmonium in the Collegiate Church and helped him accompany Masses there. He then began to study organ with Odette Vinard,⁴ who played at the Protestant Church in Dole, and continued with her professor, Émile Poillot,⁵ organist at the Dijon Cathedral.

In 1940, his family left Dole during the German occupation and went to Brive-Charensac, a village in the Haute-Loire, where he accompanied church services on the harmonium.⁶ When he returned to Dole in 1943, he accompanied vespers in the Dole Collegiate Church, even improvising verses between psalms. Delighted to discover a collection of Alexandre Guilmant’s Archives of Organ Masters in the personal library of the Marquis Bernard de Froissard⁷ in Azans, near Dole, he began to play the early French organ repertory, using registrations mentioned in these scores. His grandfather and the church janitor pumped the organ bellows for him! In 1945, he began to study organ with Jeanne Marguillard, organist at Saint-Louis Church in Monrapont, Besançon, where he accompanied two church services each Sunday for two years on a Jacquot-Lavergne organ.⁸

 

Musical training in Paris

After the Second World War, in 1946, Jeanne Marguillard came to Paris with Michel Chapuis, to introduce him to Édouard Souberbielle.⁹ At the age of sixteen, Chapuis began to study organ and improvisation with him at the César Franck School. This “true aristocrat of the organ” possessed a vast culture and an eminent spirituality that deeply influenced all his students. He encouraged them to expand their musical knowledge by listening to great classical works, and Chapuis appreciated his methodical spirit. This master enabled him to maintain a solid yet supple hand position and taught how to “touch” the organ by varying articulations, how to improvise fugues and trio sonatas, and used Marcel Dupré’s improvisation method books to prepare him to study at the Paris Conservatory. Michel Chapuis completed his solid musical formation there by taking piano lessons with Paule Piédelièvre,¹⁰ courses in harmony and counterpoint with Yves Margat,¹¹ and fugue with René Malherbe.¹² His fellow students there included Simone Michaud¹³ and her future husband, Jean-Albert Villard,¹⁴ Father Joseph Gelineau,¹⁵ and Denise Rouquette, who married Michel Chapuis in 1951.¹⁶ They lived on Clotaire Street, near the Panthéon.

To launch a career as an organist in France, it was indispensable to obtain a first prize organ in Marcel Dupré’s class at the Paris Conservatory. After auditioning with Dupré in 1950, playing J. S. Bach’s Sixth Trio Sonata and Louis Vierne’s Impromptu, thanks to his solid technique, Michel Chapuis enrolled in the Paris Conservatory the next October. Nine months later, in June 1951, he obtained his first prizes in organ and improvisation, as well as the Albert
Périlhou and Alexandre Guilmant prizes, awarded to the best student in the class.¹⁷ Gifted with mechanical ingenuity, he followed Gaston Litaize’s advice and apprenticed with the organbuilder Erwin Muller from 1952 to 1953, in Croisy, just west of Paris.¹⁸

 

First three church positions in Paris

From his youth, Michel Chapuis loved the ritual aspects of liturgical music. During his studies in Paris, he substituted for many organists. Highly respected for his fine accompaniments of congregational singing, his vast liturgical knowledge, and his repertory, he was appointed titular organist in several Parisian churches. From 1951 to 1953, he accompanied the liturgy on the Gutschenritter choir organ at Saint-Germain-des-Prés. From 1953 to 1954, he played the 1771 Clicquot/1864 Merklin organ at Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois Church, following in the footsteps of Alexandre Boëly.

In 1954, he succeeded Line Zilgien¹⁹  as titular of the 1777 Clicquot/1839 Daublaine & Callinet/1842 Ducroquet/1927 Gonzalez organ at Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs and kept his title there until 1970. Nicolas Gigault played there from 1652 to 1707 and Louis Braille, the inventor of the language for the blind, served at the church from 1834 to 1839. This church, located near Arts and Métiers, was reconstructed in a flamboyant Gothic style in the twelfth century and attained its present form in the seventeenth century. Its historic Clicquot organ was the key that opened the doors to Michel Chapuis’ comprehension of the early French organ. He also learned a great deal there from two organbuilders, Claude Hermelin²⁰ and Gabriel d’Alençon.²¹

In 1954, Michel Chapuis succeeded Jean Dattas as titular of the two-manual, seventeen-stop Merklin choir organ in Notre-Dame Cathedral, in the heart of Paris. There, he accompanied the
Maîtrise choir, directed by the quick-tempered Canon Louis Merret until 1959; then by a marvelous musician, Abbot Jean Revert, who allowed the congregation to sing during alternated verses at vespers. Michel Chapuis accompanied all the daily Masses and nearly all the canonical offices in Gregorian chant: prime (on feast days), tierce, the grand Mass, sext, none, vespers, and compline. One day, a priest sang too high and reproached Michel Chapuis for playing a pitch that was too high, when, in fact, he had mistaken a tourist boat whistle on the Seine for an organ note! In spite of the hordes of tourists that invaded this church, this position brought great joy to Chapuis for nine years: it enabled him to unite his capacities to resonate universal beauty in such a breath-taking setting, with its traditional liturgy and its fantastic acoustics that enhance any musical note. Michel Chapuis strongly believed that music ought to pacify, console, and comfort humanity. Above all, he hoped that his musical offerings would illuminate other people’s lives.²²

Michel Chapuis collaborated closely with the two titulars of the grand organ: Pierre Cochereau²³ and Pierre Moreau.²⁴ Each Sunday the two organs dialogued, continuing a tradition established in 1402, when Frédéric Schaubantz installed the grand organ in its present location. This dialogue, issued from the Gallican ritual, had remained intact, except during the Revolution, from 1790 to 1798. A 1963 Philips record documented Pierre Cochereau playing his own Paraphrase de la Dédicace and Louis Vierne’s Triumphant March, with Michel Chapuis accompanying Jean Revert’s choir singing works by André Campra and Pierre Desvignes. In September 1984, when Pierre Cochereau decorated Michel Chapuis with the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, he recalled his improvisations at Notre-Dame and had wondered if J. S. Bach had composed a seventh trio sonata!

 

A pioneer in early French music
interpretation

Impassioned by early French Classical music, Michel Chapuis realized that most of the Parisian organs by such builders as Cavaillé-Coll, Merklin, and Gutschenritter were symphonic or neo-Classical in style, thus unsuitable for the early French repertory. While organists did regularly play the repertoire, however, they did not use notes inégales in their playing. For example, in 1956, when Michel Chapuis went to Marmoutier to meet the American Melville Smith, during his rehearsals for the first complete recording of Nicolas de Grigny’s Livre d’Orgue by Valois, he was surprised that he did not dare to use notes inégales there, even though he had been playing them for over thirty years, simply because he did not want to appear to be original (“Je ne veux pas paraître original”).²⁵ Chapuis concluded that he was a bit timid, probably since the great master organists in Paris at that time had not used them. Nonetheless, Melville Smith’s landmark recording highlighted Muhleisen and Alfred Kern’s 1955 restoration of this historic 1710 Silbermann and received the Grand Prix du Disque.

Curious by nature, Michel Chapuis carried out extensive research to understand the performance practice of notes inégales. His departure point was Eugène Borrel’s book on the interpretation of French music from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries [The Interpretation of French Music (from Lully to the Revolution)].²⁶ This book, well in advance of its time, remained the continual reference point that guided Chapuis’ interpretations. It emphasizes that to enchant auditors, one must play like a singer, with clear pronunciation, an appropriate emotion, expression, and character: serious, sad, happy, or
pleasant.

An organist in the seventeenth century knew how to bring out the main themes, such as plainchants, and could boldly improvise counterpoint on them. Like harpsichordists, they “touched” keyboards by holding their fingers as close to the keys as possible. They played vividly on the Positive Plein Jeu, interpreted Récits tenderly, and played Tierces en tailles with emotional melancholy. Their fingerings enabled them to play notes inégales naturally.

During his nine years at Notre-Dame, Michel Chapuis did not need much time to prepare his work there: this gave him lots of time to consult hundreds of early French organ and singing treatises and prefaces from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, beginning with Loys Bourgeois (1530), who had indicated that eighth notes should be sung in groups of two to render them more graceful. Thanks to his musical intuition, his solid supple technique, and his courageous spirit, he then incorporated notes inégales, appropriate ornaments, and registrations into his interpretations of early French music. Michel Chapuis acknowledged Jules Écorcheville’s research.²⁷ In 1958, Chapuis gave a conference with Antoine Geoffroy-Dechaume²⁸ at Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs Church, presenting musical illustrations of the application of notes inégales and dotted rhythms. The interpretation of the French national hymn, La Marseillaise, is an excellent example of the natural application of notes inégales: although notated with eighth notes, it is sung with dotted notes. Of course, when one uses early fingerings, one plays naturally with notes inégales. This landmark conference inspired organists such as Marie-Claire Alain²⁹ and marked the beginning of a new era in early French music interpretation.

Michel Chapuis brought early French repertory to life, expressing past rhetoric naturally, with nobleness, simplicity, and good taste. Guided continually by Eugène Borrel, his playing was “elegant, distinguished, and animated without excessiveness” [“élégant, distingué, chaleureux sans outrances”].³⁰ In fact, when he gave a concert on the Gonzalez organ at Saint-Merry Church in May 1963, interpreting works by Titelouze, D’Aquin, and Dandrieu Noëls, no one even noticed that he had played with notes inégales.³¹ Nicole Gravet’s book on registrations in French music from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries was a guide to him.³² His numerous recordings of early French music in the 1960s testify to his natural assimilation of notes inégales: Dandrieu, Guilain, and Raison on the Clicquot in Poitiers (by Lumen) and others by Harmonia Mundi: François Roberday at Manosque and Isle-sur-Sorgue, François Couperin’s two organ Masses on the Isnard at Saint-Maximin, François Couperin at Le Petit-Andely, Louis Marchand and Gaspard Corette on the Clicquot in Souvigny (Grand Prix), Nicolas Clérambault on the 1765 Bénigne Boillot at Saint-Jean de Losne, Gaspard Corette and D’Aquin in Marmoutier (the only restored organ),³³ and his improvisations on the 1746 J. A. Silbermann at Saint-Quirin Lettenbach.

 

Installation near Dole

During his military service at Mont-Valérien (near Paris) from 1954 to 1955, Michel Chapuis met many of his lifelong acquaintances, notably Jacques Béraza (the future organist at Dole, 1955–1998), Jean Saint-Arroman³⁴ (with whom he collaborated in future organ academies and publications of early French music), and the orchestra conductor Jean-Claude Malgloire. Shortly thereafter, he also met the ingenious organ visionary and voicer, Philippe Hartmann.³⁵ From 1955 to 1958, Hartmann lived with Pierre Cochereau’s family, on Boulevard Berthier in Paris. He babysat for his children, Jean-Marc and Marie-Pierre, and enlarged his house organ to seventy stops.³⁶ A few years later, when Michel Chapuis and Francis Chapelet came to visit Pierre Cochereau, they joyfully improvised a trio sonata on his organ, his Steinway piano, and his harpsichord, before savoring some champagne!³⁷

During this period, Chapuis visited Dole regularly. His appointment as organ professor at the Strasburg Conservatory in 1956 assured him a solid income. At Jacques Béraza’s advice, in 1958, he purchased a historic seventeenth-century home in Jouhe, a village near Dole, where he installed his pianos, harmoniums, and his personal library. During this same period, Philippe Hartmann moved to Rainans, a nearby village. Together, their overflowing energy, encyclopedic knowledge, and extraordinary imagination influenced an entire generation of organbuilders who apprenticed there from 1958 to 1969, notably Alain Anselm, Bernard Aubertin, Louis Benoist, Jean Bougarel, Didier Chanon, Jean Deloye, Barthélémy Formentelli, Gérald Guillemin, Claude Jaccard, Dominique Lalmand, Denis Londe, Marie Londe-Réveillac, Jean-François Muno, Pascal Quoirin, Alain Sals, and Pierre Sarelot.³⁸

 

From Saint-SОverin to the Royal Chapel in Versailles

In 1963, at the suggestion of Father Lucien Aumont,³⁹ Michel Chapuis crossed the Seine River to the Latin Quarter to succeed Michel Lambert-Mouchague as titular of the grand organ at Saint-Séverin Church.⁴⁰ Among some of the past organists who maintained a great classical tradition there were: Michel Forqueray (1681–1757), Nicolas Séjan (1783–1791), Albert Périlhou, composer and director of the Niedermeyer School (1889–1914), Camille Saint-Saëns, honorary organist (1897–1921), and Marcel-Samuel Rousseau (1919–1921).⁴¹ After his arrival, Michel Chapuis reinstated the classical system of rotating organists that existed before the Revolution in Parisian churches. Over the years, he shared this post with Jacques Marichal (1963–c. 1972)⁴² and Francis Chapelet (1964–1984),⁴³ then with André Isoir (1967–1973), Jean Boyer (1975–1988), Michel Bouvard (1984–1994), François Espinasse (1988), Michel Alabau (1986–2016), Christophe Mantoux (1994); and two substitute organists: Jean-Louis Vieille-Girardet (1973–1994), and François-Henri Houbart (1974–1979). In 2002, Chapuis was named honorary organist and Nicolas Bucher succeeded him as titular until 2013, when he in turn was succeded by Véronique Le Guen.⁴⁴

In 1963, the 1748 Claude Ferrard/1825 Pierre-François Dallery/1889 John Abbey⁴⁵ organ was in poor shape. In 1963 and 1964, the Alsatian builder Alfred Kern reconstructed the organ according to the plans of Michel Chapuis and Philippe Hartmann,⁴⁶ who decided upon the use of mechanical action. This exemplary reconstruction as a four-manual neo-Classical German-French organ with fifty-nine stops marked a turning point in French organ construction. It used all of the Abbey windchests and existing pipes, including Claude Ferrard’s Positif Cromorne, the Récit Hautbois, and several mutation stops, along with twenty-two new stops. The disposition of its newly constructed Plein-Jeu stops, with its Cymbale-Tierce stop, allowed the interpretation of both early French and German literature for the first time in Paris and enabled Michel Chapuis to accompany the congregational singing with vitality and variety. The third keyboard, Récit-Resonance, enabled him to couple the other two keyboards to it. The natural keys were made of ebony, and the sharps of white cow bone. The Positif de dos was placed mid-height in the church, enabling the organ to resonate fully. Chapuis inaugurated the instrument on March 8, 1964, with two different programs: the first consisting of works by Couperin, Buxtehude, and Bach; and the second, works by de Grigny, Marchand, Sweelinck, Böhm, and Bach.⁴⁷ After initial work by Daniel Kern in 1982 and Dominique Lalmand in 1988, the organ was restored again in 2011 by Dominique Thomas, Quentin Blumenroeder, and Jean-Michel Tricoteaux, respecting Alfred Kern’s work.

Michel Chapuis had arrived at Saint-Séverin during the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). This parish’s ecumenical approach mirrored that of the Community in Taizé. With that in mind, Michel Chapuis adapted Bach chorales to the Catholic liturgy with French texts. The organists collaborated with priests to prepare the liturgy in accordance with the texts and the different colors of the liturgical year. Instead of beginning the Mass with Asperges me and an appropriate Gregorian Introit, the chorale “Nun komm der Heiden Heiland” served as the opening hymn during the four Sundays in Advent. Before each Mass, Michel Chapuis softly accompanied a rehearsal of the liturgy. After improvising a prelude to the opening hymn on the Positif Plein-Jeu, he accompanied the congregation on the Grand Orgue Plein-Jeu. Father Alain Ponsard requested Michel Chapuis to compose a Sanctus, known as the Saint-Séverin Sanctus, sung throughout France. Later, his former student and substitute organist, François-Henri Houbart, composed a partita based on this Sanctus.⁴⁸

Two recordings by Cantoral⁴⁹ attest to Michel Chapuis’ fine accompaniments. Harmonia Mundi recorded his interpretations of Jehan Titelouze’s hymns and Magnificat at Saint-Séverin. His other recordings in the 1960s and 1970s echoed the repertory he played there: works by Louis Couperin (Deutsche Grammophon), Nicolas de Grigny (Astrée), French Noëls by Balbastre, Dandrieu, and D’Aquin, and the complete works of Nicolas Bruhns, Vincent Lübeck, J. S. Bach, and Dieterich Buxtehude (Valois).⁵⁰ Recording the complete organ works of Bach was extremely difficult: after learning all the scores, he recorded alone at night, set up the magnetic tapes, pushed the “record” button, and went up to the organ loft to play; if there was a noise or the slightest error, he started all over, until it was perfect.

In 1966, Édouard Souberbielle gave a concert at Saint-Séverin. In 1968 and 1969, Chapuis organized a concert series entitled “Renaissance of the Organ,” for the Association for the Protection of Early Organs, on the first Wednesday of each month at 9:00 p.m.: on October 9, Michel Chapuis opened this series with a Bach concert; on November 6, Marie-Claire Alain played Bach and early German masters; on December 4, Pierre Cochereau performed Bach, Mozart, Liszt, and improvised; on January 8, 1969, André Isoir gave an eclectic concert for the Christmas season; on February 5, Francis Chapelet played selections of Art of the Fugue and the Toccata in C Major by Bach; on March 5, Helmuth Walcha was scheduled to play Bach’s Clavierübung III, but, unable to perform, was replaced by Marie-Claire Alain; on May 7, Xavier Darasse performed Messiaen, Bach, and Ligeti; and on June 6, Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini performed Frescobaldi, Muffat, and Bach. In the fall of 1969, concerts were given by Michel Chapuis, Heinz Wunderlich, Anton Heiller, and Helmut Walcha. From October 1970 to June 1971, Michel Chapuis performed the complete works of J. S. Bach there.

In 1995, Michel Chapuis was appointed titular of the prestigious historic Robert Clicquot organ,⁵¹ rebuilt by Jean-Loup Boisseau and Bertrand Cattiaux, at the Royal Chapel in Versailles. On November 18 and 19, 1995, he inaugurated this organ and was named honorary organist there in 2010. This position was the crowning summit of his concert career.⁵² At this exquisite historic royal palace, he was truly an ambassador for French culture, receiving artists from the entire world.

 

A. F. S. O. A.: The Association for the Protection of Early Organs

On December 21, 1967, a group of organists, organ historians, and builders, as well as amateur organ admirers, joined forces to protest against abusive transformations of historic French organs and founded the Association for the Protection of Early Organs
[A. F. S. O. A., Association pour la sauvegarde de l’orgue ancien]. Their first general meeting took place on March 1, 1968. Jean Fonteneau, a substitute organist at Saint-Séverin, was president for the first year; the organ historian Pierre Hardouin, its primary editor; Michel Bernstein, editorial secretary; and Michel Chapuis, artistic advisor. Among its honorary members were Jean-Albert Villard and Helmut Winter. Other members included Father Lucien Aumont, Michel Bernstein, Bernard Baërd, Dominique Chailley, Jacques Chailley, Francis Chapelet, Pierre Chéron, Pierre Cochereau, René Delosme, Christian Dutheuil, Robert Gronier (a future president), André Isoir, Henri Legros, Émile Leipp, the architect Alain Lequeux, the astronomer James Lequeux, Charles-Walter Lindow, Pierre-Paul Lacas, Dominique Proust, Jean Saint-Arroman, Gino Sandri, Marc Schaefer, Jean-Christophe Tosi (a future president), and Jean Ver Hasselt. They struggled to renew interest in the unforgotten historic early French organ and its music. In 1969,
A. F. S. O. A. organized an international François Couperin competition for organ and harpsichord at Saint-Séverin and on the François-Henri Clicquot organ (1772), restored by Alfred Kern, at the Royal Chapel in Fontainebleau. It also organized visits to organs, such as the Clicquot at the Poitiers Cathedral, and organs in Alsace.

A. F. S. O. A. ardently defended a respectable restoration of the 1748 Dom Bédos organ in Bordeaux and protested against Gonzalez’s restoration of the historic Couperin organ at Saint-Gervais Church in Paris.⁵⁴ In 1954, this firm, under Norbert Dufourcq’s direction, had already considerably transformed Jean de Joyeuse’s 1694 Baroque 16′ organ in Auch Cathedral: out of the 3,060 pipes there, 620 were considerably altered and 2,240 had disappeared, notably the Grand Plein-Jeu.⁵⁵ Michel Chapuis felt that Victor Gonzalez’s neo-classical Plein-Jeu, although pitched too high, was remarkably well-voiced and suitable for a small instrument installed in a studio or a home, but not for a large organ in a church. When Norbert Dufourcq went to visit the historic eighteenth century Jean-Baptiste Micot organ in Saint-Pons-des-Thomières (in the Hérault), the organist, Jean Ribot, hid the keys so that he could not enter the organ loft to look at the organ.⁵⁶

Michel Chapuis strongly supported research on the French Classical organ Plein-Jeu, notably by his friends Jean Fellot⁵⁷ and Léon Souberbielle.⁵⁸ Thankfully, in 1954, Pierre Chéron and Rochas saved the splendid Grand Plein-Jeu in the 1774 Isnard organ at Sainte Marie-Madeleine Basilica in Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume.⁵⁹ In 1957, Robert Boisseau voiced a Roethinger organ in the French Classic style that included a Plein-Jeu as described by Dom Bédos, in Saint Louis du Temple Benedictine Abbey in Limon-Vauhallan (in the Essonne south of Paris). It was designed by Édouard and Léon Souberbielle. On November 7, 1959, Claude Philbée made a private recording of Michel Chapuis improvising to demonstrate the organ’s stops.⁶⁰

In 1967, Michel Chapuis pleaded with André Malraux, the minister for cultural affairs since 1959, for new policies concerning the restoration of early organs. He explained that past massacres of historic organs had given a bad name to organbuilding in France. He estimated that around seventy historic organs remained intact in France: thirty large instruments and forty smaller instruments. He suggested that, as in Austria or the Netherlands, a group of experts be appointed to form a new national commission of historic organs in addition to regional commissions. Before dismantling each organ for restoration, it should be completely evaluated and inventoried, with precise measurements, photos, and recordings. However, advocating for drastic changes in the French administration was not an easy task!

As A. F. S. O. A. encouraged, restorations were carried out that respected the past. As a member of the Commission for Historical Monuments, Michel Chapuis travelled in his Citroën van to visit organs and photographed them with his Rolleflex box camera. Here are some of the organs beautifully restored between 1968 and 1998: Perthuis, Malaucène, Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, Saint-Lizier, Forcalquier, and Sète by Alain Sals; Houdan by Robert and Jean-Loup Boisseau; three cuneiform bellows to activate the wind in the Clicquot in Souvigny by Philippe Hartmann;
Ebersmunster by Alfred Kern; Albi and Carcassonne by Barthélemy Formentelli;
Villiers-le-Bel, Juvigny, and the Dom Bédos in Bordeaux by Pascal Quoirin; Semur-en-Auxois by Jean Deloye with Philippe Hartmann; Seurre in Bourgogne, Saint-Martin-de-Boscherville in Normandy, and Saint-Antoine-L’Abbaye by Bernard Aubertin; the 1790
Clicquot in Poitiers by Boisseau-Cattiaux Society;⁶¹ Bolbec by Bertrand Cattiaux; and the reconstruction of the Jean de Joyeuse in Auch by Jean-François Muno. Between 1994 and 1997, the builders Claude Jaccard and Reinalt Klein built a replica of the Houdan organ (except the case) in the Kreuzekirche Church in Stapelmoor, Germany (in the North of Ostfriesland): Organeum Records recorded Michel Chapuis playing works by Böhm, Boyvin, Dandrieu, and Jullien on this organ on September 17, 1998.⁶²

In the 1980s, Michel Chapuis supported the Cavaillé-Coll Association, which advocated for quality restorations of Romantic organs. He kindly advised this author’s research on Aristide Cavaillé-Coll’s secular organs. Among the Cavaillé-Coll organs restored between 1985 and 1997: the grand organs in Sacré-Coeur Basilica and in Saint-Sulpice in Paris, by Jean Renaud; Charles-Marie Widor’s 1893 house organ in Selongey, Côte d’Or (1986), and Édouard André’s 1874 house organ in Decize, by Claude Jaccard; the grand organ in Poligny, by Dominique Lalmand and Claude Jaccard, the grand organ in Saint-Sernin Basilica in Toulouse, by Boisseau-Cattiaux.

 

Organ professor

An eminent professor, Michel Chapuis acknowledged that the best way to learn music is to teach it. He loved to transmit his musical heritage and his practical knowledge. His intuition and his astute sense of observation and analysis enabled him to transmit elements of interpretation that cannot always be explained. He taught organ at the Strasburg Conservatory from 1956 to 1979, at the Schola Cantorum in Paris from 1977 to 1979, at the Besançon Conservatory from 1979 to 1986, and then succeeded Rolande Falcinelli at the National Superior Conservatory of Music in Paris, from 1986 to 1995. He also gave masterclasses in numerous academies in France: early French music on the historic Isnard organ at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume Academy, founded in 1962; German and French early music on the 1752 Riepp/1833 Callinet organ in Semur-en-Auxois (in the Côte-d’Or) in the mid-1970s;⁶³ in the Pierrefonds Academy (in the Oise) with Jean Saint-Arroman in the 1980s; and in Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges⁶⁴ (in the Haute-Garonne) from 1976 to 2008, notably with André Stricker and Jean Saint-Arroman. He also gave masterclasses in Stapelmoor, Germany (with André Stricker and Pierre Vidal), as well as in the United States and Japan.

At the Strasbourg Conservatory, Michel Chapuis taught in the Catholic organ class, alongside André Stricker,⁶⁵ who was in charge of the Protestant organ class. As the organ department grew, two more professors were added to balance the department: in 1962, Marc Schaefer,⁶⁶ a Protestant, and, in 1963, Pierre Vidal,⁶⁷  a Catholic. In June 1964, Helmut Walcha inaugurated the Kurt Schwenkedel organ (III/64) in the conservatory concert hall. Michel Chapuis helped to determine its stoplist, which he described as being both “classical and personal.”⁶⁸ Of note, the organ case included horizontal Montre pipes.

In 1986, when Michel Chapuis began to teach at the Paris Conservatory, it was still located on Madrid Street, before its transfer to la Villette in 1991. Instead of giving lessons on the dusty 1951 Jacquot-Lavergne organ there, he preferred to teach on beautiful church organs: at Saint-Séverin, in Dole, and in Poligny. Open-minded, he never imposed any particular interpretation on his students⁶⁹ but used his immense knowledge, his fantastic imagination, his humanistic approach, and his witty humor to guide them from the visible text to the invisible spirit of the music. He emphasized the importance of a calm, supple body, notably in hands and wrists, to give great lightness and liberty to fingers, which remain in contact with the keys. With his soft, sweet voice, he calmly encouraged students to go beyond the notes, to recreate the composer’s musical conception in a harmonious and sober manner. He abhorred inadequate and superficial ornaments and inappropriate expression. He enabled his students to understand the inherent marvels in each score, its underlying harmonies, rhythmic structures, and melodic expression, and helped them to incorporate these elements into their interpretations with an appropriate style, with spontaneity, good taste, and excellent registrations.

How fortunate I was to study with Michel Chapuis and Jean Saint-Arroman at the Academy in Pierrefonds in 1983 and 1984. Eugène Borrel’s book on the interpretation of early French music was truly indispensable to interpreting early French music expression in a well-balanced harmonious manner, with natural fluidity and ease. We accompanied singers to understand the underlying nature of a musical text, its pronunciation, its appropriate expression and style, its inherent harmonies. We studied the early French organ and its music: figured basses, dance rhythms, registrations, tempi, temperaments, ornamentations, and learned how to appropriately express and embellish the musical line. Its sweet, gentle expression⁷⁰ finds its summit in the Tierce taille and numerous Récits.

We presented recitals at Saint-Séverin and Saint-Gervais churches. While studying on early historic instruments does not guarantee a beautiful performance, it enables an interpreter to play ornaments, registrations, phrasing, etc., with greater ease. As Jean Saint-Arroman pointed out, it is impossible for early music to be heard as in former centuries because “life and sensibility have changed too much, and, at least for the listeners, the music which was ‘modern’ has become ‘ancient’” [“la vie et la sensibilité ont trop chargé, et, au moins pour les auditeurs, la musique qui était ‘moderne’ est devenue ‘ancienne’”].⁷¹

Michel Chapuis inspired an entire generation of organists, among them: Scott Ross (at Saint-Maximin); Robert Pfrimmer, Étienne Baillot, Antoine Bender, Lucien Braun, Henri Delorme, Alain Langré, François-Henri Houbart, Jean-Louis Vieille-Girardet, Hélène Hébrard, Chieko Mayazaki and Henri Paget (at Strasbourg Conservatory); Régis Allard, Michel Bouvard,⁷² Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard, Makiko Hayashima, Hisaé Hosokawa (at the Schola Cantorum); Marc Baumann, Sylvain Ciaravolo, Pierre Gerthoffer, Luc Bocquet, Éric Brottier, Bernard Coudurier, Roland Servais, Véronique Rougier, Vinciane Rouvroy, Marie-Christine Vermorel (at the Besançon Conservatory); Valéry Aubertin, Valérie Aujard-Catot, Franck Barbut, Philippe Brandeis, Yves
Castagnet, Slava Chevliakov, Denis Comtet, Françoise Dornier, Thierry Escaich, Pierre Farago, Jean-François Frémont, Mathieu Freyburger, Christophe Henry, Emmanuel Hocdé, Jean-Marc Leblanc, Marie-Ange Laurent-Lebrun, Éric Lebrun, Véronique Le Guen, Erwan Le Prado, Gabriel Marghieri, Pierre Mea, Nicolas Reboul-Salze, Marina Tchébourkina,⁷³ Vincent Warnier (at the National Superior Conservatory of Music), and Frédéric Munoz (in numerous academies).

 

International concert artist

Michel Chapuis was a great artist who consecrated his entire life to enriching other people’s lives with beautiful music. Although he often said that he never took vacations, in all truth, he worked too much, giving generously to others: as a teacher, as a member of the national organ commission for cultural affairs, as a church musician, and as a concert artist. He delighted in sharing his passions with others: photography, tramways, historic books, and architecture, among others. Fascinated with movement, he often invited visitors to his home to take a ride in his old train wagons, which he pushed on the train tracks he had installed in his yard: an unexpected experience! His listeners sensed such sparkling joy when listening to his captivating interpretations, from its kindling intense, fiery warmth to its gentle gracious sweetness. Conscious of the acoustical resonance of each room, he knew how to let silences speak fully, thus clarifying the musical narration and providing it with spiritual depth and elevation.

When I met Michel Chapuis in Saint-Séverin in 1984, I admired his noble yet gentle manner of playing. Although his hands were robust and gnarled, as if he had labored as an eighteenth-century tanner along the canals in Dole, once he began to play, they floated just above the keyboards, but his fingers were deeply enrooted in the keys,⁷⁴ like those of J. S. Bach! His vivid imagination and fantasy excelled in the interpretation of
Dieterich Buxtehude’s works. I remember the numerous interesting discussions in the church reception hall after Mass with artists from all over the world.

Michel Chapuis considered himself to be Catholic in the universal sense of the term.⁷⁵ On May 7–8, 1979, during the inauguration of Alfred Kern’s restoration of the 1741 Jean-André Silbermann organ at Saint-Thomas Lutheran Church in Strasburg, he illustrated the mission of the organ in the church by improvising in the French Classical style on themes from the old Parisian Ritual. Like the great humanist Albert Schweitzer, who had preached in this church, he believed that when music is felt deeply, either sacred or secular, it resonates in spiritual spheres where art and religion may meet.

Michel Chapuis played concerts in Europe, the United States, Russia, and Japan. He came to the United States at least on three occasions. On November 26 and 27, 1968, he gave a recital and masterclass at Northwestern University School of Music, Evanston, Illinois, and returned to play at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, University of Chicago, in 1978. During this same year, he inaugurated the Yves Koenig organ at Saint-Sulpice Church in Pierrefonds, performing Nicolas de Grigny’s entire Organ Mass. In Japan, he gave his first organ recital in the NKH Hall in Tokyo in 1976. He inaugurated three Aubertin organs there: his opus 48 (III/48), in the French Classical style at Shirane-Cho/Minami-Alps in 1993, where he returned at least ten times to give academies, concerts, and masterclasses, recorded by Plenum Vox in 1999; opus 13 (II/13) in the Lutheran Church in Tokyo in 1999; and opus 22 (II/22) in a home in Karuizawa in 2003. He gave concerts and masterclasses many times in Russia, notably on the Charles Mutin organ at the Tchaikovky Conservatory in Moscow beginning in 1993.

Throughout his entire career, Michel Chapuis collaborated with singers, choirs, and orchestras, as illustrated in several recordings: the 1967 Harmonia Mundi record of François Couperin’s Leçons de Ténèbres with Alfred
Deller, countertenor; Philip Todd, tenor; and Raphael Perulli, viola da gamba, at Augustins Chapel in Brignolles
(Var); in 1997: Quantin CD of four Handel concertos, opus 4, with the Marais Chamber Orchestra directed by Pascal Vigneron; and an Astrée CD of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Port Royal Mass in Houdan, directed by Emmanuel Mandrin; a 1998 CD of his inauguration of Laurent Plet’s restoration of the 1847 Callinet organ at Saint-Pierre Church in Liverdun captured his accompaniments of three local choirs, with works by Scheidt, Rinck, Boëly, Mendelssohn, Ritter, Herbeck, and Berthier.⁷⁶ In 1999, Glossa Records recorded his improvised verses in Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Messe de Monsieur de Mauroy at Saint-Michel-en-Thiérache with Hervé Niquet’s Le Concert spirituel. In 2000, Plenum Vox recorded his inauguration of Bernard Hurvy’s twenty-six-stop early nineteenth century transitional-style organ in Charbonnières-les-Bains (near Lyon), with the Saint-Roch Choir directed by J. M. Blanchon, with works by Bach, Buxtehude, Mendelssohn, Guilmant, Bruckner, and improvisations on Salve Regina. Ekaterina Fedorova, soprano, the founder of Plenum Vox Records, gave many concerts and recorded with him: Magnificats by Guilain, Dandrieu, Beauvarlet-Charpentier, and improvisations on the Dom Bédos organ at Saint-Croix Abbey Church in Bordeaux in 2002, and Burgundian Christmas carols, vocal works by Clérambault, and improvisations on the 1768 Bénigne Boillot organ in Saint-Jean-de-Losne in 2003.

At the end of each concert, Michel Chapuis improvised in a style that valorized the organ with a wide variety of registrations. In 2004, when he improvised at the end of his concert on Jean-François Muno’s exemplary reconstruction (1992–1998) of the 1694 Jean de Joyeuse organ at Auch Cathedral, he received a standing ovation that lasted for over ten minutes! During the last ten years of his life, even as his vision deteriorated, his luminous and graceful improvisations continued to enlighten his audiences. Many of them were recorded live by Plenum Vox: a 2003 DVD in the Royal Chapel in Versailles and in Souvigny, a 2004 CD in the Romantic style on the Cavaillé-Coll organs at Saint-Ouen and Poligny, and a 2005 DVD in the German Baroque style on Bernard Aubertin’s organ at Saint-Louis-en-l’Île Church in Paris. He had assimilated the early French repertory so well that he was capable of improvising in the style of each composer and each period. He knew how to discern the tonalities that resonated well on each organ: for example, C Major and D Major in Dole, and G Major at Saint-Séverin.

Michel Chapuis’ 2001 Plenum Vox recordings in Dole remind us that this organ remained the star that inspired him throughout his entire career. These three CDs illustrate his eclectic repertory on this versatile instrument with three faces: the German face (Buxtehude, Kellner, Rinck, with improvisations), the French face (Boyvin, Tapray, d’Aquin, Balbastre and improvisations on Ave Maris Stella), and the Romantic face (Mendelssohn, Czerny, Guilmant, Brosig, Boëllmann, and Franck).

In addition to being a pioneer who revolutionized the French organ world in the second half of the twentieth century, this great concert and liturgical organist and professor generously shared his time, knowledge, and documents with his colleagues, students, and friends. His conception of French good taste goes beyond time and space: it encourages us to memorialize the past, far beyond an idea of comfort and superficial rapidity, by embracing beauty with simplicity, constant research, meditation, and spiritual depth. In addition to his beautiful music, his humanistic and fraternal approach to life, his conviviality, his humble simplicity, as well as his liberty of spirit, will continue to inspire us.

 

A French-American organist and musicologist, Carolyn Shuster was organist at the American Cathedral in Paris. In 1989, she was appointed titular of the Cavaillé-Coll choir organ at the Trinité Church and founded their weekly concert series. She has performed over 500 concerts in Europe and in the United States. She has also contributed articles to Revue de musicologie, La Flûte Harmonique, L’Orgue, Orgues Nouvelles, The American Organist, and The Diapason. Her recordings have been published by EMA, Ligia Digital, Schott, and Fugue State Films. In 2007, the French Cultural Minister awarded her the distinction of Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters. 

 

Notes

1. Cf. Marc Baumann, “Interview with Michel Chapuis in Marienthal,” transcribed by Hubert Heller, February, 2003, and in www.union-sainte-cecile.org.

2. Cf. Pierre M. Guéritey, Karl Joseph
Riepp et l’Orgue de Dole, 2 vol. (Lyon, FERREOL, 1985).

3. Cf. Jacques Gardien, “Les Grandes Orgues de la Collégiale de Dole,” L’Orgue, no. 25, March 1936, pp. 6–14.

4. Odette Goulon, her married name, was appointed organist at Temple du Luxembourg in Paris in 1991. The dates of organists in this article are mostly those found in Pierre Guillot, Dictionnaire des organistes français des XIX^e et XX^e siècles, Sprimont, Belgium, 2003.

5. Émile Poillot (1886–1948) was organist of Saint-Bénigne Cathedral, Dijon, 1912–1948.

6. Cf. Claude Duchesneau, Plein Jeu, Interviews with Michel Chapuis (Vendôme: Le Centurion, 1979), p. 34. The Germans occupied Dole from June 17, 1940, to September 9, 1944.

7. Marquis Bernard de Froissard (1884–1962) was an administrator of Société Cavaillé-Coll, Mutin, Convers, & Cie. 

8. Jeanne Marguillard was organist at Sainte-Madeleine Church, Besançon, 1947–1993.

9. Édouard Souberbielle (1899–1989) also taught at Schola Cantorum and at Institut Grégorien.

10. Paule Piédelièvre (1902–1964) studied piano with Blanche Selva and was organist at Étrangers Church.

11. Yves Margat contributed articles to Guide du Concert. 

12. René Malherbe (1898–1969) was organist and choir director at Saint-Pierre-du-Gros-Caillou Church.

13. Simone Villard (b. 1927) was appointed organist at Sainte-Radegonde Church in Poitiers in 1952.

14. Jean-Albert Villard (1920–2000) was organist at Poitiers Cathedral, 1949–2000.

15. Joseph Gélineau, SJ (1920–2000), was a Jesuit priest, composer, and French liturgist. 

16. Denise Chapuis (b. 1928). They had seven children: Jean-Marie (†), Claude (†), Bruno, Laurent (who worked with the harpsichord builder Anselm and the organbuilder Alain Sals), François, Claire (†) Christophe, ten grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

17. Cf. Claude Duchesneau, op. cit., p. 58.

18. Jean-Marc Cicchero, Hommage à une Passion, Éd. O. V., 2018, p. 126. Erwin Muller had apprenticed with Schwenkedel, then as a voicer with Gonzalez. His shop was active in Croissy from 1950–1986.

19. Line Zilgien (1906–1954), organist there from 1940–1954, was close to Claire Delbos, Olivier Messiaen’s wife.

20. Claude Hermelin (1901–1986), began to study voicing in 1923 with Charles Mutin (cf. J.-M. Cicchero, op. cit., p. 64) and wrote articles under the alias Jean Mas.

21. Gabriel d’Alençon (1881–1956) restored the 17th-century organ in Rozay-en-Brie and was interested in temperaments. From 1936 to 1939, Claude Hermelin collaborated with him in Sotteville-lès-Rouen, and they gave courses in organbuilding at Schola Cantorum, Paris.

22. Cf. Claude Duchesneau, op. cit., pp. 212–213.

23. Pierre Cochereau (1924–1984) was titular of the grand organ at Notre-Dame Cathedral, 1955–1984.

24. Pierre Moreau (1907–1991) played there, 1946–1986. Michel Chapuis wrote the preface to his Livre d’Orgue (Europart Music, 1990).

25. Claude Duchesneau, op. cit., p. 96.

26. Eugène Borrel (1876–1962), violinist and musicologist, L’Interprétation de la musique française (de Lully à la Révolution), Paris, Librairie Félix Alcan, 1934, p. 150.

27. Jules Écorcheville (1872–1915), musicologist, wrote De Lulli à Rameau—L’esthétique musicale (Paris, 1906). 

28. Antoine Geoffroy-Dechaume (1905–2000), Les secrets de la musique ancienne, recherches sur l’interprétation (Fasquelle, 1964).

29. Cf. Jesse Eschbach, “Marie-Claire Alain, pédagogue internationale,” Marie-Claire Alain, L’Orgue, Cahiers et Mémoires, no. 56, 1996—II, p. 59. She mentions that this concert took place in 1958, but this date needs to be verified.

30. Eugène Borrel, op cit., p. 150. 

31. Claude Duchesneau, op. cit., p. 98.

32. Nicole Gravet, L’orgue et l’art de la registration en France du XVI^e siècle au début du XIX^e siècle, originally published in 1960, it was reedited with a preface by Michel Chapuis, Chatenay Malabry, Ars Musicae, 1996.

33. In 1996, the European Organ Center in Marmoutier reedited Michel Chapuis’ interpretations of Böhm, Buxtehude, J. S. Bach, de Grigny, and Dandrieu on this organ.

34. Cf. his publications on French Classical music, 1661–1789: Dictionnaire d’interprétation (Initiation), (Honoré Champion, 1983) and L’Interprétation de la musique pour orgue (Honoré Champion, 1988); his early music facsimiles are edited by Anne Fuzeau. He teaches in the early music department at the National Superior Conservatory of Music in Paris.

35. Philippe Hartmann (1928–2014) had apprenticed with Gutschenritter, worked three months for Gonzalez, for Émile Bourdon in Dijon, eight years for Pierre Chéron, collaborated with Georges Lhôte, with Jean Deloye from 1969–1975, worked independently at Le Havre in 1982, and as a voicer for Haerpfer.

36. In 1993, Daniel Birouste incorporated it into the organ at the Saint-Vincent Church in Roquevaire (Bouches-du-Rhône).

37. Cf. Yvette Carbou, Pierre Cochereau Témoignages (Zurfluh, 1999), p. 38.

38. Cf. Jean-Marc Cicchero, op. cit., pp. 104–105.

39. Father Lucien Aumont (1920–2014) lived in a tower of Saint-Séverin Church. From 1947 until 1987, he recorded concerts there and broadcast them in programs at Radio-France-INA.

40. He had been organist there from 1921 until 1960.

41. Cf. Félix Raugel, Les Grandes Orgues des Églises de Paris et du Département de la Seine, Paris, Fischbacher, pp. 100–102.

42. Jacques Marichal (1934–1987) was also choir organist at Notre-Dame Cathedral from 1964 to 1987.

43. Francis Chapelet (1934), a well-known specialist in Spanish organ music, is honorary organist at Saint-Séverin. 

44. The three actual titulars at Saint-Séverin are François Espinasse, Christophe Mantoux, and Véronique Le Guen.

45. John Abbey II (1843–1930).

46. In 1966, Philippe Hartmann built a choir organ (I/7) for Saint-Séverin. Roger Chapelet, Francis Chapelet’s father, painted its organ case.

47. L’Orgue, no. 112, Oct.–Dec.1964, p. 110.

48. François-Henri Houbart, Partita sur un choral dit Sanctus de Saint-Séverin (Delatour France, 2010).

49. Cantoral: UD 30 1299 and 5, UD 30 1385.

50. For a complete list of Michel Chapuis’ recordings, cf. Alain Cartayrade, www.france-orgue.fr/disque.

51. Cf. M. Tchebourkina. L’orgue de la Chapelle royale de Versailles: À la recherche d’une composition perdue // L’Orgue. Lyon, 2007. 2007–IV no. 280. She was organist at the Royal Chapel in Versailles 1996–2010.

52. Plenum Vox (PV 004) recorded a CD of Nivers, Lebègue, Couperin, Dandrieu, Marchand, and Lully there in 1999 and a DVD in 2003.

53. Bärenreiter published the first eight issues of their periodical, Renaissance de L’Orgue, from 1968 to 1970, followed by Connoissance de l’orgue, until 2000. At the end of the 1960s, Jean Fonteneau taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While in the Boston area, he promoted A. F. S. O. A. by organizing concerts and lectures at Saint Thomas in New York City and at Harvard University.

54. In May and June 1967, several articles appeared in the French newspaper Le Monde and L’Art Sacré. This restoration by Gonzalez was highly supervised by the A. F. S. O. A.
55. Cf. Michel Chapuis, notes in the Plenum Vox CD of the complete works of Jacques Boyvin in Auch, PV 011, 2004.

56. XCP Montpellier, recorded Michel Chapuis’ concert there on September 5, 1993: cf. www.france-orgue.fr/disque.

57. Jean Fellot (1905–1967) wrote À la recherche de l’orgue classique (reedited by Édisud in 1993).

58. This book was written by hand and printed by the author at Montoire-sur-le-Loir in 1977.

59. Cf. Pierre Chéron’s inventory in L’Orgue de Jean-Esprit et Joseph Isnard à la Basilique de la Madeleine à Saint-Maximin, 1774, prefaced by Michel Chapuis (Réalisation Art et Culture des Alpes-Maritimes, Nice, 1991).

60. According to Sister Marie-Emmanuelle, this organ had 31 manual stops and its pedal stops were borrowed. Curiously, its action was electro-pneumatic. One can hear Michel Chapuis’ improvisations on https://youtu.be/5u-0eR3BYko. This organ was integrated into a new 42-stop neo-classical organ by Olivier Chevron, inaugurated in the Abbey at Celles-sur-Belle (Charente-Maritime) on May 5, 2018.

61. Cf. Cathédral de Poitiers, 1787 à 1790, L’Orgue de François-Henri Clicquot (Direction of Cultural Affaires in Poitou-Charentes, 1994).

62. This CD also includes Harald Vogel in the Georgskirche.

63. He taught in Semur-en-Auxois with Odile Bayeux (organ), Blandine Verlet (harpsichord), Alain Anselm (harpsichord building), Philippe Hartmann (organbuilding) and Jean Saint-Arroman (French performance practice).

64. This festival was founded by Pierre Lacroix in 1974 under the musical direction of Jean-Patrice Brosse.

65. André Stricker (1931–2003) taught there, 1954–1996. He had studied with Helmut Walcha.

66. Marc Schaefer (b. 1934), a former André Stricker student, taught there until 2000.

67. Pierre Vidal (1927–2010), composer and musicographer, remained there until 1991.

68. Cf. Jean-Louis Coignet, “L’Orgue du Conservatoire de Strasbourg,” L’Orgue, no. 117, January–March 1966, p. 39.

69. Cf. Éric Lebrun article blog SNAPE: www.snape.fr/index.php/2017/11/13.

70. Cf. Eugène Borrel, op. cit., p. 148. 

71. Jean Saint-Arroman, “Authenticity,” in Dictionnaire d’interprétation (Initiation), Paris, Honoré Champion, 1983, p. 13.

72. Michel Bouvard was an auditor and studied with Chapuis at Saint-Séverin.

73. In 1999, Natives recorded the organ works of Claude Balbastre interpreted by Michel Chapuis and his student Marina Tchebourkina on the historic grand organ at Saint-Roch Church, Paris.

74. Cf. Roland Servais, “Ses mains étaient comme des racines,” Chronique des Moniales, Abbaye Notre-Dame du Pesquié, March 2018, pp. 25–27.

75. Cf. Pastor Claude Rémy Muess, “L’église luthérienne Saint-Thomas de Strasbourg retrouve son orgue Silbermann,” L’Orgue, no. 173, January–March 1980, pp. 5–11. 

76. Available at: Association Amis de l’orgue de Liverdun, 1, place des Armes, 54460 Liverdun, France.

Christina Harmon

Christina Harmon is assistant organist at Christ Episcopal Church, Tyler, Texas, and instructor of organ at Stephen F. Austin State University. She is the founder of the French Organ Music Seminar and the producer of six DVDs that feature Parisian organs and organists (available through the Organ Historical Society). She is active in the organ world as a performer and composer.

The 20th French Organ Music Seminar (FOMS) took place in Switzerland, Italy, and Paris this past July. Tobias Willi (organist at the Johanneskirche in Zurich, professor of organ and improvisation at the Zurich University of the Arts, and co-director of the Romainmôtier Summer Organ Academy), Gabriel Marghieri (titular organist of Sacré Coeur Basilica in Paris and professor of organ improvisation and music analysis at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Lyon), and Yannick Merlin (titular organist of Notre Dame des Champs and director of collections for Delatour Music Publishing) served as hosts.

Thirty organists began the seminar on July 9 at the Fraumünster Church in Zurich, where organist Jörg-Ulrich Busch played an inspiring service and afterwards stayed with us for a playing session. Built in 1953 by Orgelbau Genf, this organ was partially designed by Marcel Dupré, and he came here often to play the organ and give concerts. Later the same day, with Tobias Willi, we spent time at the Neumünster Church, which houses the organ formerly in the Zurich Tonhalle.

July 10 was spent in Zurich at the organs of St. Anton (Kuhn, 1914) and the Grossmünster Church (Metzler, 1960). On July 11 we drove into the Swiss countryside to visit the abbey organs at St. Urban and Bellelay. The organ in St. Urban was built by the Swiss organ builders Joseph and Viktor Ferdinand Bossard between 1716 and 1721. The Bellelay organ is a reconstruction of the organ that Joseph Bossard built for this church; the organ had disappeared by 1797. Both represent typical “Swiss styles,” with similarities to southern German Baroque organs. The keyboards of both organs have a short first octave with only C-D-E-F-G-A-A#-B (without C#, D#, F#, and G#). For the remaining octaves, the keyboards have two different keys for D# and E-flat. The music of Muffat and Kerll is particularly adapted to these organs.

On July 12 in Bern the group was fortunate to have a masterclass led by Tobias Willi at the organ (Goll, 1991) of the Eglise Française. We were also treated to many beautiful improvisations by Willi, whose teaching and playing was a true inspiration to all.

On Thursday, July 13, we traveled to the small village of Romainmôtier, home of the academy founded in the 1960s by Guy Bovet. Here we played the Alain residence organ. Built by Albert Alain, father of Jehan and Marie-Claire, the organ was brought several years ago to this place from France by Bovet, Marie-Claire Alain, and others. The academy still functions admirably today in the capable hands of Tobias Willi.

Further travel was to Bergamo, Italy, where we were joined by seven more organists and our hosts, Gabriel and Elisabeth Marghieri, for the next nine days. Marghieri is particularly noted for his research in early Italian music and as such is uniquely qualified as a teacher and performer. In Bergamo we visited two organs: the Bossi organ at San Leonardo and the Serassi organ of 1781 at the Basilica Alessandro, then travelled to Padua, where we toured the Ruffatti organ factory with our gracious hosts, Michela and Piero Ruffatti. Founded in 1940 by Antonio Ruffatti and his brothers, the firm of Famiglia Artigiana Fratelli Ruffatti (Ruffatti Brothers, Family of Artisans) has produced more than 500 organs of all sizes in Europe, America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. The second generation of Ruffatti brothers, Francesco and Piero, sons of Antonio, have continued their father’s tradition of excellence since his retirement in 1992.

Less well known in the United States is Ruffatti’s careful restoration of Italian organs. We were fortunate to visit two of these restorations: the Venetian-style Ruffatti mechanical-action organ at the Church of San Felice and Fortunato in Noale (demonstrated by the brilliant young Italian organist, Silvio Celeghin), and the restoration of one of the most important organs in Venice, the organ of Santa Maria della Salute. This organ was built by Dacci, a Venetian builder at the end of the 18th century, beautifully played for us by Paola Talamini. We were able to play both organs and were ably aided by both organists. 

On Sunday, July 16, we visited and played the Venetian organs of the churches of San Trovaso (Gaetano Callido 1775), San Nicolò dei Mendicoli (1743), and the Nacchini organ at San Cassiano (restored by Callido). The church has three beautiful paintings by Tintoretto, who was a former parishioner of the church. Traveling on to Bologna, Gabriel Marghieri arranged for us to see and hear the oldest Italian organ in operation, the Lorenzo da Prato organ, completed in 1471.

A welcome treat awaited us on our way to Florence at the Casa Sola Winery, where we wined and dined and were able to relax and wander around the winery during a beautiful, sunny afternoon, free from the rigors of travel. Afterwards, it was on to Florence for sightseeing, playing, and instruction on Italian music by Gabriel Marghieri at the 1864 Serassi organ of the Basilica di San Lorenzo.

Upon arriving in Rome, participants were especially fortunate to be able to spend a considerable amount of time studying both early Italian and French Romantic music because of Gabriel Marghieri’s arrangements at Rome’s most prominent organs. First was a lengthy playing session at the Mascioni organ of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. The organ is a modern electro-pneumatic-action organ from 1955, featuring three manuals and two façades. 

The highlight of the Italy trip was the opportunity on July 20 for all the organists to play at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican on the grand organ, built by Tamburini between 1954 and 1962. Juan Paradell-Solé, one of five Vatican organists, graciously assisted us as we performed for a large crowd of listeners. (See “The Liturgical Organist: A Conversation with Juan Paradell-Solé,” October 2015.) Charles Ore started the occasion by performing his piece, “Kyrie,” which was commissioned by the FOMS. (See “A Conversation with Charles Ore,” November 2016.) It expressed the prayerful thankfulness of the entire group for being able to perform in such a special place.

Our last day in Rome was a full playing day on two beautiful instruments, the Johannes Conradus Werle organ of 1736 (which took 50 years to complete) at Santa Maria Maddalena and the Joseph Merklin organ of 1881 at San Luigi dei Francesi (the national church in Rome of France). Instruction by organists Marghieri and the organist of the French Church, Daniel Matrone, enhanced by a stunning improvisation by Matrone, made the day an unforgettable experience. That night the group split, with some headed back to the United States, while others stayed on to board an evening flight for the rest of the FOMS experience in Paris.

From July 21 to 26 the FOMS took place in Paris where a group of 33 professional organists and students played, listened, and studied at the city’s many famous organs including those of Saint-Sulpice, Notre Dame Cathedral, Sacré-Coeur, La Trinité, Saint-Louis-en-l’Île, Saint-Gervais, La Madeleine, Saint-Eustache, Notre Dame des Champs, Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, Saint-Louis de Vincennes, and the Duruflé apartment. Excursions were made to Versailles, Royaumont, and Rouen. The group also presented a recital at Saint-Séverin. 

Highlights included classes and organ presentations by Daniel Roth, Vincent Dubois, Thierry Escaich, Louis Robilliard, Gabriel Marghieri, Thomas La Côte, Frédéric Blanc, Thomas Ospital, François Espinasse, Benjamin Alard, Elise Friot, and Béatrice Piertot. Directed by Yannick Merlin, musicologist and brilliant titular of Notre Dame des Champs, this portion of the FOMS offered many opportunities for masterclasses, private instruction, and playing time. 

The FOMS looks forward to more collaborations with the organists who were so generous with instruments and instruction time. Since 1986 these seminars have enabled organists to study with famous organists at equally well-known organs. Attendees at the 2017 FOMS were professional organists and organ students from four countries: the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Germany. Directors of FOMS are Christina Harmon, Masako Gaskin, and Cliff Varnon. Special recognition is due to group leaders Doug Fossek and Jill Hunt, who worked to help ensure that everyone had playing time. Many attendees deserve further recognition, but we are grateful especially for Don Auberger and Camilla Pugh who assisted with translations as needed. More information is available at www.bfoms.com.

John Bishop

In the niche of time

The history of organ building and organ music is deep and rich, but the longer I toil in those vineyards, the more I realize how small it is in the wider world. The histories of art, architecture, literature, and philosophy fill libraries and geo-political history—especially the great procession of warfare that dominates every epoch of human existence, influencing the flow of the arts and academic thought. It may seem trite to acknowledge the relative insignificance of the pipe organ, but I notice that many professionals in the field focus on the interrelation of historic and geographic subdivisions of organ history, separate from the context of more general world history. 

I’ve often mentioned the juxtaposition of the fashionable Rococo courts of Western Europe, complete with minuets and powdered wigs, and the Minuteman of Lexington, Massachusetts, scrambling behind walls and fences, trying to outsmart the British Redcoats in the early days of the American Revolution. Paul Revere (1735–1818), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809), and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91) were all contemporaries. 

Most of us have all the libraries of the world at our fingertips—a few clicks or keystrokes can call up reliable information on any subject. You can do it while you’re sitting on an organ bench. Give a Google or two to consider the composer on your music rack today—what painters, philosophers, or writers might he have met? What war was coming up or going on? How might that have influenced his thinking? Or did he scram when things got rough so he could work in peace?

 

Ancient roots

The history of the pipe organ spans more than 2,250 years, starting with the hydraulis created by Ctesibius of Alexandria, Egypt, in about 256 BC. Sounds mighty old, but the hydraulis didn’t come out of thin air. Panpipes are still familiar to us today and predated the hydraulis by many centuries. With a dozen or more of individual flutes lashed together, the panpipe is a sort of pipe organ, minus the mechanical valve systems and the User Interface (keyboards) of “modern organs” built after 1250 AD. You can hear live performances on panpipes (for a modest donation) most days in New York’s Times Square Metro Station.

The Chinese sheng is a little like an ocarina with vertical pipes—an obvious precursor to the organ. It’s easy to find photos online. It is a common mainstay of Chinese classical music, with ancient roots. Archeologists working in the Hubei Province in 1978 unearthed a 2,400-year-old royal tomb that contained a sheng.

Most of us learned about the supposed oldest playable organ from E. Power Biggs, who featured the organ in the Basilica of Notre Dame in Valère, Sion, Switzerland, in his 1967 recording, Historic Organs of Switzerland. We read on the jacket notes of that vinyl LP that the organ was built in 1390, more than a century before Christopher Columbus ostensibly discovered the New World. It’s now generally thought to have been built in 1435, 17 years before the birth of Leonardo da Vinci. Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) was active in Florence at that time—the dome of the cathedral there for which Brunelleschi is perhaps best known was constructed right at the time of his death. Cosimo de’ Medici, the great patriarch of the fabled Florentine banking family, inherited his fortune in 1429. Nicolaus Copernicus, the astronomer who told us that the sun is the center of the universe, wasn’t born until 1473.¹ It’s fun to note that Cosimo, Brunelleschi, and the builder of the organ at Sion lived in a world where it was believed that Earth was the center of the universe.² As a sailor, I wonder how Christopher Columbus navigated?

 

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562–1621)

Sweelinck was born and died in Amsterdam. He assumed the position of organist at that city’s Oude Kerk in 1577 at the age of fifteen and worked there the rest of his life. His employment was unusual for his day in that playing the organ was his sole responsibility. That left him with plenty of time to teach, and his studio included such luminaries as Praetorius, Scheidemann, and Samuel Scheidt. So while he was born in the last years of the broadly defined Renaissance, his music and teaching formed a bridge between, let’s say, Palestrina and Buxtehude—a mighty tall order.³

One of Sweelinck’s greatest hits is Balletto del Granduca, a set of variations on a simple theme. On my desk right now is the “sheet music” edition I bought as a teenager ($1.00), Associated Music Publishers, edited by E. Power Biggs. (Wasn’t he a great educator?)

Painters Rubens and Caravaggio were Sweelinck’s contemporaries, and St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome was completed a few years after his death. Heliocentrism (the Sun as the center of the universe) was confirmed by astronomer Johannes Kepler in his publication Mysterium Cosmographicum in 1596. The Edict of Nantes was signed by King Henry IV of France in 1598, recognizing the basic rights of Protestants (Huguenots) in predominantly Roman Catholic France, including the right to freely practice their religion. Henry IV was murdered in 1610 by the radical Catholic François Ravaillac, and succeeded by his son, Louis XIII. Coincidentally, the King James Bible was published in 1611.

Sweelinck was a Calvinist, a doctrine governed by the regulative principle, which limited worship to the teachings of the New Testament. Calvin notwithstanding, Sweelinck’s creativity was encouraged by the Consistory of Dordrecht of 1598, in which organists were instructed to play variations on Genevan Psalm tunes in an effort to help the people learn them.

On closer shores, British refugees established the Colony of Virginia in 1607, French refugees established the city of Quebec in 1608, and Dutch refugees founded New York in 1612. The first African slaves arrived in Virginia in 1619, two years before Sweelinck’s death.

Given that much of the migration of Europeans toward the “New World” was inspired by religious persecution, we read that Sweelinck lived in an era of dramatic international religious tension and change. It’s not much of a stretch to compare those tensions around the year 1600 with today’s religious persecution, division, and fundamentalism.

(I’ll let you do Bach!)

 

Felix Mendelssohn (1809–47)

Beethoven (1770–1827) was 29 when Mendelssohn was born, and Mendelssohn was 24 when Brahms (1833–97) was born.⁴ Felix Mendelssohn was as precocious as musicians get. He wrote 12 string symphonies between the ages of 12 and 14. His three piano quartets were written between 1822 and 1825 (you do the math!)—these were his first published works. I’ve long counted his overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream among my favorite pieces. Its brilliant passagework, soaring melodies, sumptuous orchestration, and driving rhythms are a tour de force for modern orchestras and ferociously challenging to organists playing it in transcription. If you didn’t know better, you’d think it was a mature work, but it’s the product of a 17 year old. What were you doing when you were 17?

The 1820s was a decade of violent uprisings all over Europe. Italians revolted against King Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies, resulting in the formation of a constitutional monarchy. A colonel in the Spanish army assembled a mutiny against King Ferdinand VII, who capitulated to their demands for a liberal constitution. France answered Ferdinand’s plea for assistance by sending 100,000 soldiers, quelling the uprising, and restoring the absolute monarchy. There were revolutions in Portugal and Brazil, and in a brutal revolutionary war, Greece won independence from the Ottoman Empire. The death of Napoléon Bonaparte in 1821 coincided with Mendelssohn’s prolific adolescence. In the United States in 1825, John Quincy Adams was president, the Erie Canal was opened, and Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, passed away.

One of Mendelssohn’s greatest hits is his Violin Concerto, completed and premiered in 1845, four years before his death. The year 1845 was a busy one around the world. Edgar Allan Poe published The Raven, Baylor University and the United States Naval Academy were founded, James Polk succeeded John Tyler as President of the United States, and the potato blight began in Ireland. In 1845, Frederick Douglass published his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, an earth-shaking work that represented several giant steps in the march toward the American Civil War.

There were many “firsts” that year: a “screw-powered” steamship crossed the Atlantic, anesthesia was used to ease childbirth, the New York Herald mentioned baseball, and the rubber band was invented in Great Britain. It has never occurred to me to associate Felix Mendelssohn with baseball, anesthesia, or rubber bands. Do you suppose Mendelssohn ever rolled up a manuscript with a rubber band?

 

Charles-Marie Widor (1844–1937)

Widor is probably forever to be remembered by legions of organists and brides for one piece of music. But seventy-five measures of sixteenth notes in 4/2 time, followed by three of big whole-note chords in F major is a pittance when compared to the rest of his massive output of music. He wrote tons of orchestral music including symphonies, works for orchestra with organ, piano, violin, cello, harp, chorus, and various huge combinations. There are six duos for piano and harmonium, a piano quartet, a piano quintet, and sonatas for violin, cello, oboe, and clarinet. There are reams of piano music, songs, and choral music, even music for the stage. But all we really know are ten organ symphonies along with a half-dozen incidental pieces for organ. And most of us only play one of his pieces. Oh yes, there’s also a doozy in G minor, but it’s a lot harder.

Widor was one of the most important teachers of his generation, succeeding César Franck as professor of organ at the Paris Conservatoire in 1890, later leaving that post to become professor of composition. His students included Marcel Dupré, Louis Vierne, Charles Tournemire, Darius Milhaud, and Albert Schweitzer.

Widor studied in Brussels with Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens (lots of us play Lemmens’s Fanfare). When he finished those studies in 1868 at the age of 24, he moved to Paris where he was appointed assistant to Camille Saint-Säens at Église de la Madeleine. And in 1870, he was appointed “provisional” organist at Ste-Sulpice, the most prestigious post in France and home to the fantastic Cavaillé-Coll organ that is revered, cherished, and studied by generations of organists and organbuilders around the world. His primary advocate for that envied position was Aristide Cavaillé-Coll himself, who had been disappointed by the flippancy of the music of Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély (1817–69), the previous organist who had presided over the first years of Cavaillé-Coll’s masterpiece. It’s rumored that Cavaillé-Coll’s agitation contributed to Lefébure-Wély’s early death. (You gotta watch out for those organbuilders!)

Daniel Roth, the current organist at Ste-Sulpice,⁵ visited New York City to play a recital at Church of the Resurrection, where I, with the Organ Clearing House, had installed a renovated and relocated 1916 Casavant organ. It was an exciting moment for us to have such a master player perform on “our” instrument, but one of the most interesting moments came not at the organ console, but walking the sidewalks of Park Avenue, when Monsieur Roth told me some of the back story surrounding Widor’s appointment in 1870.

That’s the year that the Franco-Prussian War broke out. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck had used brilliant and nefarious schemes to provoke a French attack on Prussia. The French Parliament declared war on the German Kingdom of Prussia on July 16, 1870, the Germans were armed and in position, and quickly invaded northeastern France. Paris fell to Prussian forces in January of 1871. In May of 1871, the Treaty of Frankfurt gave Germany what is now Alsace-Lorraine, and the balance of power in Europe was upset. France was determined to reclaim lost territory, Britain was nervous about the change of balance in power, and the seeds were sown for World War I.

In that harsh political climate, patriotic (and perhaps, bigoted) Frenchmen considered Belgium as German,⁶ and Widor’s detractors whispered in the ears of the priests that Widor “plays like a German.” Cavaillé-Coll prevailed, and Widor was appointed. But his appointment was never made formal. He served Ste-Sulpice as provisional organist for 64 years. Widor’s student Marcel Dupré succeeded him, and served until 1971—more than a hundred years after Widor’s appointment.⁷

Claude Monet (1840–1926) completed some of his early works while living in Paris between 1865 and 1870, when Camille Doncieux was his model for The Woman in the Green Dress, Woman in the Garden, and On the Bank of the Seine. Camille gave birth to their son in 1867, and they were married on June 28, 1870, less than three weeks before the start of the Franco-Prussian War. As the war started, Monet fled to England with his new wife and child, where he studied the work of John Constable and J. M. W. Turner. How’s that for war influencing the arts?

Édouard Manet, James Whistler, Edgar Degas, and Auguste Renoir were contemporaries of Widor. Monet, Manet, Degas, and Renoir were all active in Paris when Widor was organist at Ste-Sulpice. I wonder if they met? What would they have talked about?

 

And that organ?

The Cavaillé-Coll organ at Ste-Sulpice was built in 1862, incorporating some pipes from the previous (1781) Clicquot organ. With five manuals and a hundred stops, it was one of the largest organs in the world. (An additional voice was added when Widor retired.) It included pneumatic actions to assist the vast mechanical systems, a complex wind system with multiple wind pressures (all in the days of hand-pumping), a state-of-the-art whiz-bang console with arrays of mechanical registration devices, and a huge palette of tonal innovations. 

Europe had not cornered the market on war in those days. The American Civil War was in full swing when Cavaillé-Coll completed that organ. In 1862, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as President of the Confederate States of America, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and Julia Ward Howe’s Battle Hymn of the Republic was published in the Atlantic Monthly. Henry David Thoreau died on May 6, 1862. Do you suppose Widor ever read Thoreau’s Resistance to Civil Government, Slavery in Massachusetts, or Walden? And who will be the first to include Battle Hymn of the Republic on their recording at Ste-Sulpice?

§

Maybe Felix Mendelssohn was aware of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, but it would be a reach to trace how that machine influenced Mendelssohn’s music (though there are dissertations out there that seem just as obscure). Widor had to have noticed the Prussian occupation of Paris as he was starting his epic tenure at Ste-Sulpice. He must have had terrifying walks to church past Prussian soldiers brandishing weapons. Such a sight would have influenced my improvisations. And suppose he had happened to meet Degas or Renoir at a reception. Would he have gone to the studio for coffee the next day and discussed the confluence of pictorial art and music?

In its collective history, the organ is an exquisite example of the highest of human achievements. It combines an array of crafts, it functions thanks to scientific principles, and it evokes the full range of human emotions. But it’s not a be-all or end-all. Its place in our society is the result of complex evolution, and given the complexity of today’s world and the state of today’s church, we’re passing through a time that has been less than a Golden Age.

But the range of the instrument, the breadth of its history, and the sheer power of its voice continue to keep it in the forefront. However obscure and arcane, its nearly unique status as a vehicle for improvisation equips it perfectly as an instrument of the future. What will future generations deduce from today’s organ music when they look back and consider the wide world in which we live today?

And here’s a hint: your recital audience loves to hear this stuff. Of course we’re interested in the intricacies of sonata form, or the structure of a fugue (“listen for the entrances”), but the people might get more out of connecting your organ world with their history world, their literature world, their art world. It took me about seven hours to write this piece, including the deep research. It’s not a big effort, and it adds a lot. The buzz phrase in the real estate world is “location, location, location.” How about “relevance, relevance, relevance?” ν

 

Notes

1. A general note: In this essay, I’m tossing about lots of supposedly specific facts. As usual, I’m sitting at my desk with nothing but a laptop, and I’m gathering data from quick Google searches. Much of the data comes from Wikipedia, which we suppose is generally accurate, but cannot be relied on as absolute. I am, therefore, not citing each specific reference, and offer the caveat that any factual errors are unintentional. They are offered to provide general historical context, and discrepancies of a year or two are inconsequential for this purpose.

2. There may well be some hangers-on who still believe that the sun revolves around the earth!

3. Similarly, Haydn was eighteen years old when J. S. Bach died, just as the Baroque era was ending. 

4. I like telling people that my great-grandmother, Ruth Cheney, was seven years old when Brahms died, and my sons were present at her funeral in 1994. On her hundredth birthday she increased from one cigarette a day to two! I treasure her piano, an 1872 rosewood Steinway, passed through our family to me as the only musician in my generation.

5. Daniel Roth has just been named International Performer of the Year by the New York City AGO chapter.

6. Today, Belgium has three official languages: French, German, and Dutch.

7. It’s poignant to remember that in his memoir, Dupré wrote of the agonies of World War II. He and his wife stayed at their home in Meudon during the Nazi occupation. German officers visited their home, planning to install guns on the roof, which commanded a view of Paris. Somehow the presence of the big pipe organ in the Salle d’orgue helped them decide not to. Later, their home was badly damaged by a German bomb. For the first two weeks of the German occupation, with no other transportation available, the Duprés (then in their fifties) walked the several miles to Ste-Sulpice.

John Bishop

Lunching with geniuses

I used to be an avid baseball fan. Starting with the “Impossible Dream,” the fabled 1967 season of the Boston Red Sox, I followed the hometown team aided and abetted by my father, who had grown up in Cincinnati following the Reds from the bleachers of Crosley Field. Dad had the same seats at Fenway Park for more than thirty years (section 26, row 4, seats 13 and 14), and he and I had an unbroken streak of twenty-five consecutive opening day games there, unbroken even when opening day coincided with Good Friday, and the priest and the organist had to make special arrangements! A big part of my adult relationship with my father happened in those seats, and though I do not follow the game anymore, I cherish the memories.

Some of my colleagues play Virtual Baseball, a well-organized game in which they build teams by drafting and trading “real” players and keeping track of their virtual teams based on the daily statistics of their players from the live major league baseball games. They track wins and losses, and if they have built good teams, play through the playoffs and World Series. It is very sophisticated and they are very devoted, and there is some wagering involved to keep things interesting.

Throughout my career, I have watched the progress of many organ companies, both domestic and foreign, and it occurs to me that we might develop an organbuilding version of Virtual Baseball. We would make up cards with photos and lists of skills of all the employees in all the workshops, document their contributions to the various organs they worked on, and build a virtual “dream team” of craftsmen. No? Perhaps not.

We follow the great names in organbuilding as avidly as the most enthusiastic baseball fan in a sports bar. We cite their great instruments, celebrate their innovations, and rattle off specifications, just like we rattled off great starting line-ups of history with our seatmates at Fenway Park. (Did Rico Petrocelli bat before or after Tony Conigliaro in the 1967 Red Sox?) We single out our organbuilding heroes, past and present, chronicling their careers and the instruments they produced.

We trace how organbuilders and organists influenced each other, and if you are anything like me, we imagine conversations between them. Gottfried Silbermann and J. S. Bach must have had lunch together a couple times, as did Aristide Cavaillé-Coll with Charles-Marie Widor, and Dirk Flentrop with
E. Power Biggs. How I would love to have been a fly on the wall, or even seated at the table for one of those meals. I have read that Bach played a couple pianofortes built by Silbermann and did not think much of them. Maybe after that the lunches were over. Cavaillé-Coll was a parishioner at Saint-Sulpice in Paris until his death in 1899, when Widor was in the middle of his tenure there and at the height of fame and creativity. Cavaillé-Coll was thirty-three years older than Widor and was largely responsible for Widor’s appointment at Saint-Sulpice. That great organ was nearly forty years old at the time of Cavaillé-Coll’s death, and they must have talked about it frequently. I bet they had a regular weekly table at their favorite bistro and were sometimes joined by friends like Charles Gounod or Camille Saint-Saëns.

Robert Clicquot and François Couperin, Henry (Father) Willis and Samuel Sebastian Wesley, Ernest Skinner and T. Tertius Noble, and Charles Fisk and Daniel Pinkham are among other lunch partners I would love to have joined.

 

Let’s hear it for the little guys

It may be the genius luminaries of the field that we think of first, but lurking in their shadows are thousands of talented craftsmen and musicians, without whom the history of our instrument would be incomplete. William Horatio Clark (1840–1913) is one whose work has interested me because our paths have crossed several times. He was born into a musical family in Newton, Massachusetts, and took his first regular job as a church organist at the Unitarian Church of Dedham, Massachusetts, at the age of sixteen. He subsequently was organist at the Berkeley Street Congregational Church in Boston (now the site of Morgan Memorial Collection Center on Melnea Cass Boulevard, very close to the location of the Hook workshop), and moved to the First Congregational Church of Woburn, Massachusetts, in 1861, which is where I first came across his legacy.

The First Congregational Church of Woburn was built in 1860. It is an enormous wood-frame building whose 196-foot spire is reputed to be the tallest wooden steeple in North America. The magnificent three-manual organ by
E. & G. G. Hook (Opus 283) was also built and installed in 1860, and I was fortunate to serve as assistant organist there while I was in high school. The organbuilder George Bozeman was organist there, and as I remember it from my headstrong youth, he created the position for me partly as the terrific educational experience it was, and partly so I would be there to cover for him as his organ work required him to travel. My first organbuilding experiences were summer jobs in Bozeman’s shop in 1975 and 1976, and I am grateful to him as friend and mentor.

That was one of my first cracks at leading a choir, and I was naïve enough that it never crossed my mind that conducting from an attached keydesk was supposed to be difficult. Today, as I meet with organists and organ committees who cannot conceive of such a thing, I am grateful for that early experience. And what an organ. Thirty-five ranks of Civil War era tone color, brilliant choruses of Principals, two Trumpets, an Oboe and a Clarinet, and a doozey of a Pedal Posaune with wood resonators. As a seventeen-year-old I knew it was a wonderful organ, but I had no idea how fortunate I was.¹ You can see photos and specifications of the organ at https://pipeorgandatabase.org/OrganDetails.php?OrganID=8041.

The Reverend Stuart Nutter came as a new pastor during my time there, providing my first experience with conservative evangelical preaching. I was not close with members of the congregation, but I recall that members of the choir were not happy with his messages. One winter Sunday, there was a tremendous roar as a huge load of wet snow slid off the roof and fell fifty feet to the parking lot. It seemed a sign that it was Pastor Nutter’s car that was utterly flattened, such a wreck that three of the wheels were broken off.

I do not know if William H. Clarke had anything to do with the planning of that Hook organ, but it is fair to assume that he was present for at least part of the installation, where he would have met Stephen P. Kinsley, the brilliant voicer for E. & G. G. Hook. Clarke left Woburn in 1865, returned to the Berkeley Street church for a couple years, then returned to Woburn where he stayed until 1869, when he moved across Woburn Center to the Unitarian Church. It was no coincidence that E. & G. G. Hook installed their Opus 553 there the following year, also voiced by Stephen Kinsley. During my high school tenure, there were two tremendous three-manual Hook organs in my life.

I have a vivid memory of a recital played by James Busby at the Unitarian Church (currently organist at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Providence, Rhode Island), joined by soprano Elisabeth Phinney. Together, they offered Bach’s Cantata 51, Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen. The organ included a Carillon (I think the knob said “Carrillons”), the first percussion stop in an American organ. It was a set of 29 metal bars struck by piano hammers, located above the top manual behind the music rack, and playable without wind using a mechanical coupler, and Busby used that distinctive voice as part of “Bach’s Orchestra.”

Mrs. Phinney taught singing at the New England Conservatory of Music for thirty-two years. Her daughter Monique, also a singer, was one of my high school pals, and her husband Keith was director of music at nearby Bedford (Massachusetts) High School. I remember several great experiences when I was accompanying Monique in various local performances, and her parents were there as coaches.

William Clarke was thirty years old when the Hook organ was installed in the Unitarian Church and had moved back and forth between jobs six times. His longest tenure was the four-year stint at the Congregational Church in Woburn. He stayed with the Unitarians and their grand forty-five-rank organ for only one year, and showed up in Dayton, Ohio, in 1871 as the superintendent of school music. In 1873 he become organist of the First Methodist Church in Erie, Pennsylvania, and in 1874 he moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, to become organist of the First Baptist Church. While he was in Indianapolis he founded Wm. H. Clarke & Co., Church Organ Builders, enticing his friend Stephen Kinsley to leave E. & G. G.
Hook to become head voicer. If I were building a virtual organ shop, I would want to have Kinsley as my voicer!

After the Unitarian church closed,
E. & G. G. Hook’s Opus 553 was dismantled by the Organ Clearing House, restored by Hermann Eule of Bautzen, Germany, and installed in 2002 in Die Kirche zum Heiligen Kreuz in Berlin. Thomas Murray played the dedication recital. It is known as Die Berliner Hook-Orgel and is highly regarded in its unique situation as a nineteenth-century American organ in a German church.

Wm. H. Clarke & Company built fifteen organs that we know of, two of which have been part of my life. My parents purchased a little house in Yarmouthport, Massachusetts (on Cape Cod), in 1968 where we spent summers, and where they moved after my father’s retirement. There are two historic organs in Yarmouthport, but it was at the Swedenborgian Church where I served as organist for the summer-only congregation. The organ had been built by Wm. H. Clarke & Co. in 1872, then rebuilt and modified by the Andover Organ Company in 1960. You can see “before and after” stoplists at https://pipeorgandatabase.org/OrganDetails.php?OrganID=8978, a study of sign-of-the-times organ renovation.

Clayton Priestnal was pastor of the small congregation (he served a parish in Philadelphia during the winter) who was the epitome of Central Casting’s version of a rickety country minister. He was a slight man with the shaggiest eyebrows I had ever seen, who had a way of bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet for emphasis as he was preaching. He had established a relationship with the Highfield Theater of Falmouth, Massachusetts, a summer theater company that specialized in productions of Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. Cast members were conservatory voice majors from across the country, and a different singer came to Yarmouthport each Sunday to participate in the service, another great educational opportunity for a young organist. It was after my last summer on Cape Cod that I went to Oberlin, where I was reunited with several of the singers I had worked with in Yarmouthport.

The Wm. H. Clarke/Andover organ was a simple and small instrument, but it was lovely, and I loved playing on it. It was about two miles from home, and I did all that walking in bare feet, a memory that sends lightning bolts up and down my legs today. I played recitals each summer, and I know that instrument was an important part of my early education. In 2002, after I had joined the Organ Clearing House, I was invited to play another recital, the first of many lecture-recitals I developed. My topic was roughly the history of the nineteenth-century American organ, with special attention given to William Horatio Clarke. I was fortunate to learn that the Indiana Historical Society had considerable material about Clarke’s life, family, and work, which is the source of the biographical information I am sharing here.

As a student at Oberlin, I worked part-time and summers for Jan G. P. Leek, the ebullient organbuilder who was the school’s full-time organ and harpsichord technician until he left to start his own firm during my junior year. He was a first-generation immigrant, who apprenticed in the Netherlands as a child and came to Cleveland to work for Walter Holtkamp, Sr. He was a great teacher and a lot of fun, and I stayed in his shop for four years after I graduated in 1978. It was from him that I learned the fundamentals of organbuilding and woodworking, tuning, and troubleshooting.  

One of the projects we did together was the restoration of another organ by Wm. H. Clarke & Co. This one in Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church in Bethlehem, Ohio, a commanding stone Gothic building with a tall spire that was visible from many miles away across rolling farmland. The church’s organist was a high school student from a farming family with thirteen kids, who had the presence of mind to organize the parish to fund the restoration of the organ. The project was guided by his dream that the organ should be “plaqued” by the Organ Historical Society, and we completed the work in 1980. You can see the specification of the organ at https://pipeorgandatabase.org/OrganDetails.php?OrganID=4256.  

Garth Peacock of the Oberlin organ faculty played the dedication recital. Part of the historical authenticity of our project was the restoration of the feeder bellows and hand-pumping system. The recital was to close with the singing of a hymn led by the hand-pumped organ, and I was the designated pumper. I do not remember which hymn it was, but I do remember the impish glint in Peacock’s eye (we could see other around the corner of the organ case) as he drew more stops, filled in the chords, and played octaves in the pedals, requiring me to flail the pump handle up and down like the clapper between the two bells of an alarm clock!

§

William Clarke moved from Indianapolis to Toronto where he became organist of the Jarvis Street Baptist Church in 1884, then served Plymouth Congregational Church there from 1884–1886. From 1886 to 1888, he was organist of the First Baptist Church of Rochester, New York, and he returned to the First Congregational Church in Woburn, Massachusetts, in 1888 where he served until he retired in 1892.

In his last years, he lived in Reading, Massachusetts (which adjoins Woburn), where he wrote a treatise on organ mixtures, a “Cheerful Philosophy for Invalids,” and a booklet on “Valuable Organ Information.” He wrote music for organ, edited anthologies of organ music and anthems, and worked as an organ consultant by correspondence until his death in 1913.

William Clarke was not a distinguished or renowned organbuilder, and his organs are not remarkable for their size, content, or innovations. Rather, they were good, solid, reliable church organs. The two that I have known didn’t include reeds, perhaps wise because neither Yarmouthport, Massachusetts, nor Bethlehem, Ohio, had organ tuners nearby in the 1870s.

Judging by the number of times he jumped from one short tenure to another, William Clarke may not have been the most stable or reliable of church musicians. Maybe he argued with the pastors. I imagine he was a colorful and exciting organist because of the number of times he was welcomed back for a second stint at a church where he had presumably left in a huff or been dismissed. I have played and loved organs he knew, built, and others that he presumably designed. I suppose he would have been an interesting guy to talk with. It would be my first choices to have lunch with Ernest Skinner or Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, but if neither were in town, I would be happy to sit with Mr. Clarke. I know some good lunch spots in Woburn.

Notes

1. I had my weekly lessons and practiced after school on a three-manual organ by
C. B. Fisk: http://www.cbfisk.com/instruments/opus_50. When I got to Oberlin as a freshman in the fall of 1974 (the Flentrop in Warner Hall was dedicated that November), I was surprised to learn that some of my peers had never played a pipe organ before.

Ennis Fruhauf

Ennis Fruhauf holds Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the University of Michigan (1967, 1968), and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Southern California (1973). He has held occasional church music positions, college and university teaching appointments, and is currently publisher, editor, music copyist, arranger, and composer for Fruhauf Music Publications (since 2004).

Ricercare (Ital.), “. . . ricercare is a verb, meaning to investigate, query, inquire, search out with diligence . . . testing the tuning, probing the key . . . .” (Johann Gottfried Walther, Musikalisches Lexikon, Leipzig, 1732);¹ and as a noun: “. . . Thus in Bach’s time it served almost exclusively for the title of a strict and, in its polyphonic texture, highly elaborate fugue.”²

 

Introduction

Ah, well, it is perhaps a tale to be retold yet once more, an instructive yarn well worth spinning anew, offered up here as an autumn fantasy, one with an exceedingly wry afterglow. The occasions and events in question took place some 300 years ago. And in spite of unexpected setbacks that overshadowed the final outcome, the adventure might after all be credited with having led to the creation of an unusual composition for organ, one that might otherwise have never come to light in the same context. 

The tale is of Johann Sebastian Bach’s trip to Dresden in the autumn of 1717, undertaken at the urging of the royal Saxon court chapel’s violinist-concertmaster, Jean-Baptiste Volumier. Bach was charged, in essence, with the mission of upholding the honor of his homeland’s keyboard music tradition against a figurative incursion launched by one of France’s eminent composers, Louis Marchand (1669–1732), Organiste du Roi. Marchand was on an extended leave from Paris at the time, touring Germany with a display of his keyboard and compositional talents, and currently seeking favor from the royal Dresden court. Bach also hoped to win favor and a remunerative purse, while at the same time pitting his skills against Marchand in an international venue. 

The composition in question is Bach’s legendary Pièce d’orgue (thus titled in more than one manuscript source), a three-section work, at the heart of which is a finely crafted extended fantasy for keyboard, presumably for pipe organ with pedals. It is a living time capsule—one of few words and many notes—that offers up a vibrant slice-of-life drawn from the travels of an adventurous composer in his early thirties, who was hard-pressed by circumstances on his home front, while also on a quest for recognition and honor abroad.

Bach’s arrival coincided with the day of Marchand’s tests, trials, and demonstrations. Concertmaster Volumier took the initiative of arranging for Bach to overhear portions of these recitals from a concealed vantage point. It has been recorded that by the end of his contest, Marchand had indeed won the day and would continue his sojourn victoriously, having received meritorious and remunerative recognitions.

What might have taken place in the course of the evening that followed is a subject for speculation, perhaps even for imagination. Is it possible that these two notable exemplars of Germanic and French keyboard artistry might have been able to escape the rigors of international diplomacy, that they might have found time to meet in one of the city’s spacious church sanctuaries, one where they might also find a pipe organ installation that would provide a viable proving ground for their dueling skills? Just imagine what could have been . . . .

 

A Fantasy  

(Extract from an anonymous personal diary, Journals, dated October/November, 1717)

. . . It was already past dusk when the two principal parties of the contest arrived at the door leading up to the organ loft. There were three of us surveying the scene from a distance, gathered together in a tight knot and hidden from view in the shadows of the front chapel. We recognized Concertmaster Wolumyer of Dresden as he entered, followed by Concertmaster Bach, who was accompanied by two of his Weimar students. The French King’s Organist-Composer, Louis Marchand, arrived soon after, in company with two attachés assigned to his visit. Apparently Bach was to launch the evening’s music-makings, and indeed, as we watched he turned to M. Marchand, greeted him cordially, withdrew a vellum music manuscript from his folio and held it out to his elder colleague. M. Marchand graciously received the score, opened it, and proceeded to peruse the contents. Although their conversing tones were lost in the acoustical ambiance of a lofty nave, it was apparent that Bach was to begin the evening’s music-making with his recrafted Pièce d’orgue, written and ornamented in the French manner. We would hear it now with the addition of two outer movements. 

As we watched, the trio from Weimar separated from the others, making their way up to the dimly candle-lit organ loft and taking their places at the console. Bach had been allowed time to familiarize himself with the instrument earlier in the day, and his two flanking assistants were well coached in advance. Soon enough the first notes of an arpeggiated tonic chord broke the silence, ever so light in touch and sounding out on clear stops: we heard a single line of dancing arpeggios and passaggios in a compound triple meter, falling and rising, rippling through the gamut of the keyboard. This was the newly added Très vitement, a sparkling warm-up exercise for the fingers, leading up to the five-voice Gravement. Contrary to the French tradition of a Grand plein jeu registration, tonight the Gravement began on one of the instrument’s gentlest registers. We heard a low tonic pedal note, then a G-major chord in the manuals, with the soprano tonic pitch suspended over to the first quarter-note of the next beat, and four descending scale notes in succession. This motivic pattern migrated from one voice to another, delicately ornamented internally, and at each successive cadential gesture. Also of note, at major cadences a new stop or set of stops would be added by the two flanking registrants. By shifting from one manual to another and progressively engaging manual and pedal couplers, a tightly imitative ricercar with a brief compound motif for a subject was being transformed into a majestic paean, echoing gloriously through the nave’s acoustical environment. This was Bach in his native setting, ‘testing the lungs’ of a church’s instrument as he had done from year to year in the course of his many investigative journeys. In the final line of the Gravement, we heard a new voice enter in the manuals, further intensifying the texture and leading up to an abruptly dramatic pause on an unresolved deceptive cadence. After a momentary silence, the Lentement resumed on foundation stops, beginning with arpeggiations of the Gravement’s closing chord, sounded over a bass line that descended step by chromatic step to an extended dominant pedalpoint and final closing cadence in G Major.

There was a stillness and silence that followed the last chords as they faded into the upper reaches of the nave. We sat quietly, awed and deeply moved by the music we had just heard and calmed by its lingering aura. Within moments it became evident that Bach was preparing registrations for his next selection. Even though we had been advised in advance that he would likely play one of his newest keyboard compositions, a single-movement fantasy in D minor for clavier, nothing could have prepared us for the intense drama that was to follow . . . . 

[End of Journals extract.]

Who could fathom what might or might not have transpired in the course of such an evening? If it had even taken place, who might possibly divine what Bach would have played, or what selections Marchand could have chosen from his repertoire. There is no indication that the two of them resorted to swordplay—whether improvising with epées, or instead on keyboards, each of them with assistants in alert attendance. Nor is there evidence to suggest that Marchand carried an inked copy of Bach’s Fantasy with him back to Paris and the royal library. And if fate had denied Bach an opportunity to perform his recently penned chromatic Fantasy in D Minor³ for Marchand at an organ console, it could well have been included in his harpsichord recitations on the following day.

Varied accounts of Bach’s letter of invitation addressed to Marchand in which he proposed a public contest indicate that the two of them were to meet at the private mansion of Count Joachim Friedrich Flemming for a public display of their musical prowess. Alas for Bach, his competitor—perhaps wisely—chose to bow out of the tentative commitment, traveling on to his next port of call in the early hours of the designated morning. In spite of Marchand’s unanticipated absence, the public hearing was to take place after all: Bach’s impressive solo performance on that day won him royal recognition as hoped, and his meeting with Count Flemming would prove invaluable in the coming years. Alas, his prize purse of 500 talers was waylaid in the course of its delivery. And in the event Bach had traveled to Dresden with a hand-copied score of the Fantasy in G in his possession, it rode back with its composer on the return trip. More importantly though, a doorway had been opened that would offer future return visits, valuable musical associations, activities, and honors.

 

Discussion

Could it be that the middle movement of the Fantasy, as we know it today, might have evolved from on-the-spot improvisations performed on some of the various church organs Bach visited in his many travels? Could the music of an earlier version of the mid-section have offered an idealized means of “testing the lungs of an instrument”—a ricercare, or a seeking-out—by starting with quiet stops and gradually adding registers at subsequent cadential breaks and convenient moments? It is easy enough to imagine that a far more sophisticated end product, impeccably written in five- and six-voice tightly imitative counterpoint in the manner of a classic ricercata, was eventually honed for solemn occasions and processionals and found its way to ink and paper. An earlier manuscript of the central movement, one with French markings and an abbreviated ending, is cited as a possible compositional byproduct of Bach’s exposure to French keyboard music studied and copied in Weimar’s music library.⁴ Could Bach have added the improvisatorial framing introduction and closing sections (with their French titles) at a later date, in anticipation of his supposed meeting with Marchand? 

The Gravement is written in common meter with alla breve note values (i.e., two half-notes per measure). The quasi-motivic subject that serves to generate 157 measures of tightly knit counterpoint is generically no more or less than a suspended quarter- or half-note, followed by four descending pitches, the two units serving interchangeably as a head and a tail. It is freely imitated in tight succession, as well as in multiple paired overlapping entries. A secondary structural event can be found in the fantasy’s numerous staircase-like scalar progressions of whole-note pitches in the pedal line, employed with dramatically telling effect.⁵ Overall, the Gravement is neither fugue nor fancy, rather it is a one-of-a-kind ricercar-like construction, albeit perhaps an imitative fantasy, but one that is uniquely imbued with un esprit français.

There are additional elements throughout all three movements that hint strongly at Bach’s emulation of a classical hexachord fantasy, a formalized contrapuntal structure emanating from sixteenth-century practices. Hexachordal elements are present freely in the six-note groupings of the Très vitement’s compound meter,⁶ in the six diatonically related keys traversed in the course of the Gravement’s tonal excursions, and finally in the hexachordal arpeggiations of the Lentement.⁷ It is worth noting that the title, Fantasy, would appear to have been applied by cataloguers of subsequent generations, but not by the composer. Above and beyond formalized or traditional concepts, and viewed as a single entity, Bach’s storied BWV 572 is in essence a grand tone poem, a broadly proportioned triptych of three contrasting sections—two linear outer panels framing an impeccably woven central tapestry. 

 

Coda

In support of a progressive registrational plan for the Gravement, there are numerous authentic and half cadences throughout the contrapuntally textured movement that facilitate the addition of stops and couplers, or shifts from one manual to another.⁸

There is the anomalous presence of a low pedal B-natural (measure 66), a note not normally found on Germanic pedalboards but occasionally present in French manual and/or pedal dispositions. While such an insignificant deviation could easily be glossed over, it is cited here in support of a Francophile leaning and interpretation, one that is already abundantly apparent in the French titles of the opus and its individual movements. 

There is also the matter of a quasi-legendary pedagogical lineage to be considered in the course of these closing words. A multi-generational succession of teachers—one of many that can be traced from Bach into the 20th century—extends from a late Leipzig organ student, Johann Christian Kittel (1732–1809, Erfurt), through Christian Heinrich Rinck (1770–1846, Darmstadt), to Adolph Friedrich Hesse (1809–1863, Breslau); and from Hesse continuing through Jacques Nicolas Lemmens (1823–1881, Belgium, Paris), to Alexandre Guilmant (1837–1911, Paris), and to Charles-Marie Widor (1844–1937, Paris); passed on in turn by Guilmant and Widor to Marcel Dupré (1886–1971, Paris). Notable from Dupré—and relevant to this discussion—is his recorded version of the Fantasy, registered and performed in an accumulative and glorious manner on the Cavaillé-Coll instrument of St. Sulpice, Paris, during his tenure as titular organist.⁹

And now, to end this autumn reverie of what-ifs—much in the same manner as it began—on an inquisitive note: Is it possble that the tradition of a broadly romantic and accumulative interpretation could have been passed on and survived intact in its passage through such a fragile and tenuous teaching tradition, spanning over six generations from 1750 to the latter twentieth century, and onward?

 

Notes

1. Johann Sebastian Bach, The Learned Musician, Christoph Wolff (W. W. Norton & Company, 2001), p. 330. 

2. Ibid., p. 329.

3. Eventually Fantasy in D Minor, S. 903 (without Fugue).

4. Notably Nicolas de Grigny’s Livre d’orgue (1699, Paris, reissued 1711), Bach’s hand copy dating from ca. 1713.

5. See Example 2.

6. See Example 1.

7. See Example 5.

8. See  Examples 3 and 4.

9. See http://www.marceldupre.com/ CD: Mercury Living Presence recording of Marcel Dupré: Bach (Six Schübler Chorales, Fantasy in C Minor, Fantasy in G Major) Saint-Sulpice, 1959, available in CD reissues.

 

A Selected Bibliography

David, Hans T., and Arthur Mendel, ed. The Bach Reader, A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1945, 1966.

_____________. The New Bach Reader, A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents, revised and expanded by Christoph Wolff. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998.

Gaines, James R. Evening in the Palace of Reason. New York: Fourth Estate, Harper Collins Publishers, 2005.

Gardiner, John Eliot. Bach, Music in the Castle of Heaven. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.

Geiringer, Karl. Johann Sebastian Bach, The Culmination of an Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966.

Griepenkerl, Friedrich Conrad, and Ferdinand Roitzsch, ed. Johann Sebastian Bach, Orgelwerke, Vol. IV. New York: C. F. Peters Corporation, 1950.

Widor, Charles-Marie, and Albert Schweitzer, ed. Johann Sebastian Bach, Complete Organ Works, Vol. III. New York: G. Schirmer, Inc., 1913.

Wolff, Christoph. Bach, Essays on His Life and Music. Cambridge (MA) & London: Harvard University Press, 1993.

____________. Johann Sebastian Bach, The Learned Musician. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001.

 

An apologia and acknowledgements

In order to provide a degree of continuity and to avoid undue interruptions in the flow of the text, end notes have been kept to a minimum. All details and factual accountings have been extracted from the sources cited above; they are often repeated in more than one source, sometimes with degrees of variation that have required editorial pruning. The Journal entry is a fictitious creation, a work of imagination. In his Evening in the Palace of Reason, James R. Gaines offers an exemplary format for overlapping multiple perspectives and layers of narration, and for combining recorded facts with speculative premises and intuitions to produce an animated account of historical events. His model has provided a structural guidepost for the essay featured here, offered informally as an example of speculative musicology. There are sure to be lacunae great and small in these words, for which all due apologies are offered.