McGill Summer Organ Academy

July 5–14, 2005, Montréal, Canada

Lynn Cavanagh

Lynn Cavanagh holds a M.M. in Church Music from Westminster Choir College and a Ph.D. in Music Theory from the University of British Columbia. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Music, University of Regina, where she teaches music theory. Her research on the career and musical compositions of Jeanne Demessieux was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and her article, “The Rise and Fall of a Famous Collaboration: Marcel Dupré and Jeanne Demessieux,” was published in the July 2005 issue of The Diapason.

Ear-opening . . . challenging . . . and inspiring: these are just a few words to describe the ten courses and eight recitals that comprised last summer’s organ academy in Montréal, presented under the auspices of McGill University. The 2005 event, the fifth to be held biennially since the Academy’s inauguration in 1997, attracted eighty-two regular students and a number of day auditors over the roughly two-week period. As a point of clarification, connoisseurs of pre-romantic-era keyboard music should look beyond the word organ in the Academy’s name: courses and recitals took advantage of not only McGill’s French Classical-style organ and seven of the more centrally located of Montréal’s many excellent organs located in churches, but also the university’s harpsichords, and its 2005 fortepiano by the Belgian builder Chris Maen.

Artistic director John Grew had once again assembled almost a dozen performer-scholars, all at the forefront of their fields, to teach and give recitals. The prominent organist, composer and musicologist Guy Bovet (Musikhochschule of Basel, Switzerland) joined the Academy’s faculty for the first time to teach the course on early Spanish music. McGill musicologist and fortepianist Tom Beghin, representing a new generation of interpreters of classical and early classical era keyboard music, attracted a group of both experienced and aspiring students of the early piano. Courses in improvisation this year were led by two more faculty members new to the McGill Summer Academy: William Porter (Eastman School of Music and McGill University) and Thierry Escaich (Conservatoire national supérieur de Paris). Two other new (or largely new) classes had been planned—in 19th- and 20th-century English organ music, and in 20th-century Canadian and American organ music—but these, unfortunately, were cancelled due to insufficient advance registration.

Many faculty members from past years returned in 2005. The long-celebrated Marie-Claire Alain (Conservatoire National de Région in Paris) presented an overview of the various genres of J. S. Bach’s organ music. John Grew offered his course on French Classical organ music. James David Christie (College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts and Oberlin College Conservatory) was back to teach the course on 17th-century North German music, and Oliver Latry (Conservatoire national supérieur de Paris) again attracted a large following for a course on French organ music from the first few decades of the twentieth century. As in 2003, Hank Knox (McGill University) and Patrick Wedd (Christ Church Anglican Cathedral, Montréal) taught two of the skills that tend to be neglected in one-on-one university organ instruction: continuo playing and service playing, respectively.

Students included both active participants (who were afforded practice time on the instruments) and auditors. Each course convened in a two-hour session, four times a week, in one of three time-slots. A typical active participant, during either or both of the two weeks, came prepared to perform in one course, leaving time to audit a course in another slot and to schedule practice time in the third slot. (A pure auditor could take three classes, one in each of the three slots, if prepared to do all the necessary bus and subway travel from point to point.) As might be expected, courses incorporated informal lectures, a masterclass approach aimed at illustrating interpretive and technical points for all of the participants and auditors, and opportunity for questions and answers.
The eight evening recitals were performed by the Academy’s faculty members to large and enthusiastic crowds. The standard was so uniformly high that it would be impossible to pinpoint one or the other recitalist as having been an audience favorite. Academy students were afforded plenty of opportunity for spontaneous discussion with faculty over food and drink, the option of a field trip to hear selected organs of interest just outside Montréal, and an invitation to attend an ecumenical worship service at Christ Church Anglican Cathedral on Sunday morning.
This writer heard all of the recitals and audited some of the courses, attending all eight of Grew’s classes, seven taught by Latry, three by Wedd, two by Alain, and one by Bovet. Some common themes espoused by these instructors included:


• Thinking beyond the published score—immersion in period treatises, manuscripts, early editions, composer biographies and recommended literature on performance practice.

• Educating one’s auditory imagination in the sound-world of the composer or style period, as the means for judging—moment-to-moment touch, when to articulate and when to simply “think” phrase endings, the length of silence between sections, and ultimately, how to “play the room.”

• Advantages afforded by familiarity with works for other mediums that are contemporary with the keyboard repertoire at hand, and of having experience in performing period music in collaboration with singers and other instrumentalists.

• Experience in discerning in what repertoires, and at what moments, to pursue a literal application of directions in the score and when and how to add and subtract from these for the sake of a stylistically satisfying interpretation.

• The musician as someone broadly knowledgeable in a variety of the arts.

Week 1 of John Grew’s course was organized as a survey of the fundamental principles of playing organ music of the French Classical school. Participants began by performing prescribed movements from the organ suites of Louis-Nicolas Clérambault and continued with their choices of movements by François Couperin. Week 2 progressed back in time through de Grigny, D’Anglebert and Boyvin. Aiming that participants both capture the sound in their ears and understand the underlying principles, Professor Grew emphasized elegant articulation, natural-sounding ornamentation, expressive phrasing, and notes inégales that make the music “swing.” A true master pedagogue—recipient of his Faculty of Music’s Performance Teaching Award in 2005—Grew patiently reinforced each concept with repetition and a variety of teaching methods. In his lectures he simplified our understandings of fingering practice and notes inégales, but without over-simplifying. He handed out copies of tables of ornaments and lists of terms for registration and genres. Through example and counterexample he guided and corrected players’ ears, hands and feet. He allowed time for us to troop down to hear alternative registrations from the hall as well as from the organ gallery. Amidst listing corrections to editorial blunders in the available modern editions, Grew alerted us to the planned release in 2006 of a new scholarly edition of the Livre d’orgue of Nicolas de Grigny (L’Oiseau Lyre, ed. Kenneth Gilbert).


Guy Bovet brought to his course the fruits of his own intensive research. During Week 1 of Siglo de Oro español (“Century of Spanish Gold”), participants performed selections from the tientos and variation sets of sixteenth- to seventeenth-century Spanish composers Antonio de Cabezón, Sebastián Aguilera de Herédia, Juan Cabanilles and Pablo Bruna, and the seventeenth-century Portuguese composer Pedro de Araújo. Professor Bovet advised on ornamentation, tasteful use of diminutions, registration for the divided and undivided keyboard, and metric proportions. In contrast to the gently balanced finger action cultivated for French Classical music, in the Spanish organ music class the pipes of the Guibault-Thérien organ at St-Léon-de-Westmount (built 1995) were activated by high, strong finger strokes. Week 2 of this course focused on the 1626 Facultad Orgánica by Francisco Correa de Arauxo, a treatise on organ playing and ornamentation that contains 69 pieces (mostly tientos) of varying difficulty. Bovet’s own edition is to be published by Ut Orpheus in Bologna in the summer of 2006. For this year’s class, he dictated corrections to the Unión Musical Española edition, spontaneously translated Correa’s explanatory preface to each piece that was played by students, and followed the facsimile of the original tablature during their performances.

Guy Bovet’s recital, on the famous 1960 von Beckerath organ of St. Joseph’s Oratory, juxtaposed the unusual with the unexpected. We heard a Batalha from around 1700 and two Tientos by Correa, followed by the recitalist’s own transcription of a Concerto in A minor by Vivaldi. Next came an Elevation and a Polonaise by Antonio Diana (an Italian composer, fl. 1860s, whose works Lefébure-Wély admired). The intermission preceded two more popularly styled nineteenth-century pieces—Prélude en sol mineur and a Benedictus—both by C. V. Alkan. Bovet’s admittedly light, but nonetheless historically fascinating, program concluded with three of his daring Tangos ecclésiastiques (2000).


Olivier Latry lent his brilliance and energy to the very first recital of the 2005 Academy, a program of twentieth-century French organ music performed on the electropneumatic-action organ of Église du Très-Saint-Nom-de-Jésus (Casavant 1914, 1999). Part I of the recital opened gently with Dupré’s Cortège et litanie and a quiet work by Litaize (Lied), followed by music of Langlais (Thème et variations), Jehan Alain (Aria) and Messiaen (Les Anges and Dieu parmi nous). Part II maintained a fiery mood throughout with an impressive, though perhaps over-long, piece by Messiaen student Jean-Pierre Leguay entitled Péan IV (Création), Deux poèmes (Eaux natales and Vers l’espérance) by Thierry Escaich, and, finally, a stunning improvisation that fully exploited the 91-stop organ.

Latry’s class, entitled “Dupré and His Students,” began at Église St-Jean-Baptiste but, due to sudden malfunction of this instrument, soon moved to Très-Saint-Nom. Week 1 was fashioned around selected works by Marcel Dupré (B-major and G-minor Preludes and Fugues from Op. 7; Variations on a Noël), and works that students had elected to play by Gaston Litaize (Lied and Scherzo from Douze Pièces), Jean Langlais (Te Deum) and Jehan Alain (Aria, Variations sur un Thème de Clément Jannequin, 2e Fantaisie, Deux Danses à Agni Yavishta, Litanies). Week 2 surveyed the organ works of Olivier Messiaen written through 1935.

The course title, “Dupré and His Students,” encapsulated a curious contradiction, evident on two counts. To begin, Marcel Dupré would have been the first to declare that he had no students, certainly not among the generation of organists who, like Langlais, Messiaen, Litaize, and Alain, earned their prizes in organ and improvisation at the Paris Conservatory in the 1930s. As Latry pointed out in his opening remarks, despite the many famous names on Dupré’s class rosters during the second quarter of the twentieth century, none of those whose compositions and performances are best remembered by posterity ever credited their musical formation or consummation to him. Reflecting an apparent personal ambivalence toward Dupré’s role in twentieth-century French organ music, Latry emphasized that other French organ teachers of the time, particularly his own master, Gaston Litaize, were highly critical of Dupré’s interpretations of the organ literature, his pedagogy, and the retrospective state of organ requirements and exams that remained in place at the Paris Conservatory during his tenure.

Second, the phrase “Dupré and His Students” implies a legacy handed down from teacher to students, or, at the very least, a significant compositional link. Nevertheless, Latry’s only mention of a connection between the organ works of the other composers considered in the course and those of Dupré was confined to a small matter sometimes neglected by class participants in their performances: tying of the note commune between voices (whether indicated or implied in the scores of these composers), which Dupré made a rule for all style periods in his pedagogy. No mention was made of the truly significant way in which he had influenced the younger composers—through his pioneering demonstration of musically imaginative virtuoso writing for the organ. It is worth mentioning that Dupré’s first three Preludes and Fugues for organ (composed c. 1911 and published in 1920 as his Opus 7) were so innovative in the second decade of the twentieth century as to be deemed unplayable, except by the composer for whose hands and feet they were written.1 During the 1920s, though, these works passed into the repertoire of Dupré’s younger colleagues, thereby “raising the bar” of French organ technique generally.2 From among the pieces played by class participants, Litaize’s Scherzo (written between 1930 and 1937), Langlais’s Te Deum (1933/34), and Litanies by Alain (1937) show the influence of early Dupré in their combination of bravura with musical depth. Similarly, had it not been for the sonorities of Dupré’s organ compositions prior to 1929, Messiaen could not have left us such works as his Diptyque (composed in 1929), Dieu parmi nous (1935), and Transports de joie (1936).3 For that matter, neither Jeanne Demessieux (1921–68) nor Pierre Cochereau (1924–84) would have improvised with such dexterity already in the 1940s had it not been for Dupré’s example. It was, therefore, mildly ironic that, while guiding a participant in an interpretation of Dupré’s 1922 Variations on a Noël, Latry advised, “Variation 5 should sound like a Cochereau improvisation” and commented that the last chord of Variation 7 is a “Cochereauesque touch.”

In contrast to the oblique manner in which he approached the works of Dupré, Latry was entirely at one with the remainder of the course repertoire. Latry originally learned the Litaize pieces under the composer, and has closely studied the backgrounds to Alain’s organ works. He recalled for us advice he had received directly from Messiaen, and shared interpretive ideas based upon his close study of Messiaen’s own, multiple performing copies of all his organ compositions. A fascinating teacher of interpretation, Latry lent his tremendous musical imagination to devising vivid metaphors for difficult-to-interpret passages that transformed good performances into eloquent ones.


Patrick Wedd brought historical acumen and intensive experience as an accompanist, composer, conductor and church musician to the course on service playing, taught using the four-manual, 50-stop Casavant organ at Ascension of Our Lord Church. Students learned how to adapt their instrument and diversify their technique to the requirements of congregational hymns and psalms on the one hand, and the repertoire for choir and organ—both small and large-scale works—on the other. Countering dogma and unreflective habit, Wedd demonstrated that there is a time and place in organ accompaniment for appropriate and varied degrees of detached playing that project the meter (for instance, in an organ transcription of the viol accompaniment for Gibbons’s “This is the record of John”), and a time and a place to “glue your fingers to the keyboard” (as in “My Eyes for Beauty Pine” by Howells). Students who played anthem accompaniments from English repertoire of the first half of the twentieth century were coached on executing crescendos and decrescendos by means of the swell pedal, and gradually adding or subtracting stops in imperceptible fashion.


Participants in the Bach course performed on the two-manual, 33-stop Karl Wilhelm organ at Saint Matthias Church. In lecture and masterclass modes, Marie-Claire Alain’s approach was a synthesis of ideas gained during what must be almost 70 years of work on Bach’s music. She dwelt on both the music’s contents (“You have to have written fugues yourself in order to play Bach’s fugues”) and contexts (“Play Leipzig organs in order to discover the variety in plenum registrations that work for Bach’s music”). At the close of the course, Alain commended her thorough-going process of study to the class by explaining why she has recorded the complete organ works of Bach so many times: she did so at more than one stage of the early-music movement, as a result of more opportunities to play historic organs and study Lutheran theology, and because every time she practices she “improves.”

During week 1 Marie-Claire Alain played an all-Bach program on the 78-stop organ of St. Joseph’s Oratory to an almost capacity audience. The spiritual and biographical facets of her study of Bach’s music were reflected in the construction of her program. Between large-scale works that acted like sonic pillars, Alain grouped together similar, small pieces in Bach-like, compendium fashion—for example, three successive settings of Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr, BWV 662, 663 and 664. A set of five extracts from The Art of Fugue culminated in the abrupt trailing off of an unfinished Fuga à 3 soggetti (Contrapunctus 19), which Alain followed by a pause and then the chorale setting traditionally associated with Bach’s deathbed, Vor deinen Thron tret’ ich, BWV 668.


James David Christie taught and performed on the 38-stop von Beckerath organ of Église de l’Immaculée-Conception. His recital began with works by Buxtehude, Johann Christoph Bach and J. S. Bach. Following the intermission, Christie featured Miracles for Flute and Organ (1978) by Daniel Pinkham (b. 1923), assisted by flutist Denis Bluteau and narrator Louis Cyr. Pinkham, the composer of a significant body of music for organ solo and for organ with other instruments, was present to acknowledge the audience’s warm applause for these five inspirational pieces. No. 2, “The Miracle on the Lake,” which alludes to St. Luke’s telling of the story in which Jesus is called upon to quell a frightening windstorm on the Sea of Galilee, demonstrated that “storm music” for organ need not be gratuitous and can even be appropriate in a spiritual context.


A 17th- to 18th-century British-inspired organ (by Hellmuth Wolff, including some stops preserved from previous organs by Warren and Casavant and other stops after Dom Bédos) at Saint John the Evangelist Church was the scene of William Porter’s intermediate-level class in improvisational forms based on a cantus firmus. In recital on the same organ, Porter played works of Buxtehude, Johann Ludwig Krebs, Ermend Bonnal (La Vallée de Béhorléguy, au matin from Paysages Euskariens) and Bach. He improvised a flawless set of variations on a pair of submitted hymn tunes and, after the Bonnal, an extended fantasy on a given chromatic theme. As encore, he executed an apparently spontaneous chorale prelude in the style of Krebs, the composer with whose works he had begun the recital.


In contrast to the large, or very large, ecclesiastical settings of six of the organ recitals, McGill University’s Redpath Hall was the venue for two evenings of two half-recitals each. These comprised a first half played on an intimate-sounding keyboard instrument and second half played on Redpath Hall’s 1981 Hellmuth Wolff organ. The first such evening opened with harpsichord works by Sweelinck and Frescobaldi performed by Hank Knox. Knox’s performances were vibrant with energy; the closing “Partite cento sopra il Passachagli” from Frescobaldi’s Il primo libro de Toccate was downright sensual. John Grew then performed some rarely played but excellent organ music by Louis Couperin and Henri Dumont, and finished the evening with two favorite movements from François Couperin’s Messe pour les Paroisses. The first half of a parallel recital in Week 2 featured two sonatas by Haydn, Hob. XVI:34 and 39, and Mozart’s Adagio in B minor, K 540, all superbly played by Tom Beghin on a Chris Maen fortepiano modeled after an instrument of Anton Walter (fl. in Vienna 1780–1825). Just as expertly, but in an utter contrast of musical sensibilities, Patrick Wedd then played a half-recital consisting of Lionel Rogg’s Livre d’orgue, Ardennes by Montréal composer Bruce Mather (written for the Redpath Hall instrument) and, true to his Anglophile background, a Prelude and Fugue (Alkmaar) by Arthur Wills.


Thierry Escaich loomed large at the 2005 McGill Academy in his roles as instructor of improvisation in large-scale forms, performer, and composer. His performing career, with its emphasis on the Romantic, symphonic and contemporary repertoires, and his compositions for numerous media have won for him several prizes in France and beyond. Escaich’s thrilling, closing recital at Église du Très-Saint-Nom-de-Jesus wove together all three strands of expertise. From the symphonic repertoire we heard Le Monde dans l’attente du Sauveur by Dupré, Alleluias sereins from L’Ascension by Messiaen, and Duruflé’s Toccata, Op. 5. The improvisation in Part I of the recital, “prélude and fugue” en style romantique, made one wonder if Schumann, Saint-Saëns or Franck ever aspired to extemporize in so vast a symphonic vein. Surpassing even this, Escaich’s Improvisation sur 2 thèmes donnés at the end of Part II was both monumental and technically mind-boggling: at the climax, glissando-like, two-handed scales, ascending and descending several times through the entire length of a keyboard, required his torso to tilt rapidly from side to side. From the recitalist’s composed works, we were treated to a paraphrase on one of the Ave Maris Stella chants (entitled Récit) and three Esquisses pour orgue. Both idiomatic to the organ and sonorously inventive, these pieces attested to the fact that the organ is an eminently viable compositional medium at the turn of the twenty-first century.


The Saturday excursion focused on organ-building, past and present. Our first two stops were to hear small historic organs: one from 1898 by Eusèbe Brodeur in the town of Les Cèdres, the other from 1871 by Louis Mitchell in Vaudreuil. The last stop was at the shop of Juget-Sinclair in the town of Lachine, where we were saw the tools of the craft and examined an organ being built for Wellesley, Massachusetts.
Our longest visit that Saturday was to Lachine’s Église Saint-Anges-Gardiens Church, where Casavant Frères was renovating and rebuilding one of their instruments from 1920. Church, community and government supporters of the renovation project celebrated our presence among them with welcoming speeches, a mini-recital and a superb lunch. Following lunch, Jacquelin Rochette of Casavant Frères delivered a presentation on the Saint-Anges-Gardiens project and showed slides of a new organ in progress for the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York.

A set of controversial points for discussion raised by Guy Bovet, during an impromptu response to Mr. Rochette’s presentation in Lachine, drew attention to something that was missing from the 2005 event as a whole: panel discussion. Constrained as he was by time, Rochette was able to reply to just one of Bovet’s points. Students concentrated intensely during this exchange. Their scattered discussions as they reboarded the bus suggested that opportunities to hear experts with different viewpoints talking about an issue amenable to panel discussion, with time for students’ questions, would be welcome another year. Clearly, though, such an activity would be a challenge to moderate.
In conclusion, participating Montréal and area churches, with their organists, are owed a debt of thanks. Above all, executive director Debbie Giesbrecht (borrowed from the Calgary Organ Festival) and artistic director John Grew are to be highly commended for organizing such an artistically satisfying event.

by Earl Holt

Experimentation in a radical, theatrical style has
characterized much contemporary Swedish organ composition over the last twenty years, and Swedish organ composers have been prominent in the movement toward
secularization of the organ. 
Marilou Kratzenstein writes:

One should remember that Swedish churches no longer play
much of a role in the spiritual life of the people, but rather concentrate on
being a cultural force. Organ concerts are encouraged in the churches, which
are viewed primarily as concert halls. 
Major organ composers generally write little music for use in the church
service, but focus on concert works devoid of religious significance.1

A number of modern Swedish composers have found the organ's
array of tonal colors and wide dynamic range particularly useful for the
expression of musical thought in a modern idiom. As a result of the Orgelbewegung (Organ Reform Movement), the resurgence of interest in instruments with mechanical action has offered the possibility for greater expressive control and a greater range of performance techniques than were previously available on instruments with some form of remote  action.

Swedish composer and organ virtuoso Hans-Ola Ericsson wrote
recently of modern composition:

The tendency is the same everywhere, in Sweden, too: it
seems that the 1980s mark the beginning of a new musical era. The composers are
striving for objectivity, diversity, and structural density or airiness. A new
æsthetic is growing up, far from the experimenting expressionism of the
1970s.2

If young Swedish composers now find themselves to be
innovators, they have come to the forefront of avant-garde composition as a
result of influential forebears, including Bengt Hambræus, one of the
first organists to introduce avant-garde techniques. Douglas Reed writes:

Following Hambræus' lead, a school of Swedish
contemporary organ music sprang up; it includes Arne Mellnäs (b. 1933: Fixations, 1967), Jan W. Morthenson (b. 1940: New Organ Music, 1961-73), and Bo Nilsson (b. 1937: Stenogramm, 1959).3

These Swedish composers and their contemporaries studied or
collaborated with György Ligeti, who began regular visits to the Stockholm
Academy of Music in 1961 to teach composition as a visiting professor.4 Under
Ligeti's tutelage, they pioneered new techniques in their organ compositions,
including virtuoso clusters, stop-knob manipulation, and switching the blower
on and off to produce a gradual sound decay. They have taken advantage of the
increased availability of tracker actions and have experimented with bending
pitch by playing or releasing the keys very slowly, sometimes assisted by
rubber mats placed under the keys. The works are clearly unintended for
liturgical use:

The new organ music of Ligeti and the Swedes is firmly
secular, having few if any religious connotations. It continues, perhaps
completes, the process of secularization started by Franck and Liszt in the
nineteenth century.5

Hambræus wrote recently about his intense
collaboration with Ligeti in the early 1960s:

When [Mauricio] Kagel, Ligeti, and I got a commission each
for an organ work to be performed in Radio Bremen in 1962, we decided between
us to apply different notations to achieve similar results; Ligeti selected the
"graphical" method, partly developed from what he had learnt from my Constellations (Ligeti worked in Stockholm at that time, and we knew each other very well!). His Volumina looks different than my Interferences, or Kagel's Improvisation Ajoutee.6

This article surveys four selected secular organ works by
modern Swedish composers and compiles relevant performance information in an
attempt to make the compositions more comprehensible and accessible to
recitalists, teachers, and students.

Befria mig ur friheten! All denna frihet! by Sven-David Sandström

Background

Sven-David Sandström, born in Borensberg, Sweden in
1942, studied composition with Ingvar Lidholm at the State College of Music in
Stockholm, where he was Lidholm's teaching assistant until 1974. Sandström
also studied composition with György Ligeti and Per Nørgård,
and has worked since 1974 as a composer. Since 1981 he has taught composition
and improvisation at the State College of Music in Stockholm, where he was
appointed professor of composition in 1986.7 He has also been an administrator
in the Society of Swedish Composers since 1979, and was chairman of the Swedish
section of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) in 1983. He
received the Christ Johnson Prize in 1974 and the Nordic Council Prize in
1984.8

Sandström's works are primarily for orchestra or
chamber ensemble, although he has also composed solo instrumental and choral
works, including several operas. His music often involves serial and
post-serial techniques, microtones, and aleatoric procedures.9

The work selected for this article, Befria mig ur
friheten! All denna frihet! (Liberate me
from freedom! All this freedom!), is the second movement of a three-movement,
large-scale organ work, Libera me.10 Befria mig can be performed successfully as an independent work, however. The title comes from the Tobias Berggren text, "replete with sadistic obscenities and pornographic proclamations," to Sandström's Requiem: De ur alla minnen fallna (Mute the Bereaved Memories Speak), which Sandström composed at the same time as Libera me.11 The Requiem is "a graphic and expressionistic tonal painting, an indictment of the Nazi murders of children during the Second World War."12 Besides Libera me, Sandström has composed two other solo organ works: The Way (1973) and Openings (1975).13

Befria mig was
composed in January 1981 and dedicated to organist Hans-Ola Ericsson; the
premiere took place in Zurich at Grossmünster on December 25, 1981.14 The
score, published in 1984, is a legible photocopy of the original manuscript.

Structure

In Biographies of Modern Swedish Composers
style='font-style:normal'>, Hans-Gunnar Peterson writes about the philosophy
and design of Sandström's compositions:

Desperation--security: these opposite relationships dominate
his thoughts on composition and make his works unusually existentially
orientated [sic]. The fact that music has the power to bring about great mental
changes or to create inner peace interests Sandström. Formally, his music
is concentrated, often with complicated schemes as bases of his works.15

Although Befria mig
has highly concentrated notation, the piece has a simple scheme as its basis: an
extended crescendo. Little by little, the texture thickens, the dynamic
increases, the tempo broadens, the range widens, and the key modulates from G
minor to C minor. Ericsson describes the evolution in brochure notes to the
recording:

The course of events is simple: a slow, almost unendurable
culmination, which alternates the whole time between major and minor, and which
does not reach its goal until the ecstatic C-minor chord of the final bar. The
movement--in 10 parts [voices]--is unbelievably complex in its inner
structure.16

The dense texture restricts the melodic movement of
individual voices, so chromatic or stepwise movement predominates. The
intricate writing suggests choral polyphony, and the stylistic influence is
unquestionably Ligeti.

Befria mig, composed
in 4/4 meter solely as a structural convenience, has five continuous sections,
or stages, that are delineated by tempo changes. Although the texture varies
within each section, it is usually ten voices. The incremental changes in
texture, dynamic, and range take place gradually from beginning to end, but the
tempo changes occur in terraces--not as a gradual ritardando. Table 1 is a
structural outline of the piece.

Registration

The manual changes and couplers in the Libera me
style='font-style:normal'> score are marked for a four-manual instrument;
indeed, a performer playing the entire work does need a large instrument for
the intended effect. As a single movement, however, Befria mig can be performed on any instrument with sufficient dynamic range and enough stops for the gradual crescendo, since the piece is played entirely on one manual, the Hauptwerk.

The manual compass of the piece is F-sharp to g''' and the
pedal compass is C to a-flat'. The pitch a-flat' is unlikely to exist on any
pedal clavier, and probably results from Sandström--who is not an
organist--forgetting the pedal range of the instrument. Fortunately, it occurs
only once (m. 55, in eleven-voice ffff texture), and can be omitted
inconsequentially. In addition, the pedal pitch g', which also occurs only in
m. 55, might also have to be omitted to accommodate a 30-key pedal clavier. An
alternate solution is to have a console assistant play one or both notes on the
Hauptwerk.

The long crescendo, a six-minute, fifty-seven measure
crescendo from ppp to fffff, is created mainly by incremental stop additions,
which can be made by a console assistant, by an adjustable combination action,
or by using the crescendo pedal. The stop additions occur nine times, and are
marked "reg. cresc." (register crescendo) in the score.17 Two
"reg. cresc." markings also coincide with tempo changes (mm. 24 and
48) for heightened dramatic effect. If a crescendo pedal is used for the stop
additions, additional stops and couplers can still be added by thumb pistons or
a console assistant. The score does not indicate expression pedal usage,
although it is effective to open available expression pedals gradually
throughout the piece. 

Sandström marks dynamics in the score, as illustrated
in Table 1, but individual stops or timbres are unspecified. Therefore,
registration for the piece, within the dynamic bounds indicated, is left to the
discretion of the performer. Pedal coupler additions are marked at four points
in the score:

                  Measure
style='mso-tab-count:1'>               Coupler

                  24
style='mso-tab-count:1'>            Sw./Ped.

                  36
style='mso-tab-count:1'>            Bw./Ped.

                  48
style='mso-tab-count:1'>            Rp./Ped.

                  57
style='mso-tab-count:1'>            Hw./Ped.

These coupler additions signal a louder pedal, whether
accomplished by the specific couplers (if available) or by the addition of
pedal stops.

The registration in the score has all secondary manuals
coupled to the Hauptwerk from the beginning of the piece, so that stop
additions from any division affect timbre and dynamic immediately. This
arrangement works well on a large, orchestrally conceived instrument, but might
be disadvantageous on a smaller instrument. On a two-manual instrument, for example, it might be better to begin the piece on the Hauptwerk alone, and then to couple the other manual to the Hauptwerk later, as part of the crescendo.
Another possibility is to begin the piece on a secondary manual and move to the
Hauptwerk later. Three rests in mm. 14, 27, and 43, respectively, provide
opportunities for the hands to change manuals. The last practicable opportunity
to move to the Hauptwerk is at m. 48, beat 4, where both hands must shift down
almost an octave; the hands can easily change manuals in the process. Whether
or not a console assistant is necessary for stop additions, an assistant must
play three chords in mm. 56-57.

Interpretation

Relentless tension characterizes Sandström's works, as
described in Musical Life in Sweden:
"In the case of Sven-David Sandström, it would be no exaggeration to
speak of an incessant struggle between constructive and destructive powers,
with constant reminders of the existence of other worlds."18

The Befria mig score
gives no performance directions or interpretive suggestions, perhaps because
the challenge of the piece is largely technical, not interpretive. It is a
major technical obstacle to play four contrapuntal voices per hand--and two to
four pedal voices--for nearly six minutes, while creating an aural effect of
continuously weaving lines. Despite the dense textures that tend to lock the
wrists in position, it is necessary to keep the wrists flexible and relaxed.
Light articulation will help to combat a tendency to become mired in a
continuous, overlapping legato. Moreover, a live acoustic is a virtual
necessity.

The steadily increasing tension inherent in the piece
exacerbates the tendency toward tension in the wrists. Frequent finger
substitution is neither advisable nor practical in this texture. The pedal
texture is from two to four voices; pedal articulation is legato, whenever
possible.

Complex rhythmic units include supertriplets and
superquintuplets, played in various cross-rhythms between the manual and pedal
voices. To keep the tempo steady, the performer must maintain a strong internal
beat. As noted in Table 1, subito decreases in tempo occur four times in the
work. A metronome is helpful in learning to judge the relative tempos.

Curiously, the word "Affettuoso" is placed over m.
39, although it is unclear how a tender mood can be produced in ten-voice
texture at ff dynamic. The piece ends in m. 57 with "General tutti sempre
al fine." A sforzando mechanism, if available, can be engaged on the long
C-minor chord that ends the work. A sixteen-note cluster (m. 57, beat 4)
effectively serves to disintegrate the C-minor chord (and symbolically,
perhaps, to liberate the listener from tonality), but the cluster is omitted in
the only commercial recording of the piece that was found, a compact disc
recording by Ericsson at Katarina Church in Stockholm on February 24, 1986.19

Performance time for Befria mig
style='font-style:normal'> is seven minutes and thirty-two seconds on the
recording, but Ericsson's performance tempo is quite broad in comparison with
the performance time of five minutes and forty-five seconds listed by
Sandström in the score. Sandström's time agrees exactly with the
tempos marked in the score, but a broader tempo might be appropriate in a live
acoustical setting. Performance time for all three movements of the
fifty-three-page Libera me is
twenty-three minutes.

Champs by Bengt Hambræus

Background

Born in Stockholm in 1928, Bengt Hambræus first
studied organ performance with Alf Linder and later with Swedish musicologist Carl-Allan Mo-berg at Uppsala University. Hambræus completed his dissertation in medieval studies at Uppsala, and then taught there from 1947 to 1956. After joining the music department of Swedish Radio in 1957, he became director of the chamber music section in 1965 and its production manager in 1968.

Some of Hambræus's early compositions paralleling the
work of György Ligeti first earned major recognition in the 1960s. Known
as a musicologist specializing in medieval and baroque studies, Hambræus
has composed for stage, orchestra, chorus, solo voice, various ensembles, and
organ, and was the first Swedish composer to work in the field of electronic
music. As a result of work at electronic studios in Cologne and Milan, he has
also produced a number of works on magnetic tape. He has been a member of the
Royal Swedish Academy of Music since 1968. In 1972 he left Sweden to become a
professor of composition at McGill University in Montreal, where he has
remained to the present.20

Hambræus's organ works are Toccata och Fuga
style='font-style:normal'> for organ solo (1946), Chorale Partita: In
Dich hab' ich gehoffet, Herr for organ solo
(1946-48), Fantasia for organ
solo (1947), Chorale Partita: Puer natus in Bethlehem
style='font-style:normal'> for organ solo (1947), Concerto for organ
and harpsichord (1947-51), Concerto for Organ and String Orchestra (1948), Koralförspel
style='font-style:normal'> for organ solo (1948), Orgeltrio
style='font-style:normal'> for organ solo (1948), Toccata pro tempore
pentecostes for organ solo (1948), Introitus et Triptychon for organ solo (1949-50), Musik för Orgel for organ solo (1950), Liturgia
style='font-style:normal'> for organ solo (1951-52), Permutations and
Hymn: Nocte surgentes for organ solo (1953),
Psalmus CXXI for soprano and organ (1953), Psalmus
CXXII for soprano and organ (1953), Konstellationer
I for organ solo (1958), Konstellationer
II for organ and tape (1959), Konstellationer
III for organ and tape (1961), Interferenser
style='font-style:normal'> for organ solo (1961-62), Tre Pezzi
style='font-style:normal'> for organ solo (1966-67), Nebulosa
style='font-style:normal'> for organ solo (1969), Toccata: Monumentum
per Max Reger for organ solo (1973), Ricercare
style='font-style:normal'> for organ solo (1974), Continuo a partire
de Pachelbel for organ and orchestra
(1974-75), Icons for organ solo
(1974-75), Extempore for organ
solo (1975), Advent: Veni redemptor gentium
style='font-style:normal'> for organ, brass, and percussion (1975), Antiphonie
style='font-style:normal'> for organ solo (1977), Konstellationer IV
style='font-style:normal'> for organ and percussion (1978), Livre
d'orgue for organ solo (1980-81), Voluntary
on a Swedish Hymn Tune from Dalecarlia for
organ solo (1981), Sheng for oboe
and organ (1983), Variations sur un thème de Gilles Vigneault
style='font-style:normal'> for organ solo (1984), La Passacaille
errante-autour Haendel for organ solo
(1985), Pedalexercitium for organ
solo (1985), Canvas with Mirrors
for organ and tape (1987-90), Après-Sheng
style='font-style:normal'> for organ solo (1988), Cadenza
style='font-style:normal'> for organ solo (1988), Missa pro Organo:
In memoriam Olivier Messiaen for organ solo
(1992), Organum Sancti Jacobi for
organ solo (1993), and Meteoros
for organ solo (1993). A Ph.D. dissertation by musicologist Per F. Broman at
Göteborg University, Sweden, is currently being prepared in consultation
with Hambræus; it contains a comprehensive list of Hambræus's
works, and a complete discography.21

The work selected for this article, Champs
style='font-style:normal'> (Fields), is the ninth movement in Volume I of Livre d'orgue, published in 1981. A foreword to the score describes the movement as a piece in which "the performer is exposed to one kind of cluster notation which has been rather common in contemporary organ music after 1960."22 Livre d'orgue exemplifies Hambræus's well-known preoccupation with timbre to a greater degree, perhaps, than any of his other works. Modeled after the livres d'orgue of the Classical French period, whose movements were often named for the organ colors specified, the Hambræus work adheres to Classical French tradition in retaining the integrity of typical classical registration, which he indicates clearly in the score, and in requiring no dynamic changes by means of the expression pedals.

Livre d'orgue uses a contemporary harmonic idiom, however.
The work comprises four separate volumes containing twelve pieces each, and is
graded from the easier pieces of Volume I to the more difficult in Volume IV.
Even though Hambræus describes Volume I as "easier," its pieces
nevertheless require advanced technique. The preface to Livre d'orgue states that although each volume can be considered a complete suite, it is unnecessary to play all the pieces from the volume, and it is permissible to mix pieces from one volume with those from other volumes.23 This practice of selecting pieces is consistent with common practice in the Classical French tradition.

Hambræus composed Livre d'orgue
style='font-style:normal'> for the installation of the Hellmuth Wolff organ in
Redpath Hall at McGill University, Montreal, in 1981. On May 26, 1981, John
Grew played three pieces from Livre d'orgue
style='font-style:normal'> at the Montreal Symposium, a three-day series of
recitals and panel discussions on historical organ construction held to
inaugurate the new instrument; however, Hambræus does not recall whether
Champs was performed. He writes that he has heard the work performed only
once--in Redpath Hall on a 1982 or 1983 exam recital by Josée April, a
student of Grew.24 Livre d'orgue
is dedicated to Hambræus's son Michael, who first conceived of the
project, and to McGill University, which made it possible.25

Structure

Champs is a moderately
difficult study in cluster technique, the most challenging technical aspect of
the piece. Hambræus writes that the piece is related to other pieces from
Livre d'orgue:

There are internal relations between corresponding pieces in
the respective volumes [of Livre d'orgue]; somebody who has played the more easy items in volume I has got acquainted with my music language (harmony, texture, momentum, density, etc.) and can easily understand how basic ideas develop; compare, for instance, the first movements in volumes I and IV! Regarding Champs--"Fields"--it is a link between other pieces in Livre d'orgue: what is in other movements notated with pitches in dense clusters has just been notated differently here.26

As shown in Table 2, registration changes punctuate major
sections of the piece, illustrating Hambræus's characteristic use of
timbre as a compositional element. Champs
is formally constructed from two double periods and a four-measure ending. In
the first double period, the Grand Orgue and Positif bourdons are set in
contrast to each other. In the second, parallel stops on each manual are added
to the bourdons at major structural posts. In the final measure, however, the
sound is reduced by removing the two stops added last, thus serving to taper the
crescendo shape of the piece.

Registration

Hambræus composed Livre d'orgue
style='font-style:normal'> with a specific instrument in mind: the Hellmuth
Wolff organ in Redpath Hall at McGill University. Completed in spring, 1981,
the large tracker instrument was built "in accordance with the detailed
descriptions in Dom Bédos de Celles's important treatise L'art
du facteur d'orgues (1766-78)."27 The
inside back cover of each volume of Livre d'orgue
style='font-style:normal'> has the complete stop list for the instrument.

Since Champs is a manualiter piece for Grand Orgue and
Positif, pedals are not used. As illustrated in Table 2, the two manuals
maintain dynamic balance by the simultaneous addition or removal of stops from
both divisions at major structural posts. The specific registration for the
Wolff instrument, listed in the score, is helpful in selecting stops of the
same pitch and timbre on a different instrument. The following stops are
specified in the score:

Grand Orgue

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Bourdon

                  22/3'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>      Nazard

                                    Cymbale
III

                                    Fourniture
IV-III

                  2'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Doublette

Positif

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Bourdon

                  22/3'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>      Nazard

                                    Cymbale
II

                                    Fourniture
III

                  2'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>             Quarte
de Nazard

All stop changes occur at rests, so it is possible for the
performer to add or remove the stops without assistance. Expression pedals are
not used.

Interpretation

The main challenge of Champs is the interpretation and performance of graphically notated
pentatonic, diatonic, and chromatic clusters, as well as cluster glissandos.
Some pentatonic or diatonic clusters also develop into chromatic ones.
Hambræus defines pentatonic clusters as black-key clusters and diatonic
clusters as white-key ones; chromatic clusters involve both black and white
keys.

Hambræus notates each pentatonic and diatonic cluster
as a geometric figure that outlines the cluster's position on the staff. The
geometric figure encloses either the letter P, for pentatonic clusters, or the
letter D, for diatonic ones. If there is insufficient room for the letters to
be placed inside narrow clusters, the letters are placed directly above. Both
chromatic clusters and chromatic cluster glissandos are notated as filled-in
geometric shapes. Small notes at the beginning of each cluster indicate its
precise span.

The pentatonic black-key clusters found in Champs
style='font-style:normal'> are played either with the fingers or with the top
of the palm and the fingers, if the fingers alone cannot span the cluster. In
either situation, it is easier to play such clusters with the fingers held at a
right angle, instead of parallel, to the keys. Diatonic white-key clusters can
either be played by the fingers or with the thumb placed at a right angle to
the keys. When a diatonic cluster expands to a chromatic cluster, the length of
the thumb and the inside base of the palm are used to play the white keys,
while the fingers are held above the black keys for the expansion, as
illustrated for the left hand in mm. 8-9. The process is immediately repeated
in a mirror-image inversion for the right hand in mm. 10-11.

Hambræus indicates the correct realization of his
cluster notation in a footnote, but provides no physical description of the
techniques needed, except to write that "in order to execute cluster
glissandos, the performer must use all of the hand in different positions, in
addition to the fingers!"28 Two distinct kinds of chromatic cluster glissando occur in Champs: an hourglass-shaped cluster glissando in mm. 25-26, and common cluster glissandos that span a
specific interval (mm. 26-28, for example). Both kinds of glissando begin on a
C-sharp to G tritone and end on a G to c-sharp tritone.

The left hand plays the hourglass-shaped cluster glissando
in mm. 25-26. It is begun with the back of the fingers sustaining all possible
keys within the C-sharp to G tritone; the palm is facing up, at this point. The
thumb-side of the hand is then gradually raised until the hand is perpendicular
to the keys, with the back edge of the hand (little finger) resting on G and on
surrounding notes. Finally, the palm is gradually lowered onto all possible
keys within the G to c-sharp tritone.

The common cluster glissandos in mm. 26-28 occur in both
hands simultaneously. They are played entirely with the palms down. The middle
finger pivots on the pitch G as the fingers and part of the hand to the left of
the middle finger play all possible keys within the C-sharp to G tritone. Then,
as the wrist moves gradually from left to right, the fingers and part of the
hand to the right of the middle finger gradually play all possible keys within
the G to C-sharp tritone. It is helpful to flatten out the hand and to place
the middle, pivot finger near the back of the G key--between F-sharp and
G-sharp, if possible. This procedure allows all of the hand to be used
effectively, and achieves a consistent texture throughout the glissando.

The tempo (quarter note = 56) is maintained by carefully
counting beats throughout the piece. Constant, internal counting is the
performer's only rhythmic guideline, since clusters begin and end at irregular
intervals, and structural posts rarely occur on a discernible beat.

Volume III of Livre d'orgue was recorded by John Grew (McGill University Records, LP 85024, now
out of print), and volume IV by Hans Hellsten (MAP CD 9236, currently
available). Two pieces from volume IV, Ouverture and Récit de Nazard,
were recorded by Erik Lundkvist (MAP CD 9026). Marilou Kratzenstein recorded
selections from volume I (WMC LP 4593) approximately twelve years ago, but the
record was not located; it is therefore unknown whether Champs was on the
album.29  Performance time for
Champs is two minutes and thirty-five seconds.    n

Notes

                  1.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Marilou
Kratzenstein, Survey of Organ Literature and Editions (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State
University Press, 1980), 147.

                  2.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Hans-Ola
Ericsson, brochure notes for Organo con Forza, Phono Suecia PS CD 31, 2.

                  3.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Robert
Douglas Reed, "The Organ Works of William Albright: 1965-1975"
(D.M.A. diss., The University of Rochester, Eastman School of Music, 1977), 21.

                  4.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Paul
Griffiths, György Ligeti, ed. Nicholas Snowman (London: Robson Books,
1983), 39.

                  5.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Reed,
22.

                  6.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Hambræus,
Letter to this writer, November 23, 1993.

                  7.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Ericsson, 9-10.

                  8.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Hans-Gunnar
Peterson, Swedish Composers of the 20th Century: Members of the Society of
Swedish Composers (Stockholm: Svensk Musik, 1988), s.v. "Sandström,
Sven-David," by Hans-Gunnar Peterson.

                  9.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>              Stanley
Sadie, ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: Macmillan
and Co., 1980), s.v. "Sandström, Sven-David."

                  10.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Sven-David
Sandström, Libera me (Munich: Edition Modern, 1977), 12-15.

                  11.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Nicolas
Slonimsky, ed., Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 8th ed. (New
York: Schirmer Books, 1992), s.v. "Sandström, Sven-David;"
Ericsson, 10.

                  12.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Lena Roth, ed., Musical Life in Sweden, trans. Michael Johns (Stockholm: Norstedts Tryckeri AB, 1987), 55.

                  13.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Sadie; Slonimsky.

                  14.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Ericsson, 10.

                  15.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Peterson.

                  16.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Ericsson, 10.

                  17.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Register crescendo is the German Rollschweller, a type of crescendo pedal.

                  18.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Roth, 55.

                  19.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Ericsson, Organo con Forza recording.

                  20.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Sadie, s.v. "Hambræus, Bengt."

                  21.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Brian Morton and Pamela Collins, eds., Contemporary Composers (Chicago: St. James Press, 1992), s.v. "Hambræus, Bengt;" Per F. Broman,
"Bengt Hambræus: Work List and Discography," (supplied by
Hambræus from Ph.D. diss. in progress, Göteborg University, Sweden).

                  22.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Hambræus, Livre d'orgue, vol. 1, preface, 3.

                  23.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Ibid., 4.

                  24.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Hambræus, Letter to this writer, November 23, 1993.

                  25.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Peter
Williams, "The Organ in Our Time: Montreal Symposium," The American
Organist 15, no. 9 (September 1981): 58; Hambræus, Livre d'orgue, vol. 1,
title page.

                  26.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Hambræus, Letter to this writer, November 23, 1993.

                  27.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Hambræus, Livre d'orgue, vol. 1, preface, 2.

                  28.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Ibid., 8.

                  29.
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           Hambræus, Letter to this writer, November 23, 1993.

This article will be continued.

Martin Goldray

The Haarlem International Organ Festival (July 12–26, 2014) celebrated a milestone with its 50th Improvisation Competition this summer. The festival runs concurrently with the Haarlem Summer Organ Academy, which celebrated its 46th anniversary. At the academy, fifteen teachers taught eleven subjects, and it was attended by 110 students from 30 countries. In addition to these classes there were around forty public events: recitals, lectures, masterclasses, and excursions to other cities. These could easily have accounted for every minute of every day, and it would have been a challenge to justify missing any of them. The centerpiece of the festival is the famed 1738 Müller organ at St. Bavo’s (restored by Marcussen, revoiced by Flentrop, and played by Mozart), but organs all around Haarlem are used for classes and concerts, including the Cavaillé-Coll at the Philharmonie and instruments at the Nieuwe Kerk, the Waalse Kerk, and the Doopsgesinde Kerk. 

To celebrate the event the organizers released The Haarlem Essays, a marvelous 480-page book (noted in the October 2014 issue of The Diapason and available through the Organ Historical Society). It contains essays and interviews directly related to the festival, to its instruments, and to its important figures over the years, and is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the history of this important festival. But it also includes essays on a variety of scholarly, historical, and aesthetic issues by noted scholars and performers, most of which are newly written, and which makes the volume of great interest beyond the subject of the festival itself. 

The Haarlem Essays comes with a compact disc of seven of the winning organ improvisations, dating back to Piet Kee’s in 1955, as well as all of the competition themes starting with the first one in 1951. The theme for the finals of this summer’s competition was by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen. It appeared about an hour before the competition and thus was too late to be included. The two top prizewinners were Lukas Grimm, from Germany, who received the audience prize, and David Cassan, from France, who won first prize. They treated the theme so differently that it seemed to me to represent two entirely contrasting conceptions of improvisation: Grimm’s was dazzling in its variety of styles and techniques and built to a thrilling conclusion, while Cassan’s was more of an integrated whole in four large sections, with thematic recurrences as well as a polyphonic elaboration of the theme. Both were remarkable and hard to compare.

At the academy there were four Bach teachers: Ton Koopman, Masaaki Suzuki, Michael Radulescu, and Jon Laukvik, and there were classes by Olivier Latry on Messiaen, Lorenzo Ghielmi on Italian-influenced North German music, Jon Laukvik on Vierne, Louis Robilliard on Franck, Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini on Italian repertory, Bernhard Haas on contemporary repertory, Leo van Doeselaar on Mozart and Bach’s sons, Jürgen Essl and Peter Planyavsky on advanced improvisation, and Jos van der Kooy on improvisation for beginners. 

After a week of two-hour masterclasses it would be foolhardy to try to describe a teacher’s approach in a sentence, but I will try to anyway for the classes I took: Suzuki’s Bach was physical and extrovert in its emotion, and he was both practical and dramatic in his teaching. At one point he had a student playing pleno forearm clusters on the Müller to encourage her to be more physically engaged. I was scared to look over the balcony to see how the tourists were taking it. Radulescu brought great scholarship to his Bach class and showed how understanding rhetorical terms and an awareness of formal and historical issues can illuminate performance. Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini first taught at Haarlem in 1959 (where he was known as a member of the “holy trinity” along with Marie-Claire Alain and Anton Heiller). He returned this summer after a long absence, and it was a privilege to experience the elegance and generosity of his teaching and playing. His admission that he’s still uncertain about whether to normalize accidentals was liberating. Ghielmi’s class, which focused on Buxtehude and Bruhns, showed how drama and imagined operatic scenes can bring this repertory to life (a subject that Jean-Claude Zehnder also treats in his article in The Haarlem Essays), and also how a teacher with a sense of theater can entertain as well as instruct. And Haas’s inspiring class on contemporary repertory brought a level of belief and insight into the modernist repertory that I haven’t encountered in this country in a while, whether he was discussing Cage and the Buddhist conception of silence (not absence of emotion but its foundation), Schoenberg, or Messiaen.

There were excursions between the two weeks of classes, to Utrecht, Amsterdam, and Leiden. At the Nikolaikerk in Utrecht, where festival leader Stephen Taylor was the organist for many years, Christoph Wolff gave a fascinating presentation on the work of the Bach Archive in Leipzig, including the newly discovered document that shows that Bach studied with Georg Böhm when Bach was a student in Lüneberg and may very well have lived in his house. 

Many of the faculty gave forty-five-minute public lectures on a variety of topics. I’ll just mention two of them: Jon Laukvik’s lecture on tempo rubato focused on an aspect of early performance that we tend to ignore but which is well documented. He noted that historical performance practice uses “a small slice of the cake.” Christoph Wolff and Ton Koopman gave a joint talk on Bach in which Koopman reiterated his belief that Bach never used heels (well, with the exception of perhaps six places, according to Koopman). It would have been fun to have had the entire Haarlem faculty in on that topic, as none of them seem to agree with him. Forty-five minutes isn’t enough to deal with the questions that any of these lectures raised, let alone the topic of heels in Bach. But what a great way to both observe the masterclass teachers in a lecture setting and to raise the intellectual level of the conference by at least starting important discussions.

Stephen Taylor, chairman of the artistic council, is the guiding spirit of this most remarkable festival and is a most genial and ubiquitous presence. His introductions to all of the events were models of brevity and wit, but if you engaged him in conversation on any seemingly trivial topic you would discover that he’s something of a polymath, and subjects like neo-Gothic architecture or the history of the Dutch canals are likely to come up. That’s another recommended way to spend your time, if you have any energy left over from the festival.

All photos by Martin Goldray except as noted.

Barbara Owen

The 58th annual Organ Historical Society national convention differed in several ways from some of the recent ones. Its hub, Burlington, is the largest city in northern Vermont, but hardly in the same size league as Washington, Pittsburgh, or Chicago—the sprawling urban sites of recent conventions. Yet it is accessible via train, plane, and interstate, culturally vital, and full of amenities from good food to spectacular views of Lake Champlain, not to mention parking. Burlington has some important recent organs, although no really huge ones, and is within easy distance to a pleasing array of smaller towns to the north, east, and south, with a corresponding selection of smaller and older organs, all of them discussed in interesting detail in the substantial accompanying Atlas, edited and largely written by Stephen Pinel. However, that was bedtime reading for many of us, as all the programs, stoplists, and performer biographies were contained in a well-organized and more portable schedule booklet.

Monday, June 24

The convention opened on the evening of Monday, June 24 in the Recital Hall of University of Vermont’s Redstone Campus, with welcoming words by Executive Director James Weaver, Convention Chair Marilyn Polson, and outgoing President Scot Huntington. This year’s Biggs Fellows were introduced, and the 2013 Ogasapian Book Prize was awarded to David Yearsley for his groundbreaking work on organ pedaling and its history. 

This was immediately followed by a recital on UVM’s French-influenced 1975 Fisk organ by well-known recital and recording artist Joan Lippincott, who impressively displayed its French personality in works by Marchand (an opening and decidedly grand Grand Jeu) and de Grigny, and its more hidden German flavor in works by Bach, which included a knowledgable performance of the classic Prelude and Fugue in E-flat Major as the “sandwich” of a varied program that included de Grigny’s Veni Creator, performed liturgically with baritone John McElliott singing the appropriate chants between the registration-oriented organ movements. 

Tuesday, June 25

Tuesday morning we were off and running in buses heading for the east of Burlington, beginning with Hook & Hastings organs in Plainfield (United Methodist, 1873) and Cabot (UCC, 1896)—coincidentally 1,000 opus numbers apart. Although of similar small size, their tonal philosophy differed noticeably, yet both were surprisingly capable of varied repertoire tastefully registered and played by Lynnette Combs (Plainfield) and Permelia Sears (Cabot). In these two programs we heard excellent interpretations of music from the Baroque (Pasquini, Boyce, Muffat, Pachelbel, Homilius), 19th century (Thayer and Buck), and 20th century (Murphy, Langlais, Huston, Sears). 

Two more organs, both somewhat tonally altered (although not greatly to their detriment), rounded out the day’s offerings. The resources of a small organ in Hardwick by a little-known Vermont builder, Edward H. Smith (1887), were capably employed by Robert Barney in a Bach concerto, a Mendelssohn sonata, and a short trio by Vermont native S. B. Whitney, while Samuel Baker also made excellent use of a larger 1868 Johnson organ in Greensboro, which began and ended with 20th-century works by Gawthrop and Willan, sandwiching four varied Baroque and contemporary preludes on Wer nur den lieben Gott by Bach, Krebs, Walcha, and Dupré in between. 

The evening program was back in Burlington at the Congregational Church. It was unique in that it featured two 21st-century continuo organs by
A. David Moore and Scot Huntington, plus an Estey reed organ, in a program of concerted works by Soler, Froberger, Caldara, Wagenseil, and Dvorák (this last with the Estey), all admirably interpreted by organists David Neiweem and Mark Howe, with string players of the Burlington Ensemble.

Wednesday, June 26

Wednesday brought us to the Montpelier area and three larger two-manual organs, all by notable Boston builders. In Montpelier’s Unitarian Church, Carol Britt displayed the 1866 Stevens organ’s varied colors well in four chorale preludes by Willan and Brahms, and showcased the Oboe stop in a delightful Récit de hautbois by Emmanuel Chol, before closing with a robust transcription of an Elgar March. 

In the auditorium of the Montpelier College of Fine Arts, the 1884 Hutchings organ was expertly put through its paces by Paul Tegels in a varied program ranging from two of Haydn’s chirpy “Musical Clock” pieces to three movements of Mendelssohn’s Second Sonata, and closing with contrasted settings of Wer nur den lieben Gott by Böhm and Bach. 

In nearby Stowe, the 1864 Simmons organ in the Community Church, although twice rebuilt and enlarged (but retaining mechanical action), proved a perfect vehicle for an engaging program by John Weaver and his wife, flutist Marianne. Beginning with a smashing Bach Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and ending with Franck’s Choral in E Major, it included two fine works by Weaver, plus his pleasing arrangement for organ and flute of an excerpt from Franck’s Fantasie in A, performed with a borrowed Estey reed organ. Although rain had been threatening all day, the sky cleared that evening for an enjoyable and relaxing sunset dinner cruise on beautiful Lake Champlain.

Thursday, June 27

On Thursday we journeyed north to towns near the Canadian border. St. Albans was the first stop, with three programs. Isabelle Demers led off in Holy Guardian Angels Church in a full-scale program well suited to the resources of the organ built in 1892 by Ernest Desmarais, a Canadian who built organs for a short time in Vermont. Beginning with some little dances by Praetorius, she segued into another set of short pieces by contemporary Canadian composer Rachel Laurin, and then a fine interpretation of Mendelssohn’s Fourth Sonata. The real pièce de resistance, commented upon by many, was her own transcription of four excerpts from Prokofiev’s Cinderella (operatic transcriptions are not dead!), and was followed by a rousing performance of Dupré’s Prelude and Fugue in B Major as a closer. 

Christopher Anderson led off his program on the 1893 Hook & Hastings organ in the Congregational Church with four pleasingly light pieces from Daniel Pinkham’s First Organbook, followed by a sensitive performance of two hitherto unknown and very contrasted works by the young Charles Ives (only published in 2012): a sedate and melodic Canzonetta and a rather crazily bitonal smash on “London Bridge.” Demers had included some of the recently republished Reger and Straube organ expansions of Bach harpsichord pieces, and Anderson did likewise in his closing selections. 

The 1889 Jardine organ in St. Luke’s Church was the final St. Albans stop, and OHS favorite Rosalind Mohnsen did not disappoint in a varied full-scale program that began brightly with the solo organ version of Handel’s Fifth Concerto. Works by Dubois and Dvorák followed, authentically registered on this organ’s Romantic colors, and a Fuga by Cernohorsky revealed its classical side. Contrasting American works were Elmore’s brash Alla Marcia, and a sensitively performed Air from the Suite No. 1 by Florence B. Price, a gifted African-American composer whose classically crafted works have only recently begun to appear on concert programs, as have those of Anglo-African Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, whose Impromptu closed Mohnsen’s program.

From the Romantic and orchestrally flavored late 19th-century organs of St. Albans, a fairly short trip to two nearby rural towns transported us back to the English-inspired early 19th century, represented by two delightful and more gently voiced organs by New York’s Henry Erben in the Episcopal churches of Sheldon (1833) and Highgate Falls (ca. 1837), both remarkable for being unaltered, sensitively restored, and still in use liturgically. Most unusual was the Highgate Falls instrument, with only three stops—Stopped Diapason, Principal, and Trumpet (yes, you read that right). Gregory Crowell made imaginative and effective use of these stops in “period” selections by Handel, Mozart, Loud, and Byrd, plus one of Daniel Pinkham’s Saints’ Days pieces in honor of St. John, for whom the church is named. 

The Sheldon organ is larger, though still of only one manual, transplanted many years ago from St. Paul’s in Burlington. Period-appropriate works by Shaw, Taylor, Pasquini, Stanley, and Rinck again predominated in Peter Crisafulli’s nicely varied program, but the organ also proved equal to a more Romantic Elevazione by Peeters, and even Alec Wyton’s prelude on “We Three Kings,” a tribute to its Vermont-born author, grandson of Vermont’s first Episcopal bishop. 

Evening brought us back to Burlington, and the fine 1864 Hook organ of the First Baptist Church, where Ray Cornils presented an imaginative program of mostly shorter works by American, German, French, and Spanish composers designed to showcase “The Colors of This Organ.” Beginning with Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s Prelude in F Major, it ran the gamut from Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in G Major to works featuring flute and trumpet solos, a French toccata by Bédard, and even a theatre-organ staple, Nigel Ogden’s smile-producing Penguin’s Playtime.

Friday, June 28

Friday, the last full day, began with two organs in Randolph. On the United Church’s 1912 organ by Vermont’s most notable organ builder, Estey, George Bozeman expertly brought out its warm and Romantic flavor in his creative use of its eight ranks (and various couplers) in decidedly “period” works by Honegger (Two Pieces, 1917) and Frank Bridge (Three Pieces, 1905). A nicely varied program of works by 20th-century American composers Nevin, Near, Thomson, and Pinkham played by Glenn Kime showcased the 1894 Hutchings organ in Bethany UCC Church, and by concluding with a well-paced performance of the Fugue in E-flat Major proved the organ to be quite capable of convincing Bach performance as well. 

The next stop was Northfield, home of a Hook and two Simmons organs—all, interestingly, “transplants” from other churches. The Hook in St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, dating from 1836 and the builder’s earliest extant two-manual, took us back to the gentler sounds heard the afternoon of the previous day. The English flavor of these early 19th-century American organs was fully exploited by Lois Regestein in a program that began with varied works by Purcell, Stanley, Samuel Wesley, S. S. Wesley, and Arne. The latter’s “Rule Brittania” was given an authentic performance with the verses sung by tenor Edson Gifford, with appropriate interludes. The program concluded with a Trio by Vermont-born S. B. Whitney, and a selection from contemporary composer David Dahl’s English Suite. 

The versatility of the substantial 1855 Simmons organ in the United Methodist Church was exploited in a varied program by Lubbert Gnodde that included two nicely registered works by Jehan Alain, and seemed quite ideal for two of Karg-Elert’s chorale preludes as well as the smashingly executed Finale from Vierne’s Symphony No. 1 that closed the program. 

Another Simmons of a decade later in St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church also proved equal to a varied program by James Heustis Cook that began with a flowing Frescobaldi Toccata on the warm 8′ Principals and a bright Albrechtsberger Prelude and Fugue in B. Works different styles by 19th-century composers Hauser, Lemaigre, Mendelssohn, and Whitney followed, along with orchestrally inspired works by once popular 20th-century composer Harry Vibbard.

It will be observed that throughout the week, works by 19th-century American composers, both early and late, appeared on many programs. And in the final tour stop in the Federated Church of Williamstown, on an organ originally built by Vermonter William Nutting in 1868 and rebuilt by another Vermonter, Harlan Seaver, in 1895, Christopher Marks treated us to a program that was not only based on works by American composers born mostly in the middle decades of the 19th century, but works by these composers—Yon, Lutkin, Whitney, Chadwick, Parker, and Buck—in which canonic forms of the classical style occurred. Yet the ways that they did so also displayed great variety. Yon’s Eco was a double canon, Lutkin’s a quiet Pastorale; five of Chadwick’s Ten Canonic Studies displayed a variety of registrations, and even the hymn sung was the well-known Tallis’ Canon. But the climax was Marks’s brilliant performance of Buck’s Choral March, in which “Ein feste’ Burg” and other themes are expertly canonically woven.

Back in Burlington, we gathered for the final concert on the 1973 Karl Wilhelm organ in the modernistic and acoustically fine St. Paul’s Cathedral that had risen after a devastating fire. While by no means lacking foundation, the organ’s tonal design is Baroque-based, and James David Christie was in fine form for a varied program of Baroque works by Sweelinck, Schildt, Scheidemann, Vivaldi, Krebs, Buttstett, and, of course, Bach. High energy was displayed throughout, not only in the brilliance of Scheidemann’s Alleluia! Laudem dicite Deo and works by Krebs and Buttstedt, but also in the more somber Paduana Lagrima variations of Schildt, the delicately registered little dances from the Van Soldt manuscript, and Christie’s own “Bachian” transcription of Vivaldi’s Concerto in D Major. A vigorous and driving interpretation of Bach’s Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor brought the audience to its feet at the close, and proved a fitting conclusion to a week of fine organs, music, and fellowship.

Saturday, June 29

But wait, there’s a bit more. Just as a shorter and quieter encore can complete a more vigorous concert, so does a lighter optional coda often follow an intensive OHS convention. So on Saturday a smaller number signed up for a brief tour south of Burlington. The first stop was in the unique Round Church (now a museum) in Richmond, where Demetri Sampas successfully coaxed short pieces by Zeuner, Whitney, and Krebs from a rather strange little 19th-century chamber organ of anonymous parentage. 

The next stop was in Vergennes, where in a well-chosen program of works by Bingham, Albright, Langlais, Yon, and Reger at the Methodist Church, Estey expert Philip Stimmel impressed us with what the (on paper) seemingly limited resources of a nine-rank 1927 Estey were capable of in the hands of one who knows what can be done by judicious use of sub and super couplers. 

Also in Vergennes is a pleasing one-manual Hook organ of 1862 in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, where Margaret Angelini stepped a bit out of the expected box by proving it capable of three short pieces by Jongen, a reed organ Service Prelude by W. H. Clarke, and Daniel Pinkham’s six Versets for Small Organ, which indeed worked well on this small organ. 

The final stop was the sprawling and impressive Shelburne Museum, where we had a leisurely time to wander around some of the exhibits and have lunch in its restaurant before the final program in the Meeting House, home of a small transplanted five-rank Derrick, Felgemaker & Co. organ of ca. 1869, where the OHS’s current Executive Director, James Weaver, also slightly “out of the box,” treated us to a varied program of short works by Stanley, Pachelbel, Merula, and Bach, closing with Domenico Zipoli’s lively Toccata all’ Offertorio. 

All OHS members, whether attendees or not, received a copy of the impressively researched, written, and illustrated 234-page Atlas, with its detailed history of the organ in the State of Vermont. Non-members, including libraries and historical societies, may still obtain a copy from [email protected]. In addition, the closing recital at St. Paul’s Cathedral was digitally recorded, and has become available. 

The 58th annual Organ Historical Society national convention differed in several ways from some of the recent ones. Its hub, Burlington, is the largest city in northern Vermont, but hardly in the same size league as Washington, Pittsburgh, or Chicago—the sprawling urban sites of recent conventions. Yet it is accessible via train, plane, and interstate, culturally vital, and full of amenities from good food to spectacular views of Lake Champlain, not to mention parking. Burlington has some important recent organs, although no really huge ones, and is within easy distance to a pleasing array of smaller towns to the north, east, and south, with a corresponding selection of smaller and older organs, all of them discussed in interesting detail in the substantial accompanying Atlas, edited and largely written by Stephen Pinel. However, that was bedtime reading for many of us, as all the programs, stoplists, and performer biographies were contained in a well-organized and more portable schedule booklet.

Monday, June 24

The convention opened on the evening of Monday, June 24 in the Recital Hall of University of Vermont’s Redstone Campus, with welcoming words by Executive Director James Weaver, Convention Chair Marilyn Polson, and outgoing President Scot Huntington. This year’s Biggs Fellows were introduced, and the 2013 Ogasapian Book Prize was awarded to David Yearsley for his groundbreaking work on organ pedaling and its history. 

This was immediately followed by a recital on UVM’s French-influenced 1975 Fisk organ by well-known recital and recording artist Joan Lippincott, who impressively displayed its French personality in works by Marchand (an opening and decidedly grand Grand Jeu) and de Grigny, and its more hidden German flavor in works by Bach, which included a knowledgable performance of the classic Prelude and Fugue in E-flat Major as the “sandwich” of a varied program that included de Grigny’s Veni Creator, performed liturgically with baritone John McElliott singing the appropriate chants between the registration-oriented organ movements. 

Tuesday, June 25

Tuesday morning we were off and running in buses heading for the east of Burlington, beginning with Hook & Hastings organs in Plainfield (United Methodist, 1873) and Cabot (UCC, 1896)—coincidentally 1,000 opus numbers apart. Although of similar small size, their tonal philosophy differed noticeably, yet both were surprisingly capable of varied repertoire tastefully registered and played by Lynnette Combs (Plainfield) and Permelia Sears (Cabot). In these two programs we heard excellent interpretations of music from the Baroque (Pasquini, Boyce, Muffat, Pachelbel, Homilius), 19th century (Thayer and Buck), and 20th century (Murphy, Langlais, Huston, Sears). 

Two more organs, both somewhat tonally altered (although not greatly to their detriment), rounded out the day’s offerings. The resources of a small organ in Hardwick by a little-known Vermont builder, Edward H. Smith (1887), were capably employed by Robert Barney in a Bach concerto, a Mendelssohn sonata, and a short trio by Vermont native S. B. Whitney, while Samuel Baker also made excellent use of a larger 1868 Johnson organ in Greensboro, which began and ended with 20th-century works by Gawthrop and Willan, sandwiching four varied Baroque and contemporary preludes on Wer nur den lieben Gott by Bach, Krebs, Walcha, and Dupré in between. 

The evening program was back in Burlington at the Congregational Church. It was unique in that it featured two 21st-century continuo organs by
A. David Moore and Scot Huntington, plus an Estey reed organ, in a program of concerted works by Soler, Froberger, Caldara, Wagenseil, and Dvorák (this last with the Estey), all admirably interpreted by organists David Neiweem and Mark Howe, with string players of the Burlington Ensemble.

Wednesday, June 26

Wednesday brought us to the Montpelier area and three larger two-manual organs, all by notable Boston builders. In Montpelier’s Unitarian Church, Carol Britt displayed the 1866 Stevens organ’s varied colors well in four chorale preludes by Willan and Brahms, and showcased the Oboe stop in a delightful Récit de hautbois by Emmanuel Chol, before closing with a robust transcription of an Elgar March. 

In the auditorium of the Montpelier College of Fine Arts, the 1884 Hutchings organ was expertly put through its paces by Paul Tegels in a varied program ranging from two of Haydn’s chirpy “Musical Clock” pieces to three movements of Mendelssohn’s Second Sonata, and closing with contrasted settings of Wer nur den lieben Gott by Böhm and Bach. 

In nearby Stowe, the 1864 Simmons organ in the Community Church, although twice rebuilt and enlarged (but retaining mechanical action), proved a perfect vehicle for an engaging program by John Weaver and his wife, flutist Marianne. Beginning with a smashing Bach Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and ending with Franck’s Choral in E Major, it included two fine works by Weaver, plus his pleasing arrangement for organ and flute of an excerpt from Franck’s Fantasie in A, performed with a borrowed Estey reed organ. Although rain had been threatening all day, the sky cleared that evening for an enjoyable and relaxing sunset dinner cruise on beautiful Lake Champlain.

Thursday, June 27

On Thursday we journeyed north to towns near the Canadian border. St. Albans was the first stop, with three programs. Isabelle Demers led off in Holy Guardian Angels Church in a full-scale program well suited to the resources of the organ built in 1892 by Ernest Desmarais, a Canadian who built organs for a short time in Vermont. Beginning with some little dances by Praetorius, she segued into another set of short pieces by contemporary Canadian composer Rachel Laurin, and then a fine interpretation of Mendelssohn’s Fourth Sonata. The real pièce de resistance, commented upon by many, was her own transcription of four excerpts from Prokofiev’s Cinderella (operatic transcriptions are not dead!), and was followed by a rousing performance of Dupré’s Prelude and Fugue in B Major as a closer. 

Christopher Anderson led off his program on the 1893 Hook & Hastings organ in the Congregational Church with four pleasingly light pieces from Daniel Pinkham’s First Organbook, followed by a sensitive performance of two hitherto unknown and very contrasted works by the young Charles Ives (only published in 2012): a sedate and melodic Canzonetta and a rather crazily bitonal smash on “London Bridge.” Demers had included some of the recently republished Reger and Straube organ expansions of Bach harpsichord pieces, and Anderson did likewise in his closing selections. 

The 1889 Jardine organ in St. Luke’s Church was the final St. Albans stop, and OHS favorite Rosalind Mohnsen did not disappoint in a varied full-scale program that began brightly with the solo organ version of Handel’s Fifth Concerto. Works by Dubois and Dvorák followed, authentically registered on this organ’s Romantic colors, and a Fuga by Cernohorsky revealed its classical side. Contrasting American works were Elmore’s brash Alla Marcia, and a sensitively performed Air from the Suite No. 1 by Florence B. Price, a gifted African-American composer whose classically crafted works have only recently begun to appear on concert programs, as have those of Anglo-African Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, whose Impromptu closed Mohnsen’s program.

From the Romantic and orchestrally flavored late 19th-century organs of St. Albans, a fairly short trip to two nearby rural towns transported us back to the English-inspired early 19th century, represented by two delightful and more gently voiced organs by New York’s Henry Erben in the Episcopal churches of Sheldon (1833) and Highgate Falls (ca. 1837), both remarkable for being unaltered, sensitively restored, and still in use liturgically. Most unusual was the Highgate Falls instrument, with only three stops—Stopped Diapason, Principal, and Trumpet (yes, you read that right). Gregory Crowell made imaginative and effective use of these stops in “period” selections by Handel, Mozart, Loud, and Byrd, plus one of Daniel Pinkham’s Saints’ Days pieces in honor of St. John, for whom the church is named. 

The Sheldon organ is larger, though still of only one manual, transplanted many years ago from St. Paul’s in Burlington. Period-appropriate works by Shaw, Taylor, Pasquini, Stanley, and Rinck again predominated in Peter Crisafulli’s nicely varied program, but the organ also proved equal to a more Romantic Elevazione by Peeters, and even Alec Wyton’s prelude on “We Three Kings,” a tribute to its Vermont-born author, grandson of Vermont’s first Episcopal bishop. 

Evening brought us back to Burlington, and the fine 1864 Hook organ of the First Baptist Church, where Ray Cornils presented an imaginative program of mostly shorter works by American, German, French, and Spanish composers designed to showcase “The Colors of This Organ.” Beginning with Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s Prelude in F Major, it ran the gamut from Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in G Major to works featuring flute and trumpet solos, a French toccata by Bédard, and even a theatre-organ staple, Nigel Ogden’s smile-producing Penguin’s Playtime.

Friday, June 28

Friday, the last full day, began with two organs in Randolph. On the United Church’s 1912 organ by Vermont’s most notable organ builder, Estey, George Bozeman expertly brought out its warm and Romantic flavor in his creative use of its eight ranks (and various couplers) in decidedly “period” works by Honegger (Two Pieces, 1917) and Frank Bridge (Three Pieces, 1905). A nicely varied program of works by 20th-century American composers Nevin, Near, Thomson, and Pinkham played by Glenn Kime showcased the 1894 Hutchings organ in Bethany UCC Church, and by concluding with a well-paced performance of the Fugue in E-flat Major proved the organ to be quite capable of convincing Bach performance as well. 

The next stop was Northfield, home of a Hook and two Simmons organs—all, interestingly, “transplants” from other churches. The Hook in St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, dating from 1836 and the builder’s earliest extant two-manual, took us back to the gentler sounds heard the afternoon of the previous day. The English flavor of these early 19th-century American organs was fully exploited by Lois Regestein in a program that began with varied works by Purcell, Stanley, Samuel Wesley, S. S. Wesley, and Arne. The latter’s “Rule Brittania” was given an authentic performance with the verses sung by tenor Edson Gifford, with appropriate interludes. The program concluded with a Trio by Vermont-born S. B. Whitney, and a selection from contemporary composer David Dahl’s English Suite. 

The versatility of the substantial 1855 Simmons organ in the United Methodist Church was exploited in a varied program by Lubbert Gnodde that included two nicely registered works by Jehan Alain, and seemed quite ideal for two of Karg-Elert’s chorale preludes as well as the smashingly executed Finale from Vierne’s Symphony No. 1 that closed the program. 

Another Simmons of a decade later in St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church also proved equal to a varied program by James Heustis Cook that began with a flowing Frescobaldi Toccata on the warm 8′ Principals and a bright Albrechtsberger Prelude and Fugue in B. Works different styles by 19th-century composers Hauser, Lemaigre, Mendelssohn, and Whitney followed, along with orchestrally inspired works by once popular 20th-century composer Harry Vibbard.

It will be observed that throughout the week, works by 19th-century American composers, both early and late, appeared on many programs. And in the final tour stop in the Federated Church of Williamstown, on an organ originally built by Vermonter William Nutting in 1868 and rebuilt by another Vermonter, Harlan Seaver, in 1895, Christopher Marks treated us to a program that was not only based on works by American composers born mostly in the middle decades of the 19th century, but works by these composers—Yon, Lutkin, Whitney, Chadwick, Parker, and Buck—in which canonic forms of the classical style occurred. Yet the ways that they did so also displayed great variety. Yon’s Eco was a double canon, Lutkin’s a quiet Pastorale; five of Chadwick’s Ten Canonic Studies displayed a variety of registrations, and even the hymn sung was the well-known Tallis’ Canon. But the climax was Marks’s brilliant performance of Buck’s Choral March, in which “Ein feste’ Burg” and other themes are expertly canonically woven.

Back in Burlington, we gathered for the final concert on the 1973 Karl Wilhelm organ in the modernistic and acoustically fine St. Paul’s Cathedral that had risen after a devastating fire. While by no means lacking foundation, the organ’s tonal design is Baroque-based, and James David Christie was in fine form for a varied program of Baroque works by Sweelinck, Schildt, Scheidemann, Vivaldi, Krebs, Buttstett, and, of course, Bach. High energy was displayed throughout, not only in the brilliance of Scheidemann’s Alleluia! Laudem dicite Deo and works by Krebs and Buttstedt, but also in the more somber Paduana Lagrima variations of Schildt, the delicately registered little dances from the Van Soldt manuscript, and Christie’s own “Bachian” transcription of Vivaldi’s Concerto in D Major. A vigorous and driving interpretation of Bach’s Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor brought the audience to its feet at the close, and proved a fitting conclusion to a week of fine organs, music, and fellowship.

Saturday, June 29

But wait, there’s a bit more. Just as a shorter and quieter encore can complete a more vigorous concert, so does a lighter optional coda often follow an intensive OHS convention. So on Saturday a smaller number signed up for a brief tour south of Burlington. The first stop was in the unique Round Church (now a museum) in Richmond, where Demetri Sampas successfully coaxed short pieces by Zeuner, Whitney, and Krebs from a rather strange little 19th-century chamber organ of anonymous parentage. 

The next stop was in Vergennes, where in a well-chosen program of works by Bingham, Albright, Langlais, Yon, and Reger at the Methodist Church, Estey expert Philip Stimmel impressed us with what the (on paper) seemingly limited resources of a nine-rank 1927 Estey were capable of in the hands of one who knows what can be done by judicious use of sub and super couplers. 

Also in Vergennes is a pleasing one-manual Hook organ of 1862 in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, where Margaret Angelini stepped a bit out of the expected box by proving it capable of three short pieces by Jongen, a reed organ Service Prelude by W. H. Clarke, and Daniel Pinkham’s six Versets for Small Organ, which indeed worked well on this small organ. 

The final stop was the sprawling and impressive Shelburne Museum, where we had a leisurely time to wander around some of the exhibits and have lunch in its restaurant before the final program in the Meeting House, home of a small transplanted five-rank Derrick, Felgemaker & Co. organ of ca. 1869, where the OHS’s current Executive Director, James Weaver, also slightly “out of the box,” treated us to a varied program of short works by Stanley, Pachelbel, Merula, and Bach, closing with Domenico Zipoli’s lively Toccata all’ Offertorio. 

All OHS members, whether attendees or not, received a copy of the impressively researched, written, and illustrated 234-page Atlas, with its detailed history of the organ in the State of Vermont. Non-members, including libraries and historical societies, may still obtain a copy from [email protected]. In addition, the closing recital at St. Paul’s Cathedral was digitally recorded, and has become available. 

Andrew Scanlon

The following conversation, conducted both in person and by telephone in March 2013, explores the career of one of America’s most eminent musicians and teachers, Ann Labounsky. Dr. Labounsky was my undergraduate organ teacher at Duquesne University, and she is now in her 44th year as professor and chair of sacred music and organ at that same institution. Some years after completing graduate study and working in church music, I had the privilege of returning to Duquesne as a faculty member, teaching alongside Dr. Labounsky for four years. We maintain a close collaboration, and therefore, I have been in the unique situation of knowing Dr. Labounsky on several levels since we first met in New York City at the 1996 American Guild of Organists Centennial Convention. As a teacher, mentor, colleague, and friend, Ann has challenged, encouraged, and supported me in many ways. In this interview, we discuss Ann’s life and career. Several life chapters particularly dominate our discussion: Ann’s student days at Eastman as a pupil of the young David Craighead, and the full circle of Ann and David’s long friendship; Ann’s time as a Fulbright scholar in Paris, studying organ under André Marchal, Jean Langlais, and Marcel Dupré; and finally, Ann’s inimitable teaching career in Pittsburgh. 

 

 

Andrew Scanlon: When people ask me why I decided to learn to play the organ, I most often reply, “Actually, the organ chose me!” Most of your life has been devoted to the organ. What was your first encounter with the organ, and when did the organ first “choose you?”

Ann Labounsky: As a young girl, our family was living in Port Washington, Long Island, and my mother used to take me to a Methodist church across the street from our home. This was before I could read; and I must have heard the pipe organ, but I don’t have much of a memory of it.

Later, we attended Christ Church (Episcopal) in Oyster Bay, where Paul Sifler (also a composer) was the organist-choirmaster. My mother, my brother, and I all sang in the choir, and it was then that I became interested. I was fascinated by the way Paul played. I would come early for choir rehearsals or lessons to watch him practice. I began studying the organ with Sifler at age 15. He was a very good teacher for me, and I loved his compositions. One summer, I went away to a camp, where I couldn’t play the organ for about two weeks, and I missed it so much. I think at that stage, I knew I would be an organist.

 

The conventional wisdom seems to be that before learning the organ, a strong piano background is useful, even essential. Were you already accomplished on the piano? 

My piano teacher in high school was John LaMontaine, Paul Sifler’s partner. He was also a wonderful composer and had a great command of technique. He followed the Tobias Matthay school of relaxation. I would take the train to go to their apartment on 57th Street in New York to take the lessons. It was he who encouraged me to go to Eastman. 

 

Since your piano teacher encouraged you to apply to the Eastman School of Music, did you audition on both piano and organ? What was required for the audition?

Yes, we were required to perform on both instruments. For the organ portion, I remember playing Mendelssohn’s Sonata No. 6, but can’t remember which Bach I played. I do recall that I played a recital my senior year of high school and had played Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and Wir glauben all an einen Gott on that recital, so I must have played one of those works. For the piano portion, they required that you know all scales and arpeggios, as well as the performance of a work by Bach and a Beethoven sonata. I was very nervous for the audition.

 

Before you went to Eastman, what, if anything, did you know of David Craighead? Did you want to study with him, or were you taking the advice of your teachers?

Well, no; actually, I didn’t know anything about David Craighead. But John LaMontaine had studied at Eastman, and he thought it was a very good school. He wanted me to study with Eastman’s piano teacher, George MacNabb. (It was from MacNabb that I learned the Brahms Fifty-one Exercises, which I still use.) Paul Sifler thought that Catharine Crozier would have been a good organ teacher for me, and I looked into studying with her. However, by the time I entered Eastman as a freshman, Crozier had already left the Eastman faculty for Rollins College in Florida. 

 

Did you audition anywhere else besides Eastman?

No. It always makes me laugh now, because these days, students audition at several schools. But for some reason, I didn’t.

 

Had you given any thought to what might happen if you didn’t get in?

No, that didn’t occur to me! 

 

In 1957, you moved upstate from Long Island and began your new life in Rochester. What are your memories of those undergraduate years? 

Eastman was a wonderful school. For many years, I stayed in close touch with the friends that I made there because we all struggled together. It was very demanding; in fact, I had nightmares. I was so afraid that I wouldn’t do well enough and that David Craighead would make me study with Norman Peterson, the secondary teacher! 

 

Can you recall your close friends and colleagues from that time?

Some dear colleagues included Bill Stokes, Joanna Tousey, Bill Haller, Maggie Brooks, Bruce Lederhouse, Jim Johnson, Gretchen Frauenberger, and Robert Town. Roberta Gary was working on her doctorate and David Mulberry was a senior, but they were beyond me. They were the great legends at the time!

 

How many students were studying organ then?

I think there may have been about ten—smaller compared to what it is now. 

 

Can you recall periods of particular growth in your playing during the Eastman days, or conversely, any precise struggles?

I don’t recall any struggles specifically; everything was difficult. We had to have all our repertoire memorized. I would get very nervous before performances. I wish that I would have found a way to get over that more easily, as I look back now. But all of this contributed to my growth as a musician. 

 

When you arrived at Eastman, in the studio of David Craighead, he was still fairly new to Eastman’s faculty, correct?

Yes, he had arrived in 1955, and I entered in 1957. He always told me this funny story about when I first arrived. Evidently I went up to his office and knocked on his door and introduced myself. I said, “I’m Ann Labounsky: Ann without the ‘E’!” David said he always remembered that.

 

What was Craighead like as a teacher in 1957? What aspects of learning did he emphasize as a young teacher?

He was always very precise. At that time in his life, he was rather nervous, quite inhibited. He would tell you all the things that were not right, but you always wanted to strive to do better in the next lesson. We spent a lot of time on the registration. He used the Bonnet Historical Anthology of Music, which was highly edited, and not a good edition. He used the Seth Bingham edition of Couperin’s music and I hated that music back then; it wasn’t until I went to Paris to study with [André] Marchal that I knew what it all meant!

 

That anecdote reminds us of how David Craighead evolved tremendously, over the years, both as teacher and a performer.

He did. I remember seeing him some years later, perhaps in the early 1970s. He had come to perform in Pittsburgh, and we attended the Pittsburgh Symphony together. He spoke of the Offertoire from Couperin’s Mass for the Parishes, and how he had learned about the notes inégales. For Bach, we changed registration frequently and each change was well marked in the score. Also, phrasing was carefully marked. Craighead was meticulous about every detail, but was patient in working with us until we got it right. He was most effective when he would quickly slide onto the bench to demonstrate a passage.

 

Can you remember your degree recitals?

They were all in Kilbourne Hall on the Skinner organ. For my senior recital, I played the Bach Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543, and of course, a lot of American music. David Craighead loved the music of Sowerby. I played Sowerby’s famous Arioso, which was gorgeous on that organ. At Eastman, there was a kind of “shopping list” of music that we all had to work on. Ironically, when we got to Langlais’ music, I hated it! I had performed some of the Hommage à Frescobaldi, and I didn’t like it at all! I also remember playing in the weekly performance class in preparation for my senior recital. At one such class, having completed a play-through of the Bach “A Minor,” I remember David Craighead saying, “That was bloody but unbowed!” 

 

When you were wrapping up your days at Eastman, did David Craighead advise you about what you should do in terms of furthering your education?

David Craighead was very different from Russell Saunders, who told the students exactly what they should do. David took a far more hands-off approach. He gave his students the confidence to make their own decisions. I thought about staying at Eastman for my master’s degree, but decided to go to the University of Michigan. It turned out to be a very good thing to do that, as I would meet my future husband, Lewis Steele, at Michigan.

 

After four years at the Eastman School, I imagine that you had a much broader sense of the organ world, and you knew what you wanted?

I certainly knew that I wanted to go on to earn a master’s degree, but at that time, I didn’t know much about church music or improvisation. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, except that I wanted to learn music.

 

In few words, can you summarize the church music curriculum at Eastman in those days?

It didn’t exist! 

 

Your next move was from Rochester to Ann Arbor. Tell us about what life was like at the University of Michigan in 1961.

In those days, the president of the AGO was Roberta Bitgood. She did a wonderful thing for the new students at U. of M. When we got off the train in Detroit, she met all the students. She had gathered members of the clergy from churches in the area that were looking for organists. She introduced all of us, and as a result, I began a church job right away in Dearborn, Michigan, about an hour from Ann Arbor. 

U. of M. was a very different school than ESM. My teacher there was Marilyn Mason. Mason was less of a teacher for me, but more of a coach. David Craighead had really formed my technique—so she didn’t have to work on that. We worked on musical details and interpretation. We always had our lessons on the organ in Hill Auditorium.

 

Were there other organ teachers?

Yes. Ray Ferguson and Robert Noehren were on the faculty at that time. 

 

Besides organ playing, were there any other memorable aspects of the Michigan graduate degree program that helped you grow?

The courses at Michigan were wonderful! I especially recall Hans David the musicologist, and Louise Cuyler, and I learned a great deal from both of them.

 

You mentioned that you also met your husband while at Michigan?

Yes, I earned the degree in one year and two summers, and I was getting ready to play my recital. I met Lewis Steele on the steps of Marilyn Mason’s studio. I needed soloists to sing in my church every Sunday since we didn’t have a summer choir. I heard his resonant voice, and asked him to sing a solo. That’s how our romance started! 

 

Would you care to elaborate?

Well, three children and four grandchildren later, we are very happy together. 

I could never have done the things I have done without Lewis’s support. He always said that in a marriage, it’s not a 50/50 partnership, rather it’s 100/100. You have to give all of yourself, all the time. He did so much in raising the children. I had no idea even how to change diapers. He taught me. So many of the things I didn’t have (for example, expertise in theology, scripture, choral directing), Lewis did have. It has been a wonderful partnership over the years. I always remember what Marilyn Mason said: “I’d marry him for his laugh!”

 

Can you sum up the church music curriculum at U. of M. in those days?

They had two tracks. You could earn the MM in organ, which I did, or the MM in church music. However, it seemed to me that the only difference was you didn’t have to memorize the recital if you were in the church music track. All students took Robert Noehren’s course in organ building, which I almost failed! You had to know the composition of mixtures, which was too much for me! He was a very good teacher, though. He had a significant influence in the organ department there at that time. 

 

As your time wound up in Michigan, the next big step would be the Fulbright process. What were you doing in Michigan to prepare for the program in France?

By the time I got to Michigan, I knew I wanted to go to France for additional study. In fact, I had applied for a Fulbright while still an Eastman student, but I didn’t get it. I applied a second time while at U. of M. I had been passionate about the French language and was determined that I would go to France one way or another. Every week, I would get together with Deedee Wotring, one of André Marchal’s former students. We would meet for coffee, and she would force me to speak French! 

 

But your love of France and the French language had begun long before Michigan, through your beloved Aunt Julia, correct?

I’m glad you mentioned Julia. You knew her and played at her funeral. She had studied art in Paris after the war, and following her arrival back home in New York, she spent every weekend with us in Long Island. Julia was determined to teach me how to speak French! My father (a geologist and engineer who worked on the Manhattan Project) was Russian, his second language being English. I was determined I was going to Paris to study, even if I had to be an au pair. 

In April, having applied for a Fulbright, saying I wanted to study with Marchal, but not yet knowing my fate, I went to a recital at St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, performed by Jean Langlais, whom I met for the first time. I told him I had played his Miniature on my graduate recital at the University of Michigan, and that I hoped to soon be in Paris studying. He replied that he hoped he would see me! When I returned home to Long Island from that recital, I found out I had gotten the Fulbright grant! That was such a great blessing to be able to go, with everything paid for; it was just a marvelous thing. 

I should speak a little bit about how we got to France. The first time we went over was on the “Queen Mary,” and on the “France” a number of times. It took five days, and there was no jet lag, because each day you changed the clocks only one hour. It was a wonderful way to travel. Ruth Woods (Harris) and I went together, both studying with Marchal on a Fulbright grant. We remain close friends.

 

Though you are perhaps best known as the leading American disciple of Jean Langlais, when you set off for France, your initial intent was to study with André Marchal, and you did. Tell us about studying with Marchal.

When I heard Marchal play for the first time, it was at Oberlin. He played in a way I had never heard anyone else play. Each line breathed. I heard music differently when he played, and I wanted to learn what he knew. Fortunately, my French was good enough that I didn’t need a translator, but his daughter Jacqueline often translated for the other students. Lessons were in his home at 22 Rue Duroc. I also wanted to study improvisation. Even though Marchal improvised very well, at that time he no longer taught improvisation. He said: “Well, you may study improvisation with Langlais.”

You must understand about the teachers all over Europe at that time: they were very possessive of their students. You were not able to simply study with anyone you wanted; definitely not several teachers! You went abroad to study with ONE teacher. I studied organ repertoire with Marchal, but Marchal gave me his permission to study with Langlais. After that time, while continuing to study with Marchal, I would then go to Ste. Clotilde in the evenings for my lessons with Langlais, which was wonderful. Playing on the organ that Franck, Tournemire, and Langlais knew so well, and hearing their music on that instrument, made all the difference in learning that music.

 

What musical facet did Marchal underscore the most in how to play the organ?

The touch. He had a way of phrasing each line independently. And he had such a concept of the whole piece. I remember working on Bach’s great Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor (BWV 542) with him. He had the whole piece completely engraved in his mind—every voice. It was amazing to me that this blind man knew music so well. For example, if you used a fingering that was not effective, he could tell!

 

You mentioned having studied Couperin as an undergraduate at Eastman. I know that with his interest in early music, Marchal would make the classical French school an essential part of what you studied. How did your point of view evolve with respect to this music?

Marchal just knew that music. I don’t know how—because he had studied with Gigout, and of course, everyone was playing completely legato then. Marchal attributed his style of playing to studying the harpsichord, saying that as a result, he had learned a different way of playing. And in the 1960s, no one else was playing like that. We usually associate Marie-Claire Alain as a leader in the early music revival for the organ—but even in the 1940s when Marie Claire Alain was very young, it was Marchal who was the first great leader in this movement. There was something about the way he played that helped me understand that “this is how you play!” With Marchal, I studied all Couperin, as well as all the music of de Grigny, Clérambault, Daquin, etc.

 

I recall from other conversations over the years that you recall practicing constantly during the time you were in France. You learned a great deal of music—how much repertoire did you absorb in two years?

In addition to all I mentioned just above, with Marchal, I studied all the Bach trio sonatas, all the big preludes and fugues—tons of repertoire! With Langlais I studied all of Franck’s music, much of Tournemire, and other pieces, too. In terms of how lessons worked, with Marchal (and Donald Wilkins said it was the same with Duruflé), you brought in a piece to a lesson, one of these big pieces, and they told you everything you needed to know. If you brought in the same piece again to another lesson, they said, “Well, I already told you everything I know about it last week!” We knew that we wouldn’t be there forever with those brilliant musicians. Our goal was to cover as much repertoire as possible in the shortest amount of time.

 

Do you still play the pieces you studied with Marchal or Langlais the same way as when you learned them? Or do you perform them differently now?

Wonderful question. I think that the spirit is the same; some things changed a little. I’m constantly trying to think in a fresh way, but the spirit of what I learned from Langlais and Marchal has stayed with me.

 

Concerning Marchal’s teaching, did he have any idiosyncrasies?

Many have said of Marchal that if a student was not gifted, he would be very lenient with that student; but the more diligent a student was, he would be much more strict. And that certainly was true. One funny story was about phrasing in one of the trio sonatas. I had asked why he played it that particular way, and he thought for a long time. After quite a long period of silence, finally he answered: “Because it pleases me!”

 

Many people are very well acquainted with your work and expertise on the music and the life of Jean Langlais. Much of this information can be learned from your book, Jean Langlais: The Man and His Music (Amadeus Press, 2000), as well as from the liner notes on your CD recordings. Would you share with us, in a broad sense, what it was like to be Langlais’ pupil, and how that relationship developed over many years?

Langlais was extremely supportive. He always made you feel that you could do anything! If you made a mistake, he knew, but he was just thinking about the music. Always so encouraging and supportive, he was continually trying to find places for his students to play, and to help them in whatever way he could. As I learned his music, I became more and more interested, and I wanted to learn as much as I could. 

 

Over the years, how much cumulative time did you study with Langlais?

I have no idea. I usually had a weekly lesson on Wednesday evenings, when the church was closed. In addition to that, on Saturday afternoons, we were at the Schola Cantorum, and that’s where we worked on improvisation. Over the years, I returned many more times to study.

 

After remaining in France for an extra year, what path did your career take upon returning to the States?

Langlais asked me to be his guide for his fall 1964 American tour, and I did that. Shortly thereafter, I took a job in a very large Roman Catholic church in New Hyde Park, Long Island. I had a choir of men and boys that I had to develop and direct. That was hard work. 

 

How did you end up in Pittsburgh? Did you move there to take up your position as organ teacher at Duquesne University?

In 1967, Lewis and I moved to Pittsburgh to take up a joint church position at Brentwood Presbyterian Church. Lewis was the choir director, and I was the organist. We had only one child, six months old. Two years later, in 1969, the head of graduate studies at Duquesne University called and asked if I would like to teach organ at Duquesne—but I had never heard of Duquesne! Honestly, I was not thinking about teaching in a college and university. I had done some private teaching, but had not thought beyond that. I wanted to be a church musician and recitalist. Looking back on it, I don’t know why I hadn’t considered university teaching. I was busy at the church and raising our kids. So, in 1969, I began teaching part-time, and it initially cost our family money for me to teach at Duquesne, because I had to pay for child care! At that time, there was a degree program in organ, but no sacred music program or sacred music courses. 

In 1972, around the time of the birth of our third child, the dean of Duquesne’s school of music at the time, Gerald Keenan, called me into his office and said they wanted to hire me full-time. After that time, I was the only organ teacher.

 

What was your strategy for building up the sacred music degree programs at Duquesne? 

I didn’t really have a strategy. I worked slowly, adding courses as it made sense. Even before I was full-time, I had brought Jeanne Joulain to Pittsburgh for a recital and workshop—in that way, I was already developing a tradition of guest artists. The first class that I started was the “Service Playing” course. I was always interested in improvisation, having studied it with Langlais, and I had won the very first AGO improvisation competition in 1966 in Atlanta. I began an improvisation course, focusing on rather simple aspects of improvisation. 

For a few years, we moved along slowly, trying to figure out the curriculum and course requirements. In 1976, the 25th year of the Duquesne School of Music, I decided that Langlais should come to Duquesne. This coincided with the official establishment of the sacred music degree programs. While Langlais was in residence, we awarded him an honorary doctorate, and we had a whole week of concerts featuring premieres of his music. This started things off in a huge way, attracting a lot of national attention. Gradually, more and more students wanted to come to Duquesne, continuing over the years. I couldn’t say in what specific year things really blossomed. Another aspect of our program’s emphasis in church music came after I realized there had been a huge void in the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council—no choirs, no hymnals, a very low level of music. I saw that Duquesne had a responsibility and an opportunity to take a lead in this area. The dean, Robert Egan, agreed with me, and we worked for several years on strengthening the program. I called many people at different universities to see what other programs were offering. In those early days, I taught all the courses myself, as we didn’t have that many students. 

 

For many years, you have been a serious campaigner for the cause of the AGO certification program. From where did your advocacy of this program emerge?

Initially from Walter Hilse. I met Walter while we were both students in Paris. Walter, also from New York, was studying composition with Nadia Boulanger and organ with Maurice Duruflé. On Wednesday afternoons, Boulanger taught an analysis class for foreigners at her apartment, for which she had a huge following. She had a small house organ, having been a student of Vierne. Students would play pieces (Fauré, for example), and then she would pull the pieces apart and ask questions. She was a huge personality. I still have the scores. (We had to buy the ones she was going to discuss.) At these classes, Walter Hilse encouraged me to become certified. I distinctly remember him saying “You really should take the AAGO [Associate of the AGO] exam.” He has always been a huge promoter of the exams and has had many private students. Anne Wilson and Todd Wilson, for example, prepared for the exams with Walter. While my husband and I were still living on Long Island, I decided to do this. Once I began teaching at Duquesne University, it occurred to me that those skills were so vital to all students, that they should be learning these skills while studying for university degrees. 

 

Did the desire to help students become fluent with keyboard skills such as those tested on the AGO exams prompt you to require the AGO exams as part of the sacred music degrees at Duquesne?

In the early 1980s, I was on the National Committee on Professional Certification. Only one other school in the country was making it a requirement to take the exams. So, I decided to initiate the exams at Duquesne. When you tell people they have to do it, then they just do! Not everyone passed, and people took different exams, depending on their level of expertise. I met many wonderful people on that committee, including Max Miller, Sister Theophane Hytrek, John Walker, and David Schuler, for example. Different years, various others rotated on and off that committee, such as Todd Wilson. 

 

When did you ultimately attempt the Fellowship exam? 

Since I had already made the exams a degree requirement at DU, and I was the National Councillor for Education, I decided that it was time. You can’t just say to someone, “you should do this!”—you need to set an example. During a very busy time, when I had three children, was teaching full time, playing recitals, and was on the national board, I worked with two former students in Pittsburgh, John Miller and Robert Kardasz, to prepare together for the FAGO. Eventually, we all passed! It gave Pittsburgh more people with the FAGO diploma, where previously only Charles Heaton and Don Wilkins had earned it. We needed more highly certified people for a city our size.

 

Why do you consider it so important to take the certification exams?

There are a number of reasons:

1) In order to keep growing you need both long-term and short-term goals. As a student, it’s a short-term goal. Before earning a degree, it helps you have a point of arrival.

2) After my student, John Henninger, graduated from Duquesne, he went on to Westminster Choir College for graduate school and had applied for a church job in Princeton. He had passed the CAGO while at Duquesne, and he was appointed to the job because of having the Colleague Certificate. 

3) The exams represent a very structured way of testing both theoretical and practical skill. You can work at your own pace, and everybody I know who has done this, whether or not they have passed, has profited by it. It seems like a natural thing to do this, when you consider that so many other professions offer certification.

4) Earning an AGO certificate is a way that we show we’re at a certain level in our profession.

5) Earning certification does level the playing field and sets a high standard.

Our professional organization is extremely important. I get upset with people who complain about aspects of degree programs, churches, even the AGO—when the only thing you can do is to get right in the trenches to make things better!

 

Several graduates of Duquesne have gone on to earn the highest AGO certification. How has that made
you feel?

Very proud. You [Andrew Scanlon] being one of them, and now even serving on the national exam committee—that has made me especially proud. My current colleague, Ben Cornelius-Bates, has recently earned the FAGO also. 

 

Reflecting on your almost 45 years of teaching at Duquesne, how would you say your teaching and playing has evolved?

On teaching, David Craighead always said that you learn so much from your students, and I really have. In the beginning, I felt I didn’t know much, but I learned along the way. I found some things that worked well, and I fought the scars of things that didn’t work well. I have found it important to document what each student does. Recently, I got a computer in my studio, and using the “Blackboard” tool has been transformative. I have begun taking notes for each lesson and posting them for each student to view.

In the early days of my teaching, I was still very much in the mode of the teachers I learned from in Paris—Langlais, Marchal, and Dupré. They were very directive. They told you exactly what they wanted you to do. Initially, I taught the way they taught, because it was so fresh in my mind. As things have evolved, I have wanted to help each student find his own voice. I might not always agree with the student, but feel strongly that it’s in the best interest of each student to let them develop their own musical instincts. 

Ironically, when I performed all the recitals that Langlais had organized for me, I still felt I was his student. Langlais said, “You have to do this the way you want to do it.” But he had not taught that way. For example, he was known for saying so emphatically in his teaching that “Franck is tremendously free—just like this!” In improvisation, he taught the Thème libre, which, of course, is not free at all!

As you grow older, you grow in wisdom. You learn a lot from your children, also. They keep you humble, and they really tell you when you mess up! 

When I look at David Craighead, I keep thinking of how he was when I first studied with him at Eastman. Then, he was a new teacher. I had the joy of knowing him so well for the last 14 years of his life, and he had changed so much. He started by telling the students when they had made mistakes, but ended up changing lives. I try to do that too. I try to be a mentor, to do everything I possibly can to encourage my pupils, and help them get along well together. Music school can be almost like a monastery, when you’re all working together, and it’s so important to have a good rapport with your colleagues, to show great compassion for one another. 

Secondly, in answer to your question about my own playing, several things have contributed to the way I have played over the years. One of these was earning my Ph.D. in musicology, and beginning my biography of Langlais as the dissertation. All my years of teaching, the wisdom I gained from colleagues such as Robert Sutherland Lord and Don Franklin, making all the Langlais recordings—all of that contributed to the evolution of my playing. Other factors include the 1985 Bach Year, when I was asked to play an all-Bach recital on the Beckerath organ at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Pittsburgh. I changed my approach to Bach playing, using all toes, and different fingering. Change was in the air at that time. 

 

Have there been still more recent developments?

Yes. I have been working with Don Franklin on the tempo relationships in Bach preludes and fugues. We have been looking back to Kirnberger’s tempo relationships. I am constantly trying to learn more. If you have everything figured out, you may as well just retire, and I’m certainly not ready to retire!

In addition, after being asked a few years ago to do a peer review of a string methods class, I became fascinated with the violin. I realized that I had always wanted to play the violin, but I was afraid to try! I started taking violin lessons with David Gillis, a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony, and I’m still studying! I’m working on the Vivaldi sonatas, Opus 2, which I love! It’s a whole other world. 

The most recent development is the establishment of Duquesne’s chant schola under the direction of faculty member Sister Marie Agatha Ozah, HHCJ. We study the St. Gall notation to incorporate those interpretive elements into our singing. In May 2013, I led a study trip to Paris to play the important organs there and gave a short concert at the Benedictine Abbey in Solesmes. 

 

How do you know what to say when a student plays? What not to say? 

Always, I do it by intuition, and I think David Craighead did too. I’m careful not to say too much, and not say too little. 

 

How do you decide not only what to say, but how to say it? How do you break through?

Teaching is so dynamic, because you have to figure out where the student is and how the student will perceive what you say. You always have to be honest, but you need to be helpful—not damaging. You can’t say something is good when it’s not. Some teachers are more didactic, but I find that I do almost everything by intuition.

 

Realizing that you could retire, what keeps you going?

I love what I’m doing. I’m finally at a point when I can do it more easily.

I still have a lot to give to the students. I can still make a difference in their lives, and I still enjoy it. When we look around the country, and see the teachers who have retired, only to see their programs eliminated, that is always a danger. 

 

What are your hopes for the future of Duquesne’s sacred music and organ programs?

We are working very hard to get a world-class organ on campus! We have plans, and hope to be able to do this in the near future. The last piece of the puzzle is to put a doctoral program in place. That has been in discussion for many years, and it has been very challenging because there are many hoops to jump through. Our library holdings have been critical, but we now have many sacred music collections (the Langlais Collection, the Craighead Collection, the Boys Town Collection, the Richard Proulx Collection, to name a few). We have the faculty, and the quality of teaching, but we need more financial support. 

 

What else would you like to say?

Duquesne University has always been a religious institution. Our mission is to train church musicians. There are other schools whose main issue is getting students ready for competitions, which is wonderful, and I admire them very much. But even David Craighead agreed that he wished the Eastman School had done more with church music and preparation for the AGO exams. I want to prepare students to be musicians in churches of all denominations. We are trying to evolve, as the church continues to evolve. Students have to learn both pastoral skills and musical skills. These are difficult to teach. Our internship, for example, is a requirement partially because of NASM accreditation, but it’s also a critical area that we use to help each student in that very way. 

 

Ann, thank you for sharing these details of your life in teaching and performing. Albert Einstein said, “I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” My experience of you as a teacher and mentor has been just so. You always gave the students exactly the right amount of guidance, and offered the right words precisely when they were needed; and yet you always allowed each student to discover his own path. You have led the way gracefully, setting a high bar and leading by example. Most importantly you have shown me the importance of constant, ongoing learning. I look forward to many more years of collaboration and friendship and wish you many blessings for continued joy in your work. 

Oberlin’s Organ Tour de France

Simon Thomas Jacobs

Despite the best efforts of Winter Storm Hercules, all but one of our group of seventeen made it to Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport as scheduled on Friday, January 3. Once we had gathered our luggage, we headed off to our first point of interest: a cemetery . . . where else!?

The cemetery at Montparnasse is the final resting place of a number of notable figures from French history and culture. Among the graves we visited were those of Jean-Paul Sartre, Louis Vierne, César Franck, and the tombs of the Cavaillé-Coll, Saint-Saëns, and Guilmant families. Interestingly enough, while the map at the entrance to the cemetery (marking the burial locations of those considered worthy of listing) includes Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, César Franck, and Camille Saint-Saëns, Louis Vierne and Alexandre Guilmant were not listed. Fortunately, Professor James David Christie knew where they were and many a photograph was taken!

We then took the wonderful Train à Grande Vitesse (TGV)—France’s high-speed rail service—for a three-and-a-half-hour trip to Bordeaux where, after a glass (or two!) of wine, we rested in preparation for what would be a life-changing two weeks for all involved.

 

Bordeaux

The next morning, we rose early and made our way to the eleventh-century abbey of Sainte-Croix, home to the only remaining instrument of Dom Bedos, a monk and secretary of the abbey as well as a mathematician, clock builder, and author of the monumental treatise The Organ-Maker’s Art. We gathered in the large church as Professor Christie demonstrated the instrument with Louis Marchand’s Grand Dialogue in C. It was clear from the first few notes on the mighty reed chorus, the Grand Jeu, that this organ was to set the tone (no pun intended!) for our entire visit. It is impossible to describe just how powerful this instrument is—it must be heard to be believed. The entire space was filled with a raw brilliance supported by one of the finest acoustics I have ever experienced. Next we heard the instrument’s other “big” chorus—the Grand Plein Jeu—made up of foundations and mixtures. On this instrument the Grand Plein Jeu is built on a 32′ foundation and its 23 ranks of mixtures produce thrilling and rich sound.

The original instrument was constructed in 1748; during the nineteenth century it was moved to the cathedral in Bordeaux and tonally romanticized, while the organ’s case remained in the abbey church, now fitted with the former cathedral organ. Thankfully, the organ was saved in the second half of the twentieth century and restored and returned to the abbey church, with Dom Bedos’s aforementioned treatise acting as an incredibly detailed guide as to what should be done. As part of this restoration, the red paint that then covered the case was stripped, initially so that the case could be repainted. In the process, the instrument’s original green was revealed along with the beautiful stop labeling at the console. As a result, we have today one of the finest and most aurally and visually beautiful organs in all of Europe, if not the world.

After hearing the instrument in the church, we made our way up to the large organ gallery, walking through the enormous blower room (where, before electricity, the instrument required seven people to pump it!), eventually arriving at the exquisite five-manual console: Positif de dos; Grand-Orgue; Bombarde; Récit; Echo. The Positif de dos and Grand-Orgue contain the majority of stops. The Bomdarde contains only two large reed stops—this was for practical reasons concerning the winding of the instrument. Nevertheless, the Bombarde can be coupled down to the Grand-Orgue to create an astonishing Grand Jeu chorus built on the 16′ reed. This is neither common nor necessarily appropriate for a majority of the so-called French Classical repertoire, but used judiciously and in the right pieces, this registration creates one of the greatest sounds in all organ music.

Perhaps the most “alien” aspect of the French Classical organ is the Pédale division. Unlike its German or Dutch counterparts, the pedalboard and stops of a French Classical instrument are not designed for counterpoint, but to provide a bass part centered around an 8′ flute pitch (with occasional 16′ pitch added by use of manual couplers) or to play the cantus firmus on the 8′ Trompette, accompanied by the Plein Jeu of the manuals. In the case of the Sainte-Croix Dom Bedos, the Pédale division has both flue and reed stops at 16′ pitch as well, but this was by no means common. We all had some challenges negotiating the odd pedalboard at Sainte-Croix: not only was its design different from anything else we had ever encountered, its compass stretched down to F below the C where modern pedalboards stop. This meant that no note was where we thought it should be! That being said, the mighty 16′ Pédale Bombarde extended down to low A, allowing Bach’s French-inspired Pièce d’orgue, BWV 572, with the usually unplayable low B in the middle section, to be played on this instrument. As with everything on this organ, the sound of these low reed notes was something to experience!

We were incredibly fortunate to spend the entire day and much of the evening with this wonderful instrument and were soon to discover that the organ’s uncompromising mechanical action and the church’s glorious acoustic could teach us a great deal about how to play—certainly something that would be a recurring theme throughout the trip. I should also mention that the food and wine in Bordeaux were exquisite, and I could not help but think of Julia Child—it was easy to see why she fell in love with French cuisine!

The next morning, a number of the group attended Sunday Mass at Sainte-Croix. Titular organist Paul Goussot, a winner of the improvisation prize at St. Albans in 2011, and the winner of the Haarlem International Organ Improvisation Competition in 2012, improvised brilliantly during the Mass. 

Then we took the train to the city of Toulouse, in southwest France, near the Spanish border. Toulouse is, without a doubt, one of the great organ “capitals” of the world, and we had four days to explore some of its treasures.

 

Toulouse

Following a wonderful supper of bread, cheese, foie gras, and “king’s cakes” (in honor of the Epiphany) at the home of Michel Bouvard, as well as a private fortepiano performance by Madame Yasuko Bouvard, we made our way to the stunning Romanesque Basilica of Saint-Sernin, where Professor Bouvard is titulaire. The organ, built in 1889, was among the last instruments of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll and, for many of us, the first Cavaillé-Coll we had ever encountered “in the flesh.” Although based in Paris for most of his professional career, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll was originally from Toulouse and came from a family of organ builders. From the age of twenty, he worked with his father; this included restoring a number of instruments in Spain. The Spanish influence can be seen in a number of Cavaillé-Coll’s instruments that make use of en chamade reeds, and Saint-Sernin is no exception.

Saint-Sernin is a vast church with an incredibly long nave extending into a choir that certainly had an influence on Cavaillé-Coll’s concept for the organ. There is one word to describe the tutti of the Saint-Sernin Cavaillé-Coll: TERRIFYING! The huge wall of sound produced was definitely intended to travel from the organ gallery to the high altar, and it does so with ease. That being said, Professor Bouvard treated us to a spectacular performance of César Franck’s Grand Pièce Symphonique in which we also heard the more lyrical side of this outstanding organ.

Every evening during our time in Toulouse, we had unfettered access to the organ in Saint-Sernin, which, while very different from the Dom Bedos in Bordeaux, also had a great deal to teach. Much of the time was spent adjusting to the large space, Barker-lever action, and a very heavy swell shoe! As was the case with nearly all the organs we played, “inflicting one’s self” was not an option—you had to listen, feel, and respond to what the instrument and room were telling you in order to achieve the most satisfying musical results. It was also huge fun to “let rip” on full organ, although after 11 p.m. the tutti had to be used sparingly owing to its audibility throughout most of the surrounding area.

While the name of Cavaillé-Coll is well known among organists throughout the world, the name of Théodore Puget is perhaps not quite so well known. . . but it should be! We encountered two instruments by the Toulouse-based organ builder in his native city: Notre Dame du Taur—Puget’s first large instrument in the city, inaugurated by Guilmant in 1880; and Notre Dame de la Dalbade, inaugurated by Widor in 1888. We were all in awe of these exceptionally fine instruments placed in churches with glorious acoustics. In contrast to the fiery directness of the Cavaillé-Coll in Saint-Sernin that bellows “I’m here,” the two Puget instruments enveloped the listener with a far warmer sound. While perfect for the music of the great French Romantic composers, it was unfortunate that none of us had brought along any Howells or Whitlock, which would work equally well. Sadly, Puget never built a major instrument in Paris owing to Cavaillé-Coll’s monopoly in that city.

We also spent time at the church of Saint-Pierre des Chartreux, home to a four-manual French Classical instrument dating from 1683, with rebuilds in 1783 and 1983. While more modest in scale than the instrument at Sainte-Croix, it was perfectly suited to the ornate Baroque church and gave us another chance to work on our French-Classical pedaling!

On the evening of Wednesday, January 8, four students—Nicholas Capozzoli, Mitchell Miller, Alcee Chris, and I—performed a short concert at the Musée des Augustins. This former monastery, which was used to store horses during the French Revolution, became a museum in the nineteenth century and is home to a North-German influenced organ built in 1981 by Jürgen Ahrend. It was here that we probably encountered the largest acoustic of our entire visit—nine seconds, which would have been closer to twelve were it not for an exhibition at the back of the space.

This was followed by a visit and reception held at Toulouse les Orgues, headquarters for the annual organ festival that brings countless organ enthusiasts to visit the numerous musical masterpieces of this city. The festival staff, headed by Yves Rechsteiner, is housed in the former Church of the Gesu, a stunning Victorian Gothic edifice. The rear gallery of the nave houses a modest two-manual Cavaillé-Coll organ in absolutely original condition.

The next day we took the train to Albi, whose cathedral dedicated to St. Cecilia—claimed to be the largest brick building in the world—is home to one of the most impressive organ cases in Europe. At the neighboring (and considerably smaller) church of Saint-Salvy, parts of which date back to the eighth century, we heard the 1930 Maurice (grandson of Théodore) Puget organ. While containing some seventeenth-century pipework and being housed in the original case (which had once been in the cathedral) this was certainly a twentieth-century instrument in the French-Romantic style.

We then returned to Toulouse; a small group of us visited the church of Saint- Nicholas, home to an 1844 organ by Callinet. This was certainly one of the hidden gems of the trip—an instrument indebted to its French-Classical predecessors, but also looking forward to the larger romantic instruments that would follow it, particularly in its foundation and solo voices.

We then took the TGV to the city of Poitiers—the birthplace of Louis Vierne. We made our way to the beautiful cathedral, home to the 1791 François-Henri Clicquot organ—one of the crown jewels of all the organs in France. Compared with the “rustic” and almost bombastic Dom Bedos in Bordeaux, this instrument was incredibly refined, with a sweet, singing tone, even in the Grand Jeu. It was therefore not surprising to learn that this is the same Clicquot family who make the famous Veuve Clicquot champagne—everything about the instrument suggested elegance and class. Our gracious host was the cathedral organist, Olivier Houette. A couple of hours later we arrived in Paris, where we were to spend the remainder of our visit. 

The next morning we took a train to the small town of Houdan, about 40 miles west of Paris, to visit the church of Saint-Christophe Saint-Jacques and play the church’s Louis-Alexandre Clicquot (father of François-Henri) organ. This was certainly an unexpected highlight of the whole trip: the instrument has remained almost completely untouched since it was built in 1734, with some of the pipework dating from as far back as 1667, making it one of the most ancient instruments in France. Sadly, this is only one of a handful of such instruments in the Paris area that survived the French Revolution. The sound of the instrument was absolutely exquisite and it was a joy to play; the pitch (ca. A=390) and meantone temperament added additional spice and color. Its modest size also made it particularly suited to playing the works of earlier French Classical composers such as Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers, François Couperin, and Nicolas de Grigny (to name but a few), despite having been constructed relatively late in the period. The organ was demonstrated by its titulaire, Régis Allard. In addition to its delightful organ, Saint-Christophe Saint-Jacques also had the distinction of being the coldest church we had visited to date, making all that French ornamentation a little tricky!

On our return to Paris, we stopped in Versailles. After a private tour of the King’s and Queen’s Apartments and the Hall of Mirrors, our host and organist of the Royal Chapel at Versailles, Jean-Baptiste Robin, gave us a wonderful demonstration of the 1994 Bertrand Cattiaux organ, which is housed in the original and lavish 1709 case. Although a modern instrument, it is a faithful reconstruction of what would have reigned supreme in the early eighteenth century. Sadly, the original Robert Clicquot of 1711 was subjected to a number of changes over the centuries eventually being replaced by a Cavaillé-Coll which was, in turn, rebuilt by Gonzales. 

The chapel itself is a fascinating space, and it would be impossible to describe in words just how beautiful and ornate it is. For one, there are no “hard” edges—everything, including the organ case, is curved—quite a contrast to the more conservative cases in Houdan and Poitiers. Unusually, the organ is above the altar, but it is customary in French churches for the organ to be behind the congregation, and in the Royal Chapel, the congregation faced the King, who would be seated in a gallery at the back of the chapel, facing the altar and the organ. Jean-Baptiste also informed us that the Holy Trinity is very important to French Roman Catholics and drew our attention to a number of allusions to the Holy Trinity in the Royal Chapel. He went onto say that it is perhaps not coincidental that the French-inspired organ works of J. S. Bach, namely Pièce d’orgue, BWV 572, and the Prelude and Fugue in E-flat, BWV 552, can also be viewed in a Trinitarian light.

 

Paris

On our only Sunday in Paris, we were encouraged to attend Mass at one of the city’s many churches. While some opted to go to Notre Dame or Saint-Sulpice, a few of us went to the church of Saint-Gervais, perhaps most famous for its association with the Couperin family who served as organists of the church for almost 200 years. The church was full for this celebration of the Mass in French. One of the most pleasant surprises was the music: although the organ provided a number of interludes at certain points of the liturgy in a variety of styles, a majority of the service was sung without accompaniment. While the singing was led by a large chorus of nuns, it was wonderful to hear the congregation joining in enthusiastically. Perhaps the most unusual, yet incredibly effective and beautiful moment of the service was during the Eucharistic prayer, when the clergy around the altar started singing in three-part harmony, accompanied by slow moving chords hummed by the nuns. It was nice to be involved in a real French parish Mass and to see that, although very different to what the Couperins would have known, music still plays an important part in the life of the parish.

Later that afternoon we made our way to La Madeleine for an organ recital performed by Vincent Grappy. It was quite a welcome surprise to see the church almost full—several even likened the audience size to an AGO convention recital. This magnificent church is perhaps most famous for hosting the premiere of Fauré’s Requiem, and we even had a chance to briefly glance at the intact Cavaillé-Coll choir organ which was used at that performance. 

Following the recital, it was time to make our pilgrimage to perhaps one of the most famous and important (especially for organists) Parisian churches—Saint- Sulpice. We received a warm welcome from the present titulaire, Daniel Roth, one of a line of distinguished musicians who have held this important and coveted post. Both Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers and Louis-Nicolas Clérambault were organists there, although neither knew the present building that was commenced in the middle of the 17th century and finally completed 100 years later. The great five-manual, 64-stop organ by François-Henri Clicquot was dedicated in 1781. It was reported that Clicquot was so happy with the results that he danced for joy during the dedication, and the organ became very famous throughout Europe. The organ survived the French Revolution in 1789 thanks to a blind organ pumper who, wishing to save the instrument, cleverly stamped the official seal of the government on the door to the gallery, making it seem as though that part of the church had already been inspected and approved.

Mendelssohn visited the church in 1833, and it was clear that the organ was in desperate need of restoration, with the renowned composer likening its sound to a choir of old women! In 1835, the builder Callinet began a restoration project that took ten years; it was ultimately unsuccessful and left him bankrupt. In 1854, one of the priests at Saint-Sulpice, a great admirer and friend of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, declared that such a beautiful church needed two beautiful organs. And so it was that Cavaillé-Coll began work on the instrument in 1857. When it was completed five years later it was one of the three largest organs in the world. By retaining all of the Clicquot stops—which account for about 40 percent of the instrument—Cavaillé-Coll not only demonstrated his respect for the craft of his predecessors but also created an instrument that successfully melds old and new styles into a coherent whole.

If there was one thing we learned about Cavaillé-Coll, it was that he was a consummate artist whose concept was perfectly suited to the space for which it was intended. While he had very little to do with the actual building of his instruments, the concepts were his and he knew just whom to employ to get the results he wanted. This project was clearly very important to Cavaillé-Coll: following the aborted Callinet project that had cost the church a fortune, with nothing to show for it, Cavaillé-Coll’s initial proposal was for a four-manual, 74-stop instrument. Over time, the instrument grew larger with the addition of a fifth manual and 26 more stops—none of which had been contracted or paid for. It is no surprise that Cavaillé-Coll was often close to bankruptcy with many of his projects, but if he had not cared so much, we probably would not have some of the great instruments we have today.

After Saint-Sernin, we were all rather surprised at how elegant and soft-spoken the Saint-Sulpice Cavaillé-Coll was in comparison, even the tutti. The overall tone was darker and more rounded than Saint-Sernin, and this seemed totally in tune with the majestic building, creating a wash of sound that filled the room rather than launching a battery of sound directly to the other end of it. Another contributing factor to the sound is the enormous case, with its huge 32′ façade pipes and colossal statues, keeping the sound contained to a certain extent.

Finally, a lucky few had the opportunity to play the instrument, and it was such a privilege to be able to hear the sounds Widor and Dupré knew and worked with. I played Dupré’s exquisite Prelude and Fugue in F minor, op. 7, no. 2. I had been warned that after playing this piece at Saint-Sulpice it would be difficult to play it anywhere else, and after hearing the first few sixteenth notes of the Prelude, on the 8′ Gamba and 2′ Octavin of the distant Récit, I understood—the eerie sound combined with the building’s acoustic was like nothing I had ever encountered before.

The vast five-manual console required some getting used to; the Récit is the fourth manual—it used to be the fifth (!)—and therefore presented the more vertically challenged among us with quite an extensive reach. At one point, Monsieur Roth kindly held on to my shoulders to prevent me falling off the bench while both hands were playing on the Récit! He was also gracious enough to operate the hitch-down swell pedal which, being located to the far right of the console, would have required my left foot to be considerably busier than it wanted to be. Cavaillé-Coll used these until 1870, when he introduced the more convenient but certainly less expressive balanced swell pedal. 

Upon playing a wrong note, I apologized, but was told by Monsieur Roth, “Don’t worry, he [Dupré] is not here, but with Widor, we have to be far more careful . . .” Yes, Widor’s tomb is down in the crypt and we were taken down to pay homage, following our evening with Professor Roth.

The next morning we made our way to the church of Saint-Louis-en-l’Ile to hear and play the church’s Bernard Aubertin organ, in North-German Baroque style. This is one of the finest of its kind in Paris and somewhat of a rarity. It was a welcome palate cleanser at this point of the trip to hear the sound of baroque-inspired principals and a particularly beautiful double-flute stop.

Having never been inside Notre Dame, a number of us stopped in briefly to gaze in awe at the gorgeous stained glass of one of the most famous buildings in the world. Unfortunately, the main organ was then undergoing restoration work and was unplayable. We then headed up to La Trinité, the church of Guilmant and, more recently, Olivier Messiaen.

This was somewhat of a pilgrimage for me personally, being particularly devoted to the music of Messiaen, and upon arrival at the church, I was greeted with a deeply moving vision: it had been raining, but as I approached the church, the sun came out, and a perfect rainbow appeared over the church—it could not have been more appropriate with Messiaen’s love of nature and the importance of color in his music.

The organ’s curator, Olivier Glandaz, was our host and had been a close friend of Messiaen. The organ has been well cared for and is in excellent condition. It was incredibly special to be able to hear Messiaen’s music on his organ, the combination of instrument and room creating what I can only describe as a glorious “shimmer.”

Day 12 was spent in the old French town of Rouen, perhaps most famous for being the place of Joan of Arc’s martyrdom. It is also home to Cavaillé-Coll’s last organ—the mighty four-manual instrument in the former Abbey Church of Saint-Ouen, which knocked the church in Houdan to second place as the coldest building of the entire trip! While in need of thorough restoration, it was wonderful to hear (and play) this “Grand Old Lady,” and yes, that 32′ reed really is as earth shattering as it sounds on recordings! Our hosts were the titular organist Marie-Andrée Morisset-Balier and her husband, trumpet virtuoso Michel Morisset.

Upon our return to Paris, we visited the van der Heuvel organ at Saint-Eustache, beautifully demonstrated for us by Vincent Crosnier, Jean Guillou’s assistant. 

Our penultimate day in France began at the Paris Regional Conservatory where those students who didn’t perform in Toulouse played a concert on the school’s Grenzing organ—the same instrument used for the preliminary rounds of the Chartres International Organ Competition. The performers were Richard Gray, Rees Roberts, Abraham Ross, Jillian Gardner, Albert Bellefeuille, Matthew Buller, Donald VerKuilen, and Jay Yau. Following the concert, Sylvie Mallet, the current professor of organ, and Marie-Louise Langlais, professor emerita of organ, were our hosts and joined us for lunch at a small restaurant that was once frequented by the likes of Debussy, Ravel, and Poulenc.

That afternoon, we visited the church of Saint-Roch where Claude-Bénigne Balbastre, Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wely, and Pierre Cochereau are among its most notable titulaires. The instrument, built by Cavaillé-Coll but retaining all the reeds from the previous Clicquot organ, is equally suited to French Classical music as it is to French Romantic music. The magnificent oak case also dates from the original Clicquot organ and contained the only clock we had seen which actually worked! While the music of Lefébure-Wely may not be all that sophisticated, hearing it on this thrilling instrument, in the highly-ornate Baroque church only a short walk from the Paris Opera certainly helped to put the music in context. Our host was the present titulaire, Françoise Levéchin-Gangloff.

The Cathedral Basilica of Saint-Denis was our final stop for the day. This former Benedictine Abbey—the first gothic building in the world—was incredibly powerful in its day and is particularly famous for being the final resting place of the French Kings. This association with French royalty, however, meant that it suffered greatly during the Revolution. One of the most damaging occurrences was the removal of the abbey’s roof (almost certainly so it could be melted down and made into other things), leaving the large and fine eighteenth-century organ open to the elements for twenty years. This organ was eventually removed in the hope that it would be restored one day, but it ended up being poorly stored and was entirely lost. It is quite likely that much of the instrument still exists in pieces throughout the organs of Paris, but we shall never know for certain.

In 1833, the French State decided to have a new organ built for this important church, and the 22-year-old Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who had just moved from Toulouse to Paris (at the suggestion of Rossini), submitted a proposal that won the contract. The organ was eventually completed in 1841, having been delayed due to the lack of an organ case, which was the responsibility of the church’s architect. The delay, however, worked in Cavaillé-Coll’s favor because it was during this time that he met Charles Barker. Owing to the size of the instrument, the mechanical action was incredibly stiff and heavy, but the new “machine” of Charles Barker changed all this.

The Saint-Denis Cavaillé-Coll, while by no means perfect, was revolutionary in organ building and was the prototype for everything that followed, especially in Cavaillé-Coll’s own work. Not only was it the first instrument to make use of the new Barker machine, it also had the first harmonic flute and trumpet stops. That being said, Cavaillé-Coll never cited the instrument as one of which he was particularly proud.

Pierre Pincemaille has been titulaire at Saint-Denis since 1987 and is one of the greatest improvisers in the world, having studied with the legendary Pierre Cochereau. He improvised for us on the hymn tune Down Ampney, enabling us to hear the many colors of this important instrument.

Our final day in Paris began at Saint-Gervais, where everyone had the opportunity to see and play the 1768 François-Henri Clicquot organ, which retains much pipework from the c. 1680 organ of François Thierry. Here again, while several of us had the opportunity to listen to the organ during Sunday liturgy, now we all had the unique opportunity to experience the masterpiece firsthand.

That afternoon, we reconvened at the Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde—set back almost out of sight except for its two spires, which can be glimpsed on the Paris skyline. A number of great organists have been associated with this famous church: César Franck, Charles Tournemire, and Jean Langlais. Sadly, very little of the organ Franck knew remains, the instrument having been electrified and, beginning with Tournemire, altered tonally to embrace the aesthetics of the new neo-classical movement. Nevertheless, it was interesting to hear the music of Tournemire and Langlais on the instrument for which it was conceived. The original Franck console is now in a museum in Belgium, having been bequeathed by Tournemire to his friend, Flor Peeters. The organ was rebuilt in 1999–2005 by former titulaire, the late Jacques Taddei, with the addition of two new consoles, a 32′ Contra Bombarde, and a Trompette-en-chamade, placed on the floor of the second gallery at the location of the old console.

And so, as our two weeks drew to a close, we arrived at the final church of our visit, Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, where Monsieur and Madame Maurice Duruflé had spent many years working and living in a small apartment just across the street. It felt especially humbling to be so “close” to these two towering figures in the world of organ music, and while we all have our favorites, I’m not sure I can think of anyone who doesn’t adore the music of Monsieur and the playing of Madame.

The church itself is very elegant—not unlike Duruflé’s music—and is home to the only rood screen (a beautiful, stone structure) and the oldest organ case in Paris, dating from 1633. Duruflé was also influenced by the neo-classical movement and this can be heard in the clear and bright sound of the instrument, making it especially good for counterpoint. After a stunning improvisation by Thierry Escaich on “Happy Birthday” (performed in honor of Donald VerKuilen’s 19th birthday), Alcee Chris performed Duruflé’s Toccata from Suite, op. 5, and Nicholas Capozzoli performed Escaich’s Évocation II for the composer.

I shall confess that writing this report has been incredibly difficult. It is almost impossible to express in words all that we experienced and learned on this amazing trip. One could easily write an entire article on just one of these churches and its rich musical and cultural heritage—we visited 31 organs in 13 days! Nevertheless, it is my hope that this overview will inspire further research—the Internet has a wealth of information and recordings of almost all the instruments we visited—and if you are able, go to France to see these masterpieces for yourself. We could not have been more warmly welcomed and it was clear that all those whom we met were very proud of their history and delighted to share it with others. Just be prepared to do LOTS of walking!