Nunc dimittis

Carolyn Shuster Fournier

 A French-American organist and musicologist, Carolyn Shuster Fournier studied piano and violin before taking organ lessons at the age of thirteen with Gary Zwicky. After obtaining her bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College Conservatory, Wheaton, Illinois, with Gladys Christensen, and a master’s degree from New England Conservatory, Boston, Massachusetts, with Yuko Hayashi, she continued her organ studies in Paris with Marie-Claire Alain, André Isoir, and Michel Chapuis. During the summers of 1976 and 1977, she studied organ with Wolfgang Rübsam at Northwestern University. She received Premiers Prix in organ at the conservatories in Rueil-Malmaison and Boulogne-Billancourt, a master’s degree in music education with highest distinction at the Sorbonne in Paris, and a Ph.D. in musicology with honors at Tours University for her doctoral thesis on Aristide Cavaillé-Coll’s secular organs. Organist at the American Cathedral in 1988 and 1989, she was then appointed titular of the Cavaillé-Coll choir organ at the Church of the Holy Trinity, where she founded a weekly noontime concert series. After thirty-three years of faithful service, she was named Honorary Choir Organist.

An international concert organist, in 2007 the French Cultural Minister awarded Shuster Fournier the distinction of Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters. In 2022 Delatour France Editions published the English translation she made with Connie Glessner of Helga Schauerte’s book, Jehan Alain, Understanding His Musical Genius. She has made recordings and contributed to specialized reviews and to Fugue State Films Documentaries.

César Franck: a worthy heir to François Benoist and Alexis Chauvet in promoting Johann Sebastian Bach’s organ works

César Franck (1822–1890) taught organ at the Paris Conservatory for eighteen years, from 1872 to 1890. François Benoist preceded him as organ professor from 1819 to 1872, and Charles-Marie Widor succeeded him from 1890 to 1896. What were the circumstances that led to Franck’s nomination to this institution sponsored by the French government? Who were his students? What were his pedagogical principles? How did they differ from those of his successor? Did he leave a legacy?

Much is known about the life of this child prodigy whose authoritarian father, Nicolas Joseph Franck (1794–1871), a modest bank employee and an amateur musician, had exploited his talents and those of his younger brother Joseph (1825–1891) after their musical education at the Royal School of Music in Liège, Belgium.¹ It is certainly thanks to Pauline García that César Franck came to Paris to study privately with her professor, Anton Reicha.² They met in Brussels on April 25, 1835. She highly appreciated his agile and energetic musicianship when accompanying her sister Maria Malibran. From June 24, 1835, to May 11, 1836,³ like Pauline García, Franck embraced Reicha’s free spirit, his vast Germanic cultural outlook, his interest in the writings of Kant and Aristotle, his faithfulness to past German masters, and his love of architectural compositional structure and canonic writing manifest in his 36 Fugues (1805).

Equipped with this musical baggage, César Franck studied at the Paris Conservatory, where he won a first prize in piano in 1838, a first prize in counterpoint and fugue in 1840, and a second prize in organ in 1841. This sufficed for his shrewd father, who made him leave the conservatory on April 22, 1842, to earn his living as a music professor and concert artist. In October 1838 at the age of sixteen, Franck began teaching piano and harmony with his brother, Joseph, from their home at 22, rue Montholon in the New Athens neighborhood. The brothers were inspired by Anton Reicha’s visionary pedagogy.⁴ He then gave music lessons at the Collège Rollin (now the Jacques-Decour High School [Collège-Lycée]), at the Augustinian College of the Assumption (234, Faubourg Saint-Honoré), at an Institution for Young Girls in Auteuil, and in the autumn of 1852 at the Jesuit High School [Collège] of the Immaculate Conception in Vaugirard, where Henri Duparc and Arthur Coquard experienced his “musical rhetoric:”⁵

renown as “a nearly mysterious” professor . . . who was at once ingenious, with a peculiar face and a delightfully pleasant and a comical manner of dressing. He seemed to have the piety of a saint, and that filled us with an artistic awe . . . whose expression, really exuded a gentle manner, happiness, honesty, which were hardly terrestrial.⁶

César’s assiduous teaching enabled him to escape his father’s exploitation of his talents. He married one of his students, Félicité Desmousseaux, on February 22, 1848, at Notre-Dame de Lorette Church, where he had been the choir organist since 1845. His son Georges was born at the end of the year. Franck felt very comfortable in this New Athens neighborhood where cosmopolitan artists such as Frédéric Chopin, Charles-Valentin Alkan, Franz Liszt, Chevalier Sigismund Neukomm, and his piano professor, Pierre Zimmermann, played J. S. Bach’s music.

On May 15, 1851, the year Franck was appointed titular organist of the Cavaillé-Coll organ at Saint-Jean-Saint-François Church, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll installed his first organ with a thirty-note German-style pedalboard in Pauline García-Viardot’s home at 48, rue de Douai. Nine months later, on January 16, 1852, these musicians all attended a performance by Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens of Bach’s works on the Cavaillé-Coll organ at Saint-Vincent-de-Paul Church. Following this concert, François Benoist wrote to Aristide Cavaillé-Coll:

That which especially struck me was this calm and religious greatness and this severe style which is so appropriate to the majesty of God’s temple. . . . It is a great merit, in my viewpoint, to rest faithful to the traditions of the grand masters who, in the past century, had founded the true art of the organ.⁷

Franck had lived at 69, rue Blanche, in the same building as Adèle Blanc, who married Cavaillé-Coll on February 4, 1854, in the second chapel of Sainte-Trinité Church.⁸ On December 19, 1859, Franck became titular organist of the new Cavaillé-Coll organ at Sainte-Clotilde Church, located in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. In 1862 when his melody Souvenance [Remembrance] was published, Franck thanked Pauline Viardot by dedicating it to her.⁹

In 1868 when Franck’s Six Pièces, composed between 1858 and 1862, were published, they were dedicated to his close friends: Alexis Chauvet, Camille Saint-Saëns, Charles-Valentin Alkan, Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély, François Benoist, and Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. One must remember that Alexis Chauvet had been destined to succeed François Benoist as organ professor at the Paris Conservatory. An extremely talented organist, composer, and professor, Chauvet had won first prizes in organ, fugue, and composition at the Paris Conservatory, where he had assisted Ambroise Thomas in teaching his class. His Twenty Pieces for organ, published in 1862 and dedicated to François Benoist, manifest the influence of Bach and the French Classical composers; like Alexandre Boëly’s music, his works are linked to the German and French schools.

Chauvet’s and Franck’s collections greatly assisted the resurrection of the great art of the organ in France.¹⁰ Both of them had performed in Cavaillé-Coll’s workshops and inaugurated his organs, those at Notre-Dame Cathedral on March 6, 1868, and at Sainte-Trinité Church on March 16, 1869, where Chauvet was appointed titular organist on March 24. Thanks to Chauvet’s highly esteemed advice, Cavaillé-Coll’s great organ and choir organ at Sainte-Trinité Church both had thirty-note pedalboards. Nicknamed “little Father Bach,”¹¹ Chauvet’s Fifteen Preparatory Studies to the Works of Bach (1867) had initiated his students to this great master’s polyphony.

The Leipzig Bach Society published the Bach Gesellschaft between 1851 and 1899. Bach’s organ works became available in 1864 to Parisian subscribers such as Alkan, Chauvet, Viardot, and Saint-Saëns. In 1865 E. Repos published Joseph Franck’s editions of twenty-two Bach preludes and fugues. Unfortunately, the Paris Conservatory’s organ students were not able to acquire an excellent pedal technique necessary for performing Bach’s organ works, simply because its 1819 Grenié studio organ only had a twenty-note pedalboard that was “too large and disproportionate.”¹²

In 1853 Pierre Érard constructed concert pianos with a thirty-two-note pedalboard, with a ravalement that began at A, using a system that was coupled to the low notes of the piano. In 1855 both Pauline Viardot’s organ and Érard’s piano-pédalier were promoted at the World’s Fair. On the piano-pédalier, Alkan performed Bach’s virtuosic Toccata in F Major, which highlighted two pedal solos. In this same year Bach’s Fugue in E Minor was a required work for the Paris Conservatory’s organ competition. In 1858 the Niedermeyer School imposed Bach’s Passacaglia at its final organ exam. Cavaillé-Coll had applied a pedalboard to an upright piano¹³ and Franck had purchased a Pleyel vertical pedalboard (N° 25 655),¹⁴ which, “instead of merely coupling the piano keys to the pedals, was completely independent, with its own strings, hammers, and mechanism.”¹⁵ Chauvet had installed one in a painting studio where he taught. At the Collège in Vaugirard, Franck gave his lessons on a piano with a pedalboard in a small room with stained glass windows.¹⁶

In 1870 the conservatory ordered two Cavaillé-Coll organs,¹⁷ one with three sixty-one-note manuals and seventeen stops for the Société des Concerts Hall, contracted on September 26, 1870, and the other one with three fifty-six-note manuals and twenty-six stops, contracted on November 5, 1870, to replace the inadequate Grenié studio organ. Chauvet advised that these organs should possess thirty-note pedalboards. Unfortunately, he died of a lung infection on January 29, 1871, during the Prussian siege of Paris, just one week after the death of Franck’s father in Aix-la-Chapelle and three days after the armistice had been signed. Charles Gounod lamented his death on March 13 in London:

In London, I learned at this very instant through one of my friends of the death of poor Chauvet, organist of the Great Organ of our parish. This is a great loss! There are few Chauvets, unfortunately.¹⁸

Esprit Auber, director of the Paris Conservatory, died on May 5, 1871, during the revolutionary government that had been instituted on March 18. Ambroise Thomas succeeded him, after Gounod had refused to become director of the conservatory. Twenty-three days later, a week of bloody violence ended the Commune. Franck, a “moderate Republican” (Républicain modéré),¹⁹ had remained in Paris during this difficult period. On February 25, 1871, he contributed to the founding of the Société national de musique, which aspired to give birth to new French music.

How did Franck succeed François Benoist? It is well known that Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Théodore Dubois supported his nomination as organ professor at the Paris Conservatory. On August 21 Franck had written to Charles Blanc, director of fine arts, to notify him that he could replace François Benoist.²⁰ On October 1, 1871, his friend Pauline Viardot was appointed voice professor at the Paris Conservatory. Charles Blanc and his brother Louis, a socialist and Republican politician, were both friends of Pauline’s husband, Louis Viardot, an eminent art collector. The Viardots and Louis Blanc had just seen each other in London. On November 12, 1871, a decree by the president of the Republic granted Franck the rights to reside in France.²¹ On January 31, 1872, Jules Simon signed a decree for the General Secretary of the State Department of Public Instruction of Worship and the Fine Arts, which stipulated that Franck would be appointed as organ professor there.²² Benoist retired on the next day, February 1. However, Ambroise Thomas only officially appointed Franck to succeed him after he had received on February 17, 1872, the official letter from Charles Blanc indicating César Franck’s appointment as organ professor. Then forty-nine years old, Franck had been nominated for this eminent post in spite of the fact that he had only received a second prize in organ there, unlike his brother Joseph, who had received a first prize in Benoist’s class in 1852.

Two new Cavaillé-Coll organs at the Paris Conservatory

Unfortunately, the violence in the capital had drastically reduced the conservatory’s funds. Constructing two new organs was out of the question. Since the Grenié studio organ was unplayable, the conservatory had asked Cavaillé-Coll to revise it and to construct another one for the conservatory’s Société des Concerts Hall, using elements from Sébastian Érard’s 1830 Château de la Muette organ, which his daughter-in-law, Madame Pierre Érard, had given to the conservatory in 1863. The construction of the seventeen-stop concert hall organ was delayed—it began on August 31, 1871, but was not finished until October 5, 1872.

Cavaillé-Coll encountered some difficulties installing this organ. Constructed in a parallelogram shape of wood covered with painted canvases, the concert hall had an excellent acoustic. However, in 1866 Alexis-Joseph Mazerolle had redecorated it by placing irremovable panels in the Pompeian style of the Second Empire that were eight and a half meters high at the back of the stage. This stage was reserved for the declamation classes, and the only possible place to install the organ without bothering the scene shifters

was behind the decorative panels at the back of the stage, where an insufficient opening was found that would allow it to be seen as a half-length portrait, as in a Guignol theater.²³

According to Jules Lissajous, the organ was placed in a limited space, on the axis with the stage at the height of the first balcony, and the access to its pipework and mechanics was difficult since

the instrument was entirely separated from the Hall by a rotunda that formed the stage and that encircled the amphitheater where a notable part of the Orchestre Société des Concerts was placed; the sound not coming from this side, resounds from the openings on the upper sides of the stage and is lost in the ceilings and in the hallways and, to make these circumstances worse, a ceiling sagged in two [sections] is suspended at a rather short distance in front of the organ and immediately blocks the sound waves that emanate from the expression box.²⁴

A vintage drawing of the console is illustrated in Example 1.²⁵

Due to the unmovable panels, the sound of the organ was insufficient to accompany singers. Cavaillé-Coll was very disappointed, especially since he was then building a monumental sixty-four-stop concert organ for the city of Sheffield in England, installed in 1873. Unfortunately, due to the violent Commune, the French government had to wait until 1878 to finance the construction of the organ for the concert hall of the Trocadéro festival hall. In the meantime, Cavaillé-Coll observed that

the delay justified by the extent of the work on the grand orgue nevertheless would not have resulted in any loss to the administration, since in this manner, the organ class was able to use the former studio organ until the installation of the grand orgue on which the students may continue to work during the repairs of the studio organ.²⁶

Example 2 of the organ room located just behind the stage of the concert hall illustrates this situation, “Salle d’Orgue.”

After his appointment to the conservatory in 1872, Franck taught on the concert hall organ from February to June and began teaching on the studio organ in October, since it was reconstructed beginning February 23 with reinstallation completed on October 7 in the organ room,27 a small eighteenth-century Rococo-style theater where Benoist had taught. Its pipes were placed in an expressive box to protect them from accumulating dust often found in theaters. It had new mechanical-action keyboards, but its former windchests and nine and a half of its sixteen stops, excluding free reeds, had been retained:

Grand-Orgue (enclosed, 54 notes)

8′ Flûte

8′ Dessus de Flûte Harmonique (30 notes)

8′ Bourdon

4′ Dessus de Prestant (30 notes)

4′ Flûte

8′ Trompette

Récit (enclosed, 54 notes)

8′ Principal

8′ Flûte Traversière

8′ Voix Céleste

4′ Flûte Octaviante

8′ Trompette

8′ Basson and Hautbois

Pédale (enclosed, 30 notes)

16′ Soubasse

8′ Flûte

4′ Flûte

8′ Basson

Pédales de combinaison

Tirasse Grand-Orgue

Tirasse Récit

Copula Récit sur Grand-Orgue

Expression

This “wretched cuckoo of an organ”²⁸ was activated by pulling a stop labeled Sonnette (Bell), and one stop remained Tacet. Its expression was activated by a hitch-down pedal with two notches located on the lower right side of the console as shown in the console layout diagram.²⁹

Each of these organs was equipped with a thirty-note pedalboard. On December 29, 1872, Franck had performed Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E Minor on the new concert hall organ for the Société des Concerts. He had already performed “Adagio” and “Finale” from Hummel’s Fantaisie in E-flat Major on the piano in this hall on March 24, 1839. Performing at the organ this time, he was hidden from the auditors. Alexandre Cellier wrote about this concert hall organ in 1927:

In the hall of the former Conservatory, it’s the poor old instrument with 16 stops placed too high and muffled by an imposturous décor, which must struggle against 70 to 80 musicians. If the disproportion is less grand elsewhere, it does not place the organ in such a position of inferiority with the orchestra.³⁰

Unfortunately, both organs have been removed and have disappeared.

César Franck’s approach to teaching: the technique should serve artistry and musicality

Franck, “a model functionary” (fonctionnaire modèle),³¹ punctually³² taught organ at the Paris Conservatory on the rue Bergère for six hours each week, during two hour-long sessions on three days.³³ These collective lessons with male and female students mirrored the ones he had given in his home in 1838, which enabled students to listen to each other and to their professor. As in the past under François Benoist, his students took two semester exams, at the end of January and June, during which they accompanied a plainchant in four parts, improvised a four-part fugue and a free piece in sonata form—both based on themes chosen by the examiners—and played “a classic piece” of their choice by memory. In 1852 this memorized piece was a fugue; in 1867 it became a Bach fugue; in 1872 a Classical-era piece.³⁴

Franck’s duty was to prepare his students to pass their exams. Prior to these exams, Franck received a report that indicated each student’s name, age, year of study, and previous awards in the class, on which he briefly evaluated, in a blank space that measured one and a half by four and a half inches, the student’s progress and indicated the piece he or she would play during the exam, in order to prepare the scores for the jury members. If they approved a student’s progress, they could award either a second or first accessit (certificates of merit). After each year’s final exam, a competition was held for advanced students, who could obtain either a second or first prize. Although these exams and competitions were closed to the public, their results could have a meaningful impact on the future career of each student.

While much has been said about Franck’s students who won first or second prizes, little is known about the rest of his class. Following is a list of students who enrolled in his class, their dates of participation, the period they were enrolled, and their awards:

Franck’s enrolled students at the Paris Conservatory³⁵

Abbreviations: 1A (first accessit), 2A (second accessit), 1P (first prize), 2P (second prize)

Students who began with Benoist and continued with Franck:

Georges Deslandres (1849–1875), 1868: 1A/1868, remained until 1872

Paul Rougnon (1846–1934), 1868–1872

Paul Wachs (1851–1915), 1869: 2P/1870, 1P/1872

Bazile Benoît (1847–after 1900), 1868: 2A/1872, remained until 1873

Samuel Rousseau (1853–1904), 1871: 2A/1872, 1A/1875, 2P/1876, 1P/1877

Francis Thomé (1850–1909), 1871–1873

Students who studied entirely with Franck:

Jean Tolbecque (1857–1890), November 21, 1872: 1A/1873

Joseph Humblot (born in 1845), 1872: 1A/1873, 2P/1874

Marie-Antoinette [nicknamed Thérèse] Gaillard (1850–after 1900), November 9, 1872–June 7, 1873

Adèle Billault (1848–after 1900), December 20, 1872–June 11, 1875

Amédée Dutacq (1848–1929), January 1874–October 12, 1874

Vincent d’Indy (1851–1931), studied privately with Franck beginning October 13, 1872, and was an auditor in his class before officially enrolling January 14, 1874: 2A/1874, 1A/1875

Léon-Gustave-Joseph Karren (1854–1920), February 1875–1876

Georges Verschneider (1854–1895), 1873: 2A/1874, 1A/1875, remained until 1879

Marie Renaud [Madame Maury] (1852–1928), January 1874: 2A/1875, 1A/1876, remained until June 1877

Louise Genty (born in 1850), January 1875: 2A/1876

Camille Benoît, 1875–1876

Marie-Anne Papot (1855–1896), January 1876: 2A/1876, 1A/1878, 2P/1879, remained until December 1880

Clément Jules Broutin (1851–1900), October 1877–June 1878

Georges Hüe (1858–1948), December 1878–June 1879

Henri Dallier (1849–1934), November 1876: 1P/1878

Georges Marty (born in 1860), December 1878–June 1879

Auguste Chapuis (1858–1933), December 1878: 1A/1879, 2A/1880, 1P/1881

Jean Louis Lapuchin (1850–1895?), December 1878–January 1879

Théophile Sourilas (1850–1907), January 1880: 1A/1880, remained until July 1881

Gabriel Pierné (1863–1937), December 1880: 2P/1881, 1P/1882

Louis Ganne (1862–1923), December 1880: 1A/1882

Paul Jeannin (1858–1887), auditor/1880, December 1881: 1A/1882

Lucien Grandjany (1862–1891), December 1881: 2P/1882, 1P/1883

Henri Charles Kaiser (1861–1920?), December 1881: 2A/1882, 2P/1883, 1P/1884

Frédéric Duplessis (born in 1858), December 1881

Marcel Rouher (1857–1940), November 1882–1885

Léonie Guintrange [Madame E. Rouher] (1858–1900), December 1883–January 1885

Louis Landry (born in 1867), November 1882: 1A/1884, remained until June 1886

Carlos Mesquita (born in 1864), December 1883: 2A/1884, 1A/1885, remained until January 1886

François Pinot (1865–1891), November 1884: 1P/1885

Aimé Féry (born in 1862), December 1885–June 1887

Émile Fournier (1864–1897), October 4, 1885–June 1886

Louis Frémaux (born in 1867), December 1885

Dynam-Victor Fumet (1867–1949), December 1885

Georges Aubry (1868–1939), December 1885: 2A/1888, remained until July 1889

Henri Letocart (1866–1945), December 1885: 2A/1887, remained until June 1890

Alfred Georges Bachelet (1864–1944), December 1885–1887–1888

Louis d’Arnal de Serres (1864–1942), October 1885–1888

Albert Pillard (1867–1943), December 1886–June 1888

Édouard Bopp (born in 1866, Switzerland), December 1887–January 1888

Jean-Joseph Jemain (1864–1954), January 1885: 2A/1886, 1A/1887

Adolphe Marty (1865–1942), December 1886: 1P/1886

Hedwige Chrétien [Madame P. Gennaro] (1859–1944), December 1886–January 1887

Georges Bondon (1867–after 1900), December 1885: 2P/1887, 1P/1889

Cesar[ino] Galeotti (Italy 1872–Paris 1929), December 1885: 1P/1887

Joséphine Boulay (1869–1925), December 1887: 1P/1888

Marie Prestat (1862–1933), December 1887: 2A/1888, 1A/1889, 1P/1890

Jean-Ferdinand Schneider (1864–1934), December 1887–June 1889

Bruno Maurel (1867–after 1900), December 1887–January 1889

Albert Mahaut (1867–1943), December 1888: 1P/1889

Students who began with Franck and continued with Widor:

Achille Runner (1870–1938?), December 1888: 2P/1893, remained until June 1895

Paul Ternisien (born in 1870), December 1888–June 1892

Georges Guiraud (1868–1928), December 1889–June 1891

André-Paul Burgat (1865–1900), December 1889–June 1891

Jules Bouval (1867–1914), December 1889: 2A/1891, remained until June 1894

Henri Büsser (1872–1974), December 1889–January 1893

Henri Libert (1869–1937), December 1889: 2A/1892, 1P/1894

Charles Tournemire (1870–1939), December 1889: 1A/1889, 1P/1891

[Louis Vierne (1870–1937), auditor 1889, enrolled on October 4, 1890, or January 16, 1891: 2A/1891, 2P/1892, 1P/1894]36

In 1872 the six students enrolled in his class had studied with François Benoist. For the next thirteen years his class fluctuated from two to eight students. Just six years after he began to teach organ, he applied to teach composition instead of organ and had hoped to succeed François Bazin, who died on July 2, 1878. However, Jules Massenet was appointed as Bazin’s successor and Franck continued to teach organ. Franck was naturalized as a French citizen on March 10, 1873, yet his teaching would cross the fraternal bridge linking French and German music.³⁷ In the autumn of 1885, his class had grown from four to twelve students and leveled off to about ten pupils per year. Franck’s initial salary of 1,500 francs rose to 2,400 francs.³⁸ This increase was partially due to his successful organ recital³⁹ on October 1, 1878, at the monumental 5,000-seat Trocadéro festival hall during the World’s Fair, which had reaffirmed his reputation as “an artist at the forefront of organ teachers in France.”⁴⁰ Foreign organists entered his class: Carlos Mesquita of Brazil, Édouard Bopp of Switzerland, and Cesarino Galeotti of Italy, his favorite and youngest student, who won his first prize in organ at the age of sixteen.

Seven of Franck’s students—Paul Wachs, François Pinot, Émile Fournier, Georges Guiraud, Henri Letocart, and Henri Büsser—previously received a complete musical training in the Niedermeyer School of Classical and Religious Music, a boarding school located at 10, rue Neuve-Fontaine-Saint-Georges (today rue Fromentin). Founded in 1853 it thoroughly trained church musicians, offering courses in solfège, piano, organ, plainchant, harmony, counterpoint, fugue, accompaniment, music history, and vocal ensemble. These students had acquired the eight volumes of the Peters Edition of J. S. Bach’s organ works and played them daily,⁴¹ as well as great classical works by Palestrina, Handel, Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns, etc.⁴² When Clément Loret, a former Lemmens student in Brussels, began to teach there in 1858, his Cours d’orgue had appeared in the school’s journal, La Maîtrise. It included exercises in manual substitutions and glissandi as well as the use of both toes and heels in order to play legato. According to Lemmens, “a good method for pedaling was as necessary as good fingering to properly play the organ.”⁴³ Loret’s method explained how an organ functioned and taught students to transpose, accompany plainchants, and improvise.

Students could practice on small Cavaillé-Coll organs, fifteen pianos, and even a piano with a pedalboard, as well as in Cavaillé-Coll’s workshops, where they occasionally gave concerts.⁴⁴ At the end of the 1880s, Loret’s student Aloÿs Kunc taught students in Toulouse who then entered Franck’s class—Dynam-Victor Fumet, Henri Büsser, Georges Guiraud, and Jules Bouval. In 1889 when Büsser went to meet Franck at Sainte-Clotilde Church to show him his recent exams in harmony, fugue, and composition at the Niedermeyer School, Franck told him,

Young man, you seem to be very talented, come tomorrow morning to my class at the Paris Conservatory and, without doubt, I will make something of you.⁴⁵

The next day, Büsser played a Mendelssohn sonata, a Bach fugue, and then improvised on a free theme that Franck had given him. Franck then told him, “I think that you may enter my class as a student, after the examination in January.”⁴⁶

Four of Franck’s students—Adolphe Marty, Albert Mahaut, Joséphine Boulay, and Louis Vierne—had studied at the National Institute for Blind Youth⁴⁷ with Louis-Bon Lebel (1831–1888), who used Lemmens’ École d’Orgue to teach pedal technique. Around 1875 Franck became the inspector of musical studies there and the president of the final exams at the end of each year.⁴⁸ Students worked rigorously and practiced four or five hours each day on their two Cavaillé-Coll studio organs, one in the boys’ quarters and the other in the girls’ quarters. In 1883 Cavaillé-Coll built a three-manual, thirty-six-stop organ for their chapel, decorated by the painter Henri Lehmann, a friend of Franz Liszt. The chapel also served as a concert hall when movable panels enlarged the room. For this organ’s inauguration on March 17, 1883, Franck had composed his Psalm CL for choir, organ, and orchestra, for which Louis Vierne played timpani.

Some of Franck’s students came from musical families. Paul Wachs’s father was a composer and choirmaster at Saint-Merri. Georges Deslandres’s father Laurent and his brother Adolphe were musicians at the Sainte-Marie-des-Batignolles Church; his brother Jules-Laurent was a bass player, and his sister Clémence was a singer. Samuel Rousseau’s father was a harmonium manufacturer in Paris. Georges Verschneider came from a family of three generations of organ builders active from 1760 until 1900 in Moselle. Hedwige Chrétien was the granddaughter of the violinist J. Ternisien. Jean Tolbecque came from a family of French-Belgian musicians. His father Auguste was a cellist and composer who taught at the Marseille Conservatory from 1865 until 1871; a friend of Camille Saint-Saëns and Ambroise Thomas, he had acquired an organ for his early instrument collection installed in the Fort-Foucault in Niort in 1875.⁴⁹ Henri Letocart’s father Joseph was a music professor.

Among Franck’s sixty-three enrolled students, seventeen were awarded first prizes; two received second prizes; ten, first accessits; four, second accessits, and twenty-nine received no awards. Those who received no award had not studied harmony or counterpoint and could not improvise (Léon Karren, Clément Broutin, Jean Lapuchin, Émile Fournier, Amédée Dutacq, Georges Deslandres, Louis Landry, and Henri Letocart). These students could escape to a small room situated underneath the organ to help Jean Lescot, the conservatory’s janitor, pump the organ’s wind bellows.⁵⁰ Some became ill (Albert Pillard, Jean-Ferdinand Schneider, Georges Aubry, Georges Verscheider, Louis de Serres, and Léonie Guintrange). Others were talented, conscientious, and had studied accompaniment or composition, but were too busy to practice (Alfred Bachelet, Francis Thomé, Aimé Féry, Louis Frémaux, Paul Ternisien, Louis Ganne, and Paul Jeannin). Some students specialized in other instruments, such as the pianist Bazille Benoît and the cellist Jean Tolbecque. Joseph Humblot was his only organ student who improvised very well but he had difficulty performing. Other excellent students with high-level musical intelligence worked hard, interpreted well, but had difficulty improvising, such as Louise Genty, Marie Renaud, Théophile Sourilas, Georges Verschneider, and Vincent d’Indy. Both Vincent d’Indy and Marie Renaud had received only a first accessit. D’Indy was very bitter about this and spoke rather unkindly about his fellow students in his Journal.⁵¹ He left Franck’s organ class but continued to study composition privately with him. Marie Renaud, one of Franck’s ten female students, was the first woman to win a first prize in counterpoint and fugue (1876) at the conservatory. Unfortunately, she could not compete for the Grand Prix de Rome because it was forbidden for women to do so until 1903. She was also the first woman to be a member of the Société nationale de musique.

Those who had successfully won a first prize in organ had also studied harmony, counterpoint, fugue, and composition in order to become complete musicians. All of Franck’s students who had studied at the National Institute for Blind Youth had won a first prize in organ: Adolphe Marty, Albert Mahaut, and Joséphine Boulay quickly received it due to their excellent training. In 1888 Boulay was Franck’s first female student to win a first prize in Franck’s organ class. Marie Prestat was the first woman to obtain five first prizes at the conservatory (in harmony, accompaniment, composition, fugue and counterpoint, and organ). Henri Dallier also earned his first prize very quickly, because he had studied at the Reims cathedral choir school and had been choir organist there.

To prepare his students for their exams, Franck taught them to accompany plainchants given in whole notes with very free developments in four-part florid counterpoint, with the cantus firmus placed in the bass and three voices above it.⁵² The suppleness of the chants, such as Stabat Mater, Dies irae, or Jesu Redemptor, gave birth to beautiful improvisations and compositions in all forms. Franck desired that the embellishments of these admirable melodies be musically expressive, in order to bring them to life.⁵³ When the organ room was occupied by exams, he taught the accompaniment of plainchant on a piano in another room.

With indulgence, patience, severity, and austerity, Franck taught improvisation five out of the six hours of his organ class each week,⁵⁴ according to the conservatory’s imposed strict regulations. To improvise a four-voice fugue d’école, students had to listen carefully to Franck’s severe advice in order to strictly follow a set architectural plan and construct fugues solidly and harmoniously with an absolute pureness of style. After exposing the theme in four voices, they chose a countersubject with entries in the outer voices and developed a stretto toward the end. The free improvisations used a one-theme exposition, which after a bridge subtly introduced a new element during the transition to the dominant, which could later serve during the development, before the recapitulation in the tonic.

As in François Benoist’s class, the themes provided during Franck’s class were sometimes taken from Haydn’s and Mozart’s symphonies, but during their exams students improvised on popular tunes from operettas. However, from January 1879 to June 1887, fugue subjects and modern themes were composed specially for the exams⁵⁵ by Auguste Bazille, Jules Cohen, Léo Delibes, Théodore Dubois, Henri Fissot, Alexandre Guilmant, and Ambroise Thomas.⁵⁶

Franck encouraged his students to improvise with “melodic invention, harmonic discoveries, subtle modulations, and elegant figurations:⁵⁷

He did not stop the student who was developing a Gregorian theme or another free or imposed one, a fugue, a sonata movement with florid counterpoint, but gave several interjections, launched with a vibrant loud bursting voice, sometimes with a tremendous crescendo to impose the order of a development, a tonality, a modulation, to prevent the apprentice organist from getting lost in the contrapuntal plan, to proclaim criticism or praise: “Modulate! . . . Some flats!!! Some sharps!!! E in the bass, in the tonal key. . . . Something else! I don’t love that! I love that!”⁵⁸

According to Maurice Emmanuel, he gave his students practical principles with severity and sweetness and encouraged them to listen to the beautiful Cavaillé-Coll organ at Sainte-Clotilde:

One should see one of Franck’s lessons in this small half-obscured theater, where the master’s beautiful voice resonated like a deep bell, at one moment detailing the exercise underway, and at another moment expressing, with general ideas, the preference of the musician. Severe when supervising the construction of a fugue, he wanted this rhetoric to be as worthwhile as possible. “First search for a beautiful countersubject,” he said. . . . And the student, invited to discover one on his own, was not always able to invent one. Then Franck took his place on the oak bench and demonstrated one in grand style—“And here’s a second one! And a third one! . . . And yet another one!” The students were confounded. . . . The same tactic for the “divertissements.” Those which the young beginning “fugue improvisers” came up with were not always to his liking: therefore, his hands ran to the keyboards, substituting an example for the precept. This pedagogical method was perhaps insufficient for many students, who had only applied, desired, or were waiting for precise recipes. This eloquent persuasive model was addressed to the worthy disciple who could understand it and who was capable of becoming inspired by it.

It is especially while exercising free improvisation that Franck applied this method. It was as good as any other. He created in front of his students a “verse” or a more developed piece in order to enable them to succeed in the double exam on the day of competition. He gave his students practical precepts and was very strict concerning the choice and order of modulations. He had magistral ideas concerning them. But all things considered, “Listen to me,” he cried; or even, unsatisfied with the resources that the small old organ in the class offered him, he said to his students: “Come to Sainte-Clotilde on Sunday. I will demonstrate this to you.”⁵⁹

Gabriel Pierné, Louis de Serres, and Louis Vierne observed that “no form of teaching could be livelier: his playing was magnificent, seductive, leading the student to his utmost potential. . . .” [nulle forme d’enseignement ne pouvait être plus vivante: c’était un jeu magnifique, séduisant, entraînant à l’extrême. . . .].⁶⁰ Franck did not need to resort to words to express his thoughts, which he could more fully express by music.⁶¹ Therefore, he played various solutions to show them how to develop a good fugue.⁶² According to Augusta Holmès, who studied composition with him beginning in 1875, “He never substituted his own manner of thinking for that of his students. After having opened the way, he let them entirely follow their own initiative.”⁶³ Maurice Emmanuel emphasized, “As necessary as it may be, the form is not sufficient. It only constitutes a framework. And the most beautiful technique in the world can remain a dead letter if it is not used to serve an idea.”⁶⁴

Franck’s three primary maxims were:

Don’t try to do a great deal, but rather seek to do well no matter if only a little can be produced. Bring me the results of many trials that you can honestly say represent the very best you can do. Don’t think that you will learn from my corrections of faults of which you are aware unless you have strained every effort yourself to amend them.⁶⁵

Louis de Serres, whose expressive delicateness Franck particularly appreciated, confirmed that, “No one better than he knew how to make his students understand a strictly severe organ style . . . at the same time deeply felt and expressive.”⁶⁶

Franck did not use a particular method or follow any strict rules, but orally gave each student personal advice. According to Albert Mahaut, “He spoke little, in small phrases, but we sensed the deepness of his soul, his greatness, his energy, at the same his penetrating sweetness.”⁶⁷ His innate, perceptive intuition enabled him to understand each student’s personality, temperament, capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses. Whatever their level, Franck deeply loved teaching and instilled in each student his impassioned ardor and love of musical beauty. As Charles Tournemire expressed, “Never did one leave this seraphic musician demoralized; but certain observations, said in a few words, generally gently and penetrating, striking and exact, enlightened the soul and warmed the heart.”⁶⁸ “César Franck had a great influence on my artistic philosophy. I owe him the calm and the courage that strengthens artists. . . . If he lived for transcendent art, he knew how to help those who came to him.”⁶⁹

Extremely generous, Franck did not accept any payment from talented students who needed money more than himself, such as Henri Büsser, whom Franck asked to substitute for him at Sainte-Clotilde.⁷⁰ His class was like a family reunion. Léonie Guintrange met her husband, Marcel Rouher, there. His lack of pride and his joy of accomplishing his everyday tasks with “constant optimism emanated from his perfect kindness, his incapacity to experience any resentment or jealousy; his ongoing cheerful nature”⁷¹ was a consolation and encouragement to all his students, who deeply respected him.

According to Joël-Marie Fauquet and Rollin Smith, the following musicians were auditors in his organ class:⁷²

Ca. 1870 (?): Camille Rage

Ca. 1872: Maurice Cohen-Lânariou (from Romania)

Ca. 1875: Georges Bizet⁷³ (1839–1875), Henri Kunkelmann (1855–1922), Albert Renaud (1855–1924)

1876: Julien Tiersot (1857–1936)

1879: Ernest Chausson (1855–1899)

1880: Paul Vidal (1863-1931)

1880–1881: Herman Bemberg (1859–1931, from France and Argentina), [first name?] Bessand, Claude Debussy (1862–1918), Fernand Leborne (1862–1929), Jules-Gaston Melodia

1880–1885: John Hinton⁷⁴ (1849–1922, from England) [organ], Paul Dukas (1865–1935)

1888: Anne-Berthe Merklin (Mme. Lambert des Cilleuls, daughter of Joseph Merklin) (1866–1918) [piano and organ], Raymond Huntington Woodman (1861–1943, his only student from the United States, a private organ student for three months)

1889: Mlle. De Mailli [harmonium and organ], Louis Vierne

It is likely that some of his other private organ students attended his organ class, such as Charles-Auguste Collin⁷⁵ (1865–1938) and Saint-René Taillandier (who died in 1931). Many of his composition and piano students during these years could have attended his courses:

1872: Alexis de Castillon (1838–1873), Albert Cahen d’Anvers (1846–1903)

1872–1875: Henri Duparc (1848–1933), one of his most talented students [ca. 1863–ca. 1875], Urban Le Verrier (1811–1877)

1873: Arthur Coquard (1846–1910), Mlle. de Jouvencel [piano]

Ca. 1875: Edmond Diet (1854–1924), Marguerite Habert [piano], Augusta Holmès (1847–1903), Henri Kunkelmann (1855–1922), Charles Langrand (1852–1942) [piano and composition?]

1876: Mel-Bonis, Mélanie Bonis (Mme. Albert Domanche) (1858–1937) [piano]

1878: Mme Charles Poisson [piano]

Ca. 1880: Raymond Bonheur (1861–1939), Paul Braud [piano], Laure Fleury [piano, year uncertain], Joséphine Haincelin [piano], Marguérite Hamman [piano], Léon Husson, Mlle Javal [piano], Henry Lerolle (1848–1929), ? Fernand Fouant de La Tombelle (1854–1928), Léo Luguet (1864–1935), H. Kervel [organ and piano?], Georges Rosenlecker, Gustave Sandré (1843–1916) [composition, piano, and organ?, year uncertain], Alice Sauvrezis (1866–1946) [piano, year uncertain], Gaston de Vallin [piano?], Paul de Wailly (1856–1933)

1881–1887: Pierre de Bréville (1861–1949)

Ca. 1885: Charles Bordes (1863–1909), Cécile Boutet de Monvel (1864–1940) [piano], Paul Carré de Malberg [composition?], Paul Dukas (1865–1935), Henri Expert (1863–1952), Marie Fabre, Mme Soullière [piano and composition], Henry Huvey (died 1944) [organ], Sylvio Lazzari (1857–1944) [born in Austria], Mme Édouard Lefébure [piano], Charles Pierné [harmonium], Henri Quittard (1864–1919), Guy Ropartz (1864–1955), Georges Saint-René Taillandier (1852–1942) [year uncertain], Théophile Ysaye (1865–1918) [piano, brother of Eugène]

1887: Stéphane Gaurion [a private organ student?]

1887–1890: Erik Åkerberg (1860–1938) [Swedish], Jules Écorcheville (1872–1915)

1888: Mlle Olympe Rollet [piano]

1889: Charlotte Danner [piano], Mme Saint-Louis de Gonzague [piano], the Argentinian Alberto Williams (1862–1952)⁷⁶

Ca. 1889–1890: Guillaume Lekeu (1870–1894)

Ca. 1890: Clotilde Bréal (1870–1947) [one of Franck’s favorite piano and organ students, to whom he dedicated his Choral in E Major, in the copy that belonged to her second husband, Alfred Cortot], Frank [Franz] Godebski (1866–1948).

Franck understood each student’s capacities and needs, which often led to liberal conclusions that were quite different from the formalism of other professors at the Paris Conservatory. In 1880 and 1881, when Claude Debussy attended his class as an auditor for six months to obtain his advice in composition, Franck had confided to him, “The fifths, there are some nice ones. . . . At the Conservatory one does not allow that. . . . But I myself, I love it well!”⁷⁷

As Erik Kocevar indicated, Gustave Derepas understood Franck’s teaching when he confirmed that instead of imposing his own musical ideas on his students, he let each follow their own paths:

Radically setting aside a personal and intolerant biased opinion, the master penetrated with a rare sagacity his students’ thoughts. . . . How remarkable! Musicians trained in his school of thought all possessed a solid science that can be qualified as profound; but each maintained his own personality. The master was so respectful of the inspiration of others!⁷⁸

To thank him, Franck’s students wholeheartedly supported him. They deeply respected their master, referred to him as a Pater Seraphicus, and developed a doctrine known as “Franckism.”⁷⁹ Many of them contributed to the fact he received the Légion d’honneur on August 6, 1885, during the distribution of prizes at the conservatory, in gratitude for his fifteen years of service there.⁸⁰ In spite of his Germanic origins, many of them revered him as a true renewer of French music, labelled as ars gallica, according to the motto of the Société nationale, which Franck presided over in 1886. Just to give one example, in 1879 Camille Benoît encouraged him by publishing several articles on his works in the Gazette musicale and the Guide musical. His students organized and paid for a Festival Franck, which was given at the Cirque d’Hiver on January 30, 1888.

Franck was not responsible for his students’ complaints to Ambroise Thomas that he had not been appointed as a composition professor at the Paris Conservatory. Unfortunately, this created considerable hostility.⁸¹ Also, Vincent d’Indy had interpreted Franck’s noble character as a sort of religious absolutism that “obeyed the three theological virtues known as Faith, Hope, and Charity,”⁸² to which Franck’s son Georges was totally opposed. According to Maurice Emmanuel, “Franck was never pious, and he was not a practicing Christian.”⁸³ One of his favorite books, which had inspired his Beatitudes,⁸⁴ was The Life of Jesus (published in 1863)⁸⁵ by Ernest Renan, a close friend of Pauline Viardot. César Franck had meditated and was “guided”⁸⁶ by Christ’s Beatitudes since 1845; he had completely set them to music thirty years later. However, although art goes hand in hand with religion, due to its essentially noble character, Franck’s teaching was not religious in nature, but it was deeply spiritual. He simply desired to mold his students’ capacities to express themselves musically, with noble grace, in order to enable them to become genuine artists.

To be continued.

Notes

1. Léon Vallas, La véritable histoire de César Franck, 1822-1890 (Paris, Flammarion, 1955), page 10, and Joël-Marie Fauquet, César Franck (Paris, Arthème Fayard, 1999), page 42.

2. Fauquet, page 54.

3. Vallas, page 19.

4. Fauquet, page 120.

5. Fauquet, page 464. This college was located on the rue de Vaugirard. According to Rollin Smith, Playing the Organ Works of César Franck (Stuyvesant, New York: Pendragon Press, 1997), page 25, in 1860, Hippolyte Loret built an organ for their chapel. Franck taught beside another Belgian, Father Louis Lambillotte, who participated in the movement to restore Gregorian chant. In 1856, Adrien Le Clère published César Franck’s Organ Accompaniments of Gregorian Chant, restored by Father Lambillotte.

6. M. Louseau, “Souvenirs de Collège,” Le Gaulois, November 23, 1903, published in Franck Besingrand, César Franck, Entre raison et passion (Brussels, Peter Lang, 2002), pages 165, 167. Carolyn Shuster Fournier translated the original French citations in this article.

7. Cécile and Emmanuel Cavaillé-Coll, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll (Paris, Fischbacher, 1929), page 92.

8. This chapel was located at 12, rue de Clichy. Lefébure-Wély and Pierre Érard were witnesses at this ceremony. In addition to the other addresses mentioned in this article, Franck also lived at 6, rue de Trévise beginning in the spring of 1841 and at 43, rue Lafitte in the autumn of 1842. In 1865, his family moved to 95, boulevard Saint-Michel.

9. Composed in 1846, it was originally intended for his future fiancée, Félicité Desmousseaux. Fauquet, page 54.

10. Félix Raugel, “La Musique religieuse française de l’époque révolutionnaire à la mort de César Franck,” La Revue Musicale, No. 222, 1953–1954, page 119.

11. Henri Maréchal, Souvenirs d’un musicien (Paris, Hachette, 1907), page 171.

12. Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, “Description de l’orgue actuel du Conservatoire impérial de musique,” March 12, 1864, A. N. [Archives Nationales de France], F21 1037.

13. Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, “Letter to Eugène Gautier,” January 29, 1858, published in Fenner Douglass, Cavaillé-Coll and the Musicians (Raleigh, North Carolina, Sunbury Press, 1980), vol. II, page 997.

14. Vallas, page 142.

15. Smith, page 16.

16. M. Louseau/Besingrand, page 165.

17. See A. Cavaillé-Coll, Traité propose à Monsieur le Ministre des Cultes de l’Instruction publique, des Cultes et des beaux arts, November 5, 1870, A.N. AJ37 82, 4, and Jesse Eschbach, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, A Compendium of Known Stoplists, vol. I (Paderborn: Verlag Peter Ewers, 2003), pages 726–727.

18. Charles Gounod, “Autograph letter to Monsieur le Curé,” London, March 13, 1871, private collection; published in Shuster Fournier, Un siècle de vie musicale à l’église de la Sainte-Trinité à Paris (Paris, L’Harmattan, 2014), page 42.

19. Fauquet, page 406.

20. Fauquet, page 466.

21. Fauquet, pages 471 and 834.

22. See Jules Simon, “Arrêté pour le Secrétaire Général du département de l’Instruction publique des Cultes et des Beaux Arts,” Janvier 31, 1872, A. N., AJ37, 69, 2, n° 7, and Charles Blanc, “Le Directeur des Beaux-Arts, Membre de l’Institut, Lettre au Monsieur le Directeur [du Conservatoire National de Musique & de Déclamation],” Février 17, 1872, A. N., AJ37, 69, 2, n° 4.

23. Albert Dupaigne, Le Grand Orgue de la nouvelle salle de concert de Sheffield (Paris, Plon et Cie., 1873), page 48.

24. Jules Lissajous, “Rapport sur l’orgue établi par Mr. Aristide Cavaillé-Coll dans la grande salle du Conservatoire de Musique de Paris,” A. N., AJ37 82, 4d.

25. A. Cavaillé-Coll, “Mémoire général des travaux du grand orgue de la salle des Concerts du Conservatoire de Musique de Paris,” January 12, 1872, A. N., AJ37 82, 4d, stoplist also published in Eschbach, page 338. According to Gilbert Huybens, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, Opus List, page 22, this organ was delivered on January 29, 1872.

26. A. Cavaillé-Coll, “Letter to Monsieur Ambroise Thomas, Director of the Paris Conservatory,” December 5, 1871, A. N., AJ37 82, 4.

27. A. Cavaillé-Coll, “Mémoire general des travaux de reconstruction et de perfectionnement effectués à l’orgue d’Étude du Conservatoire de Musique à Paris,” October 24, 1872, A. N., AJ37 82, 4d, included in Carolyn Shuster’s doctoral thesis, “Les Orgues Cavaillé-Coll au salon, au théâtre et au Concert,” delivered in 1991 at the François-Rabelais University in Tours.

28. Louis Vierne, “Mes Souvenirs,” In Memoriam Louis Vierne (Paris, Les Amis de l’Orgue, 1939), page 21.

29. Jules Lissajous, “Rapport sur l’orgue d’étude du conservatoire national de musique, reconstruit et perfectionné par Mr. A. Cavaillé-Coll,” October 25, 1872, A. N., AJ37 82, 4d. The stops on the Grand Orgue keyboard, Eschbach, page 349, indicate that the 8′ Flûte and 4′ Prestant have 30 notes without specifying that they are the upper 30 notes; Rollin Smith, page 31, and Orpha Ochse cite Louis Vierne, who mentioned, in Mes Souvenirs, an 8′ Dessus de Montre without indicating the Dessus of Flûte Harmonique and Prestant stops.

30. Alexandre Cellier, L’Orgue Moderne (Paris, Delagrave, 1927), page 106.

31. Vallas, page 316.

32. Albert Mahaut, “Souvenirs personnels sur César Franck,” Musique et musiciens (Paris, l’Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles, 1923), page 586.

33. Louis Vierne, in his Journal II (Cahiers et Mémoires de L’Orgue, No. 135 bis, 1970), page 162, mentions that his courses took place on Mondays and Thursdays at 2:00 p.m. and on Saturdays at 11:00 a.m., but in Mes Souvenirs II (Cahiers et Mémoires de L’Orgue, No. 134 bis, III, 1970, page 22), he indicates that they took place on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m.

34. A. N., AJ37 251.

35. Prepared with: A. N., AJ37 283; Fauquet, pages 960–964.

36. Vierne, in Mes Souvenirs, page 24, mentions that he was admitted as an organ student at the Paris Conservatory on October 4, 1890. According to Widor’s report, January 24, 1891, A. N., AJ37 292, 54, he enrolled on January 16, 1891.

37. See Fauquet, pages 408 and 471.

38. Vallas, page 174.

39. See Eugène Gigout, “Concerts et Soirées,” Le Ménestrel (XLIV), N° 45, October 6, 1878, page 363.

40. See Smith, page 37, who quotes “Nouvelles diverses,” Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris, November 10, 1878, page 367.

41. Henri Letocart, “Quelques Souvenirs,” L’Orgue, No. 36, December 1938, pages 2–7; 37, March 1939, pages 4–6.

42. Orpha Ochse, Organists and Organ Playing in Nineteenth-Century France and Belgium (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1994), page 209, quoting Gabriel Fauré, “Souvenirs,” La Revue musicale, No. 3, October 1922, pages 3–9.

43. Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens, École d’Orgue basée sur le Plain-Chant Romain (B. Schott’s Söhne, 1862), page 2.

44. Marie-Louise Boëllmann-Gigout, “L’École Niedermeyer,” in Histoire de la musique 2, under the direction of Roland-Manuel, Encyclopédie de la Pléiade (Paris, Gallimard, 1963), page 854.

45. Henri Büsser, “La classe d’orgue de César Franck en 1889–1990,” L’Orgue, No. 102, 1962, page 33.

46. Ibid.

47. It was founded by Valentin Haüy in 1794 and was located on the boulevard des Invalides. Louis Briaille (1809–1852), organist and professor at this institute, had developed the musical writing for the blind in 1829. Its organ class had been founded in 1826.

48. Had Franck recalled that forty years previously his first music teacher, Dieudonné Duguet, had become blind in 1835, the year Franck had left the Liège Conservatory?

49. Alban Framboisier, “The compositions of Auguste Tolbecque (1830–1919),” text of the CD jacket in Homage to Auguste Tolbecque (Netherlands, Passacaille, 2019), pages 19–22.

50. See Fauquet, page 475.

51. Vincent d’Indy, Ma Vie (Paris, Séguier, 2001).

52. Odile Jutten, “L’Évolution de l’enseignement de l’improvisation à l’orgue au Conservatoire,” in Anne Bongrain and Alain Poirier, eds., Le Conservatoire de Paris: Deux cents ans de pédagogie, 1795–1995 (Paris: Buchet/Chastel, 1999), page 83.

53. Vallas, pages 327–328.

54. Vierne, Mes Souvenirs, page 23.

55. Jutten, page 85.

56. Théodore Dubois, themes used during organ exams at the Paris Conservatory from January 1879 to June 1887, A. N., AJ37 237, 3.

57. Smith, page 41.

58. Vallas, page 319.

59. Maurice Emmanuel, César Franck (Paris, Henri Laurens, 1930), pages 106–108.

60. Vallas, page 319.

61. Emmanuel, page 106.

62. Vierne, Mes Souvenirs, page 45.

63. J. Bernac, “Interview with Mlle. Augusta Holmès,” The Strand Musical Magazine, 1897, Vol. 5, page 136, quoted in Florence Launay, Les Compositrices en France au XIXe siècle (Paris, Arthème Fayard, 2006), page 56.

64. Emmanuel, page 113.

65. John W. Hinton, César Franck: Some Personal Reminiscences (London, William Reeves, n.d.), page 43, quoted in Smith, page 43.
66. Louis de Serres, “Quelques souvenirs sur le père Franck, mon maître,” L’Art musical, November 29, 1935, page 68, quoted in J.-M. Fauquet, page 477.

67. Vallas, page 329.

68. Tournemire, page 70.

69. L’Orgue, Nos. 321–324, 2018—I–IV, LXX and 8.

70. Büsser, page 34.

71. Emmanuel, pages 15–16.

72. Fauquet, pages 960–964, and Rollin Smith, “César Franck’s Metronome Marks: from Paris to Brooklin,” The American Organist, September 2003, page 58.

73. This laureate of a first prize in organ in 1875 came to listen to Franck’s class and distributed tickets to his students who were lucky enough to attend the premiere of Carmen on March 3 at the Opéra-Comique.

74. According to Ochse, page 159, John Hinton studied privately with Franck in 1865 and 1867 and was an auditor in his organ class in 1873.
75. See Charles Augustin Collin, “César Franck et la musique bretonne,” Le Nouvelliste de Bretagne, August 1912.

76. The author thanks Vera Wolkowicz who kindly communicated this to her.

77. Vallas, page 322.

78. Gustave Derepas, César Franck/Étude sur sa vie, son enseignement, son œuvre (Paris, Fischbacher, 1897), page 27; quoted in Erik Kocevar, “Ses élèves et son enseignement,” in César Franck (1822–1890), Revue Européenne d’Études Musicales, No. 1, 1991, Paris, Éditions Le Léopard d’Or, pages 41–42.

79. Vallas, page 341.

80. Vallas, page 234.

81. Vallas, page 323.

82. Fauquet, page 22.

83. Emmanuel, page 12.

84. Vallas, page 306. In Louis Vierne’s “Choral,” number 16 of his 24 Pièces en style libre, opus 31, the second half of the choral theme is very similar to the theme of the baritone solo (the voice of Christ) in Franck’s third Beatitude, “Blessed are those who mourn.”

85. Fauquet, page 315.

86. Emmanuel, page 12.

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

Jesse Eschbach

Jesse Eschbach is a graduate of Indiana University, Bloomington, and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he was a student of Robert Glasgow. He completed his formal education during a five-year residency in Paris as a student of Marie-Claire Alain, specializing in early French music in her conservatory class at Rueil-Malmaison where he was awarded both a Prix d’Excellence and a Prix de Virtuosité. As one of the last students of Marie-Madeleine Duruflé-Chevalier, he studied the complete organ works of her husband, Maurice Duruflé, as well as much of the French symphonic repertoire.

Since 1986, Eschbach has served on the faculty at the University of North Texas, Denton, as professor of organ, instructing performance majors at all levels. Eschbach has several CDs to his credit, including a disc recorded at the Cathédrale de Perpignan entitled Music of the Second Empire and Beyond, released in 2003. Also released in 2003 was his 800+ page book, Stoplists of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, detailing the original stoplists of the majority of organs constructed by this French organbuilder, based extensively on the Lapresté collection. This research is still in progress, and an expanded second edition will be released in the next few years.

Due to focal dystonia in the right hand, his career was sidetracked for more than ten years, but due to the efforts of Dorothy Taubman and Sheila Paige, he has begun resuming his performance career. He has been a juror for several competitions, including the American Guild of Organists national competition, the Canadian International Organ Competition, and the Fort Wayne national competition.

On July 27, 2018, my dear colleagues and friends, Yannick Merlin and Béatrice Piertot, introduced me to Pierre Labric at his residence southwest of Paris in Dreux. Labric is perhaps best remembered in this country for recording the complete organ symphonies of both Widor and Vierne on the legendary Cavaillé-Coll instruments of St-Ouen, Rouen (Widor), and St-Sernin, Toulouse (Vierne). These recordings were marketed in the United States by The Musical Heritage Society after 1971 and introduced my generation to not only the symphonic style of Widor and Vierne, but also the sound universe of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll.

After spending a delightful two and a half hours with Mr. Labric and speaking at great length about his mentor Jeanne Demessieux and his brilliant friend and colleague at the Paris Conservatory, Jean-Claude Touche, I asked Yannick and Béatrice on our return trip to Paris if Mr. Labric might consent to a written interview on the life and achievements of Jeanne Demessieux. Yannick Merlin received an enthusiastic response, and I drafted twenty questions, intending to explore Demessieux’s short but highly eventful life.

Mr. Labric, as the reader will soon observe, was most generous with his responses. He was never limited with any constraints suggested by a particular question, but “improvised” freely in his responses.

Only one question failed to elicit a direct response: I asked if Pierre Labric could confirm what Marie-Madeleine Duruflé-Chevalier recounted years earlier. An incisive attack and release was the core of her legendary virtuosity,¹ and she attributed this to her study with Jeanne Demessieux, most especially what Mme Duruflé called the “deuxième mouvement,” or release of a note, which must have at least as much energy and clarity as the attack. This concept goes to the core of brilliant, virtuosic playing, sometimes forgotten today in France and the United States. Both Demessieux and Duruflé were capable of extremely brilliant tempos, yet every note was clearly heard and energetic, regardless of the acoustic. Regrettably, Mr. Labric seems not to have discussed this topic with Jeanne Demessieux, but confirmed, “M-M Duruflé was formed exclusively by Jeanne Demesssieux. In class, Dupré told us with the greatest admiration, ‘My children, see how Jeanne Demessieux is getting results from Marie-Madeleine.’ Yes, it was true.”²

The inevitable question did arise during our meeting in 2018 concerning the traumatic rupture between Dupré and Demessieux. I knew better than to launch “head-on” into this sad story with a French gentleman of Mr. Labric’s generation, always highly discreet. I did repeat what Marie-Madeleine Duruflé confided years earlier, and this elicited a broad smile and unmistakable twinkle of the eye. Given that direct descendants of the principal parties are still with us, and since the cause of the saga can never be proved, I can only repeat what others have said: Jeanne Demessieux was utterly blameless, and Dupré was foolishly victimized and manipulated by individuals in his entourage who intended to overthrow Demessieux to suit their own agenda. It was a veritable plot originating from near unparalleled, despicable jealousy that nauseated everyone in the French organ world and well beyond. Seventy-five years later, condemnation of the injustice perpetrated on the young Jeanne Demessieux continues to resonate. Marcel Dupré enjoyed almost complete authoritarian control of the French organ world and was more than capable of destroying, or otherwise compromising, a promising career.³

Mr. Labric, born in 1921, grew up in the Rouen area and received his early training from Marcel Lanquetuit before admission to Dupré’s class at the Paris Conservatory. His career was largely devoted to recording, resulting in releases of the complete organ symphonies of Widor and Vierne, the complete organ works of Jeanne Demessieux, sonatas of Mendelssohn, preludes and fugues of Saint-Saëns, the major organ works of Liszt, and the Promenades en Provence of Eugène Reuchsel. He was Demessieux’s suppléant at the Madeleine, and also assisted Pierre Cochereau at Notre-Dame Cathedral. As he approaches his centennial, it seemed especially appropriate to begin collecting some of his indelible memories of one of the most eventful epochs in the history of our profession.

Jesse Eschbach: If I remember correctly, Jeanne Demessieux was Marcel Dupré’s assistant in the organ class [at the Paris Conservatory] towards the end of the war. Was it at this time that you met Jeanne Demessieux for the first time? How did she prepare you for the organ class? Technique, repertory, interpretation, counterpoint, harmony, improvisation?

Pierre Labric: Yes, Jeanne Demessieux replaced Dupré in the organ class during the week of May 14–21, 1946. I’m transcribing the themes she had us work on [in improvisation]: What beautiful themes!

That day, she worked quite awhile with me. It was the year I was first runner-up. I believe I remember that she was happy with my improvisation. I attended her overwhelming competition for her unanimous first prize on June 6, 1941. The entire audience broke the law of silence: frenetic and long applause reflected the general enthusiasm. That day, our contact started.

How long did you work with Jeanne Demessieux?

I worked all my life, and I owe everything to Jeanne Demessieux.

At the end of your studies at the conservatory, did you remain in contact with Demessieux?

Yes, and after her appointment to the Madeleine, she asked me to play services in her place. I always remained in cordial contact with her and her dear mother after she became a widow. During a lesson, I asked her if, in the vast nave of a cathedral, one had to moderate tempo a little bit because of the reverberation. “No,” she replied, “It is necessary simply to articulate.”

What repertory did you undertake with Demessieux? Bach, Buxtehude, old French music, Liszt, Franck?

She had me work on her (Six) Études with great interest. They made me progress enormously. I started with the octave study, which I perfected during all of the school year 1948. I played it for her in May, and with her advice I worked on it during [summer] vacation. I played it for her again in September. She was happy with my work, and encouraged me to put it on my program on October 15 at St-Godard, Rouen. I was happy and . . . proud! I got her precious advice for the big Vierne works. I recorded all of them later, observing everything scrupulously. She had me work for part of the afternoon. Madame Demessieux prepared for us, delicately, a delicious snack that we savored with one of my friends who accompanied me to my lesson—she, too, has since passed! All of this downed with a cup of coffee for which I could never replicate the flavor.

“Mama has her little secrets,” Jeanne told us! My modest repertory was Liszt, Franck, Widor, Guilmant, Vierne, Duruflé, very little Litaize, very little Langlais, Jean-Claude Touch, Jean Guillou. A pirated version of my recording of his Toccata from one of my concerts at Saint-Ouen de Rouen is on the internet.

What preparatory studies did the teacher Demessieux want in place before taking a student?

She required a serious piano technique with etudes of Chopin or Liszt.

Did she ask for repertory studied at lessons be memorized?

No. I played all of my lessons with the text.

Could you describe the legendary memory of Demessieux?

For the magazine Étude (April 1950), the editors asked Jeanne Demessieux for an article on Dupré. She wrote fifteen sublime pages in which appeared not a shade of vengeance, not a trace of the least bitterness. The writing has the limpidity of the entire truth. What a marvelous lesson Jeanne Demessieux gave to Dupré.

The Rouen Philharmonic Society, directed by an excellent musician-pianist Pierre Duvauchel, was always running a deficit. Demessieux, who came for a sou, filled the coffers: a half hour before the concert, there wasn’t a chair left in the immense nave!

A poor priest had difficulties keeping his school afloat. He dared to ask Jeanne, then at the top of her international glory, if she would accept to give a concert for a rather low fee. Her secretary responded, “Miss Demessieux asks me to inform you she will offer a free recital for your school. A date has to be found according to her possibilities.” I have read the letter.

You recounted a beautiful anecdote concerning a trip Demessieux made to Normandy, around Deauville, I think. A priest from a little village asked her to visit his parish the day after the concert. What happened when she tried out the organ?

Jeanne Demessieux had given a concert in Deauville on August 27, 1956. You have the review written by Guy Bouchaux, which deserves to be read by everyone.

Verbal program notes were given by the Canon Leprieur, priest of Beuzeville about twenty kilometers away. Demessieux was to return to Paris by car with M. Haerpfer, the builder of the organs in Deauville and Beuzeville, which has a smaller organ.

Abbot Leprieur had invited Demessieux to visit the organ in Beuzeville the next day on her way back to Paris. The grapevine having done its work, about twenty from the audience of the day before greeted Demessieux when she got out of the car. Abbot Leprieur led her to the gallery, followed by the would-be listeners. She got to know in very little time the modest instrument of sixteen stops. She didn’t even need much more time for the giant consoles during her American tours. She went through each stop attentively and was getting ready to leave the keyboards. Abbot Leprieur then said suddenly, “Mademoiselle, would you play the Alain Litanies for us?” Without hesitating, Demessieux gave us a brilliant interpretation of the Litanies. After that, Galérant (in the photo) asked her for the Second Choral of Franck; another asked her for the “Toccata” from the Fifth Symphony of Widor; another suggested a Noël of D’Aquin. “Which one?” she asked simply. After, a gentleman I didn’t know asked for the “Carillon de Westminster.” Others requested several Bach pieces. All of these pieces were at random and not on the program from the day before. She played for two consecutive hours, responding with a perfect humility to the requests of each with the single aim of pleasing. There is the perfect example of a concert “requested by the audience.”

What happened when she tried the organ, you ask me? Nothing!

Jeanne was very reserved, always in perfect control, and also in control of her company. She never felt the need to ask questions. For her, all the problems were worked out ahead. If someone explained to her the reason for something because of this, because of that, she listened very politely, without feeling the need to open her mouth. She remained silent. She was like the diamond who never sought to shine, but was made to shine. She played the organ at Beuzeville most naturally, before several subjugated and privileged people, enthusiastic and astonished by such natural facility.

Jeanne was radiant taking leave of her improvised admirers. And we went to lunch at the rectory, as the photo attests, taken by the young curate of the parish when we arrived. Sixty-two years ago! Jeanne made a very quiet “impact,” yet strongly powerful, felt by everyone around her. Her rich personality radiated naturally without being conscious of it, so it seemed.

Monsieur Albert Dupré, father of the Dupré in question, was organist of the magnificent Cavaillé-Coll of Saint-Ouen de Rouen—“Orgue à la Michel-Ange” according to the famous estimation of Widor who came to inaugurate it. On the occasion of the first concert of Jeanne’s at Saint-Ouen, hearing about it, Dupré supposedly exclaimed, “Imagine, she dared play Papa’s organ!” The clumsy remark eventually got back to Jeanne Demessieux who spontaneously retorted, “Oh, Papa had nothing to complain about!”

She was very humorous.

I don’t think we have many recordings of Demessieux’s improvisations. Could you tell us about her style in improvisation? Did she often improvise in established forms such as sonata-allegro, fugue, double fugue, lied, variations, passacaglia, etc., or was she rather free?

During her concert tours in America, Miss Murtagh⁴ called Jeanne Demessieux, pointing out a day when Jeanne wasn’t on time. She scolded her on the telephone like a little girl. With her usual calm, her natural distinction, her nobility of a great lady, Jeanne Demessieux responded simply with, “Madam, I always⁵ do what I want,” cutting off any response. Many organists do what they can, starting with me! At the keyboard, Demessieux always did what she wanted. Her magnificent recordings are the proof!

As for her improvisations, if they were always inspired (again, she did what she wanted), they all were adapted to the character of the given theme. I heard her improvise many a time, the very first being her conservatory competition on June 6, 1941. The luminous cadenzas of the first two concertos of Handel were improvised before being written down and recorded on the Decca label. The first one astonished Guy Bouchaux at her concert in Deauville on August 27, 1956, as well as her improvisation on In Paradisum.

I recall yet today her extraordinary symphonic fresco on the Kyrie Orbis factor given to her by Fr. Boulzy at the end of her concert on November 7, 1953, at Saint-Eustache. She finished with a prodigious fugue. The large audience, which filled the nave, was cosmopolitan: French, Italians, Germans, English, Americans, Japanese applauded discretely when she came down from the gallery.

Examples are numerous and deliciously fascinating. I’ll limit myself to several: I heard Demessieux improvise at Saint-Ouen. For her, to improvise was to abandon herself to her rich and inspired imagination at the end of a concert. The mind free, on a magnificent instrument she loved, developing a very beautiful theme given to her by Maurice Duruflé, I remember elegant variations faithfully ornamenting the theme under the sumptuous sonorities of the “Cavaillé-Coll à la Michel-Ange,” which she knew how to transfigure like no one else.

To your question, I don’t know about recordings of her improvisations with the exception of the one on the Hamburg CD, The Legendary Jeanne Demessieux, done in several churches in Hamburg: St-Sophiekirche, St-Michaelskirche, St-Christianskirche on the label Festivo, 6961-862. Many years ago, I was fortunate to hear her splendid improvisations during her legendary concerts in the Netherlands.

M. Van der Oter, deceased, and his colleague Mr. Herman van Vliet, an excellent organist, played for me a magnificent improvisation in Masslouis, which I would ardently like to hear again, and another one, in the Netherlands, the given theme of which lended itself to rondo form, three refrains and three couplets. This quarter hour of true music was so perfect that it made me think of the truly vivid “Rondo Final” of the magnificent Fifth Symphony of Louis Vierne. Regrettably, I never heard either one again!

I found in the archives of Norbert Dufourcq a detailed study of the Madeleine organ written in 1965 by Jeanne Demessieux. This document attests to the fact that Demessieux had a great deal of expertise in organbuilding and especially on the style of Cavaillé-Coll. Dupré, as far as I know, didn’t teach these things to his students. How did Demessieux acquire this knowledge?

To your inquiry, I am going to offer the truest, most exact, most pertinent, the simplest response there is, that of Jeanne Demessieux herself:

I wrote to the periodical L’Orgue that I was waiting and hoping for the organ of the twentieth century:⁶ an intelligent synthesis, yet original in its audacity, of instruments from the past. In the absence of which, the promoters of neo-classicism will be burdened with the heavy responsibility of having implicitly condemned all⁷ organ repertory from Bach to the present. The works of Messiaen, Langlais, and others call for a complete radiance in sound where everything is possible.

These thoughts, harbingers of light and wisdom, are a veritable gospel of truth and for all time. And here is a striking aspect of Jeanne Demessieux.

Appointed titular organist of the beautiful Cavaillé-Coll of the Madeleine in 1962, where she succeeded Edouard Mignan, she was keenly interested in the preservation of her instrument. She watched jealously over its esthetic. Her keen awareness of eclecticism, fed by multiple experiences collected over all continents, gave her the ability to compare organs of different characters—following faithfully the evolution of building, with prudence and especially wisdom, while strongly opposing certain displeasing trends.

Her searching spirit always involved a curious look towards the future, without denying the lessons from the past. Her perfectionist and innovative spirit researched unceasingly balance and truth. Her art was enriched with a lofty spirituality. Her enthusiastic listeners perceived her marvelous message with a quieted serenity while others, more receptive, caught a glimpse of her in the light.

Did she have American students? I know that Frank Speller8 went to study with her, but did she have others?

I don’t know.

You mentioned her Te Deum. If I understood you correctly, this work was finished in Demessieux’s mind well before she wrote it down?

Your assertion is absolutely exact. The brutal and sudden rupture with Dupré, never understood by poor Jeanne Demessieux, necessarily accentuated her timidity and humility that were already the basis of her exceptional personality. “I never talk about my plans,” she responded to an overly gushing interlocutor.

At her concert in Deauville, I asked her discretely if she would soon give us the joy of a new work. “Yes,” she answered spontaneously. “I am thinking of writing a work in the spirit of the chorals of Franck on the Te Deum.” Overwhelmed, I didn’t push further, being content with this detail, so affectionately confided, I being one of the rare individuals—if not the only—to know the gestation of the most beautiful of the Te Deums. No reference concerning what I knew to be a serious confidence would be brought back to her, at least coming from me.

The streets of Rouen were all decked out with giant posters as if to announce the visit of the Queen of England: “Jeanne Demessieux on her return from America.” She returned from a big concert tour, during which she had played her Te Deum, not yet published, but for which I didn’t know the reason. It was on the program for April 30, 1958. That’s when I heard it for the first time, next to her, in the afternoon. I was astonished by the grandeur and the beauty of the work. It is impossible to find more moving accents to praise God. I asked her if she would consent to loaning me her manuscript. “But no, dear Pierre, I haven’t yet had time to write it down!” My eyes popped out of my head before such prowess that I never would have imagined. I remained speechless.

In matters of interpretation, did she use rubato or rather subtleties of touch, or a combination of both?

Jeanne Demessieux had an incredible phrasing. In the chorale preludes of Bach, she used two different cornets, which offered an agreeable echo effect. She played certain works with a surprising slowness, but never gave the impression of dragging.

She played quick tempos with an absolute mastery, a ravishing lightness. Listen to her in the delicious scherzo of the Grande Pièce Symphonique of César Franck where she excelled, in order to be convinced of the perfection found in her recording of the complete organ works of Franck, which came out in 1961.

Jeanne Demessieux never stopped being a pianist. She had her [first] prize when she was 17. She brought her extraordinary technique to the organ. At one of her concerts I attended with my friend Marie-Claire Alain, at the end Alain told me, “You know, it’s magnificent! One really feels she’s a first prize in piano!” I responded, “It’s obvious. I agree with you.” Such was my total approbation.

The complete works for organ of César Franck recorded at the Madeleine in 1959 reveal interpretations where virtuosity is often highlighted. I’m thinking, for instance, of the allegros in the Grande Pièce Symphonique. As far as I know, only her student Marie-Madeleine Duruflé-Chevalier played Franck like that. More than fifty years after these recordings first appeared, metronomic indications written by Franck himself were discovered in a letter addressed by Franck to an American organist,⁹ which tends to demonstrate that such virtuosity wasn’t at all scorned by César Franck. Jeanne Demessieux, it would seem, was right. Did she talk about these interpretations and her very personal ideas on the subject of Franck’s music?

Jeanne Demessieux revealed Franck like no one else, a recording of reference. What can I add?

Mr. Labric, you are perhaps the last to have often played the authentic Cavaillé-Coll of Notre-Dame, Paris,10 before the reconstruction and electrification in the 1960s. I would like very much if you would talk about this legendary instrument before the transformations occurred.

“My alter ego,” said Vierne speaking about his Cavaillé-Coll at Notre-Dame, Paris. Nothing better than these words could translate the nature of the emotional attachments that bound together one to the other. This was affirmed by Bernard Gavoty. Gavoty continued, “as the flower breaks loose from its sheath, the song swells and spreads forth. With his hands, the musician sculpts his work in a sonorous clay of which nothing can evoke the voluptuous richness. The entire organ seems to stir in contact with this soul that brings it to life.”

The organ of Notre-Dame de Paris was the absolute masterpiece of Cavaillé-Coll. In the fingers of Vierne, it offered a unique splendor. A musician from Rouen, André Haumesser went from time to time to the gallery of Notre-Dame to hear Vierne. He mixed in with the regulars, and at the instant Vierne was preparing to improvise, one of them said, “Let us listen to the word of Saint Thomas d’Aquin.”

I had the good fortune to often play the magnificent Cavaillé-Coll, admired throughout the world. I remember my first contact which left an indelible feeling. Léonce de Saint-Martin,11 a very distinguished and courteous man, welcomed me one evening after the cathedral closed, allowing me to play the second symphony of Vierne. From the first chord, I was veritably transported in the instant in an ethereal world by this river of sound that flowed under my fingers. The solo stops were ravishing in the following movements up to the sparkling “Final” in which the unique tutti of the instrument seemed indeed to want to explode the shell of the cathedral, as Gavoty wrote. But this prodigious power had nothing of any harshness. Rather, it was part of the incomparable splendor of the organ.

One Sunday of the Holy Trinity, Saint-Martin let me play Dogme, the fourth movement of Méditation sur le Saint-Esprit of Jeanne Demessieux, at the end of vespers. I was happy. This was still at the time of the old [mechanical] console.

Later, I gave Sunday concerts on the new electric console of Jean Herman, which worked very well. It was worthy of the consoles of Beuchet-Debierre. This console permitted me later to record very conveniently the Six Études of Demessieux, which require a perfectly regulated pedalboard.

I had the joy of playing six Sundays, the substitute for Pierre Moreau,¹² a very courageous man, recovering from surgery. I arrived Saturday evening. I had almost three hours. For my pleasure alone, I played the six symphonies of Vierne on the instrument that had inspired them. What an unforgettable emotion. Léon Bloy called the royal Cavaillé-Coll, “The organ of eternity.”

I took advantage of these occasions that came my way, I can say by chance, to play at the closing voluntaries, a finale from the Vierne symphonies for the greatest joy of a group of young musicians gathered around the console.

§

As Pierre Labric approaches his centennial, I am certain my American colleagues join me in wishing Mr. Labric every joy and happiness. He is, after all, one of the last remaining figures to have witnessed the joys, triumphs, trials, and tribulations of the legendary organ class at the Paris Conservatory during the post-war period. His recollections help us approach those years with a far deeper understanding of the legendary names that shaped my generation and beyond. Thanks, Pierre Labric, for sharing your pristine memory and impressions of an era that now seems so very distant to most of us. Most of all, thanks for transmitting the legacy of the legendary Jeanne Demessieux to future generations.

Notes

1. Derived from the traditional French harpsichord and piano “schools” where the fingers do most of the work. Arm weight, and arm movements in general, were not introduced at the conservatory until after World War II, although some French pianists were very aware of (and advocated) arm weight and arm movements before 1946.

2. Visit www.organ.music.unt.edu for a video of Mme Duruflé at the University of North Texas auditorium console filmed in February 1992, playing a segment of the Vierne Naïades and a Handel concerto. Although she never knew or consulted Dorothy Taubman, the core of Mme Duruflé’s virtuosity is derived in large part from the same precepts learned by and passed on through the great technician who was Dorothy Taubman: long fingers moved from the short extensor muscles, and very subtle forearm rotations, up-down movement, in-out movements, and lateral shifting of the arm when required by the music.

3. Lest the reader assume that I have migrated to the almost rabid, anti-Dupré groups prominent in France today, such is not the case. My students perform probably more Dupré works than any other studio in North America. My admiration for Dupré as a virtuoso and composer is unbounded, but from what I have learned from his students and others, he was a bit of a dictator and often poorly advised by members of his entourage. Jeanne Demessieux was not the only artist whose career was almost sabotaged by Marcel Dupré.

4. Lilian Murtagh (1907–1976) originally managed concert organists and others for the LaBerge and Colbert agencies before purchasing the organ division from Henry Colbert and forming her own management for organists in 1962. In 1976, her organization merged with Karen McFarlane to create Murtagh-McFarlane Artists Management. Jeanne Demessieux’s three North American tours (1953, 1955, 1958) were organized by Lilian Murtagh.

5. Underscored by Labric.

6. Underscored by Demessieux.

7. Underscored by Demessieux.

8. Frank Speller (1938–2017), former professor of organ at University of Texas for more than forty years, studied with Jeanne Demessieux in Paris sometime during the 1960s. He was one of the few American organists to study with her.

9. Rollin Smith, “César Franck’s Metronome Marks: From Paris to Brooklyn.” The American Organist, September 2003, 58–60.

10. Aristide Cavaillé-Coll finished his 86-stop masterpiece in 1868, inaugurated March 6 of that year by Franck, Chauvet, Guilmant, Widor, Saint-Saëns, Durand, and Loret. The organ was rebuilt and electrified in the 1960s.

11. Léonce de Saint-Martin (1886–1954) succeeded Louis Vierne as titular organist of Notre-Dame de Paris in 1937.

12. Pierre Moreau (1907–1991) served at Notre-Dame de la Gare, Paris, before his appointment to Saint-Marcel, Paris, 1935–1985, and was Saint-Martin’s suppléant at Notre-Dame. Under Pierre Cochereau, Moreau was promoted organiste adjoint, retiring in 1986. He studied with Charles Tournemire for five years and was awarded a first prize in organ in 1938 at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles.

Carolyn Shuster Fournier

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

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

The repertoire of César Franck’s organ students

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Henri Dallier: Fantaisie in C (June 1878)101

Gabriel Pierné: Final (July 1882)

Henri Kaiser: Grande Pièce Symphonique (July 1884)

François Pinot: Fantaisie in A (June 1885)

Adolphe Marty: Fantaisie in C (June 1886)

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

Georges Aubry: Cantabile (June 1888)

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

Albert Mahaut: Prière (June 1889)

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

Henri Letocart: Pastorale (July 1890).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

César Franck’s artistic legacy

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

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

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

Vocal works: Hedwige Chrétien.

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

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

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

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

Light music: Émile Fournier.

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

Operettas: Louis Frémaux and Louis Ganne.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Choirmasters and organists at:

La Madeleine: Achille Runner (1904–1938);

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

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

Choirmasters at:

Notre-Dame d’Auteuil: Stéphane Gaurion;

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

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

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

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

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

Choir accompanists:

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

Saint-Eugène: Albert Pillard (1900);

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

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

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

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

Titular organists at:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saint-Louis-en-l’Île: François Pinot;

Saint-Mérri: Paul Wachs (1874–1896);

Saint-Philippe-du-Roule: Cesarino Galeotti;

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

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

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

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

Some played in Parisian suburbs at:

Charenton-le-Pont: Georges Guiraud;

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

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

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

in Meudon: Albert Mahaut (1888);

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saint-Germain in Rennes: Charles-Auguste Collin;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

Notes

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

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

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

90. Stinson, page 74.

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

92. Ibid.

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

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

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

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

97. Fauquet, page 485.

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

99. Tournemire, page 72.

100. Vallas, page 244.

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

102. Tournemire, page 24.

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

104. Tournemire, page 23.

105. Tournemire, page 21.

106. Tournemire, page 25.

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

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

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

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

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

112. Tournemire, page 63.

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

114. Vierne, Mes Souvenirs, page 20.

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

116. Büsser, pages 33–34.

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

118. Published in Marty, page 1.

119. Published in Marty, page 22.

120. Published in Sabatier, page 240.

121. Published in Marty, page 37.

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

123. Vierne, Journal, page 165.

124. Vierne, Journal, page 164.

125. See Fauquet, page 491.

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

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

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

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

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

131. Vierne, Journal II, page 157.

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

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

134. See Fauquet, page 476.

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

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

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

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

139. Cf. Smith, page 45.

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

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

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

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

144. Emmanuel, page 124.

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

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

Jennifer Lucy Bate, 75, born in London, UK, November 11, 1944, died March 25. She was the daughter of H. A. Bate, organist of St James’s Muswell Hill from 1924 to 1978. An international concert organist, she was considered an authority on the organ music of Olivier Messiaen, having befriended him within the last twenty years of his life as his organist of choice. In 1986, she gave the first British performance of his Livre du Saint-Sacrement at Westminster Cathedral and later made the world premiere recording of the work under the personal supervision of the composer, winning the Grand Prix du Disque. He also endorsed her earlier recordings of all of his other organ works. Bate owned scores that contain many personal markings and references made by Messiaen. In 1995, Bate opened the Messiaen Festival at l’Église de la Sainte Trinité, Paris, France, where his complete organ works were performed and recorded. Among numerous awards for her CD were the Diapason d’Or (France) and Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik (Germany).

Bate performed and recorded a broad repertoire spanning several centuries, including English organ music, the complete organ works of César Franck, and the complete organ music of Felix Mendelssohn. A frequent performer at organ festivals, she often played works written for her. She also presented numerous masterclasses and lectures. She was instrumental in the formation of the annual Jennifer Bate Organ Academy, a course for young female organists, and she was the lead patron of the Society of Women Organists.

Bate was briefly married (as his second wife) to George Thalben-Ball. She received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bristol in 2007. In 1990, Bate was recognized with the Personnalité de l’Année award by the French-based jury, only the third British artist to achieve this distinction, after Georg Solti and Yehudi Menuhin. In 1996, Bate was granted honorary citizenship of the Italian province of Alessandria for her services to music in Northern Italy over 20 years. In 2002, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and in 2008 was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

In 2011, M. Frédéric Mitterand, minister of culture and communication, awarded Jennifer Bate the rank of Officier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres, stating that this honor is awarded to renowned artists and writers who have promoted French culture throughout the world. Subsequently, President Sarkozy appointed Jennifer Bate to the rank of Chevalier in the Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur, stating that this honor was awarded in recognition of her skill as an organist and her contribution to making Olivier Messiaen’s organ works more widely known throughout the world. She received both awards in 2012.

 

Marillyn Ila Freeman, 85, musician and teacher, died March 24. Born in Marion, Wisconsin, February 23, 1935, she grew up in New London and Appleton, where she began playing the organ for local church services at the age of twelve. She graduated from Appleton High School in 1953 and the Lawrence College Conservatory of Music, Appleton, earning a degree in music performance in 1957. While at Lawrence, she met her future husband Ralph Freeman, and they were married in 1958. Following graduation Freeman taught music at Lawrence and worked in the president’s office at Princeton University, eventually returning to Wisconsin and settling in Green Bay, where she taught piano and played organ in the Moravian church.

In 1965 the Freemans moved to Neenah where a year later she began a 54-year career as organist for St. Paul Lutheran Church. In addition to playing organ and piano, as director of music ministries she planned worship services, directed youth choirs, accompanied the adult Sanctuary Choir, presented church musicals, and guided the church in purchasing a new Dobson organ in 1986. She earned an associate certificate of the American Guild of Organists in 1995 and an associate in music ministry certificate in 2000.

Throughout her career Freeman continued to teach piano and organ, organizing piano recitals, judging piano competitions, and mentoring young musicians in the Fox Valley. She was a member of the Fox Valley Music Teachers, a member of the Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity, served as treasurer of the North Eastern Wisconsin chapter of the American Guild of Organists, and was active in the Hymn Society of the United States and Canada. For many years she and her husband Ralph, a pianist, violinist, and published author of hymn texts, performed organ and piano duets each August as part of the Lunchtime Organ Recital Series in the Fox Valley region.

Marillyn Ila Freeman is survived by her husband Ralph Freeman, five children: Rebecca Freeman (Stephen Fusfeld) of Neenah; Jennifer Timm (Terry) of Neenah; Robert Freeman (Robin) of Darien, Illinois; Jon Freeman of Whitefish Bay; and Paul Freeman (Nicole Berman) of Stow, Massachusetts; twelve grandchildren, and several great grandchildren.

Memorial gifts may be made to the music ministry program at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 200 N. Commercial Street, Neenah, WI 54956, or to either the Melanoma Research Fund or the Surgical Oncology Outcomes Research and Awareness Fund at the University of Wisconsin (supportuw.org/give).

 

Josephine Lenola Bailey Freund, 90, died February 8 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. A lifelong musician, she was a professional organist for almost 70 years and taught piano and organ. She performed organ recitals and directed choirs throughout the United States, as well as in Swaziland and Papua New Guinea.

Josephine Bailey was born April 8, 1929, in Indianapolis, Indiana. She began piano lessons at age six and started studying organ at age thirteen. Among her first professional jobs were playing the organ to accompany silent movies and substituting as an accompanist and organist in local churches.

Following graduation from high school in 1946, Bailey attended Wittenberg College, Springfield Ohio, later transferring to Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. There she earned a teaching certificate in organ and bachelor’s and master’s degrees. In 1952, she was the first female graduate of Peabody to earn a master’s degree in organ performance.

During the 1950s Bailey played at various churches in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia, including serving as music director for First Baptist, Washington, D.C., which President Truman attended; and St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, Annapolis, Maryland, where she was honored to play for a royal visit by Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. From 1956 until 1961, she was associate professor of music at Longwood College, Farmville, Virginia. She was also organist of First Presbyterian Church, Farmville, and taught music in local public high schools.

In 1963, Bailey became the first full-time director of music at Trinity Lutheran Church, Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. She later returned to Indianapolis to teach in public schools and was the organist and assistant choir director at First Presbyterian Church. In the early 1970s, she moved to East Lansing, Michigan, to work on her doctorate in music theory at Michigan State University. She also was associate professor of music and organist and choir director of Martin Luther Chapel at Michigan State. It was there that she met her future husband Roland Freund who was an Australian agricultural missionary working on his master’s degree. They married in July 1971 and moved to the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.

In 1976, the family moved to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where Josephine taught piano and was organist at Grace United Methodist Church. The family spent 1982–1984 working on a U.S. AID and Penn State University project in Swaziland, Africa. There she taught music in several schools and directed the largest choir in the country for a performance of Brahms’s Requiem.

Upon returning to Carlisle, Josephine Freund served as organist and choir director at St. John’s Episcopal Church and Gettysburg College Chapel. She was adjunct professor of organ for Dickinson College and an active member and officer of the Harrisburg Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. Freund played her final organ recital in 2010, but continued to teach piano and organ and to substitute and support church services, weddings, and funerals for a few more years. She was a lifetime member of the national honors fraternity for women in music, Sigma Alpha Iota.

Josephine Lenola Bailey Freund is survived by her husband, Roland Paul Freund of Carlisle; her nephew, Matthew Freund of South Australia; and her son, Colonel Ernie Freund, daughter-in-law Megan Sayler Freund, and granddaughters, Amelia Rose and Adelaide Pearl, all from Burke, Virginia.

Funeral services were held February 15 at Trinity Lutheran Church, Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. Memorial contributions may be made to Residential Hospice, 100 Sterling Pkwy #110, Mechanicsburg, PA 17050 or the Traditional Music Fund at Trinity Lutheran Church, 2000 Market Street, Camp Hill, PA 17011.

 

Eleanor Marie Fulton, organist and music educator, died February 23 in New Haven, Connecticut. Born August 9, 1939, in Morristown, Tennessee, she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Bennett College, Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1961, and continued her education at the Manhattan School of Music, New York City; the Haydn Conservatory, Eisenstadt, Austria; and the University of Ghana’s International Center for African Music and Dance.

She served as the longtime organist and director of music for Center Church on the Green, New Haven, and was a music teacher for New Haven Public Schools, director of the New Haven Children’s Chorus, assistant organist and director of Christian education for Battell Chapel, Yale University, New Haven, consultant to the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, and a private piano and music instructor. She was the featured performer on a CD released by Raven, performing on the 1971 Beckerath organ of Dwight Chapel, Yale University, with works of Bach, de Grigny, and Mendelssohn (Eleanor Fulton, Organist: Dwight Chapel, Yale University, OAR-810).

 

Odile Pierre, French liturgical and international concert organist, professor, and composer, died in Paris, France, on February 29, shortly before her 87th birthday. Born in Pont-Audemer (in Normandy) on March 12, 1932, she decided to become an organist at age seven, inspired by a recital by Marcel Dupré on the Cavaillé-Coll organ at St. Ouen Abbey in Rouen. After taking lessons with Madeleine Lecoeur, organist at St. Nicaise Church in Rouen at age fifteen, she served as organist and choir director at the St. Martin Church in Barentin (in the Seine-Maritime region of Normandy). From 1950 to 1952, she studied harmony with Albert Beaucamp and organ with Marcel Lanquetuit at the Rouen Conservatory. She then entered the Paris Conservatory, where she was awarded first prizes in the classes of Maurice Duruflé (harmony), Noël Gallon (fugue), Norbert Dufourcq (music history), as well as organ and improvisation with Marcel Dupré and Rolande Falcinelli. At the age of 23, Odile Pierre became the youngest Marcel Dupré student to win a first prize in organ and improvisation at the Paris Conservatory. She won this prestigious prize the same year as Éliane Lejeune-Bonnier (1921–2015), with the unanimous approval of the jury, which included Jeanne Demessieux.

From 1955 to 1957, Odile Pierre officially substituted for Jean-Jacques Grunenwald, then organist at Saint-Pierre de Montrouge Church in Paris. She then studied organ performance with Fernando Germani at Saint-Cecilia Academy in Rome and at Chigiana Music Academy in Sienne, and with Franz Sauer at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. In 1969, she succeeded Jeanne Demessieux as titular organist of the gallery organ of the Madeleine Church and remained in this post until 1979. By coincidence, on the day after she died, Olivier Périn began his functions as the official assistant to François-Henri Houbart, her successor at the Madeleine.

Well known for her mastery of organ repertoire from early to contemporary masters, Odile Pierre performed at least 2,000 concerts throughout the world, including appearances in Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Canada, Iceland, Russia, Germany, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Austria, and the former Czechoslovakia, including twelve tours in the United States and six in Asia. In 1977, she represented France at the Third International Organ Congress in Washington and Philadelphia. She performed organ concertos under the direction of conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Pierre Dervaux, Antoine de Bavier, and Georges Prêtre.

Odile Pierre recorded for RCA, Mitra, Motette, Festivo, Editions Lade, and IFO. At least two of the recordings were made at the Madeleine Church in Paris: Camille Saint-Saëns’ Preludes and Fugues (1972, RCA LSB 4088) and The Great Romantic Toccatas (1978, RCA/RC 8108). In 1991, she recorded (for SCD 814) Jean-François Muno’s reconstitution of Jean de Joyeuse’s 1694 organ at the Auch Cathedral, which she had inaugurated in 1988 with André Isoir. Her Poetic Symphonic Organ Music (Vierne, Debussy, Duruflé, and Odile Pierre) on the Cavaillé-Coll of the Trinity Church in Fécamp and at St. Godard in Rouen (1988, MP/FR 51190 C) calls upon her Normand origins; her record of Widor, Vierne, and Guilmant at the Orléans Cathedral (1993, Motette 11251), reminds us that she lived nearby, in Tigy, in the Loiret department, at the end of her life.

As professor, Odile Pierre taught organ and music history at the Rouen Conservatoire from 1959 until 1969 and then organ and improvisation at the Paris Regional Conservatoire from 1981 until 1992. Among her students were Michael Matthes, Léon Kerremans, D’Arcy Trinkwon, Kristiyan Seynhave, David Di Fiore, and Lionel Coulon (titular organist at the Rouen Cathedral since 1992, he substituted for her at the Madeleine for four years). In 1991, she gave organ classes at the Scuola Internationale d’Alto Perfezionmento Musicale in Perugia, Italy, and gave masterclasses in numerous colleges and universities. She also served on the juries of international organ competitions. In 1977, she was appointed as a member of the Commission on Organs in Paris.

Her organ works were published as early as 1955: Chorale and Fugue on the first antiphon of the Second Vespers for Christmas (1955, Procure du Clergé), and Chorale and Four-Voiced Fugue (1955, republished by Europart-Music in 1988), Four Pilgrimages at the Virgin Mary for four hands, opus 1 (Leduc, 1988), Variations and Fugue on three Christmas Carols (Leduc, 1990), The Martyr of St. Thomas Becket, op. 4 (Bergamo, Carrara 1994), Chorale and Fugue on the Name of Charles-Marie Widor, op. 5 (Mayence, Schott, 1994), and Canonic Variations and Fugue on Two Christmas Carols from Naples, op. 6 (1955). Her edition of some of Alexandre Guilmant’s organ works was printed by Bornemann in 1983 and 1984. In addition, she wrote about Marcel Dupré’s improvisation exams in 1953 and 1954 (Leduc, undated). Odile Pierre received three awards for her contributions to French culture: Officer in the French Legion of Honor, Commander in the French Order of Merit, and the Silver Medal of the City of Paris.

Odile Pierre is survived by her husband, the historian Pierre Aubé.

—Carolyn Shuster Fournier

 

Philip Astor Prince, 89, of New Haven, Connecticut, died February 5. Born January 5, 1931, in Evanston, Illinois, Prince attended the Taft School before entering Yale University with the Class of 1952. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Latin, subsequently studied musicology in the Yale Graduate School, but completed a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music in organ performance under H. Frank Bozyan in 1959. Prince was drawn to the Anglo-Catholic liturgy celebrated at Christ Church, New Haven, and became associated with the music program there, succeeding Richard Donovan as organist and choirmaster in 1966. He became respected among colleagues for his English-language arrangements of Gregorian chants and psalmody and for his hymn accompaniments.

Prince published scholarly articles on Max Reger’s organ music (see “Reger and the Organ,” The Diapason, March 1973) and a performing edition of a sonata da chiesa of Johann Gottfried Walther. He also taught organ students at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, where he served as university organist for nearly 30 years and played annual recitals. In 1988, he joined the choirs of St. Mary Church, New Haven, and the St. Gregory Society and continued singing with them well into his 80s. Prince became an associate fellow of Ezra Stiles College in 1974. He was a longtime member of both Mory’s and the Elizabethan Club in New Haven, and the American Guild of Organists and Association of Anglican Musicians. Prince was a supporter of the Yale swimming team, and for many years he refereed at swimming matches and tournaments.

Masako Gaskin and David Erwin

Submitted by Masako Gaskin, BFOMS co-director, and David Erwin, director of music at Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church, St. Louis, Missouri.

The British and French Organ Music Seminar (FOMS) took place in London, Paris, and Alsace, July 4–18, 2019. Founded by Christina Harmon in 1986, FOMS has taken place biennially since.

London

Thirty-seven organists and friends began the seminar with a Fourth of July celebration at Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London. The group was treated to Evensong and a concert by Ken Cowan on the Henry Willis organ (1872), originally built by Bernard Smith (1697). Afterwards, our host Simon Johnson demonstrated the instrument and invited participants to play.

The following morning the group traveled to All Saints Church, Tooting, to visit the 1904 Harrison & Harrison organ, hosted by Mark Pybus. Then on to Notre Dame de France for a masterclass in improvisation with Duncan Middleton on the organ tonally reconstructed and enlarged by B. C. Shepherd & Son of Edgware (1986). The afternoon was spent at St. George’s Hanover Square, hosted by Simon Williams. The organ, built by Richards, Fowkes & Co. (2012) inside the old case used for the first organ of 1725 by Gerald Smith, nephew of the builder of Saint Paul’s Cathedral organ, is the first American-built organ in London. That evening some members of the group attended vespers at Westminster Cathedral before the demonstration of its Henry Willis III organ (1922) and free playing time hosted by Peter Stevens.

Saturday, July 5, started at Chelmsford Cathedral, with James Davy as host for the group as they visited the Mander organs (nave and chancel). The second stop was at Saint Edmundsbury Cathedral hosted by James Thomas, playing the Harrison & Harrison organ (2010). Next was Cambridge, with Evensong conducted by Stephen Cleobury, who performed his final organ recital.

The final day in England was Sunday, July 6, and group members went to worship at churches of their choice. In the afternoon, one could attend a recital at Westminster Abbey or Westminster Cathedral. The final playing session on a two-manual George Pike England organ took place at Saint Margaret Lothbury, a church designed by Christopher Wren, with host organist Richard Townend.

Paris

On Tuesday, July 8, forty-four organists and friends converged in Paris at St-Augustin. Titulaire Didier Matry demonstrated the organ and allowed participants to try it out. The first full day of the seminar began with an emphasis on French classical music with visits to St-Sevérin and St-Gervais. François Espinasse led a masterclass at St-Sevérin, and he talked about the importance of singing and dancing in one’s playing. At St-Gervais, the Couperin family church, Elise Friot demonstrated one of the ancient instruments in Paris, with reportedly the oldest keyboards still in use in the city. That evening featured a concert by the Duo Merlin at Notre-Dame-des-Champs, parish church of organbuilder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. The Duo Merlin consists of Yannick Merlin and his wife Béatrice Piertot, who specialize in organ music for four hands. They did much of the work in organizing FOMS from the French side, securing venues and recruiting faculty.

On Wednesday, July 9, Susan Landale lectured and led a masterclass on the works of Louis Vierne at Église St-Louis des Invalides. Then, several in the group walked to Ste-Clotilde to hear and play the organ, hosted by Olivier Penin. The next day saw a return to Notre-Dame-des-Champs for playing time, followed by a masterclass on works of Jean Langlais by Béatrice Piertot. This was followed by a class led by Jean-Baptiste Robin. That evening we visited the auditorium at Radio France, with its 2016 Gerhard Grenzing organ (IV/87). We were welcomed by M. Grenzing, and then each person in the group was able to play from the main stage console.

A trip to Auvers-sur-Oise (the village where painter Vincent Van Gogh spent his final days) was scheduled for the next day. A short train ride from Paris, Auvers is home to Église Notre-Dame d’Auvers-sur-Oise, which Van Gogh immortalized in a painting. The church has a newer organ built in the neo-Baroque style by Bernard Hurvy, demonstrated by M. Hurvy and the titulaire Jean-Charles Gandrille. Playing time for the group followed, while some explored the village.  In the evening we visited St-Étienne-du-Mont, Duruflé’s church known for its elegant ornate rood screen. Titulaire Vincent Warnier welcomed us.

On Saturday, July 13, we had an early morning visit to Sacré-Coeur, where we had permission to play the organ. Titulaire Gabriel Marghieri explained to the group how plans for work on the organ have been drawn, funding has been secured, yet approval is tied up in the French bureaucracy. So in the meantime M. Marghieri must deal with severe winding issues, which does not permit him to use the Récit division at all. That afternoon featured a masterclass on works of César Franck led by Béatrice Piertot at the Church of St-Laurent where she is titulaire. Mme. Piertot shared some of her recent research into Franck’s organ works, including observations about tempi. That evening finished with a session at St-Eustache, with co-titulaire Baptiste-Florian Marle-Ouvrard playing the Van den Heuvel (V/101) organ.

On Sunday morning, July 14, participants had the choice of visiting several organ lofts in order to watch the work of the titulaires up close. The group then met up that afternoon at La Trinité where titulaire Loïc Mallie demonstrated the organ of Guilmant, Messiaen, and Hakim, and then gave very helpful comments as group members played for him. Many in the group rushed back to St-Eustache to hear Baptiste-Florian give a Bastille Day recital prior to evening Mass. This day concluded at St-Sulpice. Following a pontifical Mass (St-Sulpice is currently being used for large episcopal services that would have normally taken place at the cathedral) with a brilliant sortie improvised by Sophie Choplin, the church was ours for the next few hours as the building was locked and nighttime fell.

The final day in Paris, Fréderic Blanc hosted us at La Madeleine, talking about the history of this early Cavaillé-Coll instrument and then demonstrating it. Group members spent the remainder of the morning trying out this organ. The group moved to the chic Champs-Elysées neighborhood for a visit to St Pierre-de-Chaillot, where titulaire Samuel Liégeon presented an improvisation. On the way back to the métro we stopped at the American Cathedral to meet organist Andrew Dewar. The next event was a visit to the Duruflé apartment, where host Fréderic Blanc demonstrated the organ and spoke of Maurice and Marie-Madeleine Duruflé. The final event was a session with Blanc at his church, Notre-Dame-d’Auteuil, where the organ was recently renovated.

Alsace

Tuesday, July 16, began with an express train from the Gare de l’Est to Strasbourg. Daniel Roth joined us and shared insights of the heritage of his native Alsace. The afternoon was spent visiting two churches in the old part of this city. St-Pierre-le-Jeune Protestant (the church has been Lutheran since 1524) is home to an instrument built in 1780 by Johann Andreas Silbermann. This was followed by a visit to St-Pierre-le-Jeune Catholic Church, a massive nineteenth-century domed edifice built in the neo-Romanesque style. The present organ in this church is the work of Manufacture d’orgues Koenig from Sarre-Union, which incorporates some pipework of the earlier organ. After dinner, the group met at the church of St-Paul that was originally built for members of the military, but since 1919 has been part of the Protestant Reformed Church of Alsace and Lorraine. The church contains a notable Walcker organ (III/87) from 1897 in the gallery (the largest instrument in Alsace) and an eighteen-rank instrument (1976) built by Garnier Facteurs d’Orgues of Niiza in the chancel.

The next day we traveled to the village of Erstein, where we were welcomed by the mayor and tried out the 1914 instrument by Edmond-Alexandre Roethinger. This organ is a synthesis of French and German styles, which is typical for Alsatian organs. The city then hosted a reception for us and some members were interviewed for the local newspaper, which ran a story about FOMS the following day. The day continued with a visit to the abbey at Ebersmunster, a magnificent building in the high-Baroque style with an organ by André Silbermann (1730).

The final day for FOMS 2019 began at the Protestant Church of St-Martin in Barr. This Lutheran church boasts a Stiehr-Mockers organ from 1852. We then headed up in the mountains above Pfaffenheim for a luncheon of traditional Alsatian foods at the religious community of Schauenberg. The afternoon consisted of a visit to our final church, St-Martin, with its 1839 Callinet Brothers organ. After the demonstration of the organ, some members of the group remained to prepare for the evening’s recital, while others enjoyed a visit to a family-run chocolatier and a tasting of local Alsatian wines. FOMS concluded with a recital played by several members.

The following day, a smaller group that had originally registered for an extension to play at Notre-Dame de Paris, sadly devastated by the tragic fire of April 15, was hosted by Notre-Dame titulaire Johann Vexo in his charming hometown of Nancy. Eighteen organists and friends enjoyed the Dupont organ (modified later by Cavaillé-Coll) at Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Nancy and the Dalstein & Haepfer organ at Église St-Sébastien.

In addition to Yannick Merlin, Béatrice Piertot, and Daniel Roth, Christina Harmon was assisted by co-directors David Erwin, Masako Gaskin, and Cliff Varnon. Plans are already underway for the next FOMS, which will take place in July 2021. Look for announcements at www.bfoms.com for updates.

Photo: Jean-Baptiste Robin with seminar participants at Notre Dame-des-Champs, Paris, France (photo credit: Masako Gaskin)