The Rise and Fall of a Famous Collaboration: Marcel Dupré and Jeanne Demessieux

Part TWO of Two

Lynn Cavanagh

Demessieux's Salle Pleyel debut series in 1946 was indeed a fitting climax to the teasers that had been sent out.68 Those present at any of the six recitals heard the consummate clarity of her articulation, her sensitive musicianship, her comprehensive command of the organ literature, her unprecedented pedal technique and the paradoxical polish of her improvisations on themes submitted to her immediately before; they also observed her cool self-control. Recital number one included the première of her own composition, Six Études, the execution of which proved that what the sonorities of Chopin and Liszt ask of the wrists in suppleness and control can also be asked of the ankles and wrists simultaneously.69 At the conclusion of the last recital of the series, listeners were awed by excerpts from another Demessieux composition, her modernistic and mysterious Sept Méditations sur le Saint-Esprit.70 While her recital series was in progress, Demessieux was already in direct communication with a government department regarding funding for touring outside the country;71 through one of Dupré's agents a recording contract had been proposed72 and there was an offer of an engagement with the BBC.73 In view of the tremendously favorable publicity, the director of the Salle Pleyel must have been very pleased to agree to underwrite another six-concert Jeanne Demessieux series the following year. The difference was that by 1947 and the second series of six recitals the Duprés were no longer involved.

The Search for Fault Lines in the Collaboration

Demessieux's journal does not bear out Trieu-Colleney's theory that, by 1946, she was weary of Marcel and Jeanne Dupré's micro-management of her career, and rebellious of some of the plans put forth for her first North American tour.74 Admittedly, none of their correspondence from the summer and autumn of 1946 has come to light; but neither does Demessieux comment in her journal entries for that period on any business dealings with the Duprés. From notes that Trieu-Colleney typed when doing research for her book, it is clear that for part of the chapter entitled "The Rupture" she drew upon views that originated in two letters written to Yolande Demessieux by a mutual acquaintance of the Dupré and Demessieux families, Jean Berveiller.75 From the wider subject matter and tone of each letter, Berveiller was evidently indignant over Dupré's refusal to break his silence on the cause of the rupture; in a well-meant effort to be helpful to the Demessieux family by means of these letters, Berveiller searched for every uncharitable interpretation of Dupré's attitude toward Demessieux's career that he could imagine. Trieu-Colleney's statement that Dupré would, perhaps, even have liked to "Americanize" Demessieux--to show her off like a film star in Hollywood--is one of several such off-hand remarks in Berveiller's letters to Yolande Demessieux. The tenor of both his letters was that, from his point of view, her sister was better off in her sudden independence from Dupré.

Demessieux's journal entries, on the other hand, for as often as they express her good fortune to have the benefit of the collaboration with Dupré, never hint, as Trieu-Colleney does, that the younger organist felt she was being made to work in the shadow of someone else.76 Nor does her journal suggest, as Berveiller assumed she must have, that she ever felt constrained from being herself. On the contrary, to submit even temporarily to constraint would have been uncharacteristic, for, in her accounts of her dealings with people generally, Demessieux comes across as strongly in charge of what she herself thought and someone who gloried in her individuality. That she and Dupré happened to think alike on the future of the organ, and have a common mission, was part of the marvel of it all. Dupré, for his part, knew when to bow out. When they said their last good-bye at a Paris train station in June 1946, he affirmed: "I am no longer your 'Master'! I am your old friend, and I will stay that way."77

Ironically, these words marked the last occasion upon which they ever shook hands. To reckon why, we must, first of all, underline how extremely important the collaborators' oneness of mind had become to Dupré's sense of purpose in life. The following incident is illustrative. During final preparations for her first Salle Pleyel recital, in a meeting of all persons involved in producing the event, a technician grumbled that it had not been possible to adjust the organ's pedal action as requested because what Demessieux had asked for and what Dupré had demanded were inconsistent with each other. Dupré took strong exception to this remark, saying, "'I will thank you to note something for your guidance: between Jeanne Demessieux and me, there is not, and there will never be, any differences of opinion! It's strange how someone has me saying something I've not said!'"78 Similarly, Demessieux's journal shows time and time again that, both in public and in private, the collaborators' mutual trust and respect were very important, to all members of the Dupré family.79 The day following her debut, she noted down the following conversation:

[JD:] "Following my first success, I shall remain faithful to you in my art; you can count on me! I swear this." . . .

Dupré reacted with an indefinable expression: "I know, oh! I know."

We were walking; he stopped: "Marguerite said to me this morning, 'Jeanne Demessieux will be faithful to you.' I have never doubted it. I know you. And you know that I will be your support and your defence against our enemies."

If our affection and our trust could possibly have been strengthened, they were that afternoon with this mutual profession of faith.80

It is evident from the above that Demessieux's utter loyalty was foundational to her adoption by the Dupré family and had become a cornerstone of Dupré's happiness.

The Downfall

What, then, destroyed the family's impression of Demessieux's worthiness? The Duprés must have come to believe that Demessieux had said or done something disrespectful of Marcel Dupré's art or person. How could this be? From reading the journal Demessieux wrote during the years 1941-46, I believe that Trieu-Colleney came closest to an explanation for the rupture (and she, too, may have believed this) when she wrote: "In the final analysis, friends, then Jeanne herself, more or less sensed the calumny of individuals who, searching to destroy this outstanding amity, profited from a propitious moment . . . ."81

To explain the reference to calumny, it is time to recapitulate what has been demonstrated concerning the Paris organ scene, and about the roles in it of Dupré and Demessieux during the five years of the grand scheme. An intellectual and psychological war for the allegiance of students and audiences was underway between proponents of two opposing visions of the organ and its repertoire. Dupré was so convinced of the rightness of his beliefs in the future of the organ that he regarded any display or espousal of an artistic principle inconsistent with his own as a personal affront. Equally intransigent, members of the opposing side maintained that they, and only they, stood for progress. From the point of view of this faction (and with deliberate provocation from Dupré) Demessieux was the "spoiler" among young Paris organists: a performer who was able to attract attention to herself without participating in the fashion for neoclassicism, and who honestly respected Dupré's vision of a modern organ and modern organ repertoire. To those who hated what Dupré stood for, Demessieux's achievements, beginning with her Paris Conservatory first prize in organ, constituted an anti-revolutionary influence and an intolerable anomaly. She needed either to be brought in line, or put out of commission, by any means possible.

Evidence of a concerted and ongoing effort to do so has been cited from her journals. Because she avoided the social circles that included Dupré's detractors, their members badgered her with invitations to soirées. After she declined to play at Chaillot, supporters of the neoclassic Gonzalez organ at Chaillot plotted to derail plans for renovation of the Salle Pleyel Cavaillé-Coll organ. Because, in her words and in her musical practice, she praised Dupré, his intellectual adversaries became vicious in needling her about him. Having exalted Dupré and damaged the prestige of the neoclassic cause with her Salle Pleyel debut, she invited yet more determined efforts to disempower her.

The Paris organ world knew that the tangible emblems (not to mention the economic lifeline) of Demessieux's future success in Paris depended upon Dupré's leverage in the choices of his eventual successors at the Conservatory and at Saint-Sulpice. From Dupré's boasting, they knew he attached utmost personal importance to her oneness of mind with him. Meanwhile, it was natural for Dupré to assume that, for all he had done on Demessieux's behalf thus far, he had earned her strict allegiance to his lonely social position among Paris organists. This need for utter personal loyalty and Dupré's tendency to suspect and distrust his colleagues had become two sides of the same coin. The tendency to suspect and distrust others had been to his and Demessieux's advantage in the Salle Pleyel organ renovation incident, but this paranoia could just as well be turned to their adversaries' advantage.

Logically, during the Duprés' absence in the summer and fall of 1946, those who were resentful of the public success of the Dupré-Demessieux collaboration, or who feared it would cause further strategic setbacks to the neoclassic cause, would have brought to bear the most effective tactics to destroy that collaboration. The "propitious moment" was a juncture when Marcel and Jeanne Dupré were most susceptible: the nadir of fatigue after six months of travel by train and ocean liner, the end of a period of intense work that included championing Demessieux in North America. For "Mlle Demessieux" to have proven "unworthy" of their efforts on her behalf, as Dupré would eventually view the whole affair, the likely explanation is that, upon their return to France, someone conveyed to them (in person, or by letter) information of a word or action by Demessieux that appeared disrespectful of Marcel Dupré.

What could this be? Probably an out-of-context (or fictitious) remark attributed to Jeanne Demessieux, or perhaps one of her actions, slanderously reinterpreted. It is futile to think we can know exactly what form this slander took. As a mere possibility, I point to the fact that in the summer of 1946 Demessieux finally agreed to accept, on one occasion, a repeatedly extended invitation to a dinner party at the home of a Monsieur Régnier, whom she describes as a friend of Dufourcq.82 She recorded in her journal that she did not have a pleasant time that evening, perhaps an indication of what directions the conversation took. Her presence at this gathering could be truthfully reported and its implications could have been given a traitorous spin.

Why would Dupré accept at face value a mere report of a traitorous action, or words, by Demessieux? Like the example just mentioned, the words or incident may have had a basis in undeniable fact that blurred the edges of truth and falsehood. Why would he not have given her the benefit of the doubt? The stark contrast between his most recent labors on Demessieux's behalf and the first news he had of her upon returning home was like a slap in the face that would have upset his judgment as to who, truly, had deceived him. The seed of suspicion would have progressively wounded his self-esteem: if Dupré even suspected that Demessieux had said or done something disparaging of his musical likes and dislikes, his thoughts on the matter would likely set off in an uncontrollable mental spiral; as a result of this mental spiral, far from giving her the benefit of doubt, his next thought would be to imagine that she had long been insincere in her regard for his ideas ("[a]lthough during the years after her prize I worked with her for nothing, she was unworthy of me and Madame Dupré").

Why did he not confront her with his anger? It was consistent with his customary stance toward people who offended him to match the extremity of his reaction to the extremity of the offense: we know that he was not on speaking terms with those who had offended him by some remark made or stance taken. Evidence of unashamed betrayal would, then, be matched by ruthless rejection. If Dupré believed Demessieux had betrayed him, even in one small matter, he would not have thought it necessary to tell her how he now felt; he would not even have been able to address her.

For Dupré to destroy a close friendship and do so irrevocably was not without precedent. As a young man he had revered and aided Vierne, his beloved master in the study of improvisation; but by the time Demessieux came to study organ and improvisation with Dupré, he (as the result of influence by a deliberate troublemaker, if Gavoty is to believed) had little if any regard for Vierne, so that, as an excerpt from Demessieux's journal has already shown, she had no notion of the greatness of the late organist of Notre-Dame-de-Paris. It was in character that, once Dupré's regard for Demessieux had been tarnished, he never examined or rethought his initial reaction.

Dupré was too embittered and, probably, too humiliated to reveal what had angered him. Berveiller's final, regretful words on the matter to Yolande Demessieux were that, for his unexplained repudiation of Jeanne Demessieux, "impartial" public opinion was solidly against Dupré. Berveiller added:

For this, I hold responsible certain feminine influences (I do not speak of his wife) that, without any personal advantage to be gained, are compromising him ridiculously. I've written to tell him so, just as I think! Without success, of course!83  

Berveiller's perception that the actions of an unnamed woman were further compromising Dupré's credibility cannot be confirmed (Demessieux's journal ends abruptly at the end of December 1946 with mention that the Duprés were expected to return any day). Nevertheless, after the many occasions on which Dupré had gloated over his pride in Demessieux's accomplishments in front of those who were skeptical or envious of his claims--for instance, before the parents of other students--it is difficult to imagine that no one would have succumbed to the temptation to publicly ridicule him for his change of stance toward his former protégée.

Afterword

Despite the trauma she underwent at the beginning of 1947, Demessieux never disavowed her admiration for, and her debt to, Marcel Dupré.84 Meanwhile, she struggled to forge new links with incumbents of Paris organ tribunes and directors of Paris recital series, none of whom ever forgot that she had first presented herself in Dupré's image.85 In 1948 she played a thirteenth Salle Pleyel recital; in 1952 she was heard live and in radio rebroadcasts with the Orchestre radio-symphonique conducted by Eugène Bigot, performing, among other works for organ and orchestra, the première of her own Poème and the première of Langlais's Concerto. Paris organ critics never ceased to shower praise on her recordings and live performances. Nevertheless, during the 1950s, although she concertized intensively in France, Europe and the British Isles (as well as making three North American tours86), and the French capital remained her home base, she only very occasionally enjoyed the privilege of being featured in a Paris organ recital. She also had difficulty getting permission to make recordings on that city's church organs.87 Belatedly, this changed in 1962, when she was named principal organist of the Cavaillé-Coll organ of the Church of the Madeleine.88 The year 1963 was also a turning point: Dufourcq invited her to play a Bach recital in his series "Les Heures Liturgiques et Musicales de Saint-Merry," which she did, to enthusiastic acclaim.89 Never in good health, just five years later she succumbed to cancer.

Dupré, despite the wound he said would never heal, paid his last respects to Demessieux: he attended her funeral at the Madeleine in 1968.90

D’Arcy Trinkwon

In all his studies, D’Arcy Trinkwon has been fascinated by the person behind the musician. An early interest in the Dupré tradition inevitably led to Jeanne Demessieux, and his particular interest in her began when he first heard her recordings in the early 1980s. Over the years he has explored, researched and studied in depth all he could of her, fascinated and inspired by her legend. Inspired by her Salle Pleyel programs, in 1994 he presented eight concerts in as many weeks: “The King of Instruments” was a celebration of the great masterpieces and culminated in a complete performance of her famous Six Etudes—then the first organist to do so in recent time. He has since become particularly associated with them and her other works as a result of his numerous performances of them. He is vice-president of Les Amis de Jeanne Demessieux. D’Arcy welcomes any correspondance on the subject of Jeanne Demessieux and, time permitting, hopes to write a serious and comprehensive biography of her.

The year 2008 marks the fortieth anniversary of the death of Jeanne Demessieux, and it may therefore be interesting to reflect on various aspects of her extraordinary career. Where did this legend begin and what has been her legacy? And what of the enigmatic lady herself—of whom so many have loved to talk, yet of whom so few have ever really known much. This article deliberately reflects more on the person and the artist than would a conventional academic study, and inevitably space here cannot discuss every angle of her career. A more purely biographical article appears by this writer in Organists’ Review, November 2008.
Jeanne Demessieux died on November 11, 1968: born in Montpellier on February 13, 1921, she was only 47. One might even say that she “disappeared,” for the dazzling star of this organist had already dimmed somewhat: once the talk of organists worldwide, a legend in her own younger years, the changes of musical fashions—as well as several unexpected twists of fate—had rendered her almost something of a bygone curiosity. This is reflected in the fact that some who were studying elsewhere in Paris during the ’60s never even crossed the city to hear her play at the Madeleine.
At the time, the circumstances surrounding her passing were only discreetly alluded to and, as with so many musicians of exceptional achievement, much of what she had achieved was all too quickly forgotten, overlooked in favor of newer artists. A large crowd attended her Paris funeral in the Madeleine, and on that day even the organ—of which she had been titulaire since 1962, and that she so loved—mourned. Instead of flooding the church with music as it had so many times under her remarkable hands, it stood silently in respect of her passing, a vast black drape hanging from its gallery to the floor. Only some days before she died, she had told friends “I can hear the flutes of the Madeleine” as she lay convalescing in her bed after nearly two months in hospital. Little did she know she would never play the instrument again.
And how did this woman, once the “Queen of Organists,” become almost overlooked in her later years, bypassed in favor of a younger generation? The spectacular successes and triumphs of her youth have been unparalleled by any other organist, yet the burning apogee of these years seemed almost to burn part of her out as the blaze faded, leaving her inwardly exhausted and bereft. An artist of the great virtuoso tradition, her style became less popular as the so-called Organ Reform movement continued to sweep through and gain ever-greater momentum like a rushing wind. And there was her health. Throughout her life, Jeanne Demessieux battled with serious health problems, undergoing numerous operations beginning in her early 20s. She fought cancer silently in an age when any public knowledge of such an illness was a social taboo that would leave the sufferer ostracized and an outcast.
Few ever got to see the woman behind the public persona; being both very reserved, but also having an uncommon force of character and purpose, she didn’t let many people see the “person” behind, except the few she truly trusted. It must also be surmised that the famous “rupture” with Dupré probably seriously affected her faith, and it was a “scandal” she was aware would never leave her.
In many ways, so many elements of her life seemed always to have two such opposing poles: on one hand triumph and fame, on the other, obscurity; being “the chosen one” of her master Dupré, but then being bypassed and cast out; being very much a “grande dame” when at the organ or mixing professionally, yet being a woman of an (at times) uncomfortably reserved nature. The gentleness and sensitivity she showed those whom she trusted contrasted with her strong opinions and individuality. On one hand she was admired as a great artist—on the other she was viewed with suspicion because her brilliance was such that some simply couldn’t see past that alone, and undoubtedly many seethed with jealousy. Even Demessieux herself was aware of the two poles in her personality—gentleness, sensitivity and creation contrasting with “violence” (although her exact word, it referred more to force and strength of character than any darker force). This duality in her nature reflected the two very different natures of her adored parents: her father—cultivated, artistic, sensitive and affectionate; her mother—highly strung, a forceful, driven nature disguised behind an emotive, gentle façade.
By quite some years, she was the first woman to achieve international fame as a virtuoso organist, and her gender undoubtedly had a serious impact on her career. Not only was she entering what was at the time an almost exclusively male domain, it undoubtedly meant that she had, in fact, to be even better than her male colleagues to be accepted as their peer.
She had immense good fortune; she was taken under the wing of the great Dupré when she was still only fourteen. In her, he saw at last the messenger he had been looking for: someone of unlimited and precocious talent, the prophet who would bear the torch of the glorious French organ school forward from him, as he himself had done from his own master Widor. In addition to his other responsibilities and work, he devoted the next eleven years to her education, tirelessly and meticulously preparing her for the role he knew she could fulfill. Proclaiming her as his true successor, he elevated her prowess to such a level that she simply had no realistic competition; even before her famed 1946 debut, he proclaimed to Léonce de Saint-Martin: “You know that I do not say anything glibly, and I say Jeanne Demessieux is the greatest organist of all.” He proclaimed that posterity would rank her alongside Clara Schumann.
Cocooned in this privileged world of Dupré’s home in Meudon, she was loved and nurtured by him and his family as their own. Yet only a year after her triumphant debut concerts, he abruptly severed all contact with her, cutting her off and out of his life without any explanation. Anyone wishing to understand the possible motives and reasons is strongly encouraged to refer to the excellent article by Lynn Cavanaugh, which offers the best considerations of this issue. [See “The Rise and Fall of a Famous Collaboration: Marcel Dupré and Jeanne Demessieux” by Lynn Cavanaugh, in The Diapason, July 2005.] Although she was devastated and suffered enormously from this, some around her felt it was actually a good thing; they were all too aware that under the gently acquiescent girl was a woman who would be unable to live in another’s shadow. Despite Dupré’s unlimited generosity to her (he did, after all, do everything possible to plan her future triumph and success), they knew she could never be a puppet—however well-intentioned the master.
Again, the reader is refered to the above-mentioned article, which discusses with great clarity the unfortunate situation and “fall-out” of this “rupture.” Undoubtedly, there were some who reveled in the scandal of the “fallen angel” and used the situation both for their own opportunity, and also as an advancement in the “turf war” that undoubtedly existed in the Parisian organ world. Despite the fame she enjoyed outside Paris (and to a lesser degree in France), she was certainly given the cold shoulder by a certain faction of its organists and concert promoters. As a result, even today many in France are surprised to know of the celebrity she had outside their country because of her having been largely ostracized from the French organ world. Her music remains largely unknown there.

The legend begins
Jeanne Demessieux made her debut in 1946 at age 25. Dupré himself had arranged a series of six recitals at the Salle Pleyel, Paris, in which he could launch the career of this, his most exceptional pupil. He planned every detail for their maximum impact, even calling them “Six Historic Recitals.” Even the venue, the restoration of its organ, the setting of the stage were a specific part of their big scheme to launch her career. An audience of 1,725—considerably more than was customary for a debut recital (on any instrument) in Paris at the time—witnessed the level of accomplishment she displayed. It was a level that no other organist had before displayed, and the reaction of the audiences at these concerts was simply sensational. Her debut was compared to those of Horowitz, Menuhin, and Gieseking; Dupré himself said “You have shown us this evening that we are in the presence of a phenomenon equal to the youth of Bach or Mozart . . .”
Of Paris’s finest organists present—including Langlais, Litaize, Grünenwald and Falcinelli—Duruflé more humorously (but no less seriously) declared “Next to Jeanne Demessieux, the rest of us play the pedals like elephants!” The press gave free reign to the emotions felt by all, and noted that not even Liszt himself could have stunned them more—and the musical sensitivity she displayed was compared to that of Vierne. At the conclusions of these recitals she was often almost mobbed by the throngs who came to hear her as they clamored for autographs and a closer glimpse of her; their enthusiasm was like fire.
In short, these recitals were a triumph the like of which had never been seen before and has not since. They heralded what was to be an unparalleled few years.

Her career
That first evening (February 26, 1946), when that young woman walked out onto the stage at the Salle Pleyel, dressed simply and elegantly in a pale blue dress, had an impact on the organ world, and it was never the same again.
As a result of the word spreading—as well as due to the very careful particular public relations that the Duprés had planned—the young Jeanne quickly received a flood of invitations to give recitals throughout Europe. On many of these occasions she was the first woman ever to play in those cathedrals, churches and concert halls. Within a few years she had played in virtually every major European city, having given 200 recitals in only four years. As was the case with outstanding performers in an age before the numerous distractions of society today, her concerts usually attracted and drew capacity audiences—both fascinated by her as a woman, but also stunned by what they heard.
In the autumn of 1947 she gave a second, equally triumphant series of six recitals at the Salle Pleyel.
Her London debut was on February 26, 1947 at Westminster Cathedral (where she would return many times). Attended by the whole of the Willis firm, Willis himself had to attend to a cipher immediately before the recital began! She made five visits between 1946 and 1948 alone, including a concerto at the Proms with Sir Malcolm Sargent, Jeanne loving the great Royal Albert Hall instrument. However, it is worth noting that the English critics were usually fairly hostile and, although not widely known, there was a definite intrigue involved here. In 1947 the London Organ Music Society, then headed by George Thalben-Ball, made a request that she pre-sent herself and undergo something of an audition for them; understandably insulted, she flatly refused such a ludicrous request—but they, with a pompous attitude, never got over the fact that she did. Equally—unlike the Americans—they seemed to have a serious issue with being so outshone (in so many ways) by a woman! At the time, English organ critics were usually organists from this Society, and the mean-spirited reviews they gave were in stark contrast to those given by the Americans whose generosity of spirit and enthusiasm knew no limits. During her years of training and preparation, Dupré had warned her she would undoubtedly encounter elements of jealousy. However, the audiences themselves and non-organist critics in the UK also shared this enthusiasm. Although not widely known, in 1953 Demessieux played, by invitation of the young Queen Elizabeth II herself, at her coronation in Westminster Abbey.
At the time of the Pleyel recitals, Dupré had been both planning and insistent that Jeanne must go and make her debut in America; he saw her potential as an artist to achieve considerable fame and success. She, however, flatly refused to agree to go there unless assured of the best possible terms and conditions; her strong-willed nature was beginning already to assert its independence. It has been written and suggested that Dupré was trying to manipulate her into something uncomfortable—to create a Hollywood-style glamor star—but surely he only saw the very real chances for her to make a great life and in turn give herself the freedom such success would allow to devote herself to music. Dupré left for another of his own tours there the following year. Upon his return he never spoke to or had any dealings with her again.
Jeanne’s first tour in North America did not, in fact, take place until 1953: but it was simply triumphant, the audiences and critics alike stunned by the experience. [See “The American Recital Tours of Jeanne Demessieux,” by Laura Ellis, The Diapason, October 1995.] Perhaps only Virgil Fox displayed a similar degree of virtuosity, although his style was, of course, far more flamboyant and his repertoire far more popular. She returned again in 1955 and 1958, and on each occasion packed audiences from coast to coast rewarded her with feverish ovations.
In the early days of her career, her virtually non-stop schedule of concerts included nearly every major city of Europe and North America—all the more remarkable since travel was in those days more reliant on slow trains and sea. Touring was not something she enjoyed, finding it exhausting and, at times, nothing but a punishment. She made only three tours of North America, apparently refusing any further invitations because of a wish to remain near her aging and ever more frail parents.
Unlike many were beginning to do, Jeanne refused to travel by plane unless absolutely necessary; as result of losing a great friend in a crash in her youth, Jeanne was terrified of flying. Undoubtedly, as the years progressed and younger organists were increasingly leaping on planes to play everywhere, this must have curtailed her activities and left her somewhat behind. Disliking traveling generally, unlike such as Dupré, she never ventured further afield to such places as Australia either.
The apogee of her career was undoubtedly during the late 1940s to the mid-1950s. Although she continued giving recitals widely after that, a new generation was emerging—figureheads of the so-called Organ Reform movement—whose fresh ideas and new approach to the organ were captivating followers, leaving the grander virtuosos of previous generations somewhat bypassed. But certainly no other organist—before or since—could ever claim such an auspicious beginning to a career as Jeanne Demessieux.

Repertoire
What did Jeanne Demessieux’s repertoire include? As may be expected, her choice of music was very much based on the traditions of the French Romantic school; during her years with Dupré she studied most of Bach’s works (including all the great preludes, toccatas, fantasias, fugues, sonatas, Orgelbüchlein), as well as many of the works that were the cornerstone of Dupré’s own repertoire—including the great works of Liszt, Franck, Mendelssohn. She also studied numerous works of Dupré himself—both sets of preludes and fugues, both symphonies, Evocation, Le Chemin de la Croix, the Variations, Suite Bretonne and Sept Pièces—all of which she performed in Meudon before 1946. And there was the “riddle” of the Etudes he wrote for her, the transcendental sketches he later regrouped. (It may be pertinent to remark that this was not done, as has been incorrectly noted by some, after the “rupture” between them: it was openly discussed between them prior to her Salle Pleyel debut.)
Jeanne’s concert programs are fascinating to study. However—as with all performers who play from memory—the inevitable restrictions of memorized concert repertoire meant there were, as a result, numerous repetitions of the same works. This aside, all her programs show a decided concern for a variety and balance of periods, texture, styles and emotional impact. Despite a certain classical austerity and obvious concern for music of serious quality, purity and refinement—much in the way a concert pianist of the same era would have chosen that instrument’s classics—there was also very much a regard for aural and structural color.
Nearly every program included at least one major work of Bach, often supplemented by an intimate and expressive chorale prelude or two. Although she played all six of Bach’s trio sonatas in a recital at Dupré’s home on March 19, 1942, only very occasionally did she perform one of these in her subsequent programs. By contrast, some of Handel’s concertos (I, II and X) featured regularly in her programs, complete with spectacular cadenzas of her own—and it may be worth noting here that Dupré’s edition of these was, in reality, almost entirely her work, done during her years of study with him. A variety of other Baroque composers featured occasionally in her concerts—some of these obviously being taken from Dupré’s series Anthologie des Maïtres Classiques. She seemed to like opening recitals with Purcell’s Trumpet Tune, something she first played as an encore in one of her Salle Pleyel programs, when she noted how it “refreshed the audience.” From the Hamburg recording we can today hear on CD, she opted for a bright, sparkling approach to this music, this quite in contrast to the heavy, ponderous and pompous style often given to the same work by many English and American players of her time. Mozart’s Fantasia in F minor, K. 608 was obviously another favorite work of hers, and she performed it frequently. Generally, however, she only included the odd Baroque piece as a bit of “fluff” in her early years; in the ’60s she did, however, include more works—such as Buxtehude, sometimes a suite of Clérambault—although she obviously felt her attentions better directed (and requested) towards more specifically “concert” music. Of particular note (for it being unusual) was her including a fugue of Gibbons in a recital at Westminster Abbey on May 3, 1956—also because it appears that was her only performance of anything English. She did not appear to play any American works.
Despite performing all the Mendelssohn sonatas and preludes and fugues in her youth, these were only rarely included subsequently, whereas the three great works of Liszt featured throughout her whole career and were of obvious great importance to her. Occasionally she chose one or two lighter works of Schumann (a fugue, perhaps a canon) or, less often, maybe a Brahms prelude, usually placed as a moment of contrast after or before a big piece. An unusual work in her repertoire (from the ’50s onwards) was her own transcription of Liszt’s Funérailles—one of the first times being at Westminster Abbey on May 3, 1956, and subsequently she played it quite often. She never wrote it out, instead playing her transcription from memory of the piano score. Similarly, many of her actual compositions were never written out until they were exactly as she wanted them in her head.
The music of César Franck was of particular importance to her, and after Bach it appeared more regularly than anything else. It is interesting to note that on the organ in her apartment, an instrument bought on the success of her American concerts, she hung the famous print of César Franck serenely playing the organ of Sainte-Clothilde.
Other than Franck, the only French Romantic composer she performed with any regularity was Widor, the Allegro from the Sixth Symphony being presented often. Only rarely did she perform a complete symphony—occasionally maybe the Gothique—but the variations of both this and the Fifth appeared often, the latter regularly in her later programs. Interestingly, Vierne (whose music would have suited her so well) only occasionally appeared: for example, sometimes the Scherzo of Symphony No. 2 appeared, much in the role of a refresher between bigger works.
Of the twentieth century, only three names ever appeared with regularity: Messiaen, Berveiller and Demessieux herself. Other than her early years—during which they appeared only occasionally—she hardly ever performed any works of her other contemporaries.
She frequently performed one or two of her own pieces. Apart from her very early concerts, she did not play the Six Etudes as a complete set, later often taking just one or two (Tierces, Notes Repetées, Accordes Alternatés and Octaves being those she chose most often). She did sometimes include one of her choral preludes (Rorate Caeli—her own favorite of the set—and Attende Domine appearing most often), and the austere and granite-like Dogme from the Sept Méditations seems a work she had particular affection for, it appearing many times; occasionally she played one or two other movements from this same set. The Triptyque (with its mysterious and poignant Adagio written just a day or so after the “rupture” with Dupré) appeared on programs throughout her career. In the 1960s, the then recently written Prélude et Fugue and the Répons pour le temps de Pâques quite often featured, as had her Te Deum in the years following its own composition.
Jeanne’s association with Jean Berveiller was of significance. Both apparently loved jazz and particularly Duke Ellington—and the influence of this “lighter” music is reflected in Berveiller’s colorful style. His music suited Jeanne’s obvious wish to bring freshness to her programs, and she played many of his works—Epitaphe, the Suite, his transcription of Franck’s Redemption, and Cadence, written for her 1953 U.S. debut (although one wonders why she didn’t include any of her own Etudes there, for they are far more spectacular). And, of course, there was that famous Mouvement—organists sought to unearth the score for so many years. However, not all these works were, as has been variously claimed, dedicated to her.
Messiaen was of particular significance to Jeanne; he greatly admired her, and she was one of his first and most powerful advocates. She regularly performed his pieces in recitals. Movements of both L’Ascension and La Nativité appeared frequently, as did the whole suites occasionally. For example, she gave the first complete performance of the former at London’s Royal Festival Hall on May 15, 1957, and she played the complete La Nativité at the English Bach Festival on July 1, 1964 in Christ Church, Oxford. She also played Le Banquet Céleste, Apparition de l’Eglise Eternelle, and Combat de la Mort et de la Vie regularly. It is also interesting to note that many players of younger generations who later became associated with this music first heard it in performances (either broadcast or live) by Jeanne Demessieux. It is also a measure of the respect Messiaen held for her that he frequently invited her to be an examiner for his analysis class at the Conservatoire.
And Dupré? She performed so much of his music during her years of study, and some pieces also featured in her earliest public recitals outside France. She performed the Prelude and Fugue in B as part of London debut, and the Symphonie-Passion for a recital there on March 13, 1947 for the Organ Music Society. (This recital has often, erroneously due to Felix Aprahamian, been cited as her London debut.) She also performed the Suite in London.
But did she ever perform Dupré after the “rupture”? Very seldom and from the rarity with which she did, one may believe it was only when specifically asked. She never played any in America, but it is poignant to note that she included the Symphonie-Passion in what was to be one of her final recitals—one in Chester Cathedral, as part of the Chester Festival in July 1967.
Whatever her feelings of betrayal and disappointment, her respect for Dupré as an artist, as much as for the values he upheld and represented, never diminished; neither was she ever known to make any remark against him. A testament to this was the article she contributed to Études (Paris, April 1950) entitled “L’art de Marcel Dupré.”

Improvisation
Improvisation featured in all of her recitals, and her extraordinary skill in all forms of this art was widely known. Dupré once claimed that he could train any technically competent organist to improvise a five-part fugue within six months; so, given the extraordinary gifts of this pupil, it is not surprising that he trained her in this skill to be as brilliant (more, some said) as he was himself. At her first Salle Pleyel recital, she improvised a four-movement symphony. She also did the same in her March 1947 London recital, whose brilliance prompted George Thalben-Ball to say—with a reserve of generosity typical of the British organists—that it was “trick” improvisation because “no one can think that fast”! The French prowess at improvising specific and disciplined musical structures was a world apart from the meandering service-style improvisation of the English, and, again, one notes the distinctive “green eye” looking at her.
Of particular note was a recital she gave at the Conservatoire in Liège on March 1, 1957, the entire program of which was improvised! During it she improvised in numerous forms and structures—from choral variations, a trio sonata, prelude and fugue, paraphrase, and various treatments of chorale (polyphonic, contrapuntal, canon, fugue, ornamented).

Concertos
Quite unusually for an organist of her times, Jeanne was invited to perform concertos fairly often. There were the Proms, the performances with orchestras in France, Belgium and elsewhere—although never, surprisingly, America. She wrote her own “concerto,” Poème, in the very early ’50s, giving its premiere in 1952, as well as that of Langlais’ Concerto. In December 1964 she gave the Belgian premiere of Poulenc’s, also performing Jongen’s Symphonie Concertante with the Orchestre de Liège. Less successful was her recording of two of Handel’s concertos with the Suisse Romande orchestra; she found working with its conductor, the aged Ernest Ansermet, very difficult and was infuriated by his despotic wish to control the proceedings—including her playing, and even trying to suppress her cadenzas. Again, her strong will and individuality were far too strong to be so treated by a despotic conductor.

Recordings
Nearly all the recordings Jeanne made were for Decca, in those days probably the most significant recording company. Her first were several 78s, featuring works by Bach, Widor, Franck, Mendelssohn, and Purcell’s Trumpet Tune.
Then she made numerous LPs—several were made at Victoria Hall in Geneva in the early 1950s; in addition to the Handel concertos mentioned above, these included works of Bach, Liszt, Widor and Franck. A recital of Bach and Franck on the organ of St. Mark’s, North Audley Street (an instrument later removed to Holy Trinity, Brompton, where it remains) was also issued. A project a few years later for her to record a series in Notre-Dame (Paris) was never realized, much to her great regret. She did, however, record several mixed selections at the Madeleine a few years before her famous recording of Franck made there, for which she won the Grand Prix du Disque in 1960. Two years later she was appointed Organiste-titulaire of this great church and its organ, an honor she considered so special she admitted she “cried with joy.” She had served prior to this appointment as organist in the church of Saint-Esprit during her teenage years.
In the early 1960s, Messiaen agreed she should record his (then) complete works. Although greatly passionate about this project, her refusal to sign the contract easily and continued questioning and bargaining of its terms meant that by the time of her unexpected death, the actual contract remained still unsigned. On the strength of her extant recordings, one can only imagine how we have missed out from these never being recorded. Her last recording was made at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral as part of the celebrations of the then new cathedral and its organ.
It was rumored that during the ’50s she recorded the Six Etudes for Decca, although this may have been just a legend. Certainly this writer has failed to unearth any concrete facts about these.
Many of Demessieux’s recordings have now been reissued by Festivo and are available on CD. They testify to an artist of exceptional gifts and clearly disprove the claim of those who tried to brand (even dismiss) her merely as an empty virtuoso.

Performance style
Jeanne Demessieux was a spectacular and transcendental virtuoso. Although the influence and tradition handed down to her by Dupré is apparent, her playing obviously had a personality decidedly her own, one markedly different from his; despite certain similar elements, there are few other similarities. From recordings we can hear her remarkable strength of authority, characterized by the same rigorous heroism and rhythmic power that Dupré demonstrated—but her playing demonstrated very little of Dupré’s rigidity, instead displaying a far more emotional expressive range, even at times being remarkably sensual.
In recitals, critics repeatedly spoke of her commanding mastery, taste, responsibility and respect for the composers and works she played (with the exceptions of those less generous mentioned earlier). Again, from her recordings, it is also very clear that she listened intensely to her own playing and to the inner workings of what she played. She was also very aware of and sensitive to acoustics, which she employed in a very personal way.
Demessieux once remarked “a performer has her rights,” implying that a performer must create an interpretation. Unlike many of the “organ reform” brigade, she, like Dupré and other virtuosos, did not attach great importance to slavishly following the score indications and registrations (as some have insisted we all should) in either her own or others’ music without question or a certain (tasteful) liberty. From her journals we can note frequent questioning of things such as metronome markings and performance indications. Her ambition was clearly to make music “live,” free from rigidity and the dogmatic approach certain other performers favored.
Another point is worth mentioning with regards to certain British and American reviews in which it was claimed she was simply a dazzling virtuoso and nothing more. For one, they missed that her playing—decidedly French—was strikingly different from the often overtly sentimental styles of performance common in both countries at the time. Few players had the exceptional sensitivity and subtlety she was capable of in her Bach chorales, her Franck. Maybe her excessive brilliance actually irritated some who were made all the more aware of their own limitations.
One thing is certain: no one, especially not Demessieux herself, would claim any were “definitive”—for such a claim would only reveal more arrogance and ego than true artistry. But these recordings are a wonderful testament to a great artist; we younger generations have truly missed out, not being able to hear her live.

The performer
The commanding presence of Jeanne Demessieux was widely remarked upon, and she was known for an aristocratic “hauteur” combined with a feminine, graceful demeanor. As with Dupré (and most of his pupils), once seated at the organ she was virtually motionless. Sitting bolt upright with regal carriage, she played with remarkable physical dignity and relaxation, and had no interest in the kind of performing histrionics and display that were customary in America—something often remarked upon by the press. This seemed to cause an even greater impact on the audiences, because the authority and strength of her performances belied her small and fragile physique. Dupré himself had repeatedly spoken of her power and strength as a player, even using the terms “masculine” and “virile.”
In the early days of her career, applause in churches was not customary and recitals were quite a sober affair; she presented herself accordingly in reserved, but elegant, attire. However, in concert halls or more relaxed venues Jeanne brought a sense of occasion and glamor not previously known in recitals and not adopted as the norm for many years afterwards. She was known for beautiful, stylish long evening gowns, often including a train that she would drape gracefully over the back of the organ bench. Perversely, this often obscured the pedals and her legendary pedal prowess from the view of the audience! The silver shoes—with their high Louis XV heels—in which she always played have become part of her legend. However, it would be quite wrong to believe there was anything remotely exhibitionist or “flashy” about her presentation—this was quite contrary to her reserved nature; it was for her just presentation and style.
Other than occasionally during church services, she never used music and played everything entirely by memory, never traveling with any scores. According to Marie-Madeleine Duruflé-Chevalier, who was a loyal and trusted friend, she had little (if any) difficulty in recalling any of the great works of the repertoire from memory.

Teacher
In her years of study, Dupré had repeatedly spoken of his wish that she would succeed him as Professor of Organ at the Paris Conservatoire, also expressing his wish that she succeed him as Organiste-titulaire at Saint-Sulpice (“only Jeanne Demessieux can occupy the organ loft of the great Widor” he declared). Indeed, on a few occasions about the time of her first Salle Pleyel recitals, she took his class while he was absent giving concerts. However, after the “rupture” these were just shattered dreams. The conservatoire post was in the end filled by another Dupré disciple, Rolande Falcinelli.
In addition to her concerts, Jeanne did, however, teach both organ and piano throughout her career. In the early days, she was teaching some 25 hours each week, on top of which were 14–15 hours for Saint-Esprit. After all this came the most important call on her time—her own practice; she often worked eight hours a day at the organ, as well as composing. And in addition to all these demands, was the greatest of all—her hectic concert schedule!
In Paris she taught privately in her apartment, also doing some teaching in Nancy. She was appointed professor of organ at the Royal Conservatoire in Liège in 1952, a role she took with great responsibility, traveling every week on the train from Paris for two or three days. She was as exacting with her pupils as she was with herself. However, she managed this imperceptibly, and their testimonies speak always of her kindness, warmth and encouragement as a teacher—and her unlimited generosity in encouraging them to achieve their maximum. She was also enthusiastic, encouraging and aware that a pupil may wish and need to explore other styles and traditions of performance than her own—illustrated by her recommending one student to go to study with Anton Heiller, who was then setting Europe alight with his brilliant interpretations, in a style very different from her own. Among her outstanding pupils were noted virtuosos Pierre Labric and Louis Thiry.
She was also invited to give various masterclasses and interpretation courses—among them Dublin in 1954 and Haarlem in 1955 and 1956, where she also become chair of the jury for the competitions. Following Dupré’s retirement, she was several times invited to be on the jury for the organ class at the Paris Conservatoire.

Organ building
What is less known is that Jeanne Demessieux had a passionate interest in organ building: she was fascinated by traditions and future ideas for organ building. Again, it was Dupré who had awoken this, and again—as with everything she did—she cultivated her own views and knowledge. She admired many diverse types of instrument—the great Cavaillé-Colls of course (particularly those in Rouen, Saint-Sulpice, the Madeleine and Notre-Dame), but also many older instruments, such as those in Weingarten and various great Dutch instruments.
In the 1960s, she began a major project for the French government to undertake a classification and study of the great instruments throughout France. Her private papers include a large file of her notes written in longhand analyzing many aspects of each of the numerous instruments considered in detail.
Perhaps least favorite for her were some of the large, heavy and ponderous American instruments. One note in her diary remarked a certain instrument was flat, dull and heavy in sound—“unfortunately, just what Dupré would love!”

The person
Jeanne was a person of complex personality—although not in the “temperamental” way. She could have great charm, yet be very aloof and display noted reserve with people. While not displaying any offensive ego or arrogance, she was well aware of her capabilities and stature: how could she not have been?
Her “duality” has been touched on earlier. A woman of highly intellectual capacity, with a remarkable ability to learn and retain, she was not interested in the superficial—thus she found many of the inevitable post-concert receptions (these being especially part of the American scene in the days she played there) quite dreadful; she loathed them, and even felt she’d earned her money just by enduring “ordeals,” as she called them! She seemed to have confused many—some saw her as very shy, others as reserved, some as charming, some as distant and impersonal. Yet under these various exteriors was a woman who was perhaps exactly all of these things by turn. She was also an observer of others—she noted in her diary how, on one of the boat trips going to play in America, she asked to dine alone at her own table—so that she could watch all the other passengers from a distance, but not have to mix with them or exchange superficial conversation. She also remarked elsewhere that she did not like the “snobbism” of certain artistic and cultural circles, some of whom were there merely because it was “the thing to do.”
Few—realistically only a mere handful—ever knew the real person behind the woman. Of those who did, all have spoken without limit of generosity of her kindness, gentleness, distinction, warmth and charm; to these people she was never affected by her celebrity, but remained a person of modesty and humility. She retained a sincere loyalty and friendship with those she trusted. Possibly the “rupture” with Dupré scarred her here too, for she never allowed many to ever become close to her again.
When relaxed, she had a sparkling and engaging personality, and to some she was a breath of fresh air from the usual, more drab male colleagues whom promoters had to entertain. Her correspondence to friends reflects a charming and effusive spirit; the radiant and effusive tone here was of great warmth, energy and spirit.
What was not publicly known in her life was that she suffered precarious health throughout much of her life, battling cancer in particular. It must be remembered that, until only recent generations, the discussion of illness—particularly serious illness—was an absolute social taboo; knowledge of any serious illness could often leave a person socially outcast, even professionally ruined. In addition to cancer, she had repeated bouts of “nervous exhaustion”—undoubtedly exacerbated by constantly fighting cancer plus her own fragility in order to continue working. Her drive, however, is reflected in that on several occasions she was up and traveling merely days after one of the many operations she underwent.
It was typical of her reserve that she lived in only modest accommodation—her apartment being only two rooms in a suburb of Paris. Yet she died owning multiple properties.

The last years
The auspicious successes and good fortune of her youth did not follow her through to middle age. Although the center of everyone’s attention in her youth, this changed. Despite the unswerving loyalty and love of her family, Dupré—the man she loved as her mentor and second “father”—turned against her (as did many in the wake of this), and the wider organ world began to look at new and emerging younger artists, rather overlooking her in the process. Understandably, for someone as sensitive as she undoubtedly was, this must have been immensely difficult to endure.
In the mid 1960s, she began to look back on her life and reflect, sometimes quite plaintively, and began to speak to those she trusted of her exhaustion and serious inner fatigue. Some who met her in these years spoke of her displaying quite visible inward sadness, despite the smiling and charming exterior. In addition to the enormous drain her illness must have had on her, her soul seems to have become disillusioned not with music itself, but with it as a profession and with all it had demanded of her. Despite her luck, she felt trying to establish her career had been a constant battle, many having viewed her either with suspicion or envy (often both). The dreams of her youth were shattered and soured, the sadness of her broken alliance with Dupré had distressed her immeasurably. Instead of looking back on a happy childhood, she began to look back with resentment on a childhood of solitary study, on a life of great personal disappointment, of disillusioned sadness at betrayed trusts. As a performer, the outstanding fame of her youth had waned.
One wonders how Dupré must have felt when she died, something he is never known to have divulged. Once as dear to him as his if she was his own daughter, to whom he had promised so much (and against whom he had turned against violently), she died—as did his own daughter, Marguerite—from cancer far too young. One wonders what he felt, and notes how pointless all those wasted years of non-communication surely were.

The legacy
The legend of Jeanne Demessieux has been of far greater importance than many have considered, or been willing to admit. Maybe some even felt such discussion would have distracted from their own achievements? To many, the star of this brilliant artist has always been something quite untouchable, and many organists (this writer among them) have practiced themselves into a frenzy in the hope of attaining just a little of her level of brilliance. Many openly freely admit how much they have been inspired by her image, and nearly every outstanding female organist since has, inevitably, at some stage been compared to her. Some people were, of course, less generous (as is their right) or simply didn’t appreciate her style, and undoubtedly there were also those who may even have been well served by the waning of her star and her passing because it gave them more space to grow. Yet she still remains one of the most talked of organists of all, a name virtually every organist knows.
Today there is renewed interest in her both as performer and composer and younger generations are discovering a legend anew. Her music is being discovered and performed more than ever before. Her influence is a great deal more than just the eternal talk of “the silver shoes.”

Further reading
Jeanne Demessieux, “Un Vie de Luttes et de Gloire” by Christiane Trieu-Colleney, Les Presses Universelles 1977
Jeanne Demessieux: Témoignages de ses Elèves et Amis, published by Les Amis de Jeanne Demessieux, 1901
“Six Etudes, Op. 5, of Jeanne Demessieux,” by Marjorie Ness, The Diapason, August 1987, pp. 9–11.
“The American Recital Tours of Jeanne Demessieux,” by Laura Ellis, The Diapason, October 1995, pp. 14–18.
“The Rise and Fall of a Famous Collaboration: Marcel Dupré and Jeanne Demessieux” by Lynn Cavanagh, The Diapason, July 2005, pp. 18–21.
The recordings of Jeanne Demessieux now reissued by Festivo contain excellent writing by one of her devoted friends, Pierre Labric.

Websites:
Les Amis de Jeanne Demessieux: http://cat.uregina.ca/demessieux/

Ann Labounsky

Ann Labounsky, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of Organ and Sacred Music at the Mary Pappert School of Music, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Author of Jean Langlais: The Man and His Music, she studied with André Marchal and Jean Langlais in Paris from 1962–1964.

Performance artists are most often remembered after their deaths through the compositions that they leave behind. Organ students learn to play works written by J. S. Bach or Franz Liszt, César Franck or Marcel Dupré, Olivier Messiaen or Jean Langlais; and thus their names and their works live on from one generation to another. For the rest, great performers are remembered during the lives of audiences who heard their memorable performances—great teachers, through the lives of their students.
David Craighead, legendary organ performer and now retired professor at the Eastman School of Music, has often lamented about the fleeting nature of fame. Some, like Arthur Poister, are remembered principally through competitions named for them, as in the Poister competition sponsored annually by Syracuse University where he taught; but even now, a few short generations after his death, there is included in the competition application a biographical sketch telling of his life and work.
For very many, there is no immortality of memory. In the words of the hymn: “Time, like an ever-rolling stream, soon bears its sons away. They fly, forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day.” It is a sad dictum that those who do not compose most often decompose without leaving a mark on succeeding generations.
There are exceptions, of course. One thinks, for example, of opera singer Enrico Caruso or conductor Arturo Toscanini, great artists whose names continue to resound with their successor performers and audiences beyond specialists in music history. In those cases, they were people who transcended the limitations of the performance practices of their day, and thus left the arts they served transformed forever. For organists, the name André Marchal, the thirtieth anniversary of whose death is commemorated in 2010, must be added.

Marchal’s legacy
There are reasons for which André Marchal will be remembered as a transformational figure in the history of organ building and organ performance. He had an important impact on the organ reform movement in France, and subsequently in America—an influence that is only now beginning to be understood.
In particular, he influenced the Neo-classical style of organ building and aesthetics, through his association with the French organs of Victor Gonzalez. These instruments, in turn, influenced the aesthetics and registration practices of later twentieth-century French organ composers such as Langlais, Duruflé, Alain, and Messiaen. At the same time, Marchal was a forerunner in the formation of the performance practice now common today, especially in the interpretation of earlier organ works.

Life
André Marchal entered the world at the end of the French Romantic era and lived until 1980. He was born without sight to middle-class parents in Paris, February 6, 1894. Both his father and grandfather noticed his musical talent at a very early age and encouraged his study of the piano.1 At the age of nine he enrolled at the Institute for the Young Blind (Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles–INJA) in Paris, where he studied organ with Adolphe Marty, and harmony with Albert Mahaut, both students of César Franck.
At the age of seventeen he entered Gigout’s organ class at the Paris Conservatory, obtaining first prize in organ and improvisation two years later. In 1915 he succeeded Augustin Barié as organist at Saint-Germain-des-Près. In 1917 he received the Prix d’excellence in counterpoint and fugue at the Conservatory, in the class of George Caussade. Four years later he was hired as an organ teacher at INJA, where he continued to teach from 1919 until 1959. He succeeded Joseph Bonnet as organist at the Church of Saint-Eustache in 1945, where he remained until 1963.

Recital career
His long and distinguished career as an organ virtuoso began in 1923, when he gave the premiere performance of Vierne’s Fourth Symphony, with the composer present, at the Paris Conservatory. Two years later, he followed with his second public performance at the Salle Gaveau in Paris. In 1927 he toured in Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany. Again, in 1928, he gave the premiere of a work by Vierne, this time the third suite of his Pièces de fantaisie.
In 1930, he made his first tour of the United States, having no assistance from a guide and without any knowledge of English. (It was through Arthur Quimby—a student of Nadia Boulanger, and Curator of Musical Arts at the Cleveland Art Museum, who had heard Marchal perform in Paris—that the first tour was arranged.) At the Cleveland Art Museum, he played ten recitals of the music of
J. S. Bach. Seth Bingham, who taught at Columbia University, welcomed him in New York City, where he performed an improvised symphony in four movements at the Wanamaker Auditorium in New York City.2 This was followed with recitals in Chicago and in Canada. In 1938 he gave 30 concerts in the United States and Canada.
After World War II he performed in London at the Royal Festival Hall in the presence of Queen Elizabeth. On that occasion he met the English journalist Felix Aprahamian, who became a close friend and accompanied him on the tour to Australia in 1953.
His concert career spanned half a century; between 1930 and 1975 he made 19 trips to the United States to perform and teach.3 His importance as a teacher drew students from many parts of the world to study with him in his home or at INJA. It should be noted that his first American student, Lee Erwin, who made a career as a theatre organist, came to study with him just prior to his tour in 1930 and was responsible for the first recording on his house organ. His recordings, which also spanned over four decades, likewise have had a continuing impact on organists throughout the world.

André Marchal and the Organ
Reform movement
The Organ Reform movement (or Neo-classical movement as it is called in France) began in the 1920s in Germany and France, spreading to the United States in the 1930s. Albert Schweitzer was a pivotal originator. In France, it was realized primarily through the work of three men in tandem: the performer and teacher, André Marchal; the noted historian and musicologist, Norbert Dufourcq (1904–1990); and the organbuilder, Victor Gonzalez (1877–1956).

Victor Gonzalez
Victor Gonzalez, who was originally from the Castile region of Spain, began his career with the firm of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, where he became their chief voicer. He then worked for the firms of Gutschenritter and Merklin. In 1929, after declining to assume leadership of the Cavaillé-Coll firm, he established his own firm with the help, encouragement, and financing assistance of Béranger de Miramon Fitz-James, founder of Association des Amis de l’Orgue, together with a group of de Miramon’s friends. Gonzalez’s first organ was built in 1926 for the home of Béranger de Miramon, followed the same year by an organ for the parish church in Ligugé. By 1937 there were 50 employees at the firm who worked to rebuild the Cavaillé-Coll organ at the Palais de Chaillot, and in the following year to renovate the organs at the Versailles chapel and the Cathedral of Rheims.
From 1929 until 1936, Rudolf von Beckerath worked for Gonzalez on restoration projects for organs in Saint-Eustache, Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs, Solesmes, Bailleul, the Goüin residence, and the world’s fair in Brussels in 1935, prior to founding his own firm. Though the Gonzalez name is no longer in use, he was succeeded in the business by his son, Fernand Gonzalez, and then by his son-in-law, George Danion. Fernand Gonzalez, who was killed in World War II, was responsible for the design of the Palais de Chaillot. After his death, Bernard Dargassies was charged with the maintenance of most of the Gonzalez organs.4
In 1931 Victor Gonzalez built an organ for the Condé estate of Joseph Bonnet.5 Gonzalez built this instrument very much in the Cavaillé-Coll style of that time, with two enclosed divisions, the usual plan for his house organs. He departed, however, from Cavaillé-Coll by adding a three-rank mixture on the Swell and a series of mutations. The romantic Merklin organ at Saint-Eustache, which was rebuilt by Gonzalez, and the Gonzalez organ from 1934 in the home of Henry Goüin are landmark examples of the wedding of early music to the recreated sounds of early instruments.6 These instruments included many mutation stops and mixtures, which allowed authentic performances of early music. Under the influence of Marchal and Dufourcq, Gonzalez became the leading builder in France for half a century.

Collaboration with Norbert
Dufourcq
Norbert Dufourcq’s collaboration with Marchal began in 1920, when he became Marchal’s organ student after studying for three years with Gustave Noël at the Cathedral in Orleans. Two years after beginning his organ study with Marchal, Dufourcq became principal organist of Saint-Merry in Paris, a post that he retained until his death in 1990. Dufourcq earned a degree in history from the Sorbonne (1923). In 1927 he was one of the founding members and secretary of Association des Amis de l’Orgue. Between 1932 and 1983 he was a member of the organ division of Commission of Historical Monuments. From 1941–1975 he served as professor of music history at the Paris Conservatory. (He also taught at the Collège Stanislas, Paris, from 1935 to 1946.)
During the years 1941 to 1975 Marchal performed many concerts in which Dufourcq provided the commentary. A gifted musicologist and persuasive public speaker, Dufourcq was able to give a poetic overview of the pieces performed, so that the uninitiated listener could follow. His mellifluous voice and the frequent use of the imperfect subjunctive case were noteworthy. Included in the commentaries was a series of eight concerts, entitled The Great Forms of Organ Music, with genres including prelude and fugue, toccata, chaconne, canzona, passacaglia, the chorale, partita, and fantasia. These recitals continued and included symphonic music and program music.
By 1933, Marchal and Dufourcq had become the leaders of the French national committee for the oversight of historic organs throughout France: the Commission des Monuments Historiques under the minister des Beaux Arts. Many of the nineteenth-century Cavaillé-Coll instruments, and earlier instruments by Clicquot, which were under the control of this commission, had fallen into disrepair and required renovations. This circumstance gave the commission the opportunity to rebuild those organs using the ideals of the Neo-classic design that Marchal, Dufourcq, and Gonzalez favored. Their work could be seen in the restorations at La Flèche, Saint-Gervais, Saint-Merry (where Dufourcq was organist), Les Invalides, the cathedrals of Auch, Soissons, and Rheims, the Palais de Chaillot, and the new concert organ in the French National Radio Studio 103, among many others. Many of the foundation stops were replaced with higher-pitched ranks and the reeds re-voiced. Marchal recorded on many of these instruments in the 1960s.
Influence on the Holtkamp Organ Company
This three-part collaboration among André Marchal, Norbert Dufourcq, and Victor Gonzalez, which affected the Neo-classical organ movement in France, subsequently came to the United States through the work of both Walter Holtkamp, Sr. and his son Walter Holtkamp, Jr., who wrote:

André Marchal came to the microcosm that is the Holtkamp Organ Company soon after World War II. While he had been in this country prior to the war, it was not until after that he brought his many talents to us with such marvelous results…. Both my father and I traveled to many cities of our country to sit with André Marchal at the console to evaluate our instruments. He would play and discourse upon the merits and demerits of that particular organ. From every encounter we came away with a new perspective of our work and our ideas.7
A transcript of one of these conversations with Marchal and the two Walter Holtkamps, Senior and Junior, which was recorded following a Marchal recital on the Holtkamp organ at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Cleveland, on May 10, 1957, gives an example of how the Holtkamps relied on Marchal’s advice regarding voicing:
WH (Walter Holtkamp, Sr.): André, we heard last night no 16′ Principal or 8′ Pedal Octave. My son and I would like to go to St. Paul’s and have a lesson on the use of the 16′ and what is lacking in this one.
AM (André Marchal): Your 16′ Principal is too large. There is too much gap in dynamic between the 16′ Subbass and the 16′ Principal. It is too big to be used without the reeds, and when the reeds are on the Subbass does just as well as the 16′ Principal.
WH: Perhaps this is a result of the 16′ Principal being placed against a stone wall rather than in the buffet as in the French organs.
AM: No, I noticed this same character at Baltimore, where the 16′ stands in the open. This is true on all your organs. The 8′ Pedal Octave is also too loud at St. Paul’s, Oberlin, Berkeley, Baltimore.
C (Walter Holtkamp, Jr.): I would like to know Mr. Marchal’s idea of the relationship as to loudness and quality between the Great 8′ Principal and Pedal 8′ Octave.
AM: In theory, the Pedal 8′ should be larger in scale than the Great 8′, but in use I really like the Pedal 8′ to be a little milder than the Great 8′. It could be a little more flutey.8

It is possible that Walter Holtkamp, Sr. heard Marchal’s series of ten recitals of the music of J. S. Bach at the Cleveland Museum of Art in March of 1930. In August of 1956, Walter Holtkamp, Sr. and Walter Blodgett, Curator of Musical Arts at the Cleveland Art Museum, drove to Methuen to hear Marchal play during the Summer Organ Institute, organized by Arthur Howes, and again the following year to hear him perform and record on the Holtkamp organ at MIT. Along with Fenner Douglas, in the early 1960s Walter Holtkamp and Walter Blodgett traveled to France to study the historic instruments there, including many by Gonzalez. In later years Marchal performed and taught frequently on Holtkamp organs at Syracuse University and Oberlin College. (Despite his love of Holtkamp organs, he often spoke of the similarity between the American builder G. Donald Harrison’s reeds and the French reeds that he loved.)

Giuseppe Englert
The composer Giuseppe Englert, another of Marchal’s students, who in 1954 married Marchal’s daughter Jacqueline, served as translator for the Holtkamps and Marchal during Marchal’s tours to the United States and the Holtkamps’ trips to France. The Englerts’ apartment in Paris, across the street from Les Invalides, was home to a Gonzalez organ, with a similar design to one in Marchal’s home. Maurice Duruflé admired this instrument and was inspired by it for the specification for the Gonzalez instrument in his own apartment. (The organ in Marchal’s home was originally a Gutschenritter, which was enlarged by Gonzalez.)

Marchal and performance practice
In the early 1920s Marchal continued to play in the style he had been taught by Gigout, a uniformly legato touch and a non-interpretive approach to the music of Bach and the Romantic composers. Gigout followed the tradition of the Lemmens school, learned from Widor and Guilmant. During his study of the music of the early masters, in preparation for a series of recitals of early music in 1923, Marchal rethought his approach to technique and interpretation. He was the first, in 1929, to play the two complete Masses of François Couperin. In an interview with Pierre Lucet for a series of recitals on the French National Radio in 1979, Marchal explained the process by which he changed his approach to early music and the organs upon which it could be performed:

Pierre Lucet: Maître, permit me to inquire first of all about your approach to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach:
Marchal: It [his approach] was made at two times. I was admitted to the Conservatory and at that time I listened to what was told to me, I learned technique; I was greatly in need of it. And it was from that point of view that I studied Bach. Ten years later [1921], in establishing my repertoire, I began to concertize, and relearned Bach in a completely different manner. This time I studied each piece in depth, trying to understand it in the best way possible; and having assimilated it, I tried to bring out the beauty of each piece by certain ways of playing; for example, the phrasing, the breaths, the registration. Obviously, at that time, there were few organs on which one could register well the music of Bach; we were still in the full Romantic period. But one could still look for lighter stops, clear in any case, which would permit the beauty of Bach’s counterpoint to emerge.
After having obtained my prize in organ [1913], while continuing to play the organ I worked a great deal on piano. Paul Braud, a student of Franck, took an interest in me. I became then more oriented toward the piano, which permitted me to know more music and to play more chamber music. I worked relentlessly . . . I purchased a small mechanical organ to practice my repertoire. It was at that time [1921] that I really tried to express Bach. My colleagues said: “Marchal? He plays the harpsichord”—and that was almost true, since my interpretations that were closest to what I hoped them to be were like the marvelous ones of Wanda Landowska on her harpsichord.9

This process of searching for the appropriate style for early music and the instruments that would bring it to life continued for him through the early 1930s, when he gave a series of recitals of early music on Neo-classical instruments built by Gonzalez. After 1930, Marchal played very differently from his teacher, Gigout, and the other blind teachers from INJA. It was as if he grasped the essence of the music from within himself. His style was powerful, lyrical, and always convincing. His personality was also very strong. There was a radiance about him and a “joie de vivre” that came through in every piece that he played.
His touch was a radical departure from the 19th-century seamless legato that was carried on by Marcel Dupré and his predecessors. He had an infinite variety of touches. By the 1940s Marchal had become one of the most popular performers in France. The public related easily to the musicality of Marchal’s playing and to his vibrant personality. It is not surprising that such a different style—full of authentic poetry and lyricism—would win the hearts of the French public as well as those from other countries. It must also be said that with him and all the other blind organists, there was also something captivating at seeing a blind person being led onto the stage and then left alone to play the instrument, no matter how large, completely independently. When one contemplates the style of playing during the 1920s through the 1950s, which was completely dominated by the legato Romantic style, what is utterly amazing is this new, radically different sound and interpretation. Begun by Marchal, it was later adopted by Marie-Claire Alain and others.
Guilmant and Pirro, in the monumental Archives des Maîtres de l’Orgue, 1897–1910 (volumes 1–10 available online), made available for the first time, at the end of the 19th century, the music of Couperin, de Grigny, Clérambault, and many others. Although Guilmant and Pirro recommended the use of the Cornet registration, their grounding in the 19th-century style of playing and registration prevented them from recommending for this early music a complementary early style and registration. Likewise, the six volumes of Joseph Bonnet’s Historical Organ Recitals series, published between 1917 and 1940, continued the same style of playing and registrations. Bonnet’s role in the movement, however, should not be ignored. He was intensely interested in early music but played it in the manner that he had been taught by Guilmant.
Although he had substituted for his teacher, Eugène Gigout, as organ teacher at the Paris Conservatory, Marchal was never connected to any school in France except at INJA and the summer school of Nadia Boulanger in Fontainebleau. Nonetheless, so many students requested Fulbright grants to study with him, that by the 1950s he agreed to be referred to as a school himself. In America, many other organists fell under his influence through the many masterclasses he gave at Oberlin College, Syracuse University, Union Theological Seminary, Northwestern University, the universities of Illinois and Indiana, the Eastman School of Music, and the Organ Institute in Methuen.

Marchal’s recordings
In the release on CD (Arbiter, 2003) of his first recordings, originally recorded between 1936 and 1948 at Saint-Eustache and the Goüin residence, one can easily understand Marchal’s interest in early music and in the type of instrument that would be well suited to the music of earlier periods. The lyricism, so unlike the usual style of playing during the 1940s, was notably displayed in his performance of the Bach chorale prelude O Mensch bewein dein Sünde gross. His use of free trills, so unlike the measured trills found in the playing of his contemporaries, was quite a departure from the traditional style of playing.
The subtle rubato in all the playing is striking. In the Bach Passacaglia and Fugue, the phrasing of each variation gives life to the great work. The articulation of the pedal line and the variety in the registrations gives much interest to the form of the piece. What is compelling in all of his playing is the strength of the rhythm, especially noticeable in the fugue of this work. While listening to his performances, one senses that it should not be performed otherwise, that it is right.
What we understand today of the stylus fantasticus can already be heard in Marchal’s opening performance from 1948 of Buxtehude’s Prelude and Fugue in F-sharp Minor. There is considerable contrast between the free sections and the fugal sections. His personality comes alive in his commentary for demonstrating each stop, with brief improvisations that give fine examples of this style of organbuilding. The Blow Toccata in D Minor brings out the bass in the reed registers with great clarity. Listening to these improvisations on the individual sonorities of the Gonzalez house organ in the Goüin house gives a clear picture of this aesthetic: a Neo-classical organ that, in America, we would call an eclectic organ.
Other recordings include:
Chefs d’œuvres pour orgue de J.S. Bach “10 de répertoire” en 1989. Zurich, Grossmünster 1964. MUSIDISC 203412 AD 650.
Orgues et organistes français du XXè siècle (1900–1950) by EMI Classics (2002) as well as Jeux et registrations de l’orgue, Improvisations, Toccata de Gigout, Final de la 4ème Symphonie de Vierne, Apparition de l’Eglise éternelle de Messiaen, Choral dorien de J. Alain, Saint-Merry, 1958 et 1976. EMI Classics, 1 CD, 71716 2 (1997), Saint-Merry et Saint-Eustache.
The Organ Historical Society website lists the two recordings available through Arbiter (135 and 111) with these annotations:
The works by Buxtehude, Bach, Blow, Purcell, Sweelinck and Vierne were recorded by André Marchal (1894–1980) in April 1948, on the organ at St. Eustache in Paris, then a Merklin which had been rebuilt by Victor Gonzalez in 1927–32. In 1936, the Pathé firm released a 12-disc set entitled Three Centuries of Organ Music from which Marchal’s performances of Cabezon, Santa Maria, Landino, and Palestrina are taken. These first recordings of these early works are performed on an organ designed especially for early music and completed in 1934 by Victor Gonzalez at the home of Henry Goüin in Paris. Marchal also demonstrates the organ stop-by-stop, and narrates his demonstration. Available on Arbiter-135.
Arbiter 111 is described:

This unique CD reissues the 1956 stereo recordings made by André Marchal on his 3/28 house organ built by Gonzalez. The fidelity of the recording is unusually fine, capturing Marchal’s way with 12 of the Bach Orgelbüchlein, BWV 603–612, 614–615, and Toccata, Adagio & Fugue in C, BWV 564. There are no revelations here for most of us, and the organ is located in an anechoic environment. The CD is a must for Marchal fans, who will revel in his spoken description and demonstration of the organ.
Although more difficult to locate, it is possible to find in libraries the Lumen recordings of Franck and early French music (Grand Prix du disque 1952); the Bach large fantasies and fugues by Ducretet Thomson; the Clérambault recordings at Auch Cathedral, by LDE 3231; many of these recordings contain the commentaries by Norbert Dufourcq. The Unicorn recordings from MIT (UNLP 1046–1048) of Bach and early French music on the large Holtkamp organ there from the 1950s are excellent.
Marchal’s Complete Organ Works of César Franck, originally released by Erato, has been reissued by Solstice ([email protected]). This recording was awarded the coveted Diapason d’Or. There are many unpublished recordings (some from Syracuse from 1960s, and two recordings from his last American tour in 1974 at the Church of the Assumption in Bellevue, Pennsylvania and in Rochester, New York) as well as many given on the French National Radio.

His teaching and legacy
His system of teaching usually began with having the student play a chorale prelude from Bach’s Orgelbüchlein. He usually heard a piece only one time giving all his ideas in the one lesson. For the early French music he did not use “notes inégales” during the 1960s, but by the 1970s he realized that this was, in practice, the style of this music, and adopted its use. His mind was always engaged and he heard every phrasing and nuance. His use of agogic accents to bring out the shape of a phrase was notable. Above all, he made each part sing independently of the other voices regardless of the period in which it was written. He was demanding especially with his more gifted pupils, desirous that each one achieve his/her highest potential.
His influence is continued not only in the legacy of performance practice and organbuilding. A number of publications and prizes have appeared since 1980: a thesis by Lynn Trapp at the University of Kansas (Lawrence, 1982), “The Legacy of André Marchal;” “Tribute to André Marchal” reprint of the L’Orgue Dossier I in 1997, with the addition of tributes by many American students who did not have the opportunity to be included in the original document; and prizes at the biennial Marchal competition in Biarritz.
The Académie André Marchal was founded in Biarritz, France in 1982 by Denise Limonaire to perpetuate the memory of this musical giant, his innovative style of performance, his neo-classical influence on organbuilding, and his rediscovery of early music. Susan Landale serves as president of the Académie, with Jacqueline Englert-Marchal as honorary president. Among other projects, the Académie has partnered with the town of Biarritz to sponsor the “Prix André Marchal,” an international organ competition with prizes in interpretation and improvisation. The competition is held every two years and has grown in quality and size. The ninth competition, held in 2009, accepted eighteen candidates of twelve nationalities. Americans desirous of supporting this valid and significant mission are strongly invited to become members; dues of $80 for two years may be mailed to Ralph Tilden at P.O. Box 2254, Banner Elk, NC 28604. André Marchal awards are given at Duquesne University, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for excellence in organ performance.
His impact as a teacher was important. His blind students who obtained the first prize in organ at the Paris Conservatory included: André Stiegler, 1925; Jean Langlais and Jean Laporte, 1930; Gaston Litaize, 1931; Antoine Reboulot, 1936; Xavier Dufresse, 1952; Georges Robert, 1953; Louis Thiry, 1958; Jean Wallet, 1963; Jean-Pierre Leguay, 1966 (who had studied with both Litaize and Marchal). Two other pupils who obtained the first prize who were sighted were Noëlie Pierront, 1925, and Anne Marie Barat, 1976.
His other pupils included Corliss Arnold, Linda Clark, Craig Cramer, Philip Crozier, Alan Dominicci, Norbert Dufourcq, Giuseppe Englert, Lee Erwin (the first American pupil before 1930), Robert Eshenour, John Fenstermaker, Philip Gehring, Emily Gibson, Lester Groom, Jerald Hamilton, Ruth Harris, William Hays, Allan Hobbs, Howard Jewell, Elna Johnson, Margaret Kemper, Ralph Kneeream, Suzanne Kornprobst, Marilou Kratzenstein, Charles Krigbaum, Ann Labounsky, Susan Landale, David Liddle, Denise Limonaire, Robert Lodine, Alan Long, Robert Sutherland Lord, Chamin Walker Meadows, Kathryn Moen, Earline Moulder, Margaret Mueller, Arsène Muzerelle, Lois Pardue, Garth Peacock, Stephen Rumpf, Daniel and David Simpson, Robert Sirota, Rev. Victoria Sirota, Carl Staplin, Roger Stiegler, Edith Strom, Haskell Thompson, Ralph Tilden, Parvin Titus, Robert Judith Truitt, Marie-Antoinette Vernières, Gail Walton, Nicole Wild, and Mary Alice Wotring.

Influence on subsequent
composers
His influence on subsequent composers such as Langlais, Duruflé, Alain, and Messiaen in their approaches to organ registration is likewise important to this reflection of André Marchal upon the 30th anniversary of his death. Jean Langlais studied organ with Marchal at INJA and at his home and was influenced by the work of Gonzalez in these two venues, as well as the organ at the Palais de Chaillot, where he performed his first symphony in 1943. His choice of the Schwenkedel organs of Neo-classical design, which he installed in his home and at the Institute Valentin Haüy, next door to INJA, shows this influence. The stops that he added to the organ at Sainte-Clotilde in 1962 included a Larigot 11⁄3′ on the Positif, a Prestant 4′ and Clairon 2′ on the Récit, and a Prestant 4′ and Doublette 2′ on the Pédale.10
The many Neo-classical registrations in his pieces likewise show this influence. For example, even the titles of a number of his pieces refer to these types of registrations: Dialogue sur les mixtures (Suite brève, 1947) and all the movements of Suite française (1948), which are based on titles found in classical French organ music such as Prélude sur les grands jeux and Contrepoint sur les jeux d’anches, and Suite baroque (1973).
As I have already mentioned, Maurice Duruflé often visited the home of Giuseppe Englert to study the specifications and dimensions of the Gonzalez organ, which inspired him for his house organ, also built by Gonzalez. Englert’s house organ was based on the specifications of Marchal’s house organ.11 In Duruflé’s organ works, even starting with the Scherzo from 1926, his registrations depart from the normal 19th-century models.
Marchal and Jehan Alain’s father, Albert Alain—an amateur organbuilder—were close friends and worked together on ideas for the specifications for their house organs. Similarities can be seen in the specifications of each.12 When Marchal had built his organ with a rather classic Positif, Albert Alain wanted to do the same thing.13 Jehan Alain’s first experiences of organ music in his home were influenced by the aesthetics of Marchal and Gonzalez. Jehan Alain and Marchal enjoyed playing and improvising together in Alain’s home. A very early work, Variations sur un thème de Clément Jannequin, demonstrates registrations that call for Neo-classical stops as well as the recall of early music in the title of the piece. Another work of Jehan Alain, Le Jardin suspendu, calls for a typically classical French stop, the Gros Nasard 51⁄3′ on the Positif. Marchal was among the first organists to perform Alain’s music, including Litanies, Variations sur un theme de Clément Jannequin, and Danses à Agni Yavishta, and had them transcribed into Braille notation.
Olivier Messiaen was also influenced by the Neo-classical trends in France. He changed the Cavaillé-Coll organ at La Trinité, where he was organist from 1930 until 1991, to include many mutation stops that were not part of the original specification. Even his earliest organ work, Le banquet céleste (1928), is a departure from the normal registration practices of the period, including Flûte 4′, Nasard 22⁄3′, Doublette 2′, and Piccolo 1′ for the pedal line. As he continued to compose, his works called more frequently for higher-pitched sonorities, often to imitate birds. One could say that it was a far cry from D’Aquin’s imitative harpsichord piece mimicking the cuckoo, but these sounds were all part of an interest in both the future and the past.

Conclusion
It is time to re-evaluate André Marchal’s contributions to the organ reform movement in France; his impact on organbuilding in the United States, particularly in his relationships to Walter Holtkamp and Walter Blodgett as well as Fenner Douglas; and his influence on the leading organ composers of the 20th century: Langlais, Alain, Duruflé, and Messiaen. In light of the development of early organ techniques and the number of publications that have been published and used in the thirty years since his death, it is time to listen again to Marchal’s recordings with a discerning mind and ask where his place is in the development of performance practice.
One certainly hears a wide variety of touches in all his playing. What was his “ordinary” touch? What were the main differences between his style and that of Joseph Bonnet, Alexandre Guilmant, and Marie-Claire Alain? Robert Noehren admired the sensitivity of his touch both on tracker and electric actions. It is also time to re-evaluate his influence on organ building; for example, in the composition of the Plein jeu mixture, which reserved the breaks until after middle C to enhance the clarity of the polyphonic line, and his use of different mixtures for each polyphonic composition that he performed.
Consider, too, the changes in the organ registrations in the music of Duruflé, Alain, Messiaen, and Langlais as compared to many other composers of the 20th century. The required foundations plus reeds on each manual, as a given for organ registration, changed as a result of Marchal’s impact on the Neo-classical organ in France. There is, indeed, much to ponder.
Perhaps Norbert Dufourcq, who was the most eloquent of his collaborators, best expressed the essence of his artistry:

André Marchal seemed to have found by himself the sources to which he probed the depths of his rich and attractive personality: the discovery of the works of the French organists of the 17th and 18th centuries, that of the complete works of Bach (he played almost all of it), of Cabezón, Frescobaldi, Buxtehude . . . It was for André Marchal to penetrate the secrets of a page of music, to discover the tempo, in searching the phrases, in marking the strong pulses, the weak pulses, without ever breaking the melodic line nor the polyphonic structure, without ever losing a rhythm which gave a work its forward motion, its line. One has praised the sensitivity of the Maître. It is better perhaps to speak of his sense of poetry.
To this static but mysterious and majestic instrument, he knew how to assure a poetic and lyric “aura” that he insisted on creating in a convincing phrasing with thousands of details in a style made more subtle by the use of minimal retards; of suspensions slightly brought out or by the imperious accents thrown into the center of the discourse. Goodbye to the inexpressive and neutral legato, André Marchal sought to impose on his instrument a suppleness with the use of imperceptible tensions—jolts of the soul—which did not stop. It is in this that he transformed the lens of the entire school of the organ, in France as in America . . . Under his fingers the organ no longer preached in an impersonal manner; under his fingers, the melodies rushed into the nave to touch the heart of each person. But it was never he who descended upon us. It was us, whom he seized with love, and attracted us to him.14 ■

 

by Laura Ellis

Jeanne Demessieux (1921-1968) was a brilliant French organist, recitalist, and composer. One of a select number of European organists to tour America in the mid-twentieth century, she fascinated audiences with her phenomenal technique. Three transcontinental tours of America in 1953, 1955, and 1958 established Demessieux as one of the greatest products of the modern French organ school.  She demonstrated her skill at improvisation and introduced to American audiences a number of her own compositions and those of other French composers.1

Demessieux's formal musical training began at the age of seven at the Montpellier Conservatory. To facilitate her studies, the Demessieux family moved to Paris in 1932 and one year later Jeanne was admitted into the Paris Conservatory. Demessieux's teachers at the Conservatory included Simon Riera, Magda Tagliafero, and Marcel Dupré. For Demessieux and Dupré an exceptional relationship between teacher and student was born. Dupré instilled in her his pedagogical ideas and created for her a climate in which she could devote herself completely to the art of organ. As a teacher, Demessieux had occasionally substituted for Dupré at the Paris Conservatory. Her first appointment occurred in 1950 when she was nominated to the organ professorship at the Nancy Conservatory. In 1952 she was nominated to and eventually accepted the organ position at the Royal Conservatory in Liège, Belgium. In 1962, following thirty years of service at the church of Saint Esprit, Demessieux became titulaire of La Madeleine, a position she held until her death.

The 1953 American tour

Colbert-LaBerge Concert Management, based in New York City, announced the first transcontinental tour of Jeanne Demessieux in the October, 1952 issue of The Diapason2 and the November, 1952 edition of the American Organist.3 In February and March of 1953, Demessieux made her American début in New York, Pittsburgh, Boston, Oakland, and several other cities. Her first live exposure to the American public occurred on the January 31, 1953, broadcast over WQXR radio and its affiliated stations. In association with the American Guild of Organists, WQXR broadcast a series of recitals from Temple Emanu-El in New York City. Demessieux's program was:

Trumpet Tune  Purcell 

Chorale Prelude: "When We Are in Deepest Need"    Bach

Fugue in G Major (Gigue)            Bach

Pastorale                   Franck

"Dogme" from Seven Meditations

Demessieux4

Upon her arrival in the United States an interview in the New York Herald Tribune revealed that after her début recital in New York City, Demessieux would go on a twenty-five-concert tour of the country. She had learned from memory the entire organ literature of Bach, Franck, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Handel, and all but the last two compositions of Dupré, a total of between 1,000 and 2,000 works. Not only was her repertoire vast, but she was so confident in her ability that she left all of her scores in France!5

The American début of Demessieux in recital was on February 2, 1953, at Central Presbyterian Church in New York City with the following program:

Trumpet Tune  Purcell

Prelude and Fugue in A Minor

"The Old Year Has Passed Away"

Fugue in G Major (Gigue)            Bach

Pastorale                   Franck

Variations from Symphonie gothique Widor

Banquet celeste                     Messiaen

Fifth Study, Repeated Notes

Dogme Demessieux

Cadence                    Berveiller6

Group of improvisations on submitted themes7

Demessieux's début recital was reviewed in the leading organ periodicals of the day. M. Searle Wright of The Diapason felt her playing was representative of the Grand French manner--big line, simple cleancut phrasings, steady tempi and clarity of part reading and articulation in general.8 Editor of The American Organist, T. Scott Buhrman, was similarly impressed with her concept of articulation and praised her crisp and fearless staccato:9

If we have ears to hear with, a close scrutiny of how Miss Demessieux uses staccato, only rarely perverting the organ to its mud-thick legatos, will do much to revolutionize the funereal organ recital and, if we have the good sense to watch our repertoire better, revive the organ as an instrument of beauty rather than torture. . . . [She illustrates the] finest staccato to come out of Europe since Joseph Bonnet.10

She impressed American concert-goers with her phenomenal pedal technique, all the more astonishing due to her very high French heels. Not only her pedal technique, but her physique impressed Buhrman:11

Miss Demessieux has legs and she's not ashamed of them; they're shapely, and they dance around the pedalboard with never a miss; she's a little girl, very young, and has, evidently, so much good sense that nothing matters but her music. No lady can sit on an organ bench without showing how her shoes are attached to the rest of her, and Miss Demessieux apparently didn't give a darn; I like honesty.

The aforementioned reviews differ in their appreciation of Demessieux's utilization of the colors of the organ. Wright was not particularly impressed with her registrational choices:12

Demessieux, like many of her many French compatriots, seems to be satisfied only with the most sharply contrasting stops available, regardless of the timbre of individual voices and their blend or lack of blend in combination or opposition. The result is the use, both for ensemble or solo playing, of the biggest, hootiest flutes, the edgiest reeds, etc.

In the same recital, another reviewer felt Demessieux used the organ more effectively:13

Franck you can have; one of his least interesting pieces, but Miss Demessieux none the less used it [the Pastorale] to teach Americans another lesson they've tried to forget, namely that a mess of colors is not nearly so good as clear-cut pure colors. She contrasted reeds against flutes . . . the flutes were unmuddied by the addition of unnecessary supplementary voices, the reeds were ditto.

At Central Presbyterian Church Demessieux played a few of her own compositions. First, "Repeated Notes" from her Six Etudes is "grand concert music; it invites the Pedal to come up out of the 16' sub-basement and have a frolic in the living room with the rest of the family. And it has something musical to say too, and says it entertainingly."14 "Dogme" from Sept Méditations sur le Saint Esprit received mixed reviews.

T. Scott Buhrman wrote: "Dogme is typical contemporary noises, made as ugly as possible; don't blame that on Miss Demessieux; she's contaminated by the spirit of the age."15 In another review, M. Searle Wright was complimentary:16

Mlle. Demessieux's own "Dogme" proved an imaginatively written work in a big rhapsodic style. The composer's striking use of polytonal textures lends an exciting vitality to her music. What the French lack in imagination regarding registration they surely make up in their fertile harmonic consciousness.

Performing in the tradition of her maître Marcel Dupré and other French organists, Demessieux concluded all of her American concerts with an improvisation on submitted themes. In her New York début she improvised a three-movement symphony based on three themes submitted by M. Searle Wright. Wright comments:17

The fugue which crowned the improvised work was a genuine fugue complete with an exciting stretto in which the subject (an angular one) was managed in augmentation with the right foot alone, while the left provided a counterpoint to the brilliant manual parts.

Not all American concert-goers were in awe of French improvisations. Buhrman tartly writes:18

Since public improvisations are more of a sham than I'm willing to waste time on, I walked out after two or three minutes of it, though this time the improvisor did stick to the theme, at least while I was listening. I hope the organ world will grow up and abolish this childish nonsense; never once among all the improvisations I've suffered through--including Dupré's--have I heard anything worth the effort of hearing.

Above all, Demessieux performed her recitals professionally and without the manufactured flair of many keyboardists. As Buhrman commented:19

Before going to the bench, Miss Demessieux faced her audience and recognized them by a courteous bow, then went to her job without attempts to fool anybody with the usual tricks of all too many concert performers. . . . One thing always annoys me, and a lot of other organists too, is a player's making a silly show of himself or herself when playing ffff organ, trying to make the audience think it's harder to play ffff than pp. Observe this young lady and you'll be delighted with her honesty. Only once or twice did she fling a hand off the keyboard at the release of a ffff chord, and then it was only the left hand, never the right.

In a letter to her parents, addressed February 5, 1953, Demessieux declared that her first American recital was "a resounding success."20 She reported to her parents that the organ at Central Presbyterian Church was beautiful and that the American Organist sent her a very flattering letter regarding her début concert.21

Following an engagement on the six-manual organ at the Wanamaker store in Philadelphia, Demessieux played a recital on February 10 at the Pennsylvania College for Women in Pittsburgh. The program, sponsored by the Möller Organ Company, included:

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor                     Bach

Chorale Prelude                    Bach

Concerto in G Minor     Handel

Pastorale                   César Franck

Symphonie-Passion         Dupré

Epitaphe                   Berveiller

"Les Rameaux"                      Langlais

Chorale Prelude: "Ubi Caritas"                      Demessieux

Study for Octaves               Demessieux

Improvisation upon a given theme22

Fred Lissfelt reviewed the program:23

She represents not only an important church [St. Esprit, Paris] but a great tradition in French organ playing, avoiding the many sensational effects that other nations attain through brilliant registration, and holding firm to clarity of technique and a suave assurance in the art of improvisation, all of which she demonstrated well in her program.

Demessieux played the following program at First Methodist Church in Peoria, IL:

Trumpet Tune  Purcell

Prelude and Fugue in A Minor                       J.S. Bach

Chorale: "The Old Year Has Passed Away"     J.S. Bach

Fugue in G Major (Gigue)           J.S. Bach

Third Chorale in A Minor              Cesar Franck

Variations from Symphonie gothique                         Widor

Banquet celeste                     Olivier Messiaen

Fifth Study: Repeated Notes      Jeanne Demessieux

"Dogme" from Méditations sur le Saint Esprit                       Jeanne Demessieux

Cadence (Study for pedal dedicated to Jeanne Demessieux)  Jean Berveiller

Improvisation on a submitted theme24

The recital was reviewed by Evabeth Miller who wrote:25

Legend says that after the great Emperor Charlemagne had an Arabian organ brought to Aachen in the year 812, people were so impressed by its soft sweet tone that one woman died of the sheer ecstacy of hearing it.

Nothing like that happened Sunday afternoon in First Methodist Church, but it well could have, if that were a real measure of the exalted beauty of organ music, for Mlle. Jeanne Demessieux of Paris provided such tone, as well as a great deal else, in a remarkable concert program. . . .

One could not help thinking, too, particularly as the Widor music filled the crowded church in the late afternoon, that here was being heard a musician in the line of direct descent of greatness. For Mademoiselle Demessieux had played three Bach selections, and it was Widor who had edited the complete works of Bach with his pupil, the great organist-theologian-missionary doctor, Albert Schweitzer; and it was Widor who taught Marcel Dupré, who succeeded him at the Paris church of St. Sulpice; and it was Dupré who taught this young woman who has been organist of the Eglise du Saint Esprit in Paris since she was 12 years old.

She looked almost like a timid child as she came through a balcony door to take her place at the organ console, a slight figure in a simple, circular-skirted dress of light green silk, her short slightly auburn hair brushed back into a halo. Once seated, she proceeded as calmly as if she were playing something as simple as a spinet. But there the simplicity ended. . . .

In the first half, listeners were perhaps more enveloped in the music than in the technique of its production, but as the second portion began they became gradually more and more aware of the technical skill they were witnessing. Mademoiselle Demessieux' pedal work was nothing short of astounding, her intensity of feeling and sureness of concept in each work were conveyed by a technical mastery that got its only visibly dramatic expression in her hands, which had the graceful eloquence of a ballerina's hands in their approach to some passages.

The Peoria recital concluded with the characteristic improvisation. For this recital, Demessieux improvised a prelude and fugue on the chorale "O Sacred Head Now Wounded." She remained faithful to the theme's motive "as she embroidered on it elaborately and with considerable fullness, giving thrilling development to the fugue portion."26

She played a recital on March 8 at the First Methodist Church in Oakland, CA. Richard Montague remarked:27

Demessieux's playing possesses all possi- ble virtues. It is accurate, rhythmic, sensitive, dramatic, clear, chaste, vigorous and intelligent. One is impressed above all by her sureness and maturity. Her nuances seem always inevitable and affectation is unknown to her.

After various other recitals across the country, including Canton, OH, Dallas, Boston, New Orleans, and even Brantford, Ontario, Canada, Demessieux concluded her first American tour, as it began, with a recital at Central Presby- terian Church in New York City. The program on March 22 included:

Overture from the 29th Cantata "We Thank Thee, God"              J.S. Bach

First Concerto in G Minor             G.F. Handel

Fantaisie on "Ad Nos, Ad Salutarem"                        Franz Liszt

"Ubi Caritas" from Twelve Chorale Preludes on Gregorian Themes   Jeanne Demessieux

Etude en tierces                    Jeanne Demessieux

"The World Awaiting the Savior" from   Symphonie-Passion                       Marcel Dupré

Improvisation on a Submitted Theme28

The recital was reviewed by Virgil Thomson in the New York Herald Tribune:29

French organ playing has been one of the musical glories of our century; and Jeanne Demessieux, who played an organ recital last night in the Central Presbyterian Church, is clearly a light in that glory. All evening long your reviewer, who has known most of the great organ playing of our time, from that of Widor and Bonnet and Vierne through Dupré to Messiaen, could only think of those masters as company for this extraordinary musician and virtuoso. . . .

Miss Demessieux's work as a composer appeared, from the two selections offered (a chorale-prelude on Ubi caritas and a Study in Thirds) to be skillful and musi- cally sophisticated. It was not possible to gather from them any characteristic profile of individuality. Neither was anything of the kind manifest in her improvisation beyond perhaps an assurance of taste, intelligence, and technical skill of the highest order. She improvised, as is the French custom, in the Baroque forms, including a dazzling Toccata. Since the theme composed for her by Seth Bingham did not lend itself easily to fugal treatment, she omitted the customary fugal finale and finished her series of improvisations quietly with a poetic variation based on thematic alterations.

Notable throughout the evening were the soloist's elaborate and subtle treatment of registration and her powerful rhythm. No less subtle and no less powerful were her phraseology and her acoustical articulation. Accustomed, no doubt, to compensating for the acoustical lags and other echoing characteristics of France's vast cruciform churches, all stone and glass, she employed to great advantage in the smaller but similarly reverberant walls of the Central Presbyterian a staccato touch for all rapid passage work involving bright or loud registration. This device kept the brilliance clean; and its contrast with the more sustained utterance of broader themes gave a welcome variety, a contrapuntal dimension. We are not used here to so dry an articulation, to so striking a clarity in organ playing. I must say that the fine brightness of the registration possibilities in the organ she was playing on aided the artist, as a good French organ also does, to avoid the muddy noises that so often pass for serious organ execution.

Last night there was no mud anywhere, only music making of the most crystalline and dazzling clarity. Every piece had style, beauty, gesture, the grand line. And perhaps the grandest line of all, the richest color and the most dramatic form were those of Liszt's magniloquent Fantasy. I wonder why organists play this work so rarely. Is it too hard to learn? Surely not. Miss Demessieux swept through it, as she did everything else, from memory.

Fred Haley was also present at the March 22 recital at Central Presbyterian:30

I do remember being overwhelmed by the technical virtuosity, the splendid musicianship and the poetic moments as well as the heroic ones. The registrations were complicated and efficient--made for extreme clarity--but were not as orchestral as Farnam tradition had accustomed me and my friends to. Also at a time when American women organists were wearing unbecoming floor length concert dresses with harem pants underneath (always excepting Catharine Crozier), Mlle. Demessieux was gowned in the height of Parisian chic--the New Look was still new then!

Demessieux wrote in her journal that the church was so full during her second recital in New York that they had to turn people away. She also felt the evening had a feverish ambiance.31

The 1955 American tour

In the February 1954 edition of The American Organist, Colbert-LaBerge Management announced the return of Jeanne Demessieux to America for another series of recitals. The youthful French organist, who amazed listeners on her first tour, would make another transcontinental tour of the United States during February and March of 1955.32 The tour, which opened in Glen Falls, NY, included recitals in New York City, Syracuse, Seattle, Milwaukee, and Chicago.

Unfortunately, Demessieux's voyage to the United States on the ship Liberty did not begin well. On the second day of travel she wrote in her journal of severe seasickness. The sea was very rough and the shutters for the portholes had to remain closed.33

Upon disembarkment in New York, Demessieux met with a representative from the Colbert-LaBerge management firm. Like many performers she was disenchanted with the technical details involved in making any recital tour a success. The papers, schedules, tickets, reservations, contracts, programs to modify, last minute engagements, and finances were things that Demessieux would rather not be bothered with. As a performer she had to keep track of the smallest detail, including schedule changes of trains and other unforseeable events. Despite these technical details, Demessieux realized the virtuoso had to present a wonderful if not impeccable recital.34

Demessieux began her 1955 American tour in Glens Falls, NY, on February 6. Despite newly fallen snow, a large number of people attended this premier recital. Her program included the following selections:

Toccata in F Major          Bach

"Come now, Saviour of the Heathen" Bach

Second Concerto in B Flat Major             Handel

Second Chorale in B Minor        César Franck Allegro (from Sixth Symphony)  Ch. M. Widor

Intermezzo (from the Suite)  Jean Berveiller

Triptyque                 Jeanne Demessieux

Improvisation on a submitted theme35

Demessieux performed the "Cadence" of Jean Berveiller as an encore.

Demessieux arrived in New York on February 7 for a return engagement at Central Presbyterian Church. Her program included:

Fantasy & Fugue in G Minor   Bach

"Blessed Jesus We Are Here" Bach

Fugue in C             Buxtehude

Concerto 10       Handel

B Minor Canon                      Schumann

Redemption (Interlude Symphonique) Franck

Sym. 2: Scherzo                    Vierne

"Paix"   Demessieux

"Dieu parmi nous"             Messiaen36

T. Scott Buhrman, editor of the American Organist, once again penned a colorful review:37

A concert organist is much like a host entertaining his friends; in both cases the first aim, outside an educational or penal institution, should be to give the friends, first a personal welcome, second something they'll enjoy. Miss Demessieux, presumably one of the great contemporary French organists, bowed courteously enough when she first appeared before her friends who were spending an hour--or two or three or four--to hear her and enjoy the musical feast she would presumably offer; but when she returned to the room after a ten-minute intermission she didn't even nod to those friends. . . .

The first half of the program was played on hard & loud Diapason & mixture combinations; even the Blessed Jesus was done that way, devoid of any touch of tenderness; also the middle Handel Concerto movement--though in spite of its hardness & loudness it still had something of happiness in it, which much of Handel's organ music has. [The] Recital began 12 minutes late.

The first enjoyable music was Schumann's, the righthand part played delightfully on strings, the answering lefthand on a loud flute for reasons I couldn't understand; the contrast was too violent. I think organists are tired of music, and in Central Presbyterian they are fooled dynamically because no artist could conceivably want so much music as loud as it hits the audience. There is no beauty in loudness. . . .

Naturally I do not know, but I believe Miss Demessieux must be one of the very finest French organists; now if she would make her music sound as charming and delightful as she herself certainly is, you couldn't ask for anything finer. She has everything in the world she needs excepting enough conceit to break away from the binding traditions of the organ world and constitute herself instead a hostess offering her friends the choicest bits of enjoyment possible to put together in a musical feast.

Demessieux herself felt there was a large audience at the recital. After the concert the audience presented flowers to her, and then she had to do her least favorite thing--greet and converse with the concert-goers.38

A recital at Grace Methodist Church in Harrisburg, PA, followed on February 10. Even though the organ was in bad condition and the combination action refused to work,39 Demessieux reflected in her diary: "a concert where the contact with the public was particularly comfortable (while playing, I thought suddenly: "If it were necessary to give this up, I never could.")"40

Despite the mechanical problems with the organ, a "large audience greeted Mlle. Demessieux and were greatly impressed by her technical perfection, profound musicianship and eloquence of interpretation."41 Her program included:

Toccata in F Major          Bach

"Come Now, Savior of the Heathen"    Bach Second Concerto in B Major         Handel

Second Chorale in B Minor        Franck

Allegro, from Sixth Symphony                       Widor

Intermezzo from Suite Jean Berveiller

Triptyque Demessieux

Improvisation on submitted themes42

Of her improvisation Irene Bressler writes:43

 . . . three themes written by Donald Clapper, organist of the Pine Street Presbyterian Church, were handed Mlle. Demessieux. . . . it was evident that she had caught the germ of her art of improvisation from her teacher Marcel Dupré. Whether one likes the modern idiom or not, it is ever a thrilling experience to follow the many moods displayed and always the grand, full organ climax.

After travelling by train, Demessieux played a recital at Syracuse University on Saturday, February 12th. She found there an excellent organ of three manuals in the neo-classical style (ca. 1950). The recital was a success, but few people attended because of the blustery winter weather.44 Though the concert was a success, the car ride to the university proved to be difficult. On the way to the university, the car Demessieux was riding in got stuck in a snowdrift. She and the other occupants had to brave the snow and wind on foot to make it to the school in time for the recital!45

In a letter to her sister dated February 15, Demessieux related that the tour was going extremely well. She felt that the present tour of America was going exactly as the preceding 1953 tour, but now she was more experienced.46 Again she expressed impatience with the constant demands upon the touring performer. She reluctantly accepted the invitations for dinners and receptions not because they were pleasurable for her, but because she knew they were required of her. She realized she had to be gracious whether she was fatigued or not. "As for smiling, it is the worst fatigue: it is necessary to smile constantly . . . I earn my money by a thousand efforts that include much more than playing."47

A recital on Friday, February 18 was a great success with many people attending, but other details of the recital have not survived. Demessieux concluded the concert with two encores.48 On Saturday February 19th, Demessieux's journal entries for the 1955 American tour came to an end due to lack of time. Further correspondence to her parents and sister provides information concerning the rest of the tour.

On February 28, Demessieux played the following program at University Presbyterian Church in Seattle, WA:

Toccata in F Major         Johann Sebastian Bach

Chorale: "Dearest Jesus, We Are Here"                  Johann Sebastian Bach

Fugue in C Major               Dietrich Buxtehude

Tenth Concerto in D Minor        George Frederick Handel

Scherzo (Second Symphony)   Vierne

Redemption (Interlude Symphonique)                      Cesar Franck-Jean Berveiller49

Intermezzo (from the Suite)        Berveiller

"Paix" (from Seven Meditations sur le Saint Esprit [sic], Paris)                  Jeanne Demessieux

"Dieu parmi nous"             Olivier Messiaen

Improvisation on an Original Theme (submitted by George McKay, University of Washington)50

A review of this recital has not been located.

On March 2, Demessieux spent the day with Darius Milhaud and his wife at Mills College in San Francisco, performing for students and professors. Milhaud asked Demessieux to play one of her works for him, and she delighted him with a fugue. Milhaud then presented Demessieux a scholarly theme upon which to improvise another fugue. He was very astonished and said that he had previously heard a similar improviser51--most likely referring to Dupré.

After several recitals in the Midwest, including one at Ascension Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, Demessieux played in Chicago. The March 7 recital at St. Peter's Catholic Church in Chicago was sponsored by the Chicago Club of Women Organists and attracted several hundred people. The program included:

Fantasie and Fugue in G Minor                    Bach

Chorale Prelude:                 "Blessed Jesus We Are Here" Bach

Fugue in C Major               Buxtehude

Concerto                  Handel

Allegro from Symphony 6             Widor

Redemption         Franck

Scherzo from Symphony 2           Vierne

"Paix" from Seven Meditations on the Holy Spirit          Demessieux

"Dieu parmi nous"             Messiaen

Improvisation on submitted themes52

The recital was termed "a brilliant display of virtuoso technique" even though the "Handel Concerto was interrupted twice by a loud point d'orgue which had not been planned either by the composer or the performer, but Miss Demessieux did not appear to be flustered."53

A recital at the Cathedral in Washington, D.C. on March 15 at 8:30 p.m. included the following selections:

Toccata in F        Bach

Chorale Prelude                    Bach

Concerto No. 2                       Handel

B Minor Chorale                  Franck

Fantasy on "Ad nos, ad salutarem"          Liszt54

On March 18th Demessieux played the following recital on the 1927 E.M. Skinner organ at the Toledo Museum of Art:55

Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor                      J.S. Bach

Choral Prelude:                     "Blessed Jesus, We Are Here"                        J.S. Bach

Fugue in C Major               Dietrich Buxtehude

Concerto No. 10 in D Minor      G.F. Handel

Canon in B Minor              Robert Schumann

Fantasy on "Ad nos, ad salutarem"         Franz Liszt

Improvisation on a Submitted Theme56

Reviews of these recitals have not been located.

March 21st found Demessieux in Buffalo, playing at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church. Her program, similar to others on this tour, was as follows:

Fantasie and Fugue in G Minor                   J.S. Bach

Chorale: "Blessed Jesus, We Are Here"                  J.S.Bach

Fugue in C Major               Buxtehude

Tenth Concerto in D Minor       Handel

Canon in B Minor              Schumann

Redemption (Interlude Symphonique)                       Franck

Scherzo (Second Symphony)   Vierne

"Dogme" (from Seven Meditations sur le Saint Esprit [sic]       Jeanne Demessieux

"Paix" (Seven Meditations sur le Saint Esprit) [sic]      Demessieux

"God With Us"                       Messiaen

Improvisation on a submitted theme57

John W. Becker, director of music at Holy Trinity at the time of the recital, recalls:58

[It was] an excellently fine recital. There was a brilliant display of her pedal technique especially in her own pieces and her improvisation. I sat behind her in the chancel, the only one there who could see her feet and was amazed at the speed of the pedal passages. She wore VERY high heels and seemed to move her legs very little. Her ankles did the work and appeared to place her high heels where she wanted them with unfailing accuracy and incredible speed. Hers was a very efficient and, by American standard, an unusually personal pedal technique. It was quite a show!

Theolinda Boris reviewed the concert in Buffalo:59

The petite organist's playing gave abundant evidence of her mastery of her instrument and of her exceptional musicianship. In short, she is a virtuoso who is also an artist!

Few organists of note who have played here recently have achieved as much variety of color in registration without sacrificing any of the essential qualities of the various pieces. Still fewer have played with such beautiful clarity throughout an entire program, not excluding the heaviest passages.

In fact, it was this clarity that minimized the somewhat thick and sluggish sound of the organ. Everything under Mlle. Demessieux' fingers was crisp, so that even involved contrapuntal threads sounded with a truly admirable clearness.

Demessieux' rhythm had a wonderful vitality and her handling of melodic line and phrase was like that of a master violinist or sensitive singer. Singularly fine were the naturalness and legitimacy of her climaxes, which were never a mere piling up of thunderous and muddy sonorities. . . .

A very impressive improvisation concluded Mlle. Demessieux' already impressive recital. Using two themes submitted by Eric Dowling of St. George's Anglican Church, St. Catharine's, Ontario, she expertly fashioned a three-part piece, Passacaglia I, Interlude and Passacaglia II.

The 1955 American recital tour concluded at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Reflecting upon the past two months, Demessieux found the trip extremely fatiguing--hard not only on the mind but body. She found travelling for such a long time difficult in a country so different from Europe. She reflected again that concert life was very draining because it was necessary not only to travel, but also to make a good impression, to undergo inter- views, and to share her viewpoints concerning French art, while courteously receiving the general public.60

The 1958 American tour

The January 1958 issue of The Diapason announced:61

Jeanne Demessieux will arrive in New York on the S.S. Liberte January 27. The opening recital of her third American tour will be in Glen Falls, NY, January 31 at the First Presbyterian Church. In February she will be heard in Newark, NJ, Philadelphia, Nashville, St. Louis, Denver and will give recitals in California at Chico, Oakland, Sacramento, San Jose, and Los Angeles.

Recitals have also been arranged in Fort Worth, Charlotte, N.C., Macon, GA, Bloomington, Ind., Fort Wayne, Pittsburgh and New Haven. She will appear in Chicago at St. Peter's Church March 10 and at New York City's Central Presbyterian Church March 24, her final recital before her return to France March 26. Her programs will include several of her own compositions.

Demessieux was accompanied on this tour by her student Claudine Verchère, who acted as secretary. "The idea of being assisted in the thousand material details of the journey seems an incredible benefit to me."62

While practicing on the organ at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, Demessieux tried her newly composed "Te Deum" which was inspired by that organ. After a rehearsal of the piece, she thought the composition was successful and was relieved to find it was what she had intended.63 Later that day, she travelled to Glen Falls, NY, for her opening recital on January 31 at First Presbyterian Church. The town welcomed her even to the point of putting her portrait in the entrance hall of the hotel!64 For this recital Demessieux played the following selections:

Ouverture from Cantata 29          J.S. Bach

Fantasy in G Major          J.S. Bach

Fantasy 2, F Minor           W.A. Mozart

Basse et dessus de trompette    Clerambault

Prelude and Fugue on B.A.C.H.                  Franz Liszt

Chorale-Prelude:"Attende Domine"      Jeanne Demessieux

from "L'ascension" III. Transports de joie d'une ame devant la gloire du Christ, qui est la sienne.  Olivier Messiaen

Improvisation on a submitted theme65

Demessieux later recorded in her diary that the concert was a success. She was personally satisfied with the impressive silence of a captive audience of 900 people. She was impressed with the five-manual organ because the organ pos- sessed good foundations, an array of mixtures, and Cavaillé-Coll reeds. She commented that the overall ensemble was rather good. She related one horror: the couplers on the Great division coupled at the fifth rather than the unison!66

Hugh Allen Wilson, organist at the First Presbyterian Church at the time of the recital, fondly recalls Demessieux. He was present for both the 1955 and 1958 recitals in Glens Falls and shares his memories:67

I remember these recitals and Jeanne very well. She was an angelic creature in her personality and played as few of her contemporaries could or did. She was a pupil of Dupré at the same time that I was working with him in Paris--1947.

We were all intrigued that she played in rather high heels--particularly in the wonderful little virtuoso piece by Berveiller--the Cadence. I do not bring to mind whether or not she was accompanied by a friend on both of her concerts here. She did have a companion on one I am sure. I met them at the train on her first tour and remember her astonishment that she found someone fluent in French in the great north of New York State.

Demessieux recalled an incident in New York in which Claudine Verchère found an organ nearby their hotel and tried it out. Demessieux made an interesting statement concerning her former teacher: "The organ, an 1930 Austin, is horrible, heavy, cinematic. It is what Dupré would love, unfortunately!"68

On the morning of February 8 Demessieux arrived in St. Louis, MO. The organist of the host church met her at the railway station and immediately took her to record an interview that was to be on the radio later that afternoon. Demessieux felt the interview went well, but she refused categorically to have journalistic photos taken and would not give out any official publicity photos.69

Demessieux's journal entry of February 9 is somewhat curious:70

The day begins with with a semi-dramatic, semi-comical episode. During my silent practice, I was distracted by another organ sound coming from the basement which hindered my concentration. Then, I thought of stuffing my ears with . . . tissues because I didn't have cotton balls. Later, I removed them tranquilly. This morning, in my shower, I became completely deaf in my right ear, a piece of cotton remaining in my ear had inflated with water. I imagined the concert!

While in St. Louis, Demessieux gave the following recital in Graham Memorial Chapel at Washington University on February 10:

Prelude and Fugue in D Major                       Bach

Chorale Prelude: "De Profundis"                 Bach

Concerto No. 2 in A Minor          Vivaldi-Bach

Pièce héroïque Franck

Mouvement         Berveiller

(First performance in the U.S.A.)

Prelude on "Rorate caeli"               Demessieux

Te Deum                 Demessieux

(First performance in the U.S.A.)

Improvisation on two submitted themes71

Ronald Arnatt, reviewer for The American Organist states:72

I do not hesitate to be lavish in my praise of Jeanne Demessieux since I can safely state that I have never attended an organ recital that I enjoyed more than this. Her superb technique was immediately evident in her performance of the Prelude and Fugue in D Major--this wonderfully light-hearted work seems to be paticularly suited to the French probably because it benefits from a crisp, clear touch and an unerring pedal technique, both of which are the standard equipment of French artists; however, it was not only technique that made this particular performance so fine. Mlle. Demessieux makes it possible, through her transparent phrasing, for the listener to follow each voice with such ease that one could almost be listening to a top-notch ensemble. In the hands of a lesser artist the tempo of the fugue would have been disastrous--in the hands (and feet) of Mlle. Demessieux the extremely fast tempo seemed completely natural and completely right. . . .

I knew from her recordings what to expect in her performance of the Vivaldi-Bach--clarity and extreme precision--and again was delighted by being able to hear every single moving part: her registration in the first movement was sparkling and her phrasing clear as crystal.

The Franck was a little disappointing to me since the tempo fluctuated so much, large rallentandi were inserted where there is no indication and a rather noisy registration was used most of the time. Franck was always very careful to mark exactly what he wanted in the way of dynamics and tempo changes and I cannot see why so many organists appear to feel that he made omissions in this respect. Regardless of personal opinion however, it was a brilliant performance.

These comments regarding Demessieux's performance of the Pièce héroïque are very interesting when the two traditions of Franck organ playing are considered. The strict performance style of Franck playing, illustrated by Dupré and Widor, can be contrasted to the freer interpretations of Tournemire and Langlais. Langlais believed that Dupré played Franck's compositions very simply and regularly, missing their true spirit. Dupré eliminated fermatas, removed many dynamic indications and changed registration markings in his editions of the Franck organ works. It is very possible that Demessieux followed Dupré's indications regarding registration and dynamics in the Pièce héroïque, but tempo fluctuations and large rallentandi appear antithetical to Dupré's teachings--perhaps she asserted some independence on this point. Whatever the analysis, Demessieux's overall concept of performance did not entirely please the reviewer.73

The U.S. premiere of Jean Berveiller's "Mouvement" was not well-received:74

The Berveiller is scarcely worth mentioning--cliches of the Boëllmann and Widor toccatas abound with a few pseudo-jazz rhythms inserted to make it sound a little more modern complete with the Gershwin minor triad and many bravura pedal passages. The performance was stunning, but what a waste of precious time.

As a composer Jeanne Demessieux is known mostly in this country for her Twelve Preludes on Gregorian Themes--short, finely wrought pieces showing a combination of contrapuntal mastery and lyrical warmth. The prelude on Rorate caeli is one of the loveliest of these with a distinctive style all her own, leaning less on impressionism than some of her compatriots. Here was an entirely different approach to a Gregorian chant, martial in mood, polytonal in influence and excitingly brilliant. The work falls into three main sections: the opening strong exposition, the quieter, more reflective middle section, and the powerful toccata-like ending, frighteningly difficult and jaggedly dissonant.

An interesting perspective regarding the concluding improvisation is given by the reviewer Ronald Arnatt, who himself wrote the themes upon which the improvisation was based:75

Then came the solemn ceremony of presenting the themes to the artist for her improvisation--like some sort of strange liturgical rite: I feel particularly embarrassed since I wrote the themes upon which her improvisation was based.

The first theme was repetitive and angular in 5/8, the second a modal, lyrical theme in 6/8: I did my best to keep in mind the type of theme that might appeal to Mlle. Demessiuex's particular style. The improvisation began in a mysterious mood using snatches of the first theme, then the theme was announced in full in her own style as easily as if she'd written it herself. The work fell into three sections, in a similar manner to the Te Deum, with the second theme used as a basis for the middle section. Much use was made of fugal imitation, especially with the second theme, and brilliant use was made of the two themes superimposed on one another with the second theme altered to fit the 5/8 rhythm. In the finale, instead of the usual thunderous ending heard so often, the ending was lyrical and mysterious with beautiful use made of the interchange of the two themes.

Jeanne Demessieux was received with great enthusiasm and was brought back many times to take a bow--fortunately she did not play an encore since anything played after her own three works would have been an anti-climax. One further point--think of what a masterful composition we would have heard if she could have selected her own theme for improvisation instead of being stuck with mine!

Demessieux recalls a crowd of 1200 at her recital in Denver, CO, on February 12. At intermission, the priest ascended to the pulpit and announced that the audience was free to stand up and stretch their legs. All the people rose in their places, causing Demessieux to smile. When they returned to their seats and sat down, she continued with the second half of the recital.76 Obviously, such an announcement by the priest would have been uncommon in France!

She travelled on to Chico, CA, for a recital at Bidwell Memorial Presbyterian Church on February 14 and played the following program:

I.

Ouverture from the 29th Cantata               J.S. Bach

Fantasy in G Major          J.S. Bach

Second Fantasy in F Minor        Mozart

Basse et dessus de trompette    Clerambault

II.

Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H                  F.Liszt

Chorale Prelude:"Attende Domine"      Jeanne Demessieux

Ascension Suite (3rd Movement) "Transports de joie d'une ame devant a gloire du

                        Christ qui est la sienne"                     Olivier Messiaen

III

Improvisation on a submitted theme77

In her diary Demessieux noted in passing that the 1931 Möller organ at Bidwell Memorial consisted of only 12 ranks!78 It seems amazing that this organ could handle her recital literature, especially the Liszt, which requires large changes in dynamics and colors. Demessieux's skill at registration was appreciated by Charles van Bronkhorst:79

A petite but astounding young lady from Paris has proved that a heavy program and a small instrument can indeed sell organ music to an audience of predominantly just-plain-music lovers. . . .

Mozart was a definite highlight . . . Opening with full organ sans reeds, the first allegro section was lively and clean cut, with plenty of appropriate accent. The andante provided Mlle. Demessieux her first real opportunity to make use of the limited color available in this 12-rank instrument, and she took full advantage of contrasts provided by Melodia, Oboe, Gamba, Voix Celeste and separately enclosed Great and Swell divisons. Also noteworthy were the delicate ornamentation and terrific pedal work, the latter accomplished in high heels as is customary for this young artist. The buildup to full in the final allegro was smooth as silk, growing in excitement and brilliance to the end. . . .

Liszt's dazzling opus, difficult on even a sizable instrument, was handled so beautifully that I never once wished for more organ. Despite less than an hour's practice on this instrument, Mlle. Demessieux was in perfect control at all times: registration, dynamics and technique were combined to yield maximum results, yet I was never distracted by body movement of any kind as is often the case in this particular work.

James Kinne of the Chico State College music faculty submitted two four-measure themes in D Major and 6/4 meter for the improvisation.80 The themes were given to Demessieux in a sealed envelope and she studied them for a brief moment and then proceeded to deliver one of her deservedly famous improvisations.81 Another reviewer felt:82

The themes were ideal--simple, but rhythmically alive. Mlle. Demessieux began with the theme stated by Great flutes over Swell string celeste, then proceeded to exploit both subject matter and organ to their fullest in some ten minutes of breathtaking free variation, a high-point being the appearance of the theme toward the end in upper pedals a la pizzicato over manual accompaniment. I heard Marcel Dupré improvise on submitted themes several years ago and was duly impressed but have never been as stimulated or musically satisfied as by this beautiful demonstration in the French tradition.

Several conclusions were reached by this reviewer as a result of Mlle. Demessieux's visit to Chico: 1) a great artist need make no musical compromises in order to satisfy an audience; 2) a small instrument adequately installed and maintained is no handicap to such an artist; and 3) any doubts that the Great division should be enclosed in an organ under 15 ranks were completely dispelled--one reason for the success of this program was a flexibility and control achieved by thoughtful and skillful use of the two swell shoes. The artist gave no encores despite excellent audience reaction and applause.

On February 16, Demessieux gave a recital at the First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, CA. Demessieux thought the evening was unforgettable and the audience very intelligent. The audience was so enthusiastic that she dared to play her "Te Deum" twice because the organ suited the composition perfectly.83 Program and reviews for this recital have not been located.

Her next recital was in Sacramento, CA, at the First Baptist Church and her program included:

Ouverture from the 29th Cantata               J.S. Bach

Fantasy in G Major          J.S. Bach

Second Fantasy in F Minor         Mozart

Basse et dessus de trompette    Clerambault

Prelude and Fugue "BACH"      F. Liszt

Choral-Prelude: "Attende Domine"       Jeanne Demessieux

Ascension:             Olivier Messiaen

Transports de joie d'une ame devant la gloire du Christ qui est la sienne"

Improvisation on a submitted theme84

Leland Ralph, organist of the First Baptist Church at the time of Demessieux's recital relates:85

Thirty plus years is a long time to remember every detail of her performance. However, I do remember that many of us felt it was a rather lackluster performance. Perhaps it was the instrument, or perhaps she was tired, I do not know. Too, so many of her selections had been performed so many times in recital here, that perhaps we were bored!! I do remember she was a delightful person.

On February 21 Demessieux played a recital in San Jose, CA, where the organ console was located in a pit so the audience could see only her head. She remarked that this time she didn't experience instant vertigo!86

On March 3, Demessieux travelled to Charlotte, NC, for an evening recital at Myers Park Methodist Church. The recital program was:

Overture from the 29th Cantata                   J.S. Bach

Fantasy in G Major          J.S. Bach

Second Fantasy in F Minor         Mozart

Basse et dessus de trompette    Clerambault

Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H                  F. Liszt

Choral-Prelude: Attende Domine"          Jeanne Demessieux

Ascension:             Olivier Messiaen

  "Transports de joie d'une ame devant le gloire du Christ qui est la sienne"

Improvisation on Submitted Themes87

Demessieux recalled a good concert and a magnificent audience. She reflected how uncomfortable she was at receptions where people burst into laughter, pause and notice suddenly that they are in front of you, then they say a few standard remarks to try to ease the tension.88.

On March 9, Demessieux performed in Bloomington, IN. She felt the organ console was too near the edge of the stage and asked someone from the church to reposition it. Unfortunately, the console did not get moved prior to the concert and she experienced vertigo! Despite the dizziness, she improvised a symphony of four movements on a submitted theme. She remarked that this improvisation was one of her better ones.89

Once again Demessieux was sponsored in recital by the Chicago Club of Women Organists on March 10 at St. Peter's Catholic Church. Frank Cunkle reviewed the concert:90

Mlle. Demessieux was not very happy with the medium-sized, unremarkable instrument, and neither her own back-breaking tour schedule nor the church's almost constant series of services helped at all to give her the time an organist needs to find an organ's strongest and weakest points and to persuade the stubborn beast to contribute only its good to the program.

Obviously, the reviewer did not know that Demessieux previously performed on the organ at St. Peter's during her 1955 recital tour. The program included the following selections:

Overture to Cantata 29                      Bach

Fantasie in G Major        Bach

Fantasie                     Mozart

Basse de dessus de trompette  Clérambault

"Outburst of Joy"                 Messiaen

"Attende Domine"             Demessieux

Te Deum                  Demessieux91

The review continues less than favorably:92

This preface already indicates that the recital this frail-looking Frenchwoman played did not provide an entirely satisfying evening. Mlle. Demessieux's command of the organ is extraordinary in many ways. She can play more correct notes per minute and in a more nearly metronomic rhythm than most of her contemporaries of either gender--no mean feat, certainly, and an important part of the armor of a virtuoso. How Mlle. Demessieux's predilections for thick, heavy registration sounds on French instruments, this reviewer has not had the opportunity to observe; the effect on our instruments is certainly neither to heighten the richness of harmonic texture nor to emphasize the linear architecture of great counterpoint. And her often mechanically perfect meter sometimes has the effect of making her rubato and ritenuto sound forced and out of place. The end result is too often absence of a flowing line and remarkably little feeling of artistic communication. . . .

This recital seemed to affirm to this listener that while American and German organists are playing better than their fathers and grandfathers, younger French organists are not yet succeeding in realizing the standards of musicianship, style and communication which made the last generation of French organ playing truly a "golden age."

On March 17, Demessieux played the following program at Woolsey Hall on the Yale University campus in New Haven, CT:

Prelude and Fugue in D Major                       Bach

Chorale: "De Profundis"                   Bach

Concerto in A Minor     Vivaldi-Bach

Pièce héroïque                         Franck

Mouvement         Berveiller

Chorale Prelude: "Rorate"             Demessieux

Te Deum                 Demessieux

Improvisation on a submitted theme93

 The reviewer, Barbara Owen, writes that:94

 . . . there was a large and enthusiastic house on hand to hear Mlle. Demessieux perform, and the remarkable lady from France did not let them down. . . . The D Major Prelude, perhaps because of its grand character, left little to be desired. The Fugue, on the other hand, was a bit too heavily registered and speedily played to be really satisfying, though I confess that its execution left me somewhat in awe of this woman's fantastically clean and accurate technique and excellent rhythmic sense.

The De Profundis was interestingly registered but cold. Perhaps as Schweitzer suggests it is because their culture and religious backgrounds are so different from Bach's, that the French seem rarely able to put across the more spiritual of the Bach chorale preludes. With the Vivaldi Concerto, however, she was back on solid ground and though her interpretation was again not the Baroque one it was nonetheless exciting.

From the first note of the Franck, it was obvious that Mlle. Demessieux had at last reached her real element and the writer cannot remember when she has heard such a pleasing performance of this frankly romantic warhorse. Here was 19th century French music unabashedly performed for what it is and on an ideally suited instrument.

Perhaps it was well that an intermission separated the 19th and 20th centuries. The Berveiller Mouvement, unlike some others of this composer's work, said what it had to say succinctly and interestingly, and is perhaps the most pleasing work I have yet to hear from this composer, whom Mlle. Demessieux has so zealously introduced to this country. Towards the end the composer suddenly breaks into an idiom which can only be described as jazz, and which here produces the same cold-shower effect that it does in his Epitaphe.

The improvisation was, as it often unhappily is, the dullest spot on the program. The theme submitted was a Gregorian chant Adoro te devote, which would seem an excellent vehicle. However, she did little with it, beginning with the usual meanderings over a solo melody, and building up to the inevitable climax replete with 64-foot stop and blazing reeds. At the conclusion, Mlle. Demessieux received a richly deserved and prolonged ovation, after which she returned for an encore, which turned out to be the inevitable French toccata.

Once again Demessieux's composure at the organ was noted by the audience and reviewer:95

A word should be said here about what might be called Mlle. Demessieux's console presence. Rarely, if ever, does one observe a European artist indulging in the ridiculous console gyrations so dear to the hearts of certain American recitalists bent on attracting the rock-and-roll set, yet in my corner of the balcony I could see a number of people who were sitting on the edges of their seats, and even standing, just to watch an organist who could tear flawlessly through the most difficult manual and pedal passages almost literally without batting an eyelash, and wearing high-heeled shoes at that (only other female organists will understand the import of this!) The sight of an organist sitting still and upright in the midst of a tumult of sound is to me more awe-inspiring than having to speculate on whether he or she is suffering from St. Vitus dance or an epileptic seizure.

On March 25, Demessieux returned to Central Presbyterian Church in New York to conclude her 1958 American recital tour and played the following program:

Overture, Cantata 29     Bach

Fantasie in G Major       Bach

Second Fantasie in F Minor        Mozart

Basse et dessus de trompette    Clérambault

Prelude and Fugue on BACH  Liszt

Chorale Prelude:"Attende Domine"      Demessieux

Te Deum                 Demessieux  (First Performance in U.S.A.)

Study in Thirds, No. 2  Demessieux

Transports de joie d'une ame devant la gloire du Christ                 Messiaen96

The review of the New York concert by Ray Berry begins:97

The young brilliant French artist gave a performance in New York which held to the incredible standards of technical excellence which she sets for herself in both playing and composing. In all departments, save perhaps one, Mlle. Demessieux is impeccable. Were I to find one fault, it would be that this program was not sufficiently relieved by music of a lighter character (which has nothing to do with inferiority), plus a certain warmness which could have been a bit more in evidence in interpretation.

The opening piece made a commanding demand on listeners' attention and was interpreted with stylistic integrity. The Bach Fantasie is practically never played in recital, for which I am not unduly surprised. Mozart was given an architecturally powerful concept which held the interest throughout. The charm of interpretation, as well as of the music itself, made the Clerambault especially welcome for it was one of the few light moments in the whole program. The Liszt was given a thrilling reading which captured all the excitement the composer intended.

Mlle. Demessieux as a composer is fascinating even though I suspect that there are some who feel her thoughts are not yet so fully matured as to include heart as equally as head . . . The choral prelude was that truly, and, had strength of spirit. The Te Deum made excellent use of dissonance in a fabulously difficult piece. For the benefit of those not familiar with this composer's Etudes, the thirds in question are in the pedal!! However, the elan and grace and effortlessness, with which this piece was tossed off, left this reporter breathless with amazement.

In this instance it took a French woman to interpret a Frenchman. Messiaen's Transports were a perfect, if slightly ear-shattering, close to an exciting evening.

While I cannot in all truth state that French organists completely match numerous American colleagues in the art of making music, I must of course admit readily that there are few if any who can match this charming young girl in sheer virtuosity. And this with unimpeachable deportment at the console almost to the point of shyness--but a shyness with clearly defined authority.

Her performance was so electrifying that despite the printed request for no applause there was spontaneous handclapping at the mid-point intermission which could not be ignored. With this as cue, the applause at the recital's conclusion was quite deafening.

This program was well designed and a complete entity. Therefore I was a bit annoyed that the usual improvisation demanded of French recitalists was tacked on to its end. Mlle. Demessieux attacked Searle Wright's interesting themes with care and imagination and made a fascinating work of art out of it, but . . . this 'art' is something we could do without--at least for a few seasons.

The 1958 American recital tour of Jeanne Demessieux, like the preceding tours, was a great success. Throughout the country, Demessieux played to full churches and was well received. Her technique, compositions and improvisations impressed and were applauded by the American public. This tour solidified her position as an international virtuoso. 

The significance of the American Tours

A number of American women organists, including Nita Akin, Claire Coci, and Catharine Crozier, made transcontinental recital tours of the United States in the 1950s, but few European women travelled across the Atlantic Ocean to perform organ recitals in North America. Through her American recital tours Jeanne Demessieux brought the French perspective of organ playing to the United States and dazzled audiences with her phenomenal technique. The tours of 1953, 1955, and 1958 were resounding successes and firmly established Demessieux as an international virtuoso. She demonstrated her skill at improvisation and introduced to American audiences a number of her own compositions and those of other French composers.

Demessieux's recitals were well received by reviewers and concert-goers alike. Audiences were impressed by her flawless pedal technique, particularly because of her high-heeled shoes, and her poise at the console. Not only was she a virtuoso organist, those who had personal contact with Demessieux found her to be a lovely and engaging person.

The American tours offered Demessieux the opportunity to perform some of her own organ compositions. On the 1953 tour she played various movements from her Six Etudes, including "Notes répétées," "Octaves," and "Tierces." The technical difficulty of these studies coupled with Demessieux's flawless execution amazed concert-goers. Also, on this premiere tour of America, Demessieux performed "Dogme" from Sept Méditations sur le Saint Esprit and introduced "Ubi caritas" from her Twelve Choral-Preludes. Although not all reviewers appreciated the compositional idioms of the twentieth century, Demessieux's compositions were generally well received by her concert audiences.

On her 1955 recital tour Demessieux often played "Paix" from her Sept Méditations sur le Saint Esprit and her three movement Triptyque. In 1958 she played more of her compositions, including "Attende domine" and "Rorate caeli" from Twelve Choral-Preludes, various movements from the Six Etudes, and the recently composed Te Deum, inspired by the organ at the church of St. John the Divine.

Not only did Demessieux perform her own compositions for the American public, she introduced organ works of other French composers. She paid homage to the French classical period in organ music by frequently performing the "Basse et dessus de trompette" of Clérambault on her 1958 tour. Numerous Franck works were played on all of her American tours--including Pastorale, A Minor Chorale, B Minor Chorale, Pièce héroïque, and a transcription of "Redemption" from Interlude symphonique.

Demessieux frequently performed compositions of the French symphonic organ school. She programmed "Variations" from Charles Marie Widor's Symphonie gothique, the "Allegro" from Symphony No. 6 of Widor, and the "Scherzo" from Louis Vierne's Symphony No. 2. Demessieux did not neglect compositions of her French contemporaries. She programmed "Les Rameaux" of Jean Langlais, along with Le banquet céleste, "Dieu parmi nous" from La Nativité du Seigneur, and "Transports de joie" from L'Ascension of Olivier Messiaen. Demessieux introduced into America many of the compositions of Jean Berveiller, her friend and colleague. Many times at least one work of Berveiller was programmed on every recital. She performed Berveiller's Cadence, Epitaphe, Mouvement, and "Intermezzo" from Suite.

Ironically, Demessieux performed few of the compositions of her maître Marcel Dupré on her American tours. Out of all the recital programs collected, only two programs from the tours presented a work of Dupré--"The World Awaiting the Savior" from Symphonie-Passion. She previously performed the majority of Dupré's works on her recital series at Pleyel Hall, so there is no doubt that the works were in her repertoire. Though the American public would have loved to hear her play his works, it seems that Demessieux preferred not to play Dupré's works in America.

Adhering to the French tradition, Demessieux concluded each recital with an improvisation based on a submitted theme. These improvisations took different forms depending on the character of the given themes. The forms Demessieux considered for her improvisations included symphony, variations, and prelude and fugue. Though some reviewers did not feel improvisations were necessary for the concert program, the majority of concert-goers were impressed by Demessieux's skill at improvisation and often compared her to Dupré.

Demessieux's diary entries for the American recital tours reveal that she enjoyed concert performing immensely and wished never to give it up. Unfortunately, she was not as comfortable with the constant personal demands of the concert artist. She did not enjoy the receptions, interviews, and dinners that she had to endure in every town.

The American recital tours of Jeanne Demessieux not only solidified her position as organ virtuoso and master of improvisation, but also introduced her compositions for organ to the American public. Surely, American organists and audiences of Demessieux's programs were greatly enriched by her phenomenal technique and the variety of literature that she performed in the United States.                    

Notes

                        1.                  For further information regarding the life of Demessieux, see Karen E. Ford, "Jeanne Demessieux," American Organist 26 (April 1992): 58–64.

                        2.                  The Diapason 43 (October 1952): 9.

                        3.                  American Organist 35 (November 1952): 389.

                        4.                 The Diapason 44 (January 1953): 1. For this and subsequent programs, the original language and forms of composers' names have been retained to reflect the style and spirit of the original program. Punctuation and capitalization have been standardized for consistency of presentation.

                        5.                  Paul V. Beckley, "Organist Plays 1,000 to 2,000 Works by Heart," New York Herald Tribune, February 1, 1953.

                        6.                  Jean Berveiller (d. 1976) was a French organist, composer and colleague of Demessieux. Throughout her American tours Demessieux programmed his organ works, which include Cadence, Epitaphe, Mouvement, and Suite in four movements. Cadence is a virtuostic pedal study dedicated to Demessieux.

                        7.                  The New York Times, February 1, 1953.

                        8.                  M. Searle Wright, "Jeanne Demessieux in American Début at New York Recital," The Diapason 44 (March 1953): 38.

                        9.                  T. Scott Buhrman, "Jeanne Demessieux Recital," American Organist 36 (February 1953): 59.

                        10.              Joseph Bonnet (1884–1944) studied organ with Guilmant at the Paris Conservatory, became titulaire at St. Eustache in 1906, and succeeded Guilmant as organist of the Concerts du Conservatoire in 1911. Bonnet made his American début in New York in 1917.

                        11.              Buhrman, 59.

                        12.              Wright, 38.

                        13.              Buhrman, 59.

                        14.              Buhrman, 60.

                        15.              Buhrman, 60.

                        16.              Wright, 38.

                        17.              Wright, 38.

                        18.              Buhrman, 60.

                        19.              Buhrman, 59.

                        20.              Christine Trieu-Colleney, Jeanne Demessieux: Une vie de lutte et de gloire (Avignon: Les Presses Universelles, 1977), 195.

                        21.              Trieu-Colleney, 195.

                        22.              Fred Lissfelt, "Organist's Recital Lauded," Pittsburgh Press, February 10. 1953.

                        23.              Lissfelt.

                        24.              "Paris Organist Will Play for Peorians Today at 4," Peoria [IL] Journal Star, February 15, 1953.

                        25.              Evabeth Miller, "Immense Organ Court is Played by Small Parisienne," Peoria [IL] Journal Star, February 16, 1953.

                        26.              Miller.

                        27.              Richard Montague, "News of the American Guild of Organists--Northern California," The Diapason 44 (April 1953): 14.

                        28.              Taken from original program.

                        29.              Virgil Thomson, Music Reviewed:  1940–1954 (New York: Vintage Books, 1967), 363–5.

30.              Letter from Fred Haley, Oklahoma City, OK, to Laura Ellis, March 12, 1991.

                        31.              Trieu-Colleney, 196.

                        32.              American Organist 37 (February 1954): 60.

                        33.              Trieu-Colleney, 198–9.

                        34.              Trieu-Colleney, 198–199.

                        35.              Taken from original program.

                        36.              T. Scott Buhrman, "Jeanne Demessieux Recital, American Organist 38 (March 1955): 85.

                        37.              Buhrman, 85–6.

                        38.              Trieu-Colleney, 200.

                        39.              Trieu-Colleney, 200.

                        40.              Trieu-Colleney, 201.

                        41.              Irene Bressler, "News of the American Guild of Organists--Harrisburg, PA," The Diapason 46 (April 1955): 15.

                        42.              Bressler.

                        43.              Bressler.

                        44.              Trieu-Colleney, 201.

                        45.              Trieu-Colleney, 201.

                        46.              Trieu-Colleney, 202.

                        47.              Trieu-Colleney, 202-3.

                        48.              Trieu-Colleney, 203.

                        49.              Demessieux performed "Redemption (Interlude-Symphonique)" throughout America on her 1955 tour. The program for this recital reveals that the idea of an organ transcription of this work was suggested by Mlle. Cecile Boutet de Monvel (1864–1940), cousin and interpreter of Franck. Demessieux played from the unpublished transcription of Jean Berveiller.

                        50.              Taken from original program.

                        51.              Trieu-Colleney, 204.

                        52.              The Diapason 46 (April 1955): 42.

                        53.              The Diapason 46 (April 1955): 42.

                        54.              Washington Post, March 13, 1955, H10.

                        55.              Taken from original program.

                        56.              Taken from original program.

                        57.              Taken from original program.

                        58.              Letter from John W. Becker, Pittsburgh, PA, to Laura Ellis, August 29, 1990.

                        59.              Theodolinda Boris, "Jeanne Demessieux Displays Artistry in Organ Recital," Buffalo [NY] Evening News, March 22, 1955, 26.

                        60.              Trieu-Colleney, 205–6.

                        61.              The Diapason 49 (January 1958): 2.

                        62.              Trieu-Colleney, 207.

                        63.              Trieu-Colleney, 207.

                        64.              Trieu-Colleney, 207.

                        65.              Taken from original program.

                        66.              Trieu-Colleney, 207

                        67.              Letter from Hugh Allen Wilson, Schenectady, NY, to Laura Ellis, January 6, 1991.

                        68.              Trieu-Colleney, 208.

                        69.              Trieu-Colleney, 210.

                        70.              Trieu-Colleney, 210.

                        71.              Ronald Arnatt, "Jeanne Demessieux, Graham Memorial Chapel, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, February 10, 1958," American Organist 41 (April 1958): 149.

                        72.              Arnatt.

                        73.              For further information regarding the French traditions of playing the organ works of César Franck, see Robert Sutherland Lord, "Conversation and Commentary with Jean Langlais," The Diapason 66 (March 1975): 3.

                        74.              Arnatt.

                        75.              Arnatt.

                        76.              Trieu-Colleney, 211

                        77.              Taken from original program.

                        78.              Trieu-Colleney, 211.

                        79.              Charles van Bronkhorst, "Jeanne Demessieux, Bidwell Memorial Presbyterian Church, Chico, CA, February 14," American Organist 41 (April 1958): 148.

                        80.              Bronkhorst.

                        81.              "Audience Enthusiastic Over Organ Recital," Chico [CA] Enterprise Record, February 15, 1958, 1.

                        82.              Bronkhorst, 148.

                        83.              Trieu-Colleney, 212.

                        84.              Taken from original program.

                        85.              Letter from G. Leland Ralph, Sacramento, CA, to Laura Ellis, August 27, 1990.

                        86.              Trieu-Colleney, 212.

                        87.              Taken from original program.

                        88.              Trieu-Colleney, 214.

                        89.              Trieu-Colleney, 216.

                        90.              Frank Cunkle, "Demessieux in Chicago," The Diapason 49 (April 1958): 16.

                        91.              Cunkle.

                        92.              Cunkle.

                        93.              Barbara Owen, "Jeanne Demessieux. Woolsey Hall, Yale University. New Haven, CT, March 17." American Organist 41 (June 1958): 223–4.

                        94.              Owen, 223.

                        95.              Owen.  

                        96.              Ray Berry, "Jeanne Demessieux. Central Presbyterian Church, New York, March 25," American Organist 41 (June 1958): 225.

                        97.              Berry.

Carolyn Shuster Fournier

Dr. Carolyn Shuster Fournier thanks Father Michel Chausson, James David Christie, Jean-Louis Coignet, Pierre Farago, Jean Fonteneau, Yves Fossaert, André Isoir, Alain Louvier, Yvonne Mills, Francis Prod’homme, and Pascale Rouet for their assistance in preparing this article. Author of numerous articles for The Diapason, she is a French-American organist, musicologist, international concert organist and titular of the Aristide Cavaillé-Coll choir organ at La Trinité in Paris, France. She has premiered numerous contemporary works, collaborating with composers such as Jacques Castérède, Jacques Chailley, Jacques Charpentier and Daniel Pinkham. In April 2009, she recorded a CD in homage to Nadia Boulanger at La Madeleine in Paris. She is Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters.

Vital music-making is the heartbeat that animates André Isoir. Honorary organist at the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris, Chevalier of Arts and Letters and recipient of the National Order of Merit, André Isoir has received the highest distinctions as an international concert and recording artist, with a vast repertoire and more than sixty recordings to his name. An eminent professor, he has taught over 900 organists from all over the world. A Renaissance man, he is also a composer who has made many transcriptions. Fascinated by organ building, he has been a consultant for numerous organ restorations and has served as a corresponding member of both the French Historical Monuments Commission (1970–85) and the Commission of Unclassified Historical Monuments from (1980–84).

Initial inspiration
André Isoir was born on July 20, 1935 in Saint-Dizier (in Haute-Marne, near Reims). He played the bugle in the city band. At age fourteen, his life was transformed when he heard J. S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543, played on the organ in the chapel of his school. He immediately fell in love with this instrument. For the next two years, he studied on this organ with a Salesian priest and accompanied on the harmonium a church choir led by his father, an amateur musician. When Noëlie Pierront1 came to Saint-Dizier with the Philippe Debat Vocal Ensemble2 and performed a stunning rendition of Marcel Dupré’s Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, Isoir had the opportunity of playing Bach’s Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542, for her. Impressed by his immense talent, she encouraged him to come to Paris to study at the César Franck School.3

Musical training
In 1952, André Isoir enrolled at the César Franck School, then located on the rue Vavin, near Notre-Dame-des-Champs, in the Montparnasse district. After studying piano with Germaine Mounier, he then studied with two of Louis Vierne’s former students: Geneviève de La Salle and Édouard Souberbielle. First he entered de La Salle’s organ class.4 An excellent musician, she enabled him to acquire a firm technique and taught him to play with elegant phrasing, varied articulations, and refined registrations. She excelled in the art of registration so much so that Joseph Bonnet requested that she spend hours with him preparing for his concerts and recordings on the Gonzalez organ at Saint-Eustache. She gave her lessons on a Pleyel studio organ with electro-pneumatic action,5 teaching the works of Bach, Alain, Duruflé, Franck, Messiaen, and Vierne, leaving aside those by Widor and Gigout. In February 1956, when Geneviève de La Salle left to teach at the Gregorian Institute in Lisbon, Isoir succeeded her as organist and choirmaster at Saint-Médard in Paris.6
To acquire a solid musical formation, Isoir studied Gregorian chant as well as improvisation and harmony with René Malherbe,7 harmony with Yves Margat, counterpoint with Marcel Bitch, and continued piano with Germaine Mounier. This prepared him to enter Édouard Souberbielle’s8 organ class. This “true aristocrat of the organ” possessed a vast culture and an eminent spirituality that deeply influenced all of his students. He expanded each student’s personal perceptions by making them feel uncomfortable with their own opinions. This enabled them to acquire an elegant style.
In Souberbielle’s class, Isoir continued to play, notably, works by Bach and Franck, but more importantly, he began to play the early French composers. Influenced by his son Léon,9 Édouard Souberbielle served as consultant for the construction of a Roethinger organ in the French classic style (curiously enough with electric action) at the Benedictine Abbey in Limon (in the southern part of the Île-de-France). Voiced by Robert Boisseau, this organ included a Plein-jeu as described by Dom Bédos. It thus served as an inspiration to future constructions in this style by Philippe Hartmann and Pierre Chéron. In addition, Souberbielle’s refined and inspiring approach to improvisation, enrobed with Ravel-like harmonies, concentrated on the free treatment of a theme and, of course, the fugue.
In order to launch a career, it was necessary to obtain a First Prize in organ from the Paris Conservatory. While still enrolled at the César Franck School in September 1957, André Isoir entered Rolande Falcinelli’s10 organ class and Olivier Messiaen’s analysis class at the Paris Conservatory, where his fellow students included Xavier Darasse and Yves Devernay. He remained there for three years, taking lessons on a “really horrible organ”11 and received his Second Prize in organ on June 15, 1959. On June 22, 1960, he unanimously obtained, with the strong support of Maurice Duruflé, a First Prize in organ performance and improvisation. Fifteen days earlier, Isoir had received the ultimate degree that really mattered to him—the Superior Diploma in organ and improvisation at the César Franck School.
At the César Franck School, Isoir met many of his future friends and colleagues: Denise and Michel Chapuis, Jeanne Joulain, Éliane Lejeune-Bonnier, Elisabeth and Joachim Havard de la Montagne, Simone and Jean-Albert Villard, Émmanuel de Villèle, Paule Piedelièvre, and others, as well as his future wife, Annie Kergomard, whom he married in 1961.12 During his military service, from 1960 to 1962, he played brass instruments in a military band, along with Francis Chapelet, who became one of his closest friends.13

Beginning a musical career: skills as an improviser and a composer
Following his studies, Isoir’s international career was launched when he won various competitions: in Saint Albans (England), where he received the First Prize in 1965, and in Haarlem (Holland), where he won prizes for three consecutive years (1966–1967–1968). He also won the “Challenge Prize” and is the only Frenchman to have earned that distinction since the beginning of this competition in 1951. Isoir excelled in the ephemeral art of improvisation that enabled him to express his thoughts eloquently. For him, even a minimum amount of imagination, when it’s coupled with an assimilation of various styles and a sufficient preparation of an abundance of fresh ideas, can enable one to improvise well. He was fascinated with presenting, in a short span of time, a coherent form with appropriate registrations that bring out the style of the proposed theme. His vital musical personality, ready to receive and develop unexpected ideas (it is not surprising that he is an avid fisherman!) has been fully revealed through his improvisations.
Animated by a love of accompanying the liturgy, André Isoir used his improvisation skills to prepare the parishioners to pray and become spiritually receptive. From 1956 to 1971, he served as organist and choir master at Saint-Médard in Paris.14 He began his concert career by giving a recital in this church in October 1963, of classical works from the Flemish and German schools (Leonhard Kleber, Sweelinck, Wilhelm Karges, Scheidt, Lübeck, Pachelbel, Buxtehude and Bach). He played in such a manner that the romantic Stoltz instrument (1880) sounded like a German baroque organ!15 Throughout his career, he constantly presented lesser-known works in his programs.
In 1970, he was named as one of the four organists at Saint-Séverin, along with Michel Chapuis, Francis Chapelet, and Jacques Marichal, re-establishing the former Parisian tradition of having four organists. In 1963, Alfred Kern had successfully reconstructed the 1745 Claude Ferrand organ in a neo-classic aesthetic (under Michel Chapuis’ guidance, with Philippe Hartmann redoing the action). Isoir has many fond memories of the pre-Vatican II repertoire that he accompanied there. While at Saint-Séverin, he composed a Ravel-like Agnus Dei, with the text in French. (See musical example.) In 1973, after having served as a consultant for the reconstruction of Haerpfer-Ermann’s organ at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, he was appointed organist there, along with Odile Bayeux, following a long line of blind organists who had served there (notably Augustin Barié, André Marchal, and Antoine Reboulot).16
In February 1974, Les Amis de l’Orgue awarded him with a First Prize for his first organ composition, Variations sur le Psaume 92 [“Variations on a Huguenot Psalm”]. James David Christie was in the audience for this occasion. When he told André that he really loved his piece more than any other and wanted to play it regardless if it won the prize or not, Isoir gave him his personal copy of the score on the spot! When the work was published by Forberg Verlag in Germany in 1979, Christie noticed that one variation had not been published:

When I asked André about this several years later, he told me in his very humble and self-effacing manner that he felt the piece was too long with seven variations and six were enough. The work is an absolute masterpiece and the audiences love it; I have played it in concert often since 1975. I tried to commission André in 1989 for another major organ work, but he refused. He said he found composition too stressful and preferred improvising and performing the repertoire of others. I have often lamented the fact he did not devote more time to adding great repertoire to the organ. I always felt his glorious, exciting improvisations would have been the seeds of many a great composition.17
André Isoir has made numerous transcriptions, many of which have been published by Delatour France.

Interest in organ building and in early French music
Fascinated with mechanics in his youth, Isoir has always loved to tinker with and repair broken clocks. In the early 1960s, at an antique dealer’s near Saint-Séverin, he acquired an eighteenth-century barrel organ [a serinette] from Nancy, a cylindrical instrument that was used to teach domestic birds how to sing. He then constructed a copy of this instrument and installed ten pipes: C, D, E, F, G, A, B-flat, B-natural, C, and D. He reconstructed the cylinder with eight tunes, according to the indications specified by Engramelle, and incorporated an air by Couperin, La petite chasse. He has also built two regals and a virginal.
Francis Prod’homme, the organizer of concerts at Notre-Dame in Pontorson, near Mont Saint-Michel, has related an example of André Isoir’s generosity.18 During one evening meal, Isoir observed that Francis’s clock was not well-regulated and that it needed to be “tuned.” As on numerous other occasions, Isoir proclaimed “I will take care of that for you.” In several minutes, and with a delightful child-like smile that lit up André’s face, the clock was once again happily chiming in universal harmony.
Isoir’s close friend, the organ builder Jean-Georges Koenig,19 taught him how to construct wooden pipes. His friend, Father Michel Chausson (a priest who built organ pipes) taught him how to construct metal pipes. In addition, in 1965, Isoir constructed his first regal with Jean-François Clément and worked with Gérard Fonvielle, who built him a harpsichord. Isoir is not in favor of building exact copies of instruments; he prefers to play mechanical-action instruments that enable the performer to bring out the vocal polyphonic lines and to play a large part of the repertoire. His repair kit has accompanied him on his various concert tours, and he has admitted that on many occasions that he has spent more time repairing and tuning the various organs than rehearsing on them!
The composer Alain Louvier attests to André Isoir’s capacities as a “solitary navigator” [“navigateur solitaire”]:

André Isoir could have constructed a hydraulic organ, an aeolian, solar or geothermal . . . and could have taken it on a non-stop trip around the world on a trimaran sailing raft . . . he knew how to do everything, to repair anything. One would have thought that he was born in an organ case! A true genius in making repairs, with practically nothing he could fix a tremolo, a reed pipe, even its mechanism.
I imagine him—as an organist in the Iron Age—busy cutting down trees, carving wood, casting tin, hammering it, and, finally, creating his own organ, the fruit of his ear and his unbounded imagination.20
Isoir’s innate inventive spirit in improvisation and organ building led to his fascination with the interpretive possibilities of “recreating” early French organ works. Right from the start, Isoir realized that the organs he had played in the 1950s and 1960s in Paris, most of them in the neo-classical style, were not suitable for early French repertoire. This had not stopped interpreters such as Abel Decaux, Joseph Bonnet, and André Marchal from playing this repertoire. With restorations of magnificent organs like Jean-Esprit Isnard’s 1772 basilica organ in Saint-Maximin-en-Provence (restored by Pierre Chéron in 1954) and François-Henri Clicquot’s 1790 organ at Saint-Pierre Cathedral in Poitiers (restored by Robert and Jean-Loup Boisseau in 1971–1972), organists began to discover the splendid sound of these organs as well as a lively, variable wind and a suspended mechanical action, which allowed one to vary the attack.
Obtaining a varied, responsive action is extremely important to André Isoir. The French classical organ, with its sensitive action and lively wind, needs only a minimum amount of material to offer a maximum sound effect. For example, in Poitiers, with a wind pressure of 110 mm., four or five stops suffice to fill the cathedral. Following Alfred Kern’s reconstruction of the Saint-Séverin organ in 1968, René Delosmes, Pierre Hardouin, Jean Fellot, Alain Lequeux, Michel Chapuis, Francis Chapelet, and André Isoir, presided over by Jean Fonteneau, united to protect early French historic organs: they founded the French Association for the Preservation of Early Organs (A.F.S.O.A.—Association française pour le sauvegarde de l’orgue ancien).21
By consulting early sources, Isoir discovered that the early French repertoire can be moving and expressive. Once he had studied the various treatises and documents, notably with the musicologist Jean Saint-Arroman, he realized on the one hand that the knowledge of these texts did not suffice to bring this music to life; on the other hand, he was also aware that spontaneity and freshness never come by chance. To attain the elegance, distinction and well-proportioned expressions that are so characteristic of French art, one must study the various imperative rules and then put them aside, along with any automatic mechanical responses. Instead, one must use one’s intuition to find a harmonious balance, continually determined by good taste, the ultimate guide. As with wine tasting, it is so much more important to “taste” its fragrance than to recite texts about it. Isoir was especially guided by the writings of Eugène Borrel, who wrote that eighteenth-century art was “elegant, distinguished, warm without excessiveness.”22 Simplicity is a sign of real intelligence. Isoir particularly loves playing early French music because it gives the interpreter a great deal of freedom in bringing this music to life.

Organ professor
For André Isoir, teaching is a sacred mission, enabling one to give priceless treasures to others, helping them to feel completely at ease while playing. He taught organ and harmony at the Angers Conservatory (1966–79);23 at the conservatoires in Versailles and Orsay (1974–83);24 and from 1982 to 1996 at the Boulogne-Billancourt Conservatory as well as at various summer academies: Lagny (1982, 1985, 1986), Meaux (1983), Mitry-Mory (1984), Luxembourg (1989) and Nemours (1993). Among his 900 students are Jörg Abbing, Michel Bouvard, Jean Boyer, Monika Dabrowska-Beuzelin, Frédéric Denis, Frédéric Desenclos, François Espinasse, Pierre Farago, Yves Fossaert, Dominique Fournier, Jean-Louis Gil, Juliette Grellety-Bosviel, Emmanuelle Haïm, Makiko Hayashima, Léonid Karev, Joachim Kunze, Sven-Ingvart Mikkelsen, George Ritchie, Henri de Rohan, Pascale Rouet, Christophe Simon, Liuwe Tamminga, Timothy Tikker, Jean-Michel Verneiges, Francis Vidil and Haru Yamagami, to name but a few. Convinced that knowledge about organ building is indispensable to improving one’s interpretation, notably in the art of registration and touch, he also taught his students the rudiments of organ construction and maintenance. According to organist and composer Pierre Farago, his successor as organ professor at the Boulogne-Billancourt Conservatory,
When André Isoir taught and played, the instrument was transformed under his fingers, and relinquishing its mechanical aspects, became purely organic—if I dare say—like a living being gifted with flowing expressiveness. His teaching is subtle and complex, insisting on utmost rigor, with utmost patience, without ever expressing it in the form of a dogmatic principle. The scores we studied were never cenotaphs, empty monuments or museum graphics, but rather sleeping beauties which ought to be brought back to life.25
In the early 1980s, the composer Alain Louvier, Director of the Conservatory in Boulogne-Billancourt, met André Isoir during the construction of the Koenig organ in the concert hall there. In spite of the fact that the city did not really want to invest in what the “very cultivated and refined” mayor Georges Gorse referred to as an “accordion for the wealthy,” Louvier appreciated Isoir’s “sense of humor, in addition to his wide-ranging competence, which both worked wonders.” Louvier had included stops in this organ with the seventh and eleventh harmonics that produced quarter tones. He was astonished by Isoir’s use of these stops:

By combining these experimental stops with the voix humaine, he was able to produce a sort of strange Bombarde 16 on the pedal that the city could not afford . . . thanks to his extraordinary acoustical intuition, one could play a Bach chorale with quarter tones, that were not noticed as such.26
In his teaching, André Isoir constantly emphasized the importance of acquiring a more fluid technique, of becoming sufficiently inventive in bringing music to life. At my first lesson at the Boulogne-Billancourt Conservatory in 1983,27 we spent two hours looking at possible interpretations of the first movement (a Plein-Jeu) of Jean-Adam Guilain’s First Suite. I felt as if André were an optician who kept inserting different lenses to ask me if I could read the letters. It was necessary to understand the structure and the vital expression of this work from the inside out, to let the notes speak naturally. A deep harmonic and melodic analysis of each work, coupled with a fantastic imagination, enables one to perform this music spontaneously.
In the eyes and ears of a great artist, no detail is too small to be taken into consideration. An authentic artist with a vital personality abandons all preconceived static conceptions with prefabricated formulas and continually externalizes his capacity to listen to his playing, thus enabling him to understand more fully and to communicate an inner musical message. Each artist is a medium who communicates the deep spiritual message of the music. When I wrote to Frank Taylor in 1983, to share my experiences with him, he replied:

I’m happy you are studying with André—I think he’s perhaps the greatest eclectic (all round good) organist in the world. And I would rather hear him play anything, than anyone else I can think of. Give him my very most affectionate best wishes when next you see him.28
Recognized as an excellent teacher, in 1991 André Isoir co-authored, with Dominique Ferran and François-Henri Houbart, a practical catalog of the organ repertoire, in order of difficulty for the first ten years of organ lessons. It presents exercises and methods, early music until the seventeenth century, separate chapters on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the traditional notation and new notation in the twentieth century, concertos and unclassifiable pieces.29

International concert and recording artist with an eclectic repertoire
André Isoir first gave concerts in North America in the 1960s, thanks to his friend Jean Fonteneau, an assistant organist at Saint-Séverin. In 1971, Isoir performed in Oberlin (Ohio), Quebec, Montreal, at Harvard University, and in New York. At that time, Fisk was building his famous organ for the Old West Church in Boston. Isoir provided him with numerous details concerning the construction of the French-style reed stops incorporated into this instrument, thus contributing to the movement in favor of restoring instruments to play early French music in the United States. In 1974, he performed in Toronto and in Buffalo, where he met with the early French music specialist David Fuller. In 1975, he played concerts in Toronto and Montreal. In 1976, he returned to Harvard and gave recitals in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
In November 1989, James David Christie invited André Isoir to come to the United States for a mini-tour in Boston. He testifies to Isoir’s memorable performances in Wellesley and Worcester:

He played a fantastic concert at Wellesley College on the meantone Fisk organ, complete with short octave, sub-semitones, a three-octave keyboard range, etc. He ended his program with a super-charged, exciting performance of his transcription of Bela Bartók’s Roumanian Folk Dances (originally for piano solo).
He played at Holy Cross, Worcester, and ended the program with an incredible improvisation on “B-A-C-H.” I think there is an archival recording of the Holy Cross concert; it was just stunning and André was in his usual top form, having the time of his life.30
During this last tour to the United States, Isoir also gave masterclasses on the Charles Fisk organ at the Old West Church for the AGO national convention. On this occasion, Isoir has quite fond memories of the moments he spent with Frank Taylor, Barbara Owen, and Charles Fisk.
Isoir has inaugurated at least eighty organs. I was privileged to attend the memorable inauguration of the Gonzalez organ at Meaux Cathedral on June 8, 1982. That year, he also inaugurated the Grenzing organ at Saint-Cyprien (in the Périgord, where he also served as a consultant) and the Marc Garnier organ at the church in Esquelbecq. On November 3, 1990, he was especially pleased to inaugurate the restored Aristide Cavaillé-Coll organ in Saint-Dizier, his hometown. In addition, he often plays with other musicians. In 1973, he toured with Georges Brassens in Paris and the Île-de-France, playing twenty-one concerts on a positive organ built by Jean-Loup Boisseau.
Isoir has given numerous concerts outside of France, performing in Freiberg on September 18, 1983. In 1988, he was absolutely delighted to perform for the first time on the magnificent organ in Weingarten, in Sion in 1989, in Lübeck and Hamburg in 1990. He has also performed on numerous occasions in Japan: in 1978, 1987, 1990 and 1993. In 2006, he toured Russia, performing in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
In addition, he performs regularly on the four-stop, one-manual organ that the builder Philippe Vialle built for him. Isoir had added a tremolo and a “cymbale” made up of fifteen pipes that he “invented,” only to discover since then that it is present in several diverse and unknown pieces. He rarely ever plays the same piece on the same organ.
The variety of styles in his eclectic repertoire is revealed by the pieces that four composers have dedicated to him. In June 1973, Jean Langlais acknowledge his “classical side,” appropriately dedicated to him his Plein-Jeu, the first movement of his Suite baroque, op. 176.31 In 1983, Alain Louvier’s Etudes for Aggressors, Book Six for Organ (Études pour Agresseurs, livre 6 pour orgue), published by Alphonse Leduc in 1987, were written for the mechanical-action three-manual Koenig organ in the concert hall at the Boulogne-Billancourt Conservatory. He dedicated these pieces to Isoir, who premiered them.32 They use the same techniques as in his previous five books for piano and harpsichord (ten fingers, two palms, two forearms, without fists), but with the addition of two feet! The two last pieces are appropriate tributes to André Isoir, who also plays the trombone and the French horn: Lionel Rogg’s Finale (written in the spring of 1994) was inspired by the sumptuous sonorities of the American big band;33 Pierre Vidal’s piece, entitled Cromorne, was written in 1996.36
In 1971, Jacques Le Calvé, the director of Calliope, was so impressed by Isoir’s performance of this repertoire that he asked him to make his first record at the Church of Saint-Jacques in Compiègne (L’Orgue français au Grand Siècle, works by André Raison, Jacques Boyvin and Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers).
Among his favorite historic French organs, Isoir has recorded numerous times on the J. Boizard (1714) historic organ of the Abbey of Saint-Michel-en-Thiérache: in 1987, The Couperin Dynasty, François “the Great,” Armand-Louis, Gervais-François Couperin (ADDA 581063); in 1993, Nicolas de Grigny, Complete Organ Works (Erato S.A./Radio France, MUSIFRANCE 4509-91722-2); and in 1997, Jean-Adam Guilain, Four Suites for the Magnificat (1706) with the Demoiselles of Saint-Cyr, directed by Emmanuel Mandrin (France Musique, Tempéraments, TEM 316012, Distribution Harmonia Mundi).
André Isoir has always felt comfortable playing a vast repertoire (although never ever Reger!). Among his recordings of romantic works, two were made on the Cavaillé-Coll organ at Luçon Cathedral: César Franck’s Complete Organ Works (Calliope, CAL 9920/1, 1987, recorded in 1975) and The Romantic Organ, works by Boëly, Lefébure-Wély, Guilmant, Pierné, Widor, and Ropartz on the Cavaillé-Coll in Luçon and on the Isnard/Cavaillé-Coll/Boisseau organ in Pithiviers (Calliope, CAL 5922). In 1996, he recorded The Organ in Compiègne during the Second Empire on the Carlier/Plet organ at Saint-Antoine in Compiègne (Calliope, CAL 9934).
Isoir loves performing on successful neo-classical organs, such as the Pascal Quoirin in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence and the Haerpfer-Ermann at Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris. Among the recordings that bear witness to this, he recorded François Couperin’s Messe des Paroisses and French Noëls on the Saint-Séverin organ (Calliope, Le Livre d’Or de l’Orgue français).
Rodin’s most penetrating thoughts concerning French taste that have been perpetuated from the eighteenth century to the twentieth century sum up André Isoir’s approach to an eclectic repertoire:

The additions of previous centuries in our cathedrals, in different styles—chapels, stained-glass windows, decoration—do not destroy the harmony of them, because throughout the various periods these embellishments have been determined by the same French taste.35
In the same spirit, it is not surprising that in November 2000, Isoir recorded repertoire from the fourteenth century to the end of the nineteenth in celebration of the 500th anniversary, in 2001, of the Renaissance organ in Lorris, one of the oldest organs in Europe.36 This is in spite of the fact that this organ only has a 48-note keyboard with a 14-note coupled pedalboard and is tuned at A=405/408! Father Michel Chausson, who initiated the restoration of this historic instrument, admires André Isoir: he is among “all those who have provided great poetical inspiration to twentieth century organ interpretation.”37 Our world needs such a spirit more than ever.
From 1976 to 1993, Isoir crowned his career with an ultimate homage to his great teacher Édouard Souberbielle, by recording J. S. Bach’s complete organ works on six different organs by German builders (fifteen CDs produced by Calliope, 9703-17). His greatest joy was recording Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue on Josef Gabler’s monumental stunning organ (1737–1750) at Weingarten Abbey, a legendary instrument conceived around the number 6: the number of the beast of the Apocalypse, six windows, six tonal plans, 6,666 pipes.
Grenzing’s Saint-Cyprien organ is among Isoir’s favorites, where he rerecorded, in 1993, Bach’s four Toccatas and Fugues along with the Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor. In 1988 and 1989, André Isoir played in European television broadcasts, notably on the France 3 channel, in programs written and hosted by Gilles Cantagrel and in Alain Duault’s “Musicales.”
In all his interpretations, Isoir’s deeply human approach gives a spiritual dimension to his artistic offerings. His interpretations are well conceived and prepared, yet spontaneous. His wife Annie observed that it was very rare to hear him play a piece in its entirety during his practice sessions. He usually works fragment by fragment, even measure by measure. More than searching for perfection, he aims at playing as naturally as possible. His eyes, ears and mind are constantly receptive to discovering new elements of a musical score. Adapting to each particular circumstance, his elegant playing moves his audiences. As Yves Saint-Laurent said, “without elegance that comes from the heart, there is no elegance.”
Thank you, André, for sharing your immense joy in making beautiful music and for so generously enlightening your audiences and students throughout the world.

All of the citations in French were translated by the author.
All photos are from the Collection A. Isoir, and are published with his kind permission.

Lorenz Maycher

Note: All letters, photos, articles, and other memorabilia used here are from the personal library of Dr. Alexander Boggs Ryan, housed at Trinity Episcopal Church, Longview, Texas, and Kilgore College, Kilgore, Texas. The letters were first publicly presented at the Gregg County Historical Society, Longview, Texas, by David Ford during the 2012 East Texas Pipe Organ Festival. All spelling and punctuation has been retained as found in the original letters.

 

Introduction

Marcel Dupré and Alexander Boggs Ryan—By one who knew them both

Marcel Dupré (1886–1971) had many American pupils, notable among whom were Emory Gallup, Carl Weinrich, Clarence Watters, and Dora Poteet. Although the foregoing were better suited to his approach than some others, there is no doubt that Clarence Watters and Dora Poteet were shining examples of his tradition and that they in turn passed this legacy on to their pupils in a way that insured reverence and respect.

Alexander Boggs Ryan (1928–1979) possessed an enviable and, in some ways, unique musical pedigree. Quite apart from his excellent piano background and well before he came to Dupré, he had received the Great Tradition (the Parisian organ school’s “apostolic succession”: Bach to Kittel to Rinck to Hesse to Lemmens to Guilmant & Widor and their pupils) from Dora Poteet Barclay. Helen Hewitt, one of Lynnwood Farnam’s pupils at the Curtis Institute, would become another early influence. (Although Farnam lacked a direct connection to the Parisian organ tradition, he was on intimate terms with many of its great lights. Farnam was in and out of many famous organ lofts and established bonds with Albert Dupré, Henri Mulet, and Charles Tournemire among others. He and the Duprés often met at Claude Johnson’s country house. As is well known, Vierne’s Sixth Symphony is dedicated to him.)

When Boggs arrived in Paris in 1952, Marcel Dupré was in the final years of his professorship at the Conservatoire. In previous decades his organ class included a glittering roll-call of greats, from Olivier Messiaen to Jeanne Demessieux, to name only two. In the immediate post-war period alone there had been, among the women, Françoise Renet, Marie-Madeleine Chevalier, and the fabulous Suzanne Chaisemartin; among the men, Pierre Labric, Jean Costa, and the unforgettable Pierre Cochereau. Beginning in 1954, Dupré would place the organ class in the hands of his faithful Rolande Falcinelli and assume the title of director of that august institution.

Much nonsense has been written and muttered-about concerning the so-called Olympian aloofness of Marcel Dupré but the facts, as well as the testimonies of his pupils, tell a very different story. It is true that the moment he began playing, one felt strongly the presence of an artistic giant—a god of music. In that respect his playing was quite unlike any other of my acquaintance. Privately, he was the most affectionate and loving master that one could possibly imagine, full of fatherly care for every aspect of one’s life and thought. High standards and unremitting work were necessary but he inspired and guided with a unique, genial humor and sweetness.

Boggs, I believe, was an almost ideal subject for study with Dupré. With his superb pianism (very important to the master) and his familiarity with the Parisian organ school, he was able to imbibe the maximum benefit from study in Meudon. Boggs’ fine Southern manners would have been appreciated by the Dupré family. In addition, he brought Dupré repertoire that would not have been part of the usual conservatory organ class drill (i.e., the Reubke Sonata). The notoriously miserable organ in the Salle d’Orgue had recently been replaced by a new, electric-action instrument. Dupré was able to provide this venue for Boggs’ début in 1953.

As a fitting coda to his years of study, Boggs earned his DMA at Ann Arbor in 1963. He studied with Helen Hewitt’s classmate, Robert Noehren, another member of Farnam’s celebrated Curtis organ class.* Marilyn Mason was also an influence, with her connection to Palmer Christian, a sometime pupil of both Straube and Guilmant.

Alexander Boggs Ryan had an acute sense that this great cloud of witnesses had contributed in many and various ways to his musical footprint. In my opinion, his best years as a player were, roughly speaking, a ten-year period from 1954 to 1964. Everything that he played seemed to contain a leading soprano line and cantabile legato, including Reger, a composer that benefited greatly from his relaxed, lyric approach. 

—Karl Watson

Staten Island, New York 

 

*In the years before his early death, Lynnwood Farnam taught the first organ class at the then newly founded Curtis Institute of Music. The members of the class were Lawrence Apgar, Robert Cato, Helen Hewitt, Alexander McCurdy, Robert Noehren, and Carl Weinrich. 

 

Letters

CONSERVATOIRE NATIONAL
DE MUSIQUE

PARIS, le 22 February 1955

14, RUE DE MADRID, 8E

LABORDE 20-80

LE DIRECTEUR

I have pleasure to state that Mr. Alexander Boggs Ryan who has studied organ with me during a year has proved a most interesting and satisfactory student. Through steady and intelligent work he has made continued progress. He has a fine brilliant technique and undeniable musical gifts.

He has been through an exhaustive repertory of classical and modern works with me and given a fine organ recital which has won him applause in the organ hall of the National Conservatory of music in Paris. Serious and earnest in his work, of perfect good-breeding, I am confident he will fulfil with distinction any post he may be entrusted with.

(signed) Marcel Dupré

 

§

 

40 BOULEVARD ANATOLE-FRANCE

MEUDON (S. &-O.)

November 12th 1961

My dear friend,

I returned from concerts in Germany last night and found your good letter for which many thanks. I was glad to hear your news about your work and activities.

I am sending you the photos dedicated. When I have a little time, I will look up whether I have the signature of Philipp and Widor, but I am leaving to-night for a concert tour in England and have still much work on hand.

The concert for Liszt’s commemoration was not a recital, but a concert with orchestra at Palais de Chaillot. Two transcriptions of mine for organ and orchestra were performed, with myself at the organ and the Pasdeloup orchestra: Fantasy on “ad nos” and the transcription of the piano work “St. Francois de Paule marchant sur les flots.” Both had a great success.

Yes, the long-playing record of Dora Poteet was sent to me. Her death has been a great sorrow for us. She was such a remarkable artist and a fine woman.

I also have the photo taken at St. Sulpice with Widor, Philipp and myself, but thank you all the same for your
kind thought.

I certainly was most happy about the wonderful reception I had in Detroit and it was so good to see again so many old students such as yourself and so many friends who had come from quite a distance.

With affectionate thoughts from Madame Dupré and myself and best wishes for continued success,

Yours ever,

(signed) Marcel Dupré

 

§

 

40 BOULEVARD ANATOLE-FRANCE

MEUDON (S. &-O.)

OBS. 14-45

March 27, 1962

My dear friend,

Many thanks for your letter. It was kind of you to write about the article on Alexandre Guilmant.

Thanks for the interesting programs you sent me and for the French program for your third recital.

I congratulate you on your recent fine appointment at Western Michigan University and am very happy to see that your hard work and talent are being acknowledged. I shall always be interested in the progress of your musical career.

The centenary of the organ of Saint-Sulpice will be commemorated on May 3rd. It was dedicated on April 29, 1862 by César Franck, Guilmant and Saint-Saens. So, I shall play some of their music, also my Passion-Symphony etc. The organ is always magnificent.

With warmest regards,

Sincerely,

(signed) Marcel Dupré

 

§

 

40 BOULEVARD ANATOLE-FRANCE

MEUDON (S. &-O.)

OBS. 14-45

April 25, 1962

My dear friend,

Many thanks for your kind letter, for the interesting programs you gave in New-York and for the photo at the organ in Detroit. I am returning the other two which I have inscribed according to your wish.

With every good wish,

Cordially,

(signed) Marcel Dupré

 

P. S. In 1956, I recorded several works for the Westminster Co. on the St. Sulpice organ, among which my “Stations of the Cross.” I know the Company has had financial difficulties, and I have, of course, never got any royalties, but this is not what I am concerned about. I have written to them to inquire whether my “Stations of the Cross” were available, but they never replied. The recording of that big work means a lot to me and I should be more than sorry if my work came to nothing.

Do you know anything about it or could you kindly make some inquiries? Many thanks in advance.

 

§

 

40 BOULEVARD ANATOLE-FRANCE

MEUDON (S. &-O.)

OBS. 14-45

May 10th 1962

My dear friend,

Many thanks for your letters and for the information about the Westminster Co. and their successor. I am writing to them.

How kind of you to have got my “Stations of the Cross” as a gift to me. I shall let you know when the record comes. I have the two other records.

I am sending you the program of the St. Sulpice organ centenary. The concert was a tremendous success. Thousands packed the church and the organ sounded more gloriously than ever.

Concerning the rebuild of Notre-Dame, the rebuild is not completed yet. The new console has been connected with the organ, but the combinations are not ready yet, nor the new stops. So, at the present moment, but for the new console, the organ is as it was.

As for Saint-Sulpice, I keep my own beautiful console and organ as they are, as they were when I started playing there as Widor’s assistant over fifty years ago.

I am sorry not to be able to send you a program of the bi-centennial of Liszt, but I have none left.

With kindest regards and best wishes,

Yours cordially,

(signed) Marcel Dupré

 

§

 

40 BOULEVARD ANATOLE-FRANCE

MEUDON (S. &-O.)

OBS. 14-45

October 14, 1962

My dear friend,

I am just back from Holland, where I gave four recitals during the week and find your letter, for which I thank you. I am delighted to hear you are doing so well both in your teaching and concerts. Thanks for the interesting clippings you sent.

I am glad to hear you will play at Rockefeller Chapel, Chicago during Lent. Such a magnificent organ! I shall think of you playing my “Stations.”

As regards the Variations of the Symphonie Gothique, it was Widor’s wish that one of them, the Canon in trio form, should be omitted. He considered it as too scholastic, so I always complied with his wish.

When I write to Marriott, I will certainly put in a good word about you.

You inquire about my activities? The next will be the performance of my Oratorio, “La France au Calvaire,” for choir, soloists, organ and orchestra, at Palais de Chaillot on November 4th at the Pasdeloup concerts.

Then I am leaving for Switzerland on November 10th. I have another busy year ahead. A new organ work of mine will be released this month.

We both keep in the best of health.

With every good wish,

Cordially,

(signed) Marcel Dupré

 

§

 

Tuesday, 12 February 1963

Dear M. Dupré:

This is my first communication to you in 1963, and I trust that this finds you and Mme. Dupré feeling well and busily engaged in activities that you both love so much.

We have had a terrible winter so far: much more snow than in former record years. I’m not used to it, of course, originating from Texas, but am confronted with the facts at hand.

I hope to finish my Doctorate at the University of Michigan by June. I’m working on my third and final recital, which will be all French. It includes some of your “Stations” as well as your “Noel Variations.” In addition, I’m preparing a document on all three recitals, which will contain program notes and an analysis of some 30 works.

Is M. Legouix (the second-hand music dealer) still alive? The reason I ask is that, when I studied with you ten years ago, I bought a considerable amount of music from him in rare editions—mostly German publications that had long been out of print. At that time I studied the Reubke “Sonata” with you, which I performed at the Conservatoire. I tried to locate an “original” of that work, originally published by J. Schuberth & Co., Leipzig. This organ-work was not among Legouix’s holdings at the time, although he promised to get me a copy. I have never heard from him since.

Now, the point is this: I would like, if possible, to get these compositions from Legouix. They are all works by Julius Reubke, and would be helpful in the preparation of my document. They include piano works, also. They are the following, and I’d appreciate your giving M. Legouix a call on the phone in order that he might make some inquiries for me. For this favor, I’d be
most appreciative:

Titles, as they appear in German:

Organ: 1) Sonate in c moll. Der 94ste Psalm. J. Schuberth

Piano: 2) Sonate in c moll. Der 94ste Psalm. Edition Cotta

(transcribed for piano by August Stradal, Stuttgart, 1926)

Piano: 3) Sonate in B moll. J. Schuberth

Piano: 4) Scherzo (not certain of publisher, probably J. Schuberth)

The above enumeration indicates one copy of each, as to get will take some work on the part of M. Legouix.

Cher maître, I realize that you are a busy man. If you do not have time to attend to this for me, just send me the address of M. Legouix. I don’t have it, or would write to him direct.

Am off for recitals in Chicago, Wichita (Kansas), Columbus (Ohio), and New York City during March and April. Wish me luck.

Sincerely,

(signed) Alexander Boggs Ryan

 

P. S. I forgot to tell you. My information states that Stradal also made an organ edition of the Reubke “Sonata,” in which he made some corrections (notes) indicated by Liszt. This was also Edition Cotta, and I’m interested in this, too. So tell Legouix about it. Thanks.

 

§

 

40 BOULEVARD ANATOLE-FRANCE

MEUDON (S. &-O.)

OBS. 14-45

March 18th, 1963

My dear friend,

I apologize for this belated answer to your letter, but we have been away a good deal.

We found Legouix address, which is:

4 Rue CHAUVEAU-LAGARDE

8e

Madame Dupré called at the shop this afternoon and was received by Madame Legouix from whom she heard that her husband died seven years ago accidentally. But she is carrying on his work with some help. She could not tell me whether she had the works you ask for, but is going to make some research and let me know. She took my phone number and has your list of works in hand.

So, as soon as I have some news, I will let you know.

Cordially yours,

(signed) Marcel Dupré

 

§

 

40 BOULEVARD ANATOLE-FRANCE

MEUDON (S. &-O.)

OBS. 14-45

October 2, 1963

My dear friend,

As soon as your letter of August 7 arrived I wrote to Madame Legouix saying you had never heard from her and asking whether she had been able to find any of the rare editions you wanted.

Her reply to my letter came yesterday only. (She may have been away during the summer vacation.) A very short reply it was as you may see, at the back of the first letter you wrote in February. (“With my apologies for not finding this.” L. Legouix) I am sorry it will prove disappointing for you.

Our most sincere congratulations on your Doctor’s degree from the University of Michigan.

We were shocked to hear about Parvin Titus’ terrible accident but were somewhat relieved when we were told recently by Mr. Cunkle, the editor of “The Diapason,” that he was getting better. But his poor wife!

With affectionate regards from both,

(signed) J. Dupré

 

§

 

December 3, 1963

M. and Mme. Marcel Dupré

40, Boulevard Anatole France

Meudon, S.- et - O.

France

My dear friends :

It is with a sense of extreme regret that I have just read of the passing of your daughter, Marguerite, on October 26, 1963. I had no idea that she had been desperately ill, and there was no indication of this in Mme. Dupré’s letter of early October.

Herefore, please accept my sincerest sympathies in this your hour of extreme sorrow. Please convey to Marguerite’s husband and her children my heartfelt shock upon receiving this news.

I am looking forward to seeing you next summer, as I contemplate my first trip to Europe in ten years.

Very sincerely,

Dr. Alexander Boggs Ryan

Chairman of the Organ Dept.

Assistant Professor of Music

Western Michigan University

ABR/leh

 

P. S. In as much as Marguerite and the late Dora Poteet Barclay were close friends some twenty-five years ago, I shall inform Dora’s husband of this tragedy; for surely he will want to write to you.

 

§

 

40 BOULEVARD ANATOLE-FRANCE

MEUDON (S. &-O.)

OBS. 14-45

January 6, 1964

Dear friend,

Many thanks for your letter of sympathy in our great sorrow. We are heart-broken, for our beloved Marguerite always filled our lives with happiness. Life will never be the same again for us. But we have to go on for the dear children she has left us.

Mr. Dupré is very courageous, though, and has resumed all his duties. Music helps us and I am always looking forward to St. Sulpice on Sundays.

We are going next week to Frankfurt, where a group of organists is to give a concert of M. Dupré’s works, and the day before, he will be giving a recital of French music.

We have read the programs you sent us with great interest, always touched about your devotion to your master’s music.

Affectionately Yours,

J. Dupré

 

§

 

Mr. & Mme. Marcel Dupré

40, BOULEVARD ANATOLE 

FRANCE

MEUDON (S. &-O.)

Telephone 14-45

Observatoire

Undated handwritten notecard

Dear friend,

Many thanks for your nice card and for the interesting press notices. We are happy to know your concerts are so successful. We both keep well and Mr. Dupré is as busy as ever with concert playing, composition and teaching. He has made some new recordings for Philips recently—a disc of Bach Chorales.

 

§

 

40 BOULEVARD ANATOLE-FRANCE

92 – MEUDON

027-14-45

Friday 23 July 1971

My dear friend,

Your letter reached me this morning and I was profoundly moved by all you wrote from your heart. Yes, I have received letters and telegrams by hundreds from all over the world and am far from having answered them all. But yours, which came apart, gets this returned answer.

The sudden passing away of my beloved husband was a terrible shock. On Whit-Sunday, May 30th, he was playing his two masses at St. Sulpice, ending at 12 o’clock with an improvisation on the Easter Alleluia which a friend had requested, and a few hours later, at the end of the afternoon, all was over. After St. Sulpice, we had driven back home, had a quiet lunch together, then he read his Sunday paper and said suddenly: “I feel a little cold; I am going to lie down on my bed.” Shortly after, he lost consciousness and passed without any pain. When the Doctors arrived, there was nothing to be done; rupture of abdominal aneurism.

I am heart-broken. After our many years spent together in such close union, the loss of that wonderful companion, so great, but so simple, so kind, so loving is so hard to bear. 

But I thank God for his peaceful end, a blessing for him, this end he deserved after his great life of devotion to his art, to his students, to his friends, and his humanity. Everybody loved him. 

I try to get some strength from so many happy memories of our life, particularly from the very last ones. On April 22, he played for the last time in London, at the Albert Hall for the celebration of the centenary of the Hall in which he had given his first concert abroad in a concert hall fifty years before, in December 1920. He had such an ovation from the impressive crowd: 7000 people. We were both deeply moved. I am sorry I have no programs of the Albert Hall.

Then for his 85th birthday, there was a most moving evening at St. Sulpice: his oratorio “De Profundis” was sung during the first hour, then a big group of his former pupils at the Conservatoire where he had taught for 28 years, gathered around him in the centre of the church; Messiaen, Langlais, Cochereau, Mme. Durufle, etc., etc., read beautiful tributes before him.

A week later, on May 13th, Rolande Falcinelli who succeeded him as the head of the organ class when he was appointed Director of the Conservatoire gave a recital with his 2nd Symphony and he concluded the recital by a great improvisation.

The funeral took place at St. Sulpice on June 3rd, in the packed church. The service was so beautiful, with the Requiem Gregorian Mass which I had requested.

He was buried in our little cemetery in Meudon, a few minutes from our home, with our darling Marguerite. We both used to go to her grave every day. Now I go alone until I join them.

Marguerite was our only child. The girl you saw at the concert last year was a cousin from Rouen.

Now, I am trying to be courageous for my three grandchildren, all three students and who still need me. They are sweet kids and their grandfather loved them so.

With many thanks for your sympathy,

Sadly Yours,

J. Marcel-Dupré

 

P. S. I don’t get The Diapason and would be so grateful if you would send me a clipping of the article.

 

§

 

French Institute

(Institut de France)

Academy of Arts

(Académie des Beaux-Arts)

Funeral of Marcel Dupré,

Member of the Musical Composition division,

held in St. Sulpice Church

Paris, 3rd June 1971.

 

ORATIONS

By

M. Jacques Carlu,

President of the Académie des Beaux-Arts

And

M. Emmanuel Bondeville,

Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Beaux-Arts

 

Paris,

MCMLXXI

Institute publication

Printers to the Institute:

1971 No. 13

Firmin-Didot & Co.

Rue Jacob 56.

 

ORATION

by

M. Jacques Carlu

President of the Académie des Beaux-Arts

Madame,

My dear colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is with deep emotion that I come here today, bringing in the name of the whole Académie des Beaux-Arts, a last farewell to our illustrious colleague and friend Marcel Dupré, who has been taken away so suddenly from the affectionate companionship of his family and his countless disciples and admirers.

On this sad day, it is not only the French Institute and our society which shares your mourning, Madame, but also the whole world of music or as one can truly put it, all the musicians in the world, for, in the unanimous opinion of his peers, Marcel Dupré must be classed in the first rank among musicians, composers and organists of all time.

Member of the music division of the Académie des Beaux-Arts 15 years, he was one of the most remarkable figures in its long history.

Without any doubt Dupré was a great artist, as his whole life and career bear witness, and his immense musical output will presently be described for us by his lifelong friend and companion, and fellow native of Rouen, our permanent secretary, the musician Emmanuel Bondeville, with all his wide knowledge and the brotherly affection he felt for the musician who has passed away.

But one didn’t have to be a musician to admire Marcel Dupré, for although not everyone is gifted with a good ear, you only needed to have a heart in order to love the man.

For among all those who in many countries have drawn near to Marcel Dupré, is there a single one who could forget the man, the friend, or the master? He was so innately good and infinitely gracious, always ready to share the fruits of his experience and his immense talent.

Whatever the circumstances he could never be selfish or insensible—his natural and unvarying kindliness would not allow it. So the great artist Marcel Dupré was surrounded by much admiration and loving respect among all the circles he frequented.

Rarely can France have possessed a better ambassador for the art and culture of our country, hence the warmth of the welcome which greeted him on his numerous tours abroad, especially in the United States.

Happily he is not dead altogether since a large part of himself will never pass away. Then Death, where is thy victory? For he will pass through this supreme test and emerge still greater; and the glorious reputation which he leaves us is as the sun shining from the world beyond the grave.

Thinking of the life of the soul in the kingdom of shade which is now his, where is the new Paul Valery who can describe for us in the style of “Eupalinos” the fascinating discussions which Marcel Dupré will be able to have with his well-loved J. S. Bach, and with all the giants of music whom he will meet in the Elysian Fields.

For us, it remains to measure the enormous void created by the disappearance of our dear and illustrious colleague. One can succeed to the post of a Marcel Dupré, but one can never replace him.

In this day of sadness, Madame, may I express to you and your children the deep and sorrowing sympathy felt by the members of the Academy of Arts, all of whom share your grief. But as the great Christian orator Massillon, who belonged to the Academy more than two centuries ago and whose statue stands before us in this Square of Saint-Sulpice, said in one of his famous sermons: “the feelings which a sudden death arouse in our hearts are feelings of a day of grief, as though death itself was a matter of a single day.”

Dear Marcel Dupré, our friend and colleague, you rest assured that our grief will be unending.

 

ORATION

pronounced by

M. Emmanuel BONDEVILLE

Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Beaux-Arts

Madame,

My dear Colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

How can one call to mind the great figure of Marcel Dupré without recapitulating the main stages of the career which marked his astonishing and ineluctable ascendance?

He had this great privilege of the strong, of following with sureness the ordained path, climbing it with firm undeviating steps, and reaching the higher summits by an unbroken ascending curve.

He always remained close to his roots. The rue du Vert-Buisson, at Rouen, was an excellent musical centre. The province and regions provide generous facilities for the arts, for study, practice, and the faith which gives life meaning and nobility.

Albert Dupré, the organist of St. Ouen, which possesses one of the finest organs in France, used to run a choral society “Perfect Harmony” (L’Accord Parfait), which enabled the music-lovers of Rouen to become familiar with the masterpieces of music, notably the great works of Bach. His wife, Alice Dupré, a cellist, possessed a lively musical intelligence.

In such a home, an exceptionally gifted child found the most favourable climate possible for the flowering of his talents. Without having frequented that blessed dwelling, called simply “le Vert-Buisson” (the green bush)—the name of the street—by the people of Rouen, one could not possibly assess how much ardour, hard work, and faith, the love of a difficult art can muster in order to achieve the most important objectives, which are to arouse curiosity, to consolidate knowledge, and to create enthusiasm.

For his enlightened parents applied the utmost care in nourishing the talent of Marcel Dupré, which declared itself early. At the age of twelve, he performed the opening recital on the organ at the church of St. Vivien. He soon became a living legend for the young musicians of the town. My mother was always talking to me about him, with the ardour of an admiring music-lover, who hoped to inspire her young offspring at an early age with sound reasons for working, hoping, and admiring in his turn.

These reasons quickly multiplied. Recitals succeeded one another, keeping always the same high standard of perfection. Prizes accumulated, marking the fruits of a complete musical training, including as they did prizes for performance on the piano and the organ, and the Grand Prix de Rome for composition. At the same time, to hear Marcel Dupré praising the teaching of Guilmant and Widor, was a lesson in their contribution to music, but it was also a lesson in modesty, a spiritual quality which this great man never forsook.

In spite of these successes, which gave as much pleasure to those who loved him as they did to himself, an even higher summit was to be reached in 1920, when Marcel Dupré played in ten recitals the whole of the organ works of John Sebastian Bach, from memory.

This wasn’t merely a feat of stupendous prowess, but a manifestation of something even greater, for Marcel Dupré had performed these recitals with the meticulous care which he insisted on applying to every act, whether of interpretation or of creation. “Do you know,” said his father one day to me, “that before giving these recitals, Marcel consulted all the editions, and all the available manuscripts of the works of Bach, particularly those in the Berlin library?”

The news of these concerts was to spread like lightning. One of the most impressive figures of the art of sound had revealed himself.

At the same time, Marcel Dupré brought the art of improvisation to an undreamt of level of proficiency. Here, too, there was no room for mere facility. A rigorous mastery led to fullness of expression. Each work revealed the fathomless resources offered by a simple theme, but instead of this result being achieved by patient work at the desk, the edifice of sound sprang forth from an act of spontaneous creation.

It is true that the act of improvisation had had some impressive exponents. César Franck had made an unforgettable impression on those who heard his improvisations on the organ at St. Clothilde during the Magnificat.

Dupré’s teacher, Widor, was equally admired. But his pupil’s contribution gave the king of instruments a still greater primacy. Alone of instruments, the organ enables a single player to build a whole cathedral of sound on the spot, using a variety of tone colours to rival the orchestra. As he unceasingly developed his talent, Marcel Dupré attained a breadth of expression hitherto unknown.

His tours of America began at that time, and soon set the seal on his reputation as the premier French organist; he amazed his transatlantic audience by improvising a complete symphony in four movements for the first time in the history of organ music.

He knew fame. This manifested itself in many ways, sometimes the most unexpected and simple ways, which were all the more moving, like the time when a young Australian came to work in my family and asked, on her arrival, “Where can one hear the organist Marcel Dupré?”

The composer didn’t relinquish his work. Rarely can the improviser and the composer have been so perfectly matched as in the person of Marcel Dupré, for his spontaneous impulses, like his reflective and poignant meditations, were as perfect as the written composition.

To list his works, which ranged from the instrumental solo to the lyrical fresco, would take up the whole of this speech. In any case there is available for reference the very thorough bibliographical study by his learned pupil, Canon Robert Delestre. But, to continue along our path in the company of the Master, we can halt at the Preludes and Fugues, which, composed as early as 1912, represent an astonishing enrichment of organ technique.

Speaking of these works, Marcel Dupré, the innovator, fully master of his bold strokes of composition, said “All I did was to follow Bach’s example . . . There’s no place for academicism in fugue, whatever one may think.”

In subsequent works, the “Suite Bretonne,” the “Symphonie-Passion,” the “Chemin de la Croix,” he went on to develop more fully this rich style of composition, to cite a few examples, for his extremely orderly mind yet found room for bold experiment. A short time ago, reading through scores by young composers, he showed me the interest which lay in examining new techniques by listening for their structure, their quest for new sounds.

Very early, the main lines of his life were set. With what mastery he mapped out his route! He was never to deviate from the chosen path: he embellished it continually.

The former pupil of Diemer, of Guilmant, and of Widor was to become Professor of Organ at the Conservatoire and Director of the illustrious institution.

What were his merits as a teacher? We have no need to enumerate them. On the 7th May last, at St. Sulpice, after hearing his “De Profundis,” his former pupils paid him homage and their famous names show that the continuity of his work and mission are assured.

A few weeks ago, he went back to Rouen and visited again the house of his parents, “le Vert Buisson,” and played the organ at St Ouen.

The world’s most glittering successes had never altered his affection for those he always revered, his family. He always spoke of them with moving tenderness.

He was so discreet and secret in his inmost thoughts that, in order to know him well, one had to be favoured with his affection. How his face shone when he spoke of his family. He expressed himself then with a contained warmth which was stronger than loud bursts of sound, for this master of sound was also master of his heart. When he gave his affection, how comforting was his welcome! Whether it was in his joyful home at Saint-Valery-en-Caux or the great organ room at Meudon, his arms were wide open to welcome those who in their turn followed the same path. They knew, of course, that a superior being was receiving them. 

The rarest gifts were magnified by an uncompromising conscience, and a strict application to work, so as to achieve a constant elevation of talent and thought. Those of us who have sat next to him on the organ bench at St. Sulpice know what is genius.

His finest praise was spoken by his former pupil, now famous, Olivier Messiaen, who, speaking of his master, Marcel Dupré, called him “the modern Liszt.”

Liszt, the noblest figure in the history of music, a generous spirit and a discoverer of new sounds—he combined a stupendous virtuosity with compositions which broke new ground in their development of the resources of music. Let us keep in our minds this brief and complete tribute.

When his admirers mourn him all over the world, you, Madame, who have been his attentive and so much loved partner in life, will receive the greatest comfort from his hands. You know that his name will remain what he made it—that of one of the greatest of men.

40 BOULEVARD ANATOLE-FRANCE

92—MEUDON

027-14-45

May 26, 1972

Dear friend,

Many thanks for your good letter from Hamburg. I will be happy to see you during your short visit in Paris.

Will you come to Meudon on Monday May 29, about 3 p. m. You have got a train from Montparnasse station at 2:51 p.m.

Nearly a year has elapsed since my beloved husband left us. This month of May with all its last-memories of our life is so sad!

With affectionate wishes,

J. Marcel Dupré

 

Special thanks to Linda Ryan Thomas; to Trinity Episcopal Church, Longview, Texas, Bill Bane, organist-choirmaster; and to Kilgore College, Kilgore, Texas, Dr. William Holda, president, and Jeanne Johnson, chair of music and dance, for allowing access to Alexander Boggs Ryan’s complete personal library, and for granting permission to reprint these letters and memorabilia.

Lorenz Maycher is organist-choirmaster at First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas, and founding director of the East Texas Pipe Organ Festival. He is a frequent contributor to The Diapason, which has published his interviews with Thomas Richner, William Teague, Nora Williams, Albert Russell, and Robert Town, as well as his series of articles “From the Clarence Dickinson Collection.” Maycher is also director of the Vermont Organ Academy, a website promoting articles and recordings devoted to the Aeolian-Skinner legacy.

Karl Watson was a pupil of Alexander McCurdy at the Curtis Institute and, during 1970, of Marcel Dupré in Meudon. He has served both Protestant and Catholic churches on the East Coast.