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Weston Jennings

Host Facility
Saint Anne Church
Location
Rochester, NY

 

Weston Jennings, a senior organ performance major at the Eastman School of Music, will perform an all-French program in the reverberent sanctuary of Saint Anne Church.  There will be works by Marcel Dupré, Jean Langlais, Jehan Alain, and Maurice Duruflé.  The program will end with Duruflé's Prelude, Adagio and Chorale Variations on Veni creator, Op. 4, with the variations played in alternation with sung Latin chant.         

May 4, 2013
Saint Anne Church, 1600 Mount Hope Ave., Rochester, NY

 

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Cavaillé-Coll in Oberlin June 12-15, Oberlin College

by Rudolf Zuiderveld

Rudolf Zuiderveld is Professor of Music and College Organist at Illinois College, Jacksonville, Illinois, and organist of First Presbyterian Church, Springfield, Illinois.

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Wednesday, June 12

Acoustics dominated the discussion with David Pike of C.B. Fisk and acoustician Dana Kirkegaard, who has made modifications to the stage area, with handsome wood structures to improve the acoustical environment for performing musicians, and enhancing the ceiling area over the stage--work that can be carried further in the future, and perhaps (if the building is equipped with air conditioning) address the acoustically transparent windows. More reverberation time and better bass response would be a desirable result.

Improvising in a predominantly homophonic French-Romantic style, William Porter demonstrated the peculiar qualities of slotted Cavaillé-Coll principals alone (as they are seldom employed) and combined with strings and flutes, producing subtle tonal variety that added up to more than the sum of its parts. The blended ensemble sounds of the French Romantic organ form the true criteria that make a Cavaillé-Coll "symphonic" rather than "orchestral"--as heard in early 20th-century American organs with their highly individual, un-blending voicing using electric actions. Like Cavaillé-Coll's organs, the Fisk retains the classic air-channel, slider windchest, but, rather than using Barker-lever machines to manage the heavy touch, employs a "servo-pneumatic" aid, in which the action follows the motion of the key exactly in attack and release.

It must have been a pleasure for Professors David Boe and Haskell Thomson to introduce the Fisk organ to over 170 registrants, repeating the dedicatory recital from last September (reviewed by Larry Palmer in The Diapason, January 2002, pp. 18-19), playing another historically-informed "period organ" at Oberlin, which joins John Brombaugh's 1981 organ in Fairchild Chapel and the comprehensive Flentrop organ in Warner Recital Hall, enabling students to study organs authentic to the Renaissance, Baroque, Romantic, and Modern eras.

David Boe opened with an exciting performance of the Final from Vierne's First Symphony, followed by a subtly impressionistic "La Vallée du Béhorléguy, au matin" from Paysages euskariens by Ermend Bonnal, and Franck's Grande Pièce Symphonique, op. 17. Organ and performer combined to give a true sense of the large-scale architectural proportions of the work; Boe's strong, rhythmically vital playing, with nuance expressing sentiment (not sentimentality), projected an overall sense of unity to Franck's masterpiece.

Haskell Thomson followed with later music of the French repertoire, conveying many refined tonal subtleties: Duruflé's colorful Veni Creator variations, the strings and soaring harmonic flute in the "Andante sostenuto" from Widor's Tenth Symphony, and the piquant, picturesque sounds of "birds and springs" in the Communion of Messiaen's Pentecost Mass. The Fisk's power was again demonstrated in the Sortie from the Mass--more clearly heard in the relatively dry acoustics of Finney Chapel than in the wash of sound in an immense stone cathedral. In the conclusion of Franck's Third Choral, it was difficult to hear the thematic quality of the manual figuration when combined with the chorale theme, all over a thundering pedal (which perhaps masked the figuration). A programmed, entertaining encore, Scène pastorale by Lefébure-Wély, complete with twittering birdsongs (Messiaen's musical ancestor?), drew smiles, and a comment that, by comparison, Franck's Pastorale is an "art of fugue"!

A gracious reception hosted by Oberlin Conservatory, with time to visit with colleagues from far-flung places, concluded a rewarding day.

Thursday, June 13

Thursday morning's lecture by Jean Boyer showed thorough knowledge of keyboard performance practice in 19th-century France, based on contemporary piano technique as illustrated in common piano methods, illuminating "Legato matters through Franck's organ works." This is not the place to review these insightful lectures; rather, one hopes that papers by Boyer, Near, Ericsson, Peeters, Porter, and Peterson will be made available in print. The panel-of-experts discussions following each lecture/paper produced varied insights, such as the lesson procedure followed for American students in France: literature first, then the maître's works.

John Near's outstanding scholarly editions of Widor's organ works for A-R Editions will soon be supplemented by a biography on this influential and authoritative "Napoleonic commander" of the French musical world from 1870 to 1937. (Perhaps it is only historically coincidental that Widor became titulaire at St. Sulpice in 1870, just as Pope Pius IX was promulgating the doctrine of papal infallibility in matters of faith and doctrine at Vatican I.) A photo and sample scrawled signature of "Widor" confirmed the point. Near spoke about Cavaillé-Coll as a "poet architect of sounds," an inspiration to Widor and the further development of the French organ symphony.

In a late Thursday afternoon session, versatile improviser William Porter played the marvelously colorful collection of 12 stops in John Brombaugh's 1981 organ in little Fairchild Chapel. Having just heard the Fisk's great variety of subtle stop combinations, it became clear how individual stops can be voiced with strong character, like the surprisingly stringy spitzflute, richly colorful regal and trumpet, and singing "vocale" praestant (so different from the amalgam of stops that comprise an "instrumentale" French "fonds"). Also, equal temperament produces a kind of evened-out blandness in the Fisk's warm Romantic sound, compared to the kaleidoscopic harmonic colors and degrees of harmonic tension heard in the ensembles of the small meantone organ. "In te Domine speravi" of Samuel Scheidt made a grand impression in a plenum that reached greater brilliance (shimmering "zing" in the mixture) than in the attenuated top of the full French Romantic organ sound.

Two masterful artists concluded Thursday's schedule. Martin Jean gave a superb performance of Vierne's Fifth Symphony, in honor of his teacher Robert Glasgow who was present. Jean played with control, refinement and grandeur, demonstrating fine technique and superb musicianship. The third movement scherzo was delightful in using some of the high-pitched aliquots (a "carillon" can be synthesized using Positiv mutations 13/5', 11/3', and 1' registers). Robert Glasgow's championing the French symphonic repertoire was amply rewarded in this virtuosic, profoundly satisfying performance.

Hans-Ola Ericsson of Sweden played an interesting group of Olivier Messiaen's organ works, surveying music from 1932 to 1984. With the performer playing in a darkening chapel, with immense control, occasionally conducting himself, the recital became a kind of spiritual experience in the hands of this devoted Messiaen interpreter. Messiaen's repertoire of organ effects included extended birdsong (Chant d'Oiseaux from Livre d'Orgue), rhythmically free plainsong-like monody (including the two-page Monodie of 1963), the adaptation of ordinary meters into timeless unending rhythmic reveries, plus extreme dynamic contrasts. The overwhelmingly loud held last chord of Verbe et Lumière from the Holy Trinity meditations produced a mental hallucination (a bit like seeing flashes of light with one's eyes closed)--near the threshold of aural pain. Ericsson created a totally entrancing musical tableau in his powerful performance.

Friday, June 14

 serious, thoughtful manner characterized Hans-Ola Ericsson's lecture the next morning, focusing on the special characteristics of Cavaillé-Coll's organ at La Trinité in Paris during Messiaen's tenure. Addition of stops so useful to Messiaen's coloristic musical effects created a kind of "North-German concept." The organ's comprehensive restoration (perhaps prompted by the mid-1950s poor-sounding recordings made by Messiaen), showed the improviser/composer's close connection to the special beauties of his La Trinité organ (not that he did not favor adapting his music to other organ styles). Ericsson proved to have many insights to share, having spent a great deal of time with Messiaen in his last years.

Musicologist Paul Peeters, former editor of the Dutch journal Het Orgel, now working at the Göteborg GOArt project in Sweden, shared a wealth of information about Belgian/French Romantic organ culture, based on a deep and wide knowledge of the instruments, for example the existence of carillon registers in Dutch organs a century before the French Romantic organ incorporated them. Varied, rather than standardized, registration was his theme--as in the different ways to compose a "fond d'orgue" sound, depending on the disposition of a particular organ. (On the Fisk the fonds with its integral oboe sounded at one point like a harmonium--perhaps the intention.) It was during the following discussion that Jesse Eschbach pointed out that St. Clotilde's organ (built with Franck's advice, as he was already titulaire) had both a classic mixture in its Great plenum for the required traditional improvised Kyrie registration (Plein Jeu plus pedal trumpet), and a novel "progressive, harmonic" mixture on the Positif for the new symphonic organ music (intended for concert rather than liturgical music?).

The following panel discussion was moderated by Fenner Douglass, recently awarded a well-earned honorary doctorate from Oberlin, and for whom the new Fisk represents the culmination of a dream in a career devoted to solid research into French organ culture. He was present to enjoy his accomplishments in the company of many grateful students and admiring colleagues.

Again as a welcome foil to all things French and Romantic, Haskell Thomson gave a demonstration of the 1974 Flentrop organ in Warner Concert Hall, and William Porter demonstrated the Brombaugh organ of First Methodist Church, adjacent to the campus. Professor Thompson gave a comprehensive demonstration of the "all-purpose" Flentrop--less authentically "Dutch" in the sound of its flues than the specification and visual design implies, with brighter principals and choruses than typical in Dutch historic instruments, but very pleasing nevertheless, and a good match for the pleasant daytime-light-filled ambience of the modern concert hall. Revised reeds, including solid, North-German style pedal reeds by Taylor and Boody, and a wonderfully full sounding colorful Bovenwerk trumpet revised by Oberlin's organ curator Hal Gober, give the organ a more authentically Dutch/German character.

The 1974 Brombaugh 18-stop organ of First United Methodist Church gave proof to the idea that North-German/Dutch style organs are tonally appropriate in a typically dry American sanctuary acoustic. Although the organ was not in perfect condition, given the un-air-conditioned hot and humid June weather, it was effectively demonstrated by William Porter in congregational music, culminating in a rousing rendition of Cwm Rhondda.

Jean Boyer's recital on Friday evening was spectacular in his brilliant performance of Widor's Sixth Symphony. Played a bit more quickly than usual (perhaps responding to the relatively dry acoustics), the outer movements were especially effective in their driving rhythms with Boyer truly "playing" spontaneously with the music. The Final, indeed the entire Symphony, proved an exhilarating tour de force in Jean Boyer's bravura performance.

Saturday, June 15

In a closely reasoned paper, William J. Peterson, adapting French scholar F. Sabatier's three-part scheme in Cavaillé-Coll's stylistic development--(1) Classic (1841-58), (2) Romantic (1858-75), and (3) Symphonic (1875-98)--considered ten organs built between 1870 and 1898. These included some of the builder's most famous organs: at the Trocadéro in Paris, St-Étienne in Caen, St-Sernin in Toulouse, and St-Ouen in Rouen. Cavaillé-Coll seems to have returned to classical precepts in his late-period organs (such as dropping the progressive mixture in favor of the more historically traditional breaking mixtures). Oddly, it was an introductory recording of the Caen organ that proved revealing: its clearly heard fiery French-style bombarde/trompette/clarion reeds produced typical Grand Jeu timbres evident in both 17th/18th-century classic-period organs and surviving in the Romantic Cavaillé-Colls, but not so apparent in the smoother reed choruses of the Oberlin Fisk. The big Fisk reeds seem more like those at St-Sernin in Toulouse, where their sound needs to travel down an extremely long and relatively narrow nave. Perhaps Barbara Owen spoke to this point in the stimulating panel discussion that followed, describing the Fisk organ as an "English Town Hall Organ."

In further discussion, David Pike emphasized the "symphonic," "sounding together" ensemble character of the organ, necessitating a mindset in organ builders (especially voicers) that goes beyond naive, simplistic ideas of copying historic instruments. Steven Dieck, giving candid insight into how the Fisk company continues to grow artistically, made an interesting point about approaching compromise of a Fisk ideal that an organ breathe "with a single breath," related to the necessity of employing double-pallet, divided windchests at Oberlin. Paul Peeters, commenting on the size of the proposals for the Antwerp O.L.V. Cathedral organ in 1888, recalled that Pierre Schyven proposed 87 stops, Walcker 100 stops, and Cavaillé-Coll only 75--"build as many as needed, as few as possible" was Cavaillé-Coll's recommendation. The Belgian Schyven firm got the contract.

Saving some of the most intriguing music for last, two distinguished performers shared a remarkable program. Christa Rakich opened with Jeanne Demessieux's Repons pour le Temps de Pâques, a brilliant toccata/fantasy (comparable to Touremire's improvisation, transcribed by Duruflé) employing the "Victimae Paschali" chant, followed by four chorale preludes from Demessieux's Opus 8--each a gem, beautifully realized on the Fisk's refined individual stops and small combinations, concluding with a thrilling Veni Creator Spiritus toccata. A little known "Nocturne" by Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983) (a member of "Les Six," explained Christa Rakich in her engaging verbal program notes), proved to a be a gentle lullaby, a song without words. Marcel Dupré's famous Opus 7 Preludes and Fugues closed Rakich's half of the recital, but she effectively played No. 3 first, then No. 2, on the organ's warm fonds, and concluded with the carillon effects of No. 1. Sitting at various places in the chapel for the recitals, it was obvious from the palpably shaking pews under the rear balcony that the Fisk was producing plenty of bass sound. The instrument speaks with authority!

Westfield Center president Susan Ferré concluded the recital and the conference with music by Tournemire, Alain, and Langlais, completing a wide-ranging survey of French Romantic organ music performed during the conference, perhaps surprising, given the Center's more usual focus on early music. Two excerpts from Tournemire's Opus 67 masterpiece, Sept Chorals-Poemès d'orgue pour les Sept paroles du Xrist (which had 39 people at its St. Clotilde premiere in 1937), "Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani" and "Consummatum est," proved to be  some of the most powerfully moving music of the entire conference. The organ's fonds (with the harmonic flute giving a rich, pervasive sound), the smooth clarinet, the pleading vox humana, the serene flute harmonique solo, and the piercing jabs of the full organ--all sounded perfectly authentic on the Fisk, contributing to Susan Ferré's spiritually moving performance. In Jehan Alain's Variations on "Lucis Creator," a trumpet solo accompanied by a full Swell, delicate flutes, and Plein Jeu plus cantus firmus trumpet demonstrated additional Fiskian Cavaillé-Coll aural authenticity. Jean Langlais' turbulent, abrupt and tragic Chant Héroïque, dedicated to the memory of Jehan Alain, was followed by the pastiche and sentimental simplicity of Boystown (1961). A refreshing (Neo-Baroque?) Trio (1957) concluded the Langlais group. Gregorian chant and birdsong-like motives incorporated into the Paraphrase-Carillon from Tournemire's In Assumptione B.M.V. (1928), showed the connection to Messiaen's inspiration, and ended the recital and an entire conference that had managed to touch on most of the major organist-composers of the French Symphonic School. (Guilmant was mentioned but not heard.)

Serious scholarship presented in stimulating lectures and panel discussions, perfection in performance on authentic organs, and convivial collegiality combined to make the Oberlin conference one of the most informative, entertaining, and inspiring in recent memory.

Near the end of the conference, the double CD "September 28, 2001 Inaugural Concert" recorded live in Finney Chapel was released. The program opens with The Oberlin Orchestra, conducted by Paul Polivnick, performing Elgar's Nimrod variation from Enigma Variations with loving tenderness, a moving memorial to the tragedy of September 11, followed by the audience joining in singing a thrilling Star Spangled Banner. David Boe is soloist in Oberlin graduate Robert Sirota's organ concerto In the Fullness of Time, which incorporates Bach's "Es ist genug" into a colorful, lyrical and dramatic work for organ with a large virtuoso orchestra. The outstanding undergraduate student orchestra also performs two chestnuts of the symphony plus organ repertoire, Saint-Saëns' Third Symphony, with David Boe, and Joseph Jongen's Symphonie Concertante, the latter brilliantly performed with Haskell Thomson, organ soloist. Both are impassioned, professional-level performances, played with the extra edge of a live event--all in all, a spectacular concert and CD!

A special feature on the recording is another Oberlin graduate, Michael Barone, giving a musical guide to organs at Oberlin. David Boe plays H. Praetorius on the Brombaugh, Andrew Fredel plays Rheinberger on the first Holtkamp "Martini," and Christopher Harrell plays Hakim on the Warner Flentrop. So listen for yourself to the superb music making found at one of America's leading undergraduate colleges! It is available for $25 (plus shipping) from Oberlin Music and Cafe, an outstanding source for obtaining high quality organ music, books, and CDs, operated by Oberlin graduate James Dawson (; ph 440/774-9139; fax 440/774-8430) who also sponsored the coffee breaks during the conference.

McGill Summer Organ Academy

July 5–14, 2005, Montréal, Canada

Lynn Cavanagh

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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


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


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

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


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


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


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


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


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

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

OHS 2015: The Pioneer Valley, Massachusetts, The Organ Historical Society’s Annual Convention, June 28–July 3, 2015

John Speller
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The Organ Historical Society’s 60th Annual Convention took place in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts, with the Marriott Hotel in central Springfield as the convention headquarters. I arrived on Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited on Saturday, June 27, and found the hotel conveniently located a short walk from the railroad station. Pre-convention events offered on Sunday morning and afternoon included visits to the Norman Rockwell Museum and the Daniel Chester French Estate, and a walking tour of the Springfield Quadrangle, though I opted instead to attend the Sung Eucharist at Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal) in Springfield, again conveniently located a short walking distance from the hotel.

 

Sunday, June 28

The convention proper began with Choral Evensong at Christ Church Cathedral, with an augmented Cathedral Choir directed by David Pulliam, in which we were treated to the John Sanders Responses, Sumsion in G, and Stanford’s Te Deum in B-flat. Evensong was rounded off by a spirited performance of the Allegro from Mendelssohn’s Sonata No. 5 on the fine 1953 Austin Opus 2195, rebuilt as a III/54 instrument by Theodore Gilbert Associates in 1985. 

Another short walk took us to St. Michael’s Catholic Cathedral, where we heard the first recital of the convention, given by Christopher Houlihan on the rebuilt 1929 4-manual Casavant organ, comprising a gallery organ in the fine Gothic case of the previous 1862 E. & G. G. Hook organ, and a chancel division in cases designed when the present organ was installed. This is the largest organ in Western Massachusetts. The program included the Prelude and Fugue in B-flat Minor by Henry Martin (b. 1950) of Rutgers University, commissioned by OHS member Michael Barone and previously given its première performance by Christopher Houlihan in New York City. Houlihan also treated us to one of Brahms’s earliest works, the Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, WoO 9, and one of his latest works, the chorale prelude O Welt, ich muss dich lassen, op. 122, no. 11, effectively sandwiching the chorale prelude between the prelude and the fugue. Houlihan’s performance of Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E Minor, BWV 548, was masterful, and indeed I think this was the best performance of the “Wedge” Fugue I have ever heard. The other major work in the recital was Vierne’s Symphony No. 4 in G Minor, op. 32, in which Houlihan effectively demonstrated the large mood swings that characterize this work. After this, it was a short walk back to the hotel for drinks and to explore the books, music, and recordings in the exhibit hall.

 

Monday, July 29

We boarded the buses early Monday morning for a day looking at organs in and around Westfield, Massachusetts. The day began with a recital given by Patricia Snyder on the 1977 C. B. Fisk organ, Opus 71, in First Congregational Church. This splendid little organ was ideally suited to the program of de Grigny and Bach that Ms. Snyder played. Next was a recital by Caroline Robinson on the 1897 Casavant tracker organ, Opus 78, relocated in 2008 from Pittsfield by the Czelusniak firm.to St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Westfield. The organ is situated in a divided case in the gallery at the west end of the church, with the console on the north side, and is believed to be the second oldest Casavant organ in the United States. It has a warm, bold tone with rolling diapasons, but is brilliant enough to be effective in classical as well as romantic music. Ms. Robinson’s recital consisted of music by Brahms, Widor, Schumann, and Boëly.

Following these recitals, founding OHS member Barbara Owen gave a lecture on organ building in the Pioneer Valley. Three important organ builders had their workshops in Westfield—William A Johnson/Johnson & Son, Steer & Turner/J. W. Steer(e) & Son, and Emmons Howard. The Steere company was purchased by the Skinner Organ Company in 1921; the Westfield factory continued to run as a branch of the Skinner firm until 1929. The lecture was accompanied by slides illustrative of the history of all these companies.

After lunch we went to nearby Lenox, Massachusetts, for a recital on the famous Aeolian-Skinner, Opus 1002 of 1940, at the Serge Koussevitzky Music Shed of the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood. The “shed” is a fine semi-outdoor concert hall designed by Joseph Franz. James David Christie, who is the resident organist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, gave an interesting concert, assisted by two members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Robert Sheena, English horn and oboe, and Cynthia Meyers, flute. The program included music by Johann Sebastian and Johann Bernard Bach, Georg Böhm, Marguerite Roesgen-Champion, Charles Callahan, Jacques Berthier, and Jean Langlais. The J. S. Bach piece was the Sonata No. 1 in B flat, BWV 525, transposed to G major and transcribed for organ and flute, a very interesting change from the usual version.

We then moved to the Church on the Hill (United Church of Christ) in Lenox for a recital played by Peter Crisafulli on the I/9 William A. Johnson organ, Opus 281 of 1869. In 1988, Andover Organ Company releathered the bellows and in 1991 carried out a thorough historically informed restoration. Crisafulli’s eclectic program ranged from No. 5 of the Eight Little Preludes and Fugues, attributed to J. S. Bach but probably by Johann Tobias Krebs, to a modern piece, the Sonatina by Robert W. Jones. Altogether this was a pristine and delightful little organ. Next was a recital given by Adam Pajan on a later Johnson instrument, Johnson & Son Opus 805 of 1893, at the Unitarian-Universalist Meeting of North Berkshire in Housatonic, Great Barrington. The music included works of Arthur Foote, J. S. Bach, Brahms, and Mendelssohn.

The day culminated in the evening recital given by Bruce Stevens on the Hilborne L. Roosevelt organ, Opus 113 of 1882, at First Congregational Church, Great Barrington, an organ I have been longing to hear since I first heard of it around thirty years ago. I was not disappointed: it is a wonderful mellow, cohesive instrument. The chorus was perhaps a little lacking in brilliance for the Bach Prelude and Fugue in G, BWV 541, though Stevens’s performance was nevertheless very effective, and the instrument later proved more than capable of softer baroque effects in the Pachelbel Partita on ‘Christus, der ist mein Leben.’ The organ was at its best, however, in the performance of Max Reger. We heard both Reger’s Scherzo, op. 65, no. 10, and his Introduction and Passacaglia in D Minor, op. 96, in which the organ sounded absolutely magnificent. We then heard the suite In Festo Corporis Christi by Bruce Stevens’s former teacher Anton Heiller, and finally Wilhelm Middelschulte’s transcription of Bach’s Chaconne for Violin Solo from the Partita in D Minor, BWV 1004. A feature of the Great Barrington Roosevelt is the striking façade of pipes stenciled in blue and brown on a background of gold. Small chunks of wood and plaster were glued to the pipes under the paintwork to create a rich three-dimensional effect that is most unusual and possibly unique.

 

Tuesday, June 30

We began the day with a recital by Michael Plagerman on the 1907 Emmons Howard organ in South Deerfield Congregational Church. If anyone thought that Johnson and Steere were the important organ builders in Westfield and that Emmons Howard was an “also ran,” this instrument and the other Emmons Howard organ we heard would definitely give the lie to such a thought. Emmons Howard may not have had quite such a large output as the other Westfield builders, but his instruments were certainly of equal quality. The conventioneers began by singing the chorale Vater Unser, after which Plagerman played Bach and Pachelbel chorale preludes on this hymn. We then heard a voluntary by the eighteenth-century English composer Maurice Greene, Franck’s Cantabile, and the Allegro from Mendelssohn’s Organ Sonata No. 2. The organ produced a grand effect—rich and powerful—and Plagerman brought forth some very pretty effects in the Greene.

We next heard an organ—perhaps the only surviving organ—built in 1868 by William Jackson of Albany in Holy Name of Jesus Polish National Catholic Church in South Deerfield. Jackson was the son of an organ builder in Liverpool, England. Jackson’s father was chiefly memorable for having built the first organ in England with a 1-1/7 foot stop. William Jackson trained with Gray & Davison in London before coming to the United States, which is evident from the Gray & Davison-style console of the South Deerfield organ. The recitalist, Larry Schipull, began with Niels Gade’s Three Tone Pieces, op. 22, and then—appropriately for an ethnically Polish church—played a transcription of a Chopin Fugue in A Minor. The Chorale Prelude on ‘Wie schön leucht die Morgenstern’ by Johann Christoff Oley featured the labial oboe on the Swell, perhaps the earliest stop of its kind in North America. We also heard the Andante with Variations in D of Mendelssohn and the Finale in D by T. Tertius Noble. The organ sounds grand yet bright and has a particularly beautiful Melodia.

Gregory Crowell then played the early William A. Johnson organ, Opus 54 of 1856, in First Congregational Church, Montague. Works of the eighteenth-century English composers Jonathan Battishull and Henry Heron were followed by Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in C Major, BWV 870, from Das wohltemperierte Klavier II, together with an Adagio by nineteenth-century German composer E. F. E. Richter and a Maestoso by an anonymous German composer of the same period. This is quite a charming little instrument with a very substantial Pedal Sub Base [sic]. We also took in a recital by Don VerKuilen at the First Congregational Church of Sunderland, home of an early Odell organ, Opus 109 of 1871, a relatively rare example of a New York-built organ in the Pioneer Valley. The program consisted of nineteenth-century American music and Seth Bingham’s Fughetta on ‘St. Kevin.’

Following lunch at the same church, we boarded the buses for a recital at St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Springfield. This for me was one of the highlights of the convention. The church was built in 1962 during the pastorate of Father Basil J. Rafferty, who spared no expense to make sure that it was an outstanding example of modern architecture, with excellent acoustics and built from the finest materials. Much of the building is lined with marble in various hues, including a striking emerald green marble reredos. The stained glass is also extremely beautiful. The organ is a three-manual electro-pneumatic Lawrence Phelps Casavant, Opus 2750, built in 1963. The church was threatened with closure in 2005, but following the appointment of Father Quynh D. Tran as pastor in 2006 has taken on a new lease on life as a predominantly ethnically Vietnamese congregation. One would hope that this fine Casavant organ might inspire some parishioners to learn the instrument. The recital was given by Joey Fala. Fala, a native of Hawaii, has completed two degrees at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Albany, New York, and is now undertaking graduate work in organ performance at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Fala promises to be one of the outstanding organists of the upcoming generation. His varied program included Marcel Dupré’s transcription of the Sinfonia from Bach’s Cantata 29, the Prélude from Franck’s Prélude, Fugue, and Variation, and Hyfrydol from Vaughan Williams’s Three Welsh Hymn Preludes. Fala’a program continued with Miroir by Dutch composer Ad Wammes and ended with the Te Deum, op. 11, by Jeanne Demessieux. The Casavant is a wonderful organ in excellent acoustical and architectural surroundings.

The evening recital featured Peter Sykes, assisted by his wife Victoria Wagner, playing the four-manual E.M. Skinner organ, Opus 322 of 1921, in the United Congregational Church of Holyoke. This is a very forthright Skinner organ—I found it a little brutal in the bass at times—in a vast and very beautiful church. Following an American folk tune, White’s Air, arranged by William Churchill Hammond, we heard Peter Sykes’s fine and now well-known transcription of Holst’s The Planets, op. 12. I have now heard Sykes’s transcription of The Planets on several organs in several states, but I thought this was the best performance I have heard. Sykes was able to produce some almost magical effects on the Skinner organ in the quieter passages.

 

Wednesday, July 1

The first recitalist on Wednesday was Monica Czausz, a young woman who also promises to be one of the outstanding organists of the upcoming generation. A student of Ken Cowan, she has already received several awards in organ-playing competitions. The organ was Johnson Opus 424 of 1874 in Wesley United Methodist Church, Warehouse Point, Windsor, Connecticut, a lovely little organ in a very well-kept church. Ms. Czausz played selections from Widor, Schumann, and Saint-Saëns, as well as a haunting Adagio by Charles-Valentin Alkan and Will o’ the Wisp by Gordon Balch Nevin.

Next we travelled to Somers Congregational Church (United Church of Christ), Somers, Massachusetts, for a recital by Christa Rakich, organ, with cellist Jeffrey Krieger of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. The recital included Ms. Rakich’s own composition, Hommage à Pachelbel: Eleven Variations on ‘St. Anne,’ three pieces for cello and organ by Edward Elgar, and the Ricercar à Trois from Bach’s Musical Offering, BWV 1079. The organ is a fine new tracker instrument by Richards, Fowkes & Co., Opus 21 of 2014. 

We then went to St. Theresa’s Catholic Church, South Hadley, Massachusetts, for the OHS Annual Meeting followed by a hymn sing led by Patrick Scott and featuring the church’s 1964 Casavant tracker organ, Opus 2791. At the meeting, we heard the exciting news that through the generosity of the Wyncote Foundation, founded with monies from the late Otto and Phoebe Haas Charitable Trusts, the Organ Historical Society offices, library, and archives are all to be housed in Stoneleigh, a 35-room mansion built in 1901 in Villanova, Pennsylvania. A presentation showing the plans for the new climate-controlled OHS headquarters was given by OHS member Fred Haas, son of Otto and Phoebe Haas, and also the chair of next year’s OHS convention in Philadelphia. I was particularly interested in the organ at St. Theresa’s used for the hymn sing, a Lawrence Phelps Casavant tracker originally built for St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Wellesley, Massachusetts. My late mother-in-law was for many years a member of St. Andrew’s, and so I knew the Casavant organ in its original location well. It was far from satisfactory, being architecturally out of keeping with the building, too loud, and excessively bright and screechy. The church put up with the instrument until 2005 when the then organist and choirmaster, OHS member Harry Kelton, persuaded them to buy a new Juget-Sinclair organ, which is as perfect an organ for the church as one might imagine. The Casavant organ was secured for St. Theresa’s in South Hadley through the Organ Clearing House and was installed in 2005 by Czelusniak et Dugal of Northampton, Massachusetts. Bill Czelusniak told me that no changes were made to the voicing apart from raising a few drooping languids and note-to-note regulation. The Casavant organ fits St. Theresa’s as though it had been built for it. The casework that was so out of place in Wellesley looks just right in the fine modern architecture of St. Theresa’s and the volume of the instrument is just right for the spacious acoustics of the church. Furthermore, the acoustics of the building boost the bass frequencies and absorb some of the upper frequencies, so the organ is perfectly balanced for the room. So now St. Andrew’s, Wellesley, and St. Theresa’s, South Hadley, both have ideal tracker instruments in their buildings. As I asserted above, it is as though the Casavant organ was built for the South Hadley church: the organ has at last found its true home.

The next venue was the South Congregational Church of Amherst, where Christopher Marks gave a recital on Casavant Opus 74 of 1896. This is believed to be the oldest unaltered Casavant organ in North America and was relocated to the Amherst church by Czelusniak et Dugal. The stoplist is interesting in being somewhat similar to many Cavaillé-Coll orgues de choeur, with a small Grand-orgue to 4 foot and a larger Récit to mixture and reed. The recital consisted of works by Pierné, Ropartz, and Widor. 

After this we made a short trip to the Jewish Community of Amherst for a recital by Vaughn Watson. The organ, a splendid little instrument, was built by Emmons Howard in 1900. The synagogue inherited the organ in 1976 when they purchased the building from the Second Congregational Church of Amherst, which had merged with First Congregational Church in 1970. Although the Jewish Community used the organ for a time, they had not used it recently and were excited to discover that it might still be played. Several members of the community were present and expressed interest and enthusiasm for the recital, so one hopes they may make more use of the instrument in future. The recital consisted of works by Bach, Schumann, and Mathias, after which the congregation sang “The God of Abraham Praise,” and Watson rounded off the program with Louis Lewandowski’s Prelude ‘Rosh Hashanah.’

For the evening concert we went to the First Church of Monson (United Church of Christ) for a concert on the organ, Johnson & Son Opus 781 of 1892, played by Rosalind Mohnsen. I suspect that the convention committee’s choice of Mohnsen to give a concert on the Johnson in Monson may have been a little tongue-in-cheek, but it proved to be an excellent pairing. The organ is a fairly comprehensive three-manual and includes—unusually for the period—a soft yet very effective 32-foot Pedal Quintaton. In addition to some well-known works such as Saint-Saëns Fantaisie, the recital included a number of interesting works that are not often played. These included Albert W. Ketelbey’s Sanctuary of the Heart, Karg-Elert’s concert arrangement of Handel’s The Harmonious Blacksmith, Alfred Hollins’s Concert Overture in C Minor, Toccata from Sonata No. 1, op. 40, by René L. Becker, and the Concert Sonata No. 5 in C Minor, op. 45, by Eugene Thayer. Of particular interest was Zsolt Gárdonyi’s playful Mozart Changes.

 

Thursday, July 2

We began the day with a visit to Heath Union Evangelical Church for a program given by Frances Conover Fitch on the very early William A. Johnson two-manual organ, Opus 16 of 1850. The instrument is interesting in that it appears to have been constructed as a G-compass organ but changed to C-compass during installation. Ms. Fitch demonstrated this very attractive little organ with a selection of works by Percy Buck, John Stanley, John Zundel, and Samuel Wesley. 

The next organ we visited at First Congregational Church in Shelburne was an eye-opener for me in a number of ways. The instrument was J. W. Steere & Son Opus 681 of 1915, an early example of a pitman electro-pneumatic action Steere. The first thing that impressed me was the quality of the work, both tonally and mechanically, every bit as good as the best work of Ernest M. Skinner during the same period. But what was also really impressive was that the organ is a hundred years old and still operating on its original leather, which as yet is showing no signs of giving out. This can be attributed to three factors—the use of very high quality vegetable-tanned (or perhaps even mercury-tanned) leather, the careful sealing of the leather against the atmosphere, and the absence of air pollution in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts. The only changes ever made to the organ were the addition of an electric blower and the replacement of the original dry batteries for the action current with a rectifier. I was further impressed by how laid back the organist Carol Britt was about her recital. Unlike the other organists who spent the first few days of the convention frantically practicing for their recitals, Dr. Britt had practiced the previous week and came along on the bus with the rest of us and enjoyed listening to all the organs. She gave a faultless recital consisting of the Pastorale from Guilmant’s Organ Sonata No. 1, David Dahl’s Suite Italiana, and Lefébure-Wély’s Sortie in E-flat.

One of the little-known gems of the Pioneer Valley is the village of Florence, now part of Northampton, Massachusetts. The Victorian Annunciation Chapel was formerly a parish in its own right, but is now part of the consolidated St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish and is only used for one Mass each week. The organ, Steere & Turner Opus 305 of 1890, is the oldest organ in Northampton. It is a surprisingly powerful organ for its size. The recitalist was Grant Moss, organist of nearby Smith College in Northampton. The last time Dr. Moss gave a recital at an OHS Convention, our bus driver got hopelessly lost and we missed the recital, so I was delighted that I finally got to hear him this time. The program consisted of works by Healey Willan, Nadia Boulanger, Joseph Jongen, and Alexandre Guilmant.

We then travelled into the center of Northampton for a recital at the First Churches of Northampton, affiliated with both the United Church of Christ and the American Baptist Church. The church is a fine Victorian brownstone building with cast iron pillars and an outstanding Tiffany glass window. The celebrated preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703–58) was once the pastor. The organ is E. M. Skinner & Son Opus 507 of 1936, which retains the case and 16 ranks from the previous Johnson & Son organ, Opus 718 of 1889. Lorenz Maycher was intending to give the recital but had to withdraw owing to indisposition, and Charles Callahan graciously agreed to come down from Orwell, Vermont, and step into the breach. He played the Bourée in D of Wallace A. Sabin, Adoration by Florence Price, Nevin’s Will o’ the Wisp, and two pieces of his own composition, Folk Tune (1994) and Hymn-Fantasia on ‘Melita’ (2013)—altogether a very interesting and varied program that showed off the lovely voicing of the Skinner organ to good advantage.

We then returned to the United Congregational Church of Holyoke, where we had heard The Planets on Tuesday evening, for a recital by Christoph Bull in the monumental Skinner Chapel, an amazing neo-Perpendicular building with a vaulted apse. As a chapel, it is much larger than most people’s churches! Unlike the main church, the chapel has air conditioning, so the congregation has the main worship service there during the summer. The organ was Ernest M. Skinner Organ Company Opus 179 built in 1910–12. It was rebuilt in 1972–74 by the Berkshire Organ Company, and reconstructed again, more in keeping with the original design, by Czelusniak et Dugal in 1990–92. Christoph Bull began his recital with one of his own compositions, a rather exciting piece named Vic 1, short for Victimae Paschali Laudes, the Gregorian chant upon which it is based. He followed this with Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 582, an Invention in C Minor by William Joel, and a transcription of Ravel’s Boléro. Bull’s program continued with another entertaining piece composed by the recitalist, When Felix met J. S.—Mash-up of Mendelssohn and Bach. The organ retains much of its E. M. Skinner sound, but as this recital demonstrated it can handle many varied styles of repertoire well.

The convention proper ended with the evening recital on Thursday, although there was an additional optional day on Friday. The Thursday evening recital was given by Nathan Laube and was streamed live on the Internet. The webcast will be available on the OHS website under “Conventions” at www.organsociety.org. The recital featured the two organs of the Abbey Chapel, Holyoke College, South Hadley. Laube played the first half of the program on the large two-manual C. B. Fisk organ, Opus 84 of 1986, in the west gallery of the chapel. The program reflected Laube’s recent research in early European styles of music and included works by Buxtehude, Cabanilles, Poglietti, Rossi, and van Noordt. These came off extremely well on the organ, which I think in some ways is the best Charles Fisk organ I have ever heard. 

The second half of the concert was performed on the Abbey Chapel’s magnificent four-manual chancel organ, built by George S. Hutchings, Opus 436 of 1896, rebuilt by the Skinner Organ Co., Opus 367 of 1922, and again rebuilt by E. M. Skinner & Son, Opus 511 of 1938. Restoration work was subsequently carried out by William Baker in 2001 and Czelusniak et Dugal in 2013. The second half of Laube’s program included a transcription for organ of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G, op. 23, no. 5, Lynnwood Farnam’s transcription of Dupré’s Cortège et litanie, op. 19, no. 2, the third of Herbert Howells’s Three Psalm Preludes, op. 32, Joseph Jongen’s Sonata Eroïca, op. 94, and the Andante Sostenuto from Widor’s Symphony No. 9 (Symphonie Gothique). The program provided a very fitting close to a great convention.

 

Friday, July 3 

More than half of us were still around to board the buses for the optional extra day of the convention on Friday. We began the day with recitals on two early E. & G.G. Hook organs. The first of these was Opus 93 of 1849 in First Congregational Church, Hinsdale, New Hampshire. The recitalists were David and Permelia Sears, organ, and their daughter, Rebecca Sears, violin. Permelia Sears played a suite by Jacques Boyvin, which came off very well since the surprisingly complete specification of the organ includes a Tierce, Cremona, and other stops suited to eighteenth-century French organ music. Next Permelia and Rebecca Sears played a transcription for organ and violin of Arthur Foote’s Cantilena in G, op. 71. Permelia Sears’s final offering was the Introduction and Passacaglia from Rheinberger’s Eighth Sonata. Then, in honor of it being the day before July 4, David Sears played his own transcription of Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever, specially written to exploit the G-compass of the Hook organ. The organ was originally built for the much larger First Congregational Church in Springfield, where it may have been used to accompany Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale,” when she visited the church in 1851. It makes a very grand sound in the rather smaller church in Hinsdale, New Hampshire.

The second early Hook organ we visited was also located in a rather smaller building than the one for which it was originally constructed. This was Hook Opus 48 of 1842 in the First Parish (Unitarian) in Northfield, Massachusetts, originally built for Third (later Unity) Church in Springfield. Lubbert Gnodde gave a short recital of works by Franck, Dupré, and Sweelinck. The instrument, though smaller than the Hinsdale one, again produced a rather grander sound than one might
have expected.

We had lunch on the attractive grounds of the Northfield Mount Hermon School in Gill, Massachusetts, with lovely views of the surrounding hills. After lunch it was only a few yards to the school’s Memorial Chapel, built in 1901. Here we heard Rhonda Sider Edgington give a recital on Andover Organ Company Opus 67 of 1970. The program was made up entirely of works by composers born in the last century—Adolphus Hailstork, James Woodman, Margaret Sandresky, Daniel Pinkham, and Libby Larsen. The organ is a fine instrument in fine acoustics and though now 45 years old has weathered well. There is something to be said for the view that a good organ will never really go out of fashion.

Next we proceeded to the First Church of Deerfield, affiliated with both the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Association. Here there is a 2003 organ by Richards, Fowkes & Co., Opus 13, which was designed to be similar to the small village church organs in Thuringia that J.S. Bach would have been familiar with, by builders such as Trost and Hildebrand. The builders have done a remarkable job of fitting a II/22 organ into a case in the relatively shallow gallery that is a mere fourteen feet high. Margaret Irwin-Brandon gave a recital of works by J. G. Walther and J. S. Bach that was well suited to the instrument.

The final recital of the post-convention day was given by Daniel Romero on the organ of Our Lady of the Valley in Easthampton. The J. W. Steere & Son organ, Opus 504 of 1902, originally had a Weigle membrane tubular-pneumatic action that was never satisfactory, but this has now been replaced with an electro-pneumatic action by Czelusniak et Dugal, who also made additions, including a mixture, using Steere pipework. The organ has a rich, warm sound, not unlike a Skinner organ. The program unusually included a plainsong Credo sung by the congregation and accompanied on the organ. Also included were Duruflé’s Choral varié sur le thème de ‘Veni Creator,’ Philip G. Kreckel’s Silent Night, Harold Darke’s An Interlude and Charles Tournemire’s Improvisation sur le ‘Te Deum’ as reconstructed by Maurice Duruflé. And so back to the hotel for drinks and a dinner together before parting homewards by our several ways, God willing to meet again at the Philadelphia convention, June 26 to July 1, 2016.

 

Joseph Ermend Bonnal, a French Organist-Composer: His Quest for Perfection (Part 2)

Carolyn Shuster Fournier

An international concert artist and musicologist, Carolyn Shuster Fournier is titular of the Aristide Cavaillé-Coll choir organ at La Trinité Church in Paris, France (cf. www.shusterfournier.com). Dr. Shuster Fournier was recently awarded the distinction of Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters. This is her fourth article to appear in The Diapason.

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On June 15, Tournemire played the final “Alleluia” movement in a concert at Sainte-Clotilde that was broadcast live on Paris Radio.
In 1931, the Institut de France had awarded Bonnal the Charles Berthault Prize with 500 francs. Bonnal, however, was looking for other financial awards for his compositions. On March 29, 1932, he admitted in a letter to Tournemire that the private music lessons he gave did not at all cover his expenses:

. . . et vous n’êtes pas là pour m’encourager . . . Je desespère parfois! . . . Alors, je m’endette terriblement . . . et je ne sais ce que je vais devenir.

[ . . . and you are not there to encourage me . . . I sometimes become desperate! . . . Then, I am deeply falling into debt . . . and I don’t know what will happen to me.]

He even began to apply for other posts as a conservatory director in Belfort and in Aix (where he was refused). On February 3, 1932, Bonnal wrote to Tournemire to express his gratitude and ongoing support:

sans doute ma destinée est-elle de mourir à Bayonne. Je m’en réjouirais au reste si ma situation y était en rapport avec mes charges familiales. Je vous remercie de tout Coeur de l’aide précieuse qu’une fois encore (après tant d’autres!) vous m’avez généreusement et cordialement consentie.

[without doubt my destiny is to die in Bayonne. I would really be thrilled if my position was in keeping with my family expenses. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the precious aid (after so many others) which you have so generously and cordially granted.]

On April 25, Bonnal admitted to Tournemire that he was behind schedule and that he hoped to send something to the next competition of the Amis de l’Orgue. In May, 1932, Bonnal composed at Amentcha his most monumental work: his Symphonie d’après “Media vita,” Répons du temps de la Septuagésime in C-sharp minor. Maurice Duruflé played it during the second “Amis de l’Orgue” composition competition, which took place at Saint-François Xavier Church in Paris on June 20, 1932. This time, Bonnal won First Prize and received 4,000 francs. The members of the jury were Gabriel Pierné (president), Alexandre Cellier, Maurice Emmanuel, Arthur Honegger, Paul Le Flem, Henri Mulet, Henri Nibelle, Achille Philip, Gustave Samazeuilh, Florent Schmitt, and Canon François-Xavier Mathias. An honorable mention was granted to André Fleury for his Prélude, Andante et Toccata, and congratulations were given to Daniel-Lesur for his work La Vie intérieure.
Bonnal’s symphony is a free paraphrase in three movements that correspond to the following texts from Septuagesima Sunday, the first of three Sundays before the Lenten season:

1. In the midst of Life we deal with Death. To whom can we turn if not to You, Savior, who has suffered so much for our sins.
2. Holy and Merciful Savior, do not deliver us to a bitter death. Our fathers have hoped in You, and You have delivered them.
3. Our fathers have cried toward You; they cried, and they were not disappointed. Holy God, God full of strength, do not deliver us to a bitter death.
The first movement, rather slow and very calm, presents two themes: the first one is contrapuntal; the second is like a chorale. In the second movement, a luminous trio—a sort of colorful arabesque (with the Positive Nazard, Flute 4' and Tierce 13⁄5' in the right hand, the Swell 8' foundation stops in the left hand and the Pedal 8' and 4' stops)—seems to express the hope mentioned in the text; after a section on the Swell Voix Celeste with a Flute 4' in the Pedal, the piece ends on an A-flat major chord with a quiet 16' in the Pedal. The third movement, which uses themes from the other movements, becomes increasingly flamboyant, leading to a free, lyrical second melody on the Positive Clarinet 8', followed by an arabesque on the Great Harmonic Flute 8'. After a progressive crescendo with the theme announced tutti in the Pedal, two measures of silence and a brief return to the Clarinet solo, there is a final distressful cry. Bonnal dedicated this work to his friend Joseph Bonnet who greatly appreciated it:
Ta nouvelle œuvre est magnifique, d’une grande profondeur de sentiment d’une haute sérénité musicale et poétique. Tu as tiré un parti excellent de la mélodie si belle et traduit les sentiments exprimés par le texte littéraire sous l’âme d’un grand artiste chrétien. Ton œuvre, comme toutes les précédentes du reste, témoigne d’une haute sincérité humaine et artistique.35

[Your new work is magnificent, a very deep, peaceful expression of great musicality and poetry. You have brought out the best in the beautiful melody and translated the feelings contained in the literary text as expressed by a great Christian artist. Your work, like all of your previous ones, testifies to an utmost human and artistic sincerity.]

In this same letter, Bonnet advised Bonnal to contact the publisher Leduc, who, thanks to Bonnet’s intervention, published this work in 1933. Bonnet played this symphony on numerous occasions, notably for a mass at Saint-Eustache Church in Paris on January 28, 1934. He also recorded it for the BBC. Encouraged by these successes, which placed him in the upper ranks of the French organ scene, Bonnal participated in a series of eight recitals organized by the Amis de l’Orgue on the Mutin organ at Saint-Bernard College in Bayonne.

His adherence to the neo-classical organ
Around 1930, Bonnal had been appointed titular organist at Saint-André Church in Bayonne, a neo-Gothic church built 1856–1869. The 32-stop, three-manual organ was built in 1863 by the Wenner et Götty firm from Bordeaux (Georges Wenner and Jacques Götty founded their firm in Bordeaux in 1848). This organ was a gift to the city from Napoléon III. When a vault collapsed above the organ loft in December 1895, Gaston Maille, who had taken over the Wenner firm in 1882, restored this symphonic organ from 1898 to 1902; an electric blower was installed probably during the 1920s. (See photo 3.)
In 1933, Bonnal supervised the restoration of this instrument by Victor Gonzalez, in collaboration with André Marchal, who had a home in Hendaye, and Norbert Dufourcq, much of whose family lived in Labastide-Clairence, a village about 20 kilometers from Bayonne. Bonnal described its neo-classical aesthetic:
on the Swell, we added a Plein-Jeu II and a Clairon that came from the Positive; on the Positive, some new stops were installed: Nazard, Doublette and Tierce, replacing the Gambe, Trompette and Clairon; for early music, the Clarinet was transformed into a Cromorne . . . The deteriorated pneumatic elements were replaced with a modified tubular system which provided more rapid and perfect precision . . .36
Finally, this 35-stop instrument was entirely revoiced to give more fullness to the foundation stops and more distinction to the reed stops. (See photo 4.)

Saint-André Church, Bayonne
Wenner et Götty / Maille (1902) / Gonzalez (1933)

I. GRAND ORGUE (56 notes)
16' Montre
8' Montre
8' Bourdon
8' Flûte Harmonique
4' Prestant
22⁄3' Nazard
2' Doublette
Plein-Jeu IV
Cornet V (C3)
16' Bombarde
8' Trompette
4' Clairon

II. POSITIF (56 notes)
16' Bourdon
8' Principal
8' Bourdon
8' Salicional
4' Flûte
22⁄3' Nazard
2' Doublette
13⁄5' Tierce
8' Cromorne

III. RÉCIT (56 notes)
8' Cor de nuit
8' Violoncelle
8' Flûte Harmonique
8' Voix Céleste
4' Flûte Octaviante
2'/1' Plein-Jeu II
8' Voix Humaine
8' Basson-Hautbois
8' Trompette Harmonique
4' Clairon

PÉDALE (30 notes)
16' Flûte
8' Flûte
16' Bombarde
8' Trompette

Combination Pedals: Thunderstorm Pedal, G.O./Péd, Pos/Péd, Réc/Péd; Pos./G.O., Réc/G.O.; Réc./Pos; Réc/G.O. 4, Pos/G.O. 16. To activate the Reeds: on the Réc, Pos and G.O. To activate the G.O. keyboard. To activate the Pos Mixtures; Réc Tremulant.

Pistons under the G.O. keyboard: Soft Foundation stops, Foundations 8 and 4, Foundations 8, 4 and 2, Tutti Plein-Jeu, General Tutti.

Bonnal performed the inaugural recital on September 27, 1933:

I.
J. S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue
A Sarabande grave by François Couperin
Father Martini’s Gavotte (for the new “carillon-like stop” [the Swell Plein-Jeu II])
N. de Grigny’s Trio en dialogue (utilizing the Cromorne stop)
D. Buxtehude’s Fugue in C major

II.
C. Franck’s Third Choral
Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique, Op. 57 (nos. 1–4), which had been dedicated to him
Joseph Bonnet’s Epithalamé, Op. 5 (1909)
E. Bonnal’s Cloches dans le ciel (first public performance).
On November 8, 1933, Bonnal’s organ students gave another concert:

Irène Darricau performed two pieces by J. J. Lemmens
Jeanne Larre (Vierne)
Renée Gemain (Franck)
Marylis Bonnal [his daughter] (a piece by Périlhou)
Mady Galtier, the organist at the Saint-Charles Church in Biarritz (a Bach Fugue)
Christian d’Elbée (Franck’s First Choral)
Ermend Bonnal (his own Paysages euskariens).

This beautiful organ has remained unchanged to this day and was classified as a historical monument in 2001. According to the present titular organist, Etienne Rousseau-Plotto, in addition to the French symphonic repertory, French organ music from the 1930s sounds absolutely spectacular on this organ.37
In 1933, the same year as the restoration of the Saint-André organ in Bayonne, Tournemire had requested the Société Cavaillé-Coll firm to modify his own historic 1858 A. Cavaillé-Coll organ at Sainte-Clotilde Basilica in Paris. According to an article by Bérenger de Miramon Fitz-James,38 following the reinauguration of this organ on June 30, 1933, the following ten stops had been added to this instrument: a Cornet on the Grand-Orgue; a Tierce and a Piccolo on the Positif; a Quintaton 16', a Nazard, a Tierce, a Plein-Jeu IV and a Bombarde on the Récit; and a Bourdon 16' and a Quinte 51⁄3' in the Pedal. The wind pressure was lowered on the Positif, the Positif Unda Maris was transformed into a Salicional, and the Positif Clarinet was moved to the Récit. In addition, a new console was installed with three 61-note manuals and a 32-note pedalboard, along with numerous pedal combinations. Following this restoration, a series of seven benefit recitals was given to help cover the restoration expenses. On March 22, 1934. Bonnal ended the fourth concert, given with the following artists who performed their own works:

Daniel-Lesur – La Vie intérieure
Olivier Messiaen – Diptyque
André Fleury – Prélude, Andante, Toccata
Maurice Duruflé – Adagio and Choral varié on the “Veni Creator”
Ermend Bonnal – Symphonie sur le Répons “Media Vita”

In 1934, Bonnal was awarded the Prix Durand (with Guy Ropartz) as well as the Grand Prix of a wine competition in Bordeaux for his Hymn au Vin. Bonnal then gave a series of prestigious organ concerts. On March 28, 1936, he performed a recital on Emile Bourdon’s organ at the Monaco Cathedral. On September 1, 1936, he inaugurated, with André Marchal, the organ restored by Victor Gonzalez at the Bayonne Cathedral. On January 28, 1937, he performed his own La Vallée du Béhorléguy au matin in the eighth concert of La Spirale at the Schola Cantorum, with his fellow colleagues: Jehan Alain (Suite), Olivier Messiaen (Jules Le Febvre’s Prélude, Aria et Final and selections from his La Nativité du Seigneur [Les Bergers, La Vierge et l’Enfant, and Les Anges]); Daniel-Lesur premiered his own Cinq Hymnes; Jean Langlais, his own Hommage à Francesco Landino and Mors et resurrectio; and André Fleury, his own Deux mouvements (Très lent and Vif et agité). How exciting it must have been to attend this concert! On April 26, 1937, Bonnal inaugurated the Debierre organ in the Preparatory School at the Aire-sur-Adour Seminary.
In the mid 1930s, both Bonnal and Tournemire were drawn to St. Francis of Assisi. On July 19, 1933, Bonnal had thanked Tournemire for having sent him his Fioretti pieces:

J’admire qu’après le monument qu’est l’Orgue mystique vous puissiez écrire d’autres pièces en renouvelant encore votre style. Une telle abondance dans sa richesse est une chose magnifique et si rare qu’on ne l’avait pas vue depuis Bach! Quel haut exemple vous êtes pour nous: vos disciples! Donc merci mon bon maître et ami d’être la lumière qui nous aide à avancer dans la voie difficile, mais belle!

[I admire that after the monument which is the Orgue mystique that you can write other pieces while continually renewing your style. Such a rich abundance, so magnificent and rare, has not been seen since Bach! What a noble example you are for us, your disciples! Therefore, thank you my dear master and friend to be such a light which helps us to advance on the difficult but beautiful path.]

A year and a half later, on May 7, 1935, Bonnal’s Franciscan Poems39 were performed in a concert at the Grand Théâtre in Bordeaux, broadcast live on the radio. That same year, Tournemire and his second wife, Alice, became members of the third order of Saint Francis of Assisi. In 1937, Tournemire finished a theatrical work that crowned his career: Il Poverello di Assisi, Op. 73 (five lyrical episodes in seven scenes on a text by Joséphin Péladan).40 Both Bonnal’s and Tournemire’s two monumental works, centered around this great saint, certainly prepared the way for Olivier Messiaen’s future opera Saint François d’Assise (1983).

His positions in Paris
In 1938, the French Institut awarded Bonnal the coveted Prix Lassere for his compositions. On September 3, 1939, the Second World War broke out. On November 3, Tournemire died mysteriously, leaving the organist post vacant at Sainte-Clotilde Basilica in Paris. However, since the government had closed the church (which was located just across from the Ministry of War) for fear of bombings, no successor was named. Bonnal did indeed write a text for L’Orgue in homage of Tournemire, entitled “L’Homme et L’Oeuvre,” which was published in March, 1940.41
In the summer of 1940, Sainte-Clotilde Basilica reopened. The organ was played during services by Bernard Schulé (1909–1996), an organ student of Joseph Bonnet who was the titular at the British Embassy Church since 1935 and who had substituted at Sainte-Clotilde for Tournemire since fall 1938. Schulé was a close friend of both Norbert Dufourcq and André Marchal.42
In 1941, Bonnal returned to live in Paris, where he was appointed to work with Henri Busser as Inspecteur Général de l’Enseignement Musical à la Direction des Beaux-Arts [General Inspector of Musical Education for the Direction of Fine Arts] throughout France. Dufourcq then organized a competition to determine Tournemire’s successor at Sainte-Clotilde. It was supposed to take place on December 20, 1941, precisely at 1:30 p.m. According to the announcement, the public was invited to attend with free admission; the church was to be heated. The candidates (Jean Langlais, Antoine Reboulot, and Daniel-Lesur) were to improvise a prelude and fugue and the verses of a hymn and to perform a work each by Bach, Franck, and Tournemire. Daniel-Lesur, who was supported by Olivier Messiaen, was hoping to compete. However, this competition was cancelled, due to the fact that many of the possible candidates were held as prisoners or were demobilized in the free zone during the war, thereby preventing them from coming to Paris to officially apply for this post. This was, in any case, Daniel-Lesur’s situation. On December 14, 1941, Norbert Dufourcq wrote a letter to Jean Langlais, informing him that the competition would occur at a later date.43
Then it was decided that an interim organist would be designated at Saint-Clotilde until a competition could be held after the war. When Sainte-Clotilde reopened in February, 1942, Canon Verdrie, the church priest, named Bonnal as titular without a competition, due to his fame as a well-known and respected musician who had been highly recommended by Count Bérenger de Miramon Fitz-James. After his nomination to this prestigious post, Bonnal thus became the successor to his lifelong friend and professor, Charles Tournemire.44 According to Bonnal’s daughter Marylis, numerous prominent musicians encouraged him to accept this post (notably Norbert Dufourcq, Béranger de Miramon Fitz-James, André Marchal, Noëlie Pierront, Gaston Poulet, René Calvet). Bonnal rarely remained in Paris since he often traveled throughout France to inspect conservatories. Thankfully, Schulé was able to substitute for him. (See photo 5, page 28.)
Bonnal felt that making music in French conservatories during this tragic time represented a sign of hope for the future. He encouraged students to maintain the following objectives:

D’abord le travail et la discipline dans l’effort: c’est à dire les deux ferments qui forgent, grandissent et trempent les caractères, purifient et annoblissent les ambitions. Ensuite: la recherche constante de la qualité. Songez qu’il ne doit pas vous suffire d’être d’excellents virtuoses possédant de sérieuses qualités techniques, il vous faut devenir d’authentiques musiciens.
La musique vous la découvrirez dans la pratique quotidienne, dans la fréquentation permanente des grands musiciens, des Bach, Mozart et Beethoven, pour n’en citer que trois parmi les plus grands. Vous devez par la méditation fréquente, essayer d’entrer en communion avec l’âme de ces grands humains qui furent de très grands penseurs. N’en jouer, même parfaitement, que le texte musical, c’est n’en connaître que la lettre, mais cela ne suffit pas, il vous faut en rechercher l’Esprit.
Soyez donc très ambitieux spirituellement et vous aurez un jour la surprise de découvrir la musique là où elle se trouve, en son seul domaine qui est celui des mouvements de l’Ame, de la connaissance humaine . . . en un mot: de la poésie!
Je n’ai jamais oublié ce mot admirable que me dit un jour mon cher ami Paul Dukas: “il n’y a pas d’art sans poésie.”45

[First of all, one must work and discipline one’s efforts: this will forge, expand and solidify one’s character, purify and ennoble one’s ambition . . . Constantly search for quality; it’s not enough to be an excellent virtuoso with a serious technique, you must become authentic musicians.
You must daily discover the great musicians: Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, to mention only these three among the greatest. Through frequent meditations, you must try to enter in communion with the souls of these great people who were very great thinkers. It does not suffice to play the musical text perfectly, this only allows you to know the letter; you must look for the Spirit.
Dare therefore to be spiritually ambitious and you will one day be surprised to discover that music belongs to the exclusive field . . . of poetry!
I’ll never forget the admirable words of my dear friend Paul Dukas who told me one day: “There is no art without poetry.”]

During the war, Bonnal took his vacations each August at Saint-Sever (in the Landes). He stayed in the home of Father Binsoll, the priest in Arièle, a nearby village. Each day, Bonnal visited his dear friends Ambroise Dupouy (organist at the Abbatial Church in Saint-Sever since 1840—who was responsible for the installation of its beautiful A. Cavaillé-Coll organ there in 1898—who died at the end of World War II), and his son Jean Dupouy (1896–1965), who succeeded him. Ambroise Dupouy’s daughter Jeanine, born in 1922, took daily lessons with Bonnal and her father. She has testified to Bonnal’s rigorous and severe approach, emphasizing his noble ideas and his meticulous care concerning details of touch, phrasing and fingering.
At the beginning of his summer vacation in 1844, Bonnal gave an organ concert with Jean Etchepare’s Double Vocal Quartet at Saint-André Church in Bayonne on Monday, July 31, 1944 at 3:45 p.m. This may seem like an odd time to give a concert, but this was due to the fact that many of the organ concerts in churches at that time served as an introduction and a conclusion to the exposition and benediction of the Holy Sacrament. Bonnal’s eclectic programs combined classical music with the popular traditional Basque repertory:

J. S. Bach: Toccata and Fugue (in D minor)
C. Franck: First Choral
A Basque Cantique (sung by the Double Vocal Quartet)
C. Franck: Second Choral
E. Bonnal: Joie et Joie for a men’s choir, set to a text by Loÿs Labèque
C. Franck: Third Choral
Improvisation on a given theme (by E. Bonnal)

E. Bonnal: O Salutaris
Josquin des Près: Ave Vera Virginitas
E. Bonnal: Tantum Ergo (in the Basque style) (sung during the exposition and benediction of the Most Holy Sacrament)
To conclude, Bonnal played J. S. Bach’s Chorale on the Veni Creator (most certainly his Fantasia super “Komm heiliger Geist, Herre Gott,” BWV 651).

Following this concert on July 31, Bonnal went to Saint-Sever to rehearse for a “Grand Concert Spirituel” that he was planning to give on Friday, September 8, 1944, at the Abbatial Church there, in collaboration with the Calvet Quartet and the Parish Schola directed by the organist Jean Dupouy. The proposed program:

I.
J. S. Bach: Toccata and Fugue (in D minor)

II.
N. de Grigny: Trio en dialogue
F. Couperin: Sarabande grave
N. Clérambault: Dialogue du 1er Ton
Cl. Balbastre: Noël (“Joseph est bien marié”)

III.
Händel: Sonata (in D major) for organ and violin (with Joseph Calvet)

IV.
E. Bonnal: Paysage landais
Noël landais
Improvisation (on a given theme)

V.
Maurice Ravel: Quatuor (played by the Calvet Quartet during the exposition and benediction of the Holy Sacrament)
At the end, Bonnal had programmed C. Franck’s Final.

During his visits to rehearse in Saint-Sever, the following photo was taken (See photo 6).
Unfortunately, Bonnal’s deteriorating health, due to his many personal sacrifices and concerns during the war, provoked a stroke that led to his death in Bordeaux, on August 14, 1944. This occurred just two and a half years after his appointment to Sainte-Clotilde46 and only twelve days after Joseph Bonnet’s own death.47 In the midst of the liberation of Paris, Bonnal’s daughter Marylis learned about her father’s death while listening to the radio! During this difficult time, Bonnal was buried in Bordeaux.
In 1945, Bonnal’s wife Hélène moved with her young children to Anglet. She survived, thanks to the generosity of an American organist, Mr. MacEvans, who was an officer in the American Army. He also directed a choir at the American University in Biarritz. To this day, Bonnal’s family is still extremely grateful for Mr. MacEvans’ kindness. In addition, André Marchal gave several benefit concerts for Bonnal’s family. On September 18, 1949, at Saint-André Church in Bayonne, with the singer Madame Malnory-Marsillac, the program included works by Bach, Couperin, Franck, Tournemire, and Bonnal (the second movement of his “Media Vita” Symphony). On May 15, 1952, Marchal performed another concert on the Saint-André organ in Bayonne, in Bonnal’s memory, with commentaries by Norbert Dufourcq, for the Jeunesses Musicales de France. This group was highly promoted in the Basque region by Bonnal’s very close friend, Joseph Calvet. Marchal’s eclectic program displayed the various tonal colors of this organ:

Louis Couperin - Chaconne in G minor
François Couperin – “Kyrie,” 5 verses from the Mass for the Parishes
J. S. Bach – Chorale: Christ lag in Todesbanden
C. Franck – Prélude, Fugue et Variation
Louis Vierne – “Final” from the First Symphony.
In 1975, Ermend Bonnal’s body was transported from Bordeaux to the Arcangues cemetery, in the Pyrenees mountains, an area he loved dearly. For this occasion, Henri Sauguet rendered homage to Bonnal’s positive inspiration on his own personal career as well as his contribution to 20th-century French music. Sauguet evoked Francis Jammes’ poem written in homage to Ermend Bonnal:

Taillé dans le dur bois d’un chêne harmonieux,
Ton pur profil, Bonnal, se confond avec l’orgue;
Mais de nous déchiffrer le silence des cieux
Ne te remplis jamais de vile et sotte morgue.
Comme aux astres, le jour, voilés par leur pudeur,
L’ombre est ce qui convient à ta noble carrière.
Ah! que tombe la nuit, et toute ta splendeur
Saura la consteller de notes de lumières.

[Carved in the hard wood of a harmonious oak tree,
Your pure profile, Bonnal, is merged with the organ;
But we must fathom the silence of the heavens
Which never fills you with a vile and foolish arrogance.
Like the stars, during the day, veiled by their modesty,
Darkness is most suitable to your noble career.
Ah! May the night fall, and all of your splendor
Will spangle it with enlightened notes.]

Conclusion
Joseph Ermend Bonnal belonged to a generation of artists from Bordeaux who possessed a high degree of moral perfection in their art and in their personal lives. They all shared a common, spiritual artistic vision, devoid of material ambitions, only desiring to serve music with deep, devoted love and passion. Inspired by the renewal of both traditional and early music, Bonnal formed numerous musical societies to promote this repertory. He left us an important heritage of deeply poetical pieces inspired by the rich culture of the Basque region. The intact organ at Saint-André Church in Bayonne testifies to his adherence to the French Neo-Classical organ. A prominent composer, music educator and administrator, a first-rate improviser and performer, Bonnal was indeed a dignified successor to his master and friend, Charles Tournemire, as titular organist at the Sainte-Clotilde Basilica in Paris. Bonnal served his art with humility. In spite of the numerous obstacles he encountered during his lifetime, Bonnal’s noble aspirations, along with the faithful support of his friends, enabled him to pursue his ongoing quest for perfection.

Acknowledgements
Carolyn Shuster Fournier warmly expresses her gratitude to: Mayette Bonnal, François and Marylis Raoul-Duval (members of Bonnal’s family), Madame Catherine Massip and Madame Vallet-Collot of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cécile Auzolle, Madame Marie-Françoise Romaine Brown-Bonnet, Aurélie Decourt, Madame Janine Dupouy, Brigitte de Leersnyder, Jacqueline Englert-Marchal, Adolphine and François Marchal, Yannick Merlin, Etienne Rousseau-Plotto Marie-Christine Ugo-Lhôte, and to the Ruth and Clarence Mader Memorial Scholarship Fund for its grant in 2006.

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