The Art of Robert Anderson CD

Carolyn Shuster Fournier

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

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

The repertoire of César Franck’s organ students

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Henri Dallier: Fantaisie in C (June 1878)101

Gabriel Pierné: Final (July 1882)

Henri Kaiser: Grande Pièce Symphonique (July 1884)

François Pinot: Fantaisie in A (June 1885)

Adolphe Marty: Fantaisie in C (June 1886)

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

Georges Aubry: Cantabile (June 1888)

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

Albert Mahaut: Prière (June 1889)

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

Henri Letocart: Pastorale (July 1890).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

César Franck’s artistic legacy

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

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

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

Vocal works: Hedwige Chrétien.

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

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

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

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

Light music: Émile Fournier.

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

Operettas: Louis Frémaux and Louis Ganne.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Choirmasters and organists at:

La Madeleine: Achille Runner (1904–1938);

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

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

Choirmasters at:

Notre-Dame d’Auteuil: Stéphane Gaurion;

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

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

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

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

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

Choir accompanists:

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

Saint-Eugène: Albert Pillard (1900);

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

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

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

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

Titular organists at:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saint-Louis-en-l’Île: François Pinot;

Saint-Mérri: Paul Wachs (1874–1896);

Saint-Philippe-du-Roule: Cesarino Galeotti;

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

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

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

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

Some played in Parisian suburbs at:

Charenton-le-Pont: Georges Guiraud;

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

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

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

in Meudon: Albert Mahaut (1888);

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saint-Germain in Rennes: Charles-Auguste Collin;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

Notes

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

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

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

90. Stinson, page 74.

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

92. Ibid.

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

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

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

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

97. Fauquet, page 485.

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

99. Tournemire, page 72.

100. Vallas, page 244.

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

102. Tournemire, page 24.

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

104. Tournemire, page 23.

105. Tournemire, page 21.

106. Tournemire, page 25.

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

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

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

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

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

112. Tournemire, page 63.

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

114. Vierne, Mes Souvenirs, page 20.

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

116. Büsser, pages 33–34.

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

118. Published in Marty, page 1.

119. Published in Marty, page 22.

120. Published in Sabatier, page 240.

121. Published in Marty, page 37.

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

123. Vierne, Journal, page 165.

124. Vierne, Journal, page 164.

125. See Fauquet, page 491.

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

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

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

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

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

131. Vierne, Journal II, page 157.

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

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

134. See Fauquet, page 476.

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

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

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

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

139. Cf. Smith, page 45.

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

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

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

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

144. Emmanuel, page 124.

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

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

Steven Young

Steven Young, DMA, serves as a professor of music at Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts, where he teaches courses in music theory and conducts the choral ensembles. As an organist, he has recorded selected works of Henry M. Dunham, a Boston-based composer. He has written several articles on the lesser-known organists-composers of France including Charles Quef, Pierre Kunc, and Aloys Claussmann. Young is minister of music/cantor at First Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brockton, Massachusetts.

The name of Marthe Bracquemond is little known in the musical world, yet she was a pioneer as one of the first female organists to break with established expectations in musical training. Additionally, she was the busiest organ performer on the airwaves of France between 1931 and 1939. She appeared more regularly than any other organist, male or female, on the Transmission sans fil (TSF) broadcasts aired by Radio-Paris P. T. T. (a division of France’s Ministry of Posts, Telegraphs, and Telephones), performing numerous concerts (sometimes weekly) for several years, presenting a varied repertoire of works mainly written by French composers from every age. By her musical accomplishments and activities, she helped shatter the gender barrier for female performers, but especially female organists.

Personal history

Bracquemond’s musical career appears to have been unique among her contemporaries. While there were several well-known and established female organists during her early years, all had the benefit of a Paris Conservatoire pedigree where they garnered the première prix in organ performance, notably Marie Prestat (1862–1933), Genèvieve Mercier (1900–1934), and Joséphine Boulay (1869–1925). Bracquemond did not attend the Conservatoire or any other musical institution; all her musical training appears to have been through private study with some of the finest teachers in Paris, including composition with Charles-Marie Widor and Henri Büsser, piano with Louis Vierne, and organ under the tutelage France’s premiere organ pedagogue, Marcel Dupré.¹

While little information exists about her early or personal life, she descended from a line of artists who specialized in the fine arts, including painting and sculpting. From her birth in 1898, art and artists surely surrounded her. Her father, Pierre Bracquemond (1870–1926), was a sculptor and painter, renowned for his work throughout his life. Auguste Joseph “Felix” Bracquemond (1833–1914), her grandfather, was a renowned sculptor, painter, and lithographer, and her grandmother, Marie (1840–1916), was often considered as one of the finest women impressionist painters of her generation (alongside Mary Cassatt and Eva Gonzalès). Her grandmother may have served as an inspiration as she was one of the few successful female artists in Paris at the time whose training was equally non-traditional.

However, her musical talent and interests seem to have come from her mother’s side of the family. Renée Berbadette, about whom little information exists, was the daughter of the acclaimed musicologist and pianist Pierre Hippolyte Berbadette.² Hippolyte was an active musician in La Rochelle, where the family home remained for many years. Hippolyte was also an amateur composer. Coming of age in such an environment, it would seem that Marthe had little choice but to become an artist. Bracquemond first came to public attention as a composer, having had several works performed in various venues before she made her public performance debut; these compositions included the Trois pièces pour quatour à cordes and Trois Mélodies, her first published opus.

Bracquemond’s first documented performance mentions her as an accompanist to the aforementioned songs given at a concert of the Société Musical Indépendante, which took place in 1923. She again appeared as an accompanist in 1924 as part of a concert given by Marcel Dupré, where she played the organ. Her first solo organ performance was part of a program shared with Louis Vierne, where she performed works of Bach and Franck. The reviewer seems to have been more impressed by her gender (“ce qui plus rare . . . une organiste femme”), though he did comment on her remarkable playing.³ Early in 1925 she participated in a concert spirituel at l’Oratoire de la Louvre, where she collaborated with several other musicians.⁴

As she progressed musically, she developed an interest in early music, which in 1925 led her to become an active member of the Société Française de Musicologie. One result of her interest in musicology was the regular inclusion of early French organ compositions on her recital programs.⁵ This interest in early music was shared with the tenor Yves Tinayre, a frequent collaborator of Bracquemond’s. Their joint concerts often featured many works by Baroque composers. In 1927 Bracquemond was the only organist to appear on the cover of Le Courrier Musical, one of the leading musical periodicals of the time, as she gave her so-called “début” recital at the Salle Majestic on February 22, though she had performed previously in several other venues. Many of the musicians appearing on the cover were often new and upcoming talent. The event must have been a tour-de-force as the reviewer claimed it lasted for two hours and contained seventeen pieces. (She was scheduled to perform with tenor Yves Tinayre and some instrumentalists.)⁶ The program featured numerous Baroque works, including the first performance of a canzona by Domenico Zipoli. Additionally, the program included the premiere of three of the six pieces from the recently published Pièces de Fantaisie, Première suite, opus 51, by Louis Vierne.⁷ The reviewer described the program as “intelligently constructed” and having been presented with “a lovely artistry.”

Additionally, she was a member of an all-female orchestra under the direction of Jane Evrard that specialized in early music.⁸ In all probability, this likely contributed to her interest in and her organ performances of numerous early French and German composers.

She was twice married during her lifetime, and she did have at least one child from her first marriage. She served as organist at l’Eglise Reformée de la Passy on the rue Cortambert in Paris’s sixteenth arrondissement, one of the few Protestant churches in the city, for twenty-five years between 1937 and 1962.

She composed only two organ works, which were published by Editions musicales de la Schola Cantorum (1951) and Alphonse Leduc (1954), respectively; she was the only female composer on the Leduc organ publication roster during the 1950s. Additionally, she made two recordings, one of some noëls that she arranged for choir on which she performed as soloist and accompanist, and a second where she is part of the orchestre feminine under Evrard.⁹ She enjoyed a long career as a performer and collaborator with numerous other musicians, but it appears that most of her earliest performances were given as recitals on the radio.¹⁰

“Queen of the airwaves”

The history of these radio concerts is a rich one for the organ. As early as 1924, regularly scheduled broadcasts of organ recitals from the Salon Cavaillé-Coll were heard across France, featuring the organist Georges Jacob.¹¹ The first documentable radio broadcast given by Bracquemond took place on February 15, 1928, where she played the organ in a performance of Camille Saint-Saëns’s Third Symphony on Paris P. T. T. Nearly every worthy organist played this work, seemingly a rite of passage granting entrance into the echelon of the solo performer. She was heard again on December 6, 1928, when she accompanied Lyse de Florane, a contralto, in numerous arias by French, Italian, and German composers. Bracquemond performed solo organ works including the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Bach, Sonata in A Major by Mendelssohn, an etude of Schumann, and two movements from the Première Symphonie, opus 14, of Vierne.¹² The program appears to be a repeat (or rebroadcast) of one performed a few days earlier at the Salle Majestic.¹³ The organ at the Majestic was constructed by Théodore Puget, a builder from Toulouse, which featured a tubular-pneumatic action, a rarity among the organs of Paris. The program began at 8:45 p.m. and would appear to have lasted well over an hour.

The first of the solo radio recitals took place on November 22, 1930, with Bracquemond performing a varied program featuring works by Bach, Buxtehude, Couperin, Schumann, Franck, Dupré, and Widor. Four weeks later, on Christmas Eve, she played two programs. The first featured music by Mendelssohn, Franck, Dupré, and Vierne; the second featured French noëls arranged by Alexandre Guilmant, Henri Büsser, and Louis-Claude d’Aquin, as well as regional tunes from Alsace and elsewhere. The Büsser selection, Deux Noëls, was dedicated to her.¹⁴ Shortly after that, she began to perform as a regularly featured artist, sharing the responsibility with Pierre Revel, a première prix winner in the Conservatory organ class of Guilmant.

When Georges Jacob retired from the regular “on air” performances, l’Association de les Amis de l’Orgue took control of the broadcasts and decided upon a rather rigid set of requirements for choosing performers. The first criterion was that each should have garnered a première prix from the Conservatoire. One would assume that would automatically rule out Bracquemond, as she had no conservatory training. But, it did not. In fact, Bracquemond was the most active performer on the musical roster, performing eighty-seven times over the five years (1934–1939) in which she began concertizing on these broadcasts. Her first two years seem to have been the busiest, performing twenty-seven radio concerts each year, in which she played many works by Franck, Bach, Widor, and Vierne, as well as works by Dupré and the young Maurice Duruflé, notably his recently published Prélude, Adagio, et Choral varié sur le thème du ‘Veni Creator,’ opus 4, winner of the composition competition sponsored by Les Amis de l’Orgue. Also during this season, she introduced French listeners to organ works by Swedish composers Waldemar Åhlén and Otto Olsson, among others.

In this series, she rarely repeated a single piece from her vast repertoire. In 1935 she performed her radio concerts from various venues in Paris, including the Salle Cavaillé-Coll, the Schola Cantorum, l’Église Saint-Sulpice, and chez Miramon Fitz-James (one of the presidents of l’Association de les Amis de l’orgue). It is during this season we find the first mention of her Variations sur un air d’Auvergne, which may be the same as the Variations sur un Noël,¹⁵ and her first performances of works by Olivier Messiaen.

In 1936 she made fourteen radio appearances. Those performances began in January with two concerts and resumed in April upon her return from her American concert tour.¹⁶ This tour seems to have been an extension of her radio work, as only three concert listings appear in any American periodicals of the time. However, Paris-midi reported upon her return that her “recitals and her sessions with National Broadcasting have earned her the greatest success,”¹⁷ so she may have performed more than is documentable.

The performances were aired on WJZ radio out of New York. The station had a large broadcast area as newspapers in Rochester, New York, Des Moines, Iowa, Chillicothe, Ohio, Saint Louis, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland, all make mention of one or more of her performances.

Back in France, there were nine radio concerts in 1937, five in 1938 and 1939. The diminishing number of performances may have been a result of her position at l’Église reformée and the increasing number of concert organists. In 1939 with the onset of World War II, the series was terminated.

During World War II, Bracquemond seems to have been less active in the musical scene, possibly contributing to the war effort. There are no records of public performances, though on the rarest of occasions, some of her chamber music appeared on concert programs given during the war years (1939–1944). It appears that she rented a hall containing an organ, where she gave concerts. A newspaper announcement mentions concerts at the “salle d’orgue de Marthe Bracquemond.” She may have used this space for recitals, teaching, and/or practicing. This hall may have been used during the war, but it was certainly used following it. Two years after the war ended, she made a triumphant return to major concert venues, namely the Salle Pleyel and the Salle Gaveau. A review of a 1946 concert stated:

The return of Marthe Bracquemond into Parisian musical life must be noted. The day before yesterday, November 13, she gave a magnificent program at the Salle Pleyel, and on Wednesday November 27, at 6:30 p. m., she will continue her “Cycle of original recitals” in a magnificent program with major works of Mozart, Roger-Ducasse, Saint-Saëns, Louis Vierne,
and Widor.¹⁸

Bracquemond continued to give solo and shared recitals until 1950; she also performed regularly as part of the concerts at La Schola Cantorum, where she would play solo pieces between choral selections.¹⁹ These programs featured some of the finest pieces by French composers and others. Bracquemond, herself a composer, only performed one of her own compositions during this period; it was a work entitled La Fôret, an unpublished score that may not be extant. Marie-Louise Girod, former organist of l’Oratoire de la Louvre, considered it to be a formidable work, possibly Bracquemond’s most extensive composition for the instrument.²⁰ Her only other published organ piece, Ombres: Suite pour la Passion, has no documentable public performance by the composer.

Bracquemond’s unusual repertoire

Bracquemond’s repertoire included many of the celebrated works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Felix Mendelssohn, and a few other well-known early German composers as well as music of Scandinavia, but she focused on the music of France and Belgium. In addition to the music of Joseph Jongen, a well-respected Belgian organist/composer, Bracquemond performed the music of Père Jean-Marie Plum, a contemporary of hers (1899–1944), on at least seven different occasions. Plum’s music is little known and does not seem to have enjoyed wide acknowledgement in the organ community of France or Belgium, but it is of solid musical construction, worthy of performance. Plum’s post-Romantic aesthetic is often likened to that of Charles Tournemire and Maurice Duruflé because of his similar infusion of Gregorian themes into modern, chromatic harmony. Perhaps this style is what attracted Bracquemond to the music. In 1936 Bracquemond played Plum’s chant-based four-movement Symphonie Eucharistique, opus 115, composed in 1934.²¹

As mentioned above, Bracquemond performed some contemporary Scandinavian music, though many of the compositions are not listed. A reference to Variations sur un choral by Åhlén (1894–1982), a Swedish composer, appears in her repertoire list. In his list of works, there is one Koraalpartita; one might assume this to be the work she performed. She also performed music of Jean Sibelius and Oskar Merikanto, notably his 1918 Passacaglia.²² Other lesser-known composers featured in these concerts included Patrik Vretblad and David Wikander.

She was a fierce champion of contemporary French organ music, performing and premiering works by members of La Jeune France, formerly La Spirale, a group of composers that included Olivier Messiaen, André Jolivet, Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur, and Georges Migot. In 1936 she performed Jolivet’s Prélude apocalyptique, a work dedicated to her, the year following its publication. The piece was reworked and later recast as Hymne a l’univers. Bracquemond also played Migot’s Le Tombeau de Nicolas de Grigny, which he dedicated to her.
Bracquemond’s affiliation with this group likely led to the performance of another unpublished work, Trois poèmes, given at a concert of La Spirale that showcased the compositions of women; the event was billed as a concert of musique féminine française in 1937.²³ Several years later, her colleague Léonce de Saint-Martin, then organist of Notre-Dame, dedicated his 1944 Toccata de la Libération to her, and she gave a performance of the work in 1946.²⁴

Bracquemond demonstrates what it truly means to be a collaborator. In addition to her “debut” concert, which she shared with a tenor, she frequently collaborated with other musicians in live performances and during her radio broadcasts. She performed with numerous singers, instrumentalists, and in 1935 with the renowned pianist Jean Doyen, performing Marcel Dupré’s Ballade pour piano et orgue, opus 30 (1932), a work Dupré himself often played with his daughter Marguerite during concert tours.

Compositional career

As a composer, Bracquemond produced several pieces, but published a very small body of her work.²⁵ The aforementioned La Fôret for organ, several mélodies, as well as a larger piece for orchestra are among those unpublished pieces. Her published works include Trois Mélodies, a string quartet, music for flute (and harp), some brief choral pieces, and two more substantial works for organ.

Her earliest published composition, Trois Mélodies, appeared in 1922 and is dedicated to Louis Vierne, her piano teacher of many years. A cursory examination of the work shows some of Vierne’s compositional influence evidenced in the use of ostinato rhythmic and harmonic patterns, frequently set in a tripartite form. Her poet choice may have reflected her upbringing in that she chose to promote the works of Judith Gauthier, French poet and historical novelist (1845–1917). The poems from Le livre de jade appeared in 1867—a volume of Chinese poetry loosely rendered into French.²⁶ One review of the premiere of these works by the Société Musicale Indépendante referred to them as delicate, possessing charm and musicality.²⁷

In the chamber and vocal music, the sparse textures and repetitive figures clearly demonstrate her affinity for the style espoused by many of her contemporaries, some of whom were members of La Spirale and La Jeune France. A published review of her Trois pièces pour quatour á cordes calls it a “unique” work and describes it as possessing both “musical and ideological continuity,”²⁸ while another reviewer commented on their freshness and amiability.²⁹

The two published organ works of Bracquemond pay homage to her teacher, Marcel Dupré. He composed his Variations sur un Noël on the well-known carol, Noël nouvelet, and a lengthy work, Le Chemin de la Croix, which began as a set of improvisations to accompany the reading of texts of Paul Claudel. As for Bracquemond’s musical style seen in her two published organ works, one finds a mixture of techniques, all set within the ever-changing musical scene of interwar France. In the Variations (1952), Bracquemond fuses an ancient tune whose origin is presently unknown with elements of whole-tone harmonies and modal scales, resulting in a style resembling a combination of her teachers’ influences as well as those of her contemporaries such as Duruflé. In contrast to those influences, one also notices the sparseness of the writing, reflecting Neo-Classical tendencies. “Variation I” is a melody accompanied by major triads mostly, recalling the chordal planing used by Debussy. “Variation II” makes use of a trio texture with the melodic line in the pedal. The third variation moves to the dark key of E-flat minor, where slowly undulating sixteenth notes accompany an altered version of the melody. “Variation IV” is a scherzo where the melodic line is rhythmically altered and placed within dissonant harmony. The final variation resembles a scaled-down French toccata associated with Vierne and Dupré, but this spare setting emphasizes Bracquemond’s simpler style drawing on Neo-Classical techniques.

In Ombres, published in 1954, one finds similarities to Dupré’s Le Chemin de la Croix, written some twenty years earlier, in her use of contrapuntal techniques and the use of the interval of the fourth, an interval featured in the Dupré composition. (Bracquemond’s work is considerably shorter than that of Dupré.) The use of Biblical quotations at the outset of each movement recalls Messiaen’s organ suites, La Nativité du Seigneur and l’Ascension. Bracquemond creates a programmatic work that attempts to rival the sincerity and emotionalism found in Messiaen’s religious cycles. She makes frequent use of ostinato patterns evidenced in the music of Vierne, solid contrapuntal writing found in the music of Widor and Dupré, with more modern harmonies. The work makes use of cyclic techniques and a unifying leitmotif that hearken back to the music of Franck, Wagner, and others.

Radio performances did not receive critical reviews, but from the numerous performances she gave, it appears she was well received and respected. The critical reviews of her live concert performances make note of her scrupulous performance, her finesse and grace with attention to every detail, sometimes despite the instrument she is playing.³⁰ Other reviews have similar praise for her expertise as both organist and accompanist. Bracquemond was truly a musical force with which to be reckoned.³¹

 

Partial funding for the research for the article came from the Clarence and Ruth Mader Memorial Scholarship Fund, the Special Projects Advisory Committee of the Boston Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, and the Center for the Advancement of Research and Scholarship at Bridgewater State University.

Notes

1. See Anne Bongrain, Le Conservatoire national de musique et déclamation 1900–1930: Documents historiques et administratifs. Librairie Philosophique J. VRIN 2012.

2. L’Echo rochelais, Nov. 27, 1929, pages 1–2. Barbedette authored numerous books on music of Classical-era composers including Beethoven, Haydn, and Schubert, though his most celebrated work is his tome on Stephen Heller. Barbedette was honored by Heller as the dedicatee of his fourth piano sonata.

3. Le Temps, Dec. 17, 1924, page 4. 

4. La Liberté, April 18, 1925, page 5.

5. “Séances De La Société Française De Musicologie.” Revue De Musicologie 6, no. 14 (1925): pages 95–96. Accessed at jstor.org.libserv-prd.bridgew.edu/stable/925700.

6. Le Monde Musical, vol. 38, no. 3 (March 1927), page 118. According to this review, Yves Tinayre was ill and was replaced by Mme. Castellazzi.

7. La Semaine de Paris, February 18, 1927, pages 38–39.

8. “Musical Notes from Abroad.” The Musical Times 78, no. 1127 (1937): pages 76–78. doi:10.2307/920305. Jane Evrard was the pseudonym of Jeanne Chevallier Poulet, a well-respected violinist. 

9. Marthe Bracquemond, Noëls Percherons—Échange et Rencontres au Pays Percheron, SDRM (3)-697. See also: 1936, Orchestre Féminin de Paris, dir. J. Evrard, Groupe vocal Yvonne Gouverné, Marcelle de Lacour clavecin, Paul Derenne (tenor), Hugues Cuénod (ténor), accessed at france-orgue.fr/disque/index.php?zpg=dsq.fra.rch&org=Marthe.

10. Elsa Barraine’s organ music was composed and published between 1928 and 1930 (Durand). Jeanne Demessieux’s Six Études was published in 1946 (Durand), so music by women was not new, yet rarely performed.

11. Le Ménestrel, October 3, 1924, page 416, announced that Jacob had been tasked by the
T. S. F. with programming regularly scheduled organ recitals.

12. Le Matin, December 6, 1928, page 5.

13. Le Gaulois, December 2, 1928, page 5. 

14. Le Matin, December 24, 1930, page 6.

15. Also entitled Variations sur un air Auvergnat.

16. Her three radio appearances in the United States are as follows: February 16, 1936, “Radio Programs Scheduled for Broadcast This Week,” The New York Times (1923-Current file): 1. February 16, 1936. ProQuest. Web. January 9, 2018. March 1, 1936—“Broadcast of an organ recital by Marthe Bracquemond,” WJZ (The New York Times, March 1, 1936, XXII) (“Radio Programs Scheduled for Broadcast This Week,” The New York Times (1923-Current file): 1. March 1, 1936. ProQuest. Web. January 9, 2018.) March 8, 1936: “Radio Programs Scheduled for Broadcast This Week.” The New York Times (1923-Current file): 1. March 8, 1936. ProQuest. Web. January 9, 2018.

17. Paris-midi, April 22, 1936, page 7.

18. E. Bleu, “Marthe Bracquemond aux grandes orgues de Pleyel,” Images Musicales, November 15, 1946, cited in Cartayrade, op. cit., pages 290–291. “La rentrée de Marthe Bracquemond dans l’activité de la vie musicale parisienne se doit d’être signalée. Avant hier 13 novembre elle donnait sur le magnifique instrument de la Salle Pleyel et le mercredi 27 novembre, à 18h30, elle poursuivra son “Cycle de récitals originaux” dans un magnifique programme où sont inscrites de grandes oeuvres caractéristiques de Mozart, Roger-Ducasse, Saint-Saëns, Louis Vierne, et Widor.”
Bracquemond performed works by Bach, Dupré, Alain, and Vierne.

19. Published interview with Georges Trouvé by Jean Claude Duval entitled “Georges Trouvé organiste et ‘grand serviteur d’eglise,’” April 23, 2001. 

20. oratoiredulouvre.fr/patrimoine/lorgue-et-le-protestantisme.

21. The earliest record of a performance comes from l’Intransegeant, February 7, 1934, page 9, announcing a concert of works by Plum given at the Royal Conservatoire de Bruxelles (performer not named).

22. Paris-midi, February 9, 1940, page 2.

23. L’Art musicale, February 19, 1937, page 490. The concert took place at the Schola Cantorum. She performed with a singer named Cernay. See: Nigel Simeone, “La Spirale and La Jeune France: Group Identities,” The Musical Times, vol. 143, no. 1880 (2002), page 29. These pieces do not appear to have been published.

24. Alain Cartayrade, “Le Concerts pour orgue au Palais de Chaillot de 1939 à 1972 et pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale,“ Le Bulletin de l’Association Maurice et Marie-Madeleine Duruflé, vol. 14 (2015), page 290. 

25. There is record of one piece for harp and flute that appears not to have been published. The Prélude Incantatoire-Pastorale-Conclusion on a Sonnet of Ronsard was dedicated to and premiered by Françoise Kempf and Jan Merry in 1932 (see Ardal Powell, The Flute, page 220).

26. Pauline Yu, “‘Your Alabaster in This Porcelain:’ Judith Gauthier’s ‘Le Livre De Jade.’” PMLA 122, no. 2 (2007): pages 464–482. Accessed at jstor.org/stable/25501716.

27. Le Courrier Musical, vol. 24, no. 1 (Jan. 1, 1922), pages 11–12. The premiere took place on December 1, 1921. Blanche Croiza sang, accompanist not named.

28. Le Ménestrel, March 31, 1922, page 144.

29. Le Courrier Musical, vol. 24, no. 10 (May 15, 1922), page 173. 

30. Refer to a review in Le Ménestrel, December 17, 1926, page 538.

31. See Le Ménestrel, December 20, 1929, page 551. See also Ebrecht, Ronald, “Lenten Series at the American Cathedral in Paris, 1949 and 1950.” The Diapason, December 2002, pages 20–21. ProQuest. Web. February 17, 2018.

Jesse Eschbach

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How long did you work with Jeanne Demessieux?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Did she ask for repertory studied at lessons be memorized?

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

Could you describe the legendary memory of Demessieux?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She was very humorous.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I don’t know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

§

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

Notes

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

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

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

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

5. Underscored by Labric.

6. Underscored by Demessieux.

7. Underscored by Demessieux.

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

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

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

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

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