Jehan Alain manuscripts

Stephanie Sloan and Rebecca Marie Yoder are undergraduate students in the sacred music degree program at Duquesne University.

On October 8, 2011, the organ and sacred music performance students at Duquesne University, who study under the direction of Dr. Ann Labounsky, participated in a special masterclass given by Helga Elisabeth Schauerte-Maubouet on the organ works of Jehan Alain. A masterclass of this sort was the first in the United States that she conducted along with her newest publication, a three-volume Bärenreiter Urtext edition of Jehan Alain’s music. These volumes are the first German publication of Alain’s music and were studied extensively over the course of this 8-hour masterclass at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. During the masterclass, the Duquesne University organ students gained much valuable insight into the works of Jehan Alain through the research of Schauerte, organist of the German Lutheran Church in Paris.

Schauerte’s interest in the art of organ playing began when she was young, for at 13 years of age she became the chief organist at a local church in Lennestadt, Germany. The story behind her inspiration to study Alain’s music began with Litanies. The first time she heard this piece was during a performance by her brother in Frankfurt, during which she assisted him with page turns and registration changes. She was struck by the expressive tonality of the piece and desired to know more about it and its composer. Consequently, she began studying at the Conservatory of Rueil-Malmaison with Marie-Claire Alain in 1983, after finishing her degree at the University of Cologne. As she advanced in her studies, Schauerte noticed technical and numerical discrepancies in the available editions of Alain’s compositions.

Thereafter, she decided to perform her own investigations in search of an authentic interpretation of Alain’s works. Her Bärenreiter edition is the result of over a decade of intensive research. It critically compares the earliest versions of Alain’s music preserved in his family archives and scores from the French National Library with all other known manuscripts. As recently as 1975, additional autographs were discovered in the Alain family archives and in 1987 in his friends’ collections.¹ Schauerte made a careful effort to ascertain not only an authentic interpretation of Alain’s pieces, but also the correct chronological order of his works. Within this chronology, Schauerte disregards transcriptions and unfinished works. The great significance of this new edition is that it, for the first time, merges Alain’s full organ works with details of the discrepancies between the different manuscripts. The performer can see the reasoning behind the changes made to Alain’s original documents, and also make his own judgments of what Alain originally intended. In addition, these volumes of the complete works of Alain publish the composer’s biography and his commentaries on many of the pieces. There are also thoughtful enhancements for each piece, with a catalogue of all sources consulted. The edition brings Alain’s total compositional effort to 120 titles.

The music of Jehan Alain is important for an organist to study in such detail because of the unique modernist voice Alain brought to 20th-century French organ music. Jehan Alain—a musician, artist, and poet—was born on February 3, 1911, the eldest of four musical children. From his humble beginnings, taking lessons from his father on their homemade house organ, Alain went on to study at the National Conservatory in Paris under André Bloch, Georges Caussade, Paul Dukas, Jean Roger-Ducasse, and Marcel Dupré. When Alain was drafted for the Second World War in 1939, he was just blossoming into creative maturity. Even while performing his duties, he continued to write compositions for organ, piano, orchestra, and voice.² He drew inspiration from nature, imitating its purity and freshness, and was also influenced by Eastern music. Alain often composed polytonal music, seeking “new colorings created by unusual blends of registers. He experimented with soloistically employed mutation stops” and composed with unique timbres that require complicated registration changes.³ Seventy years after his tragic demise, Alain’s pieces are a staple in nearly every organist’s repertoire, including works such as Litanies, Le Jardin Suspendu, and Choral Dorien.

Litanies was written in August of 1937 under the initial title “Supplication.” On the original manuscript, Alain depicted a grotesque nightmare: a man pushing a three-wheeled cart, behind whom are twenty policemen pelting him with bricks. The students were fascinated by the fact that Alain, in the original manuscript, dictated that he wished the performer to double in octaves the pedal line in measures fifty-two to fifty-eight. This is so that the theme in the pedal will be more prominent than the accompaniment in the manuals. Litanies’ uneven theme, evocative of a tortured soul intoning a desperate prayer, is repeated unceasingly at a frantic pace while transitioning through several modifications that reach the point of breathlessness.⁴ Alain himself was enduring great hardships at this point in his life. While Alain was writing this piece, his wife and he suffered through a miscarriage. The piece’s creation may also have been preemptive: two weeks later, his sister Marie-Odile died in an Alpine climbing accident trying to protect their brother Olivier from a fatal fall. Both these events gave Alain and his wife personal cause to constantly lift their prayers to God.

Alain dedicated the exquisite Le Jardin Suspendu (1934) to his close friend Marguerite Evain. This was one of his favorite pieces, which describes a “land of cheerfulness and peace.”⁵ Schauerte told the students in the masterclass to observe that the piece has three distinct sections and to be aware of the variations of the theme throughout the piece. In regard to balancing the registration for the middle section of Le Jardin Suspendu, she mentioned that the triplets should not be so loud that the listener cannot easily discern the primary theme in the chords.

Alain generated the title of Choral Dorien (1938) from the Greek mode, “which refers to today’s Dorian as Phrygian and vice versa.”⁶ Performers of this piece and other Alain works often misinterpret his tempi indications. Alain did not like the constraints of bar lines and rarely denoted a particular, strict tempo. Instead, he was concerned primarily with the “living pulse of his musical thought” and wrote down the durations of his pieces to determine their relative tempi. Schauerte remarked that the tempo of Choral Dorien should not be too lethargic. She suggested that the performer sing the theme in order to correctly pace the tempo. These indications for Litanies, Le Jardin Suspendu, and Choral Dorien are critical to the correct interpretation of Alain’s pieces and, if applied, form important habits for the pupils of Jehan Alain’s works. 

The organ students at Duquesne University thoroughly enjoyed this intensive study of Jehan Alain’s music with Helga Schauerte as well as her recital the previous evening at St. Paul’s Cathedral. Many were impressed with the excellence of Schauerte’s research and were glad for her attention to detail and informed advice on each piece. Others were amused with Alain’s artwork and were interested to learn more about his life. The masterclass provided a fresh musicological insight into the works and life of an inspiring modern composer whose creative life was tragically cut short during his military service in World War II. 

The experience of a masterclass on the works of Jehan Alain with Helga Schauerte made a lasting impression upon those who participated. Alain’s life and music are inspirations that echo in the works of Jean Langlais and Maurice Duruflé, as well as in numerous organists’ repertoire. Whether through a masterclass, a celebratory dinner with friends of Jehan Alain meeting each other for the first time, or the National French Centenary Celebration of the Birth of Jehan Alain, musicians across the globe delight in studying and internalizing the musical expressions of this inspirational man and will do so for decades to come.⁷

Margaret Sandresky is a graduate of Salem Academy and College with a major in organ performance. She earned a master’s degree in composition with a minor in organ at the Eastman School of Music, and later received a Fulbright Grant for the study of organ with Helmut Walcha at the Hochschule für Musik in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. She has held positions at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the University of Texas at Austin, the North Carolina School of the Arts, and at Salem College, where she is Emeritus Professor of Music. Her articles have been published in The Journal of Music Theory, Music Theory Spectrum, The American Liszt Society Journal, Ars Organi, The American Organist and The Diapason. Her seven volumes of organ music are published by Wayne Leupold Editions, and her anthems are published by Paraclete Press. In 2004, she received the Distinguished Composer award given at the AGO convention in Los Angeles, and in 2006 was honored by St. Andrews College with the Sam Ragan Award for distinguished service to the Arts in North Carolina. Volume VIII of her complete organ works was published by Wayne Leupold Editions in July 2010. Her article, “Mendelssohn’s Sonata III: A Composer’s View,” was published in the March 2008 issue of The Diapason.

Jehan Alain’s Variations sur un thème
de Clément Jannequin received its first performance on February 19, 1938 at the Eglise de la Trinité in Paris, with the composer at the organ. Le Jardin Suspendu and Litanies were also played on the program, and in 1939 these three were published together by Alphonse Leduc as Trois Pièces. The theme, “L’espoir que j’ai”, was taken from Echos de Temps Passé, a volume of old chansons edited by J.B. Weckerlin, belonging to Alain’s grandmother, whose name, A. Alberti, is inscribed on the title page.
Marie Claire Alain’s detailed and informative Critical Notes on the Organ Works of Jehan Alain, which appeared in English translation by Norma Stevlingen in 2003, contains a facsimile of Alain’s thematic catalogue of his own works from 1929 to 1938, where the Variations are number 118, Litanies number 119, and Le Jardin Suspendu, composed in 1934, is number 71.
Of the four named sources for this piece, one is from the family heirs, and one is from Alphonse Leduc; but the two most interesting are from his two friends, for whom he made manuscript copies. In both the latter, Alain gives the full name of his theme, Variations sur l’espoire que j’ai d’acquirir votre grâce, chanson de Clément Jannequin. The first of these is dedicated to his friend from Conservatoire days, Pierre Segond, who, much later, was largely responsible for the restoration of Albert Alain’s famous house organ, for which his son conceived most of his music. Jehan Alain wrote: “The copy is not beautiful but it is from the heart. It should be possible for the musician of the 20th century to preserve the sound of this old music. The language matters little; only the spirit speaks.” And from a manuscript belonging to Aline Pendleton, an organist who played his music, he writes of the “freshness and tenderness of the music of the 16th century.”
The theme, which is presented very simply on the Récit Hautbois 8′, accompanied on Grand Orgue Bourdon 8′ coupled to the pedal, contains a palindrome (F–G–A–Bb–A–G–F) that occurs three times, at measures 3–5, 8–10, and 28–30. This idea is developed extensively in variation two, marked “Fugato,” using the techniques of retrograde and inversion. Alain’s seemingly loose and improvisatory compositional style is very tightly controlled in the episodic material and repeated in various ways six times, labeled alphabetically in the appended examples.
In each episode of the “Fugato,” beginning at measure 86, two voices weave in palindromes. One of the voices consists of an octatonic scalar line moving in alternate whole steps and half steps, first up five steps and then down again in retrograde motion, then repeating itself. Such a scale consists of two tetrachords an augmented fourth apart. (For instance, in a scale on C, they would be spelled
C–D–Eb–F and F#–G#–A–B.) Against this line a second voice moves freely, creating a set of twelve intervals, which are then presented in retrograde, while the scalar line occurs four times in the space of the second voice. Such a plan is suggestive of a serial working out of the material. And indeed, serial reconstruction shows that Alain had a strict plan for these episodes, one that is a further development of the previous material. For instance, he begins and ends episodes on an augmented fourth or its inversion. This interval, worked into the pattern, seems linked to the augmented fourth between the two tetrachords of the octatonic scalar motion. In addition, the octatonic scale sets up a series of alternating triadic sonorities consisting of, among other sonorities, alternate major 6/3 and minor 5/3 triads such as are found in the five chords beginning at measure 52.
In the Leduc editions, each of these two voices is spelled presumably as it occurs in the octatonic scale, resulting in many of the vertical intervals being disguised by enharmonic notation. In the following examples, my notation addresses the passages in vertical diatonic intervallic spellings, in order to make them more easily recognized.
From the attached examples of a serial analysis it is clear that some of the intervals in these editions do not fit into the plan. For instance, Examples A, B, and D begin on an augmented fourth or diminished fifth. In Example C, the first interval should therefore also be a diminished fifth, and the A-flat in the lower voice should be A-natural. Calculated from bottom to top, the following intervals show the discrepancies and how they should read if the pattern is followed accurately:

Example Printed Score Serial Analysis
C1 Ab to Eb A to Eb
C2 C to A B to A
C3 G to Eb Gb to Eb
C4 B to D A to D
C5 F# to G# D# to G#
C6 D to F# B to F#
C7 F to F unison C to F
C8 C to Eb A to Eb
D1 Ab to B Ab to Bb
D2 D to G D to F
D3 G to Bb G to D
D4 Bb to D Bb to E
D5 G to Eb G to D

Examples A and B show Alain’s original intervallic structure and his serial organization. In Examples C and D, the intervals on the staff are a direct transposition of the original and the discrepancies in the Leduc editions are written below the staff. Examples E and F show Alain’s new counterpoint added to the same octatonic scale and illustrate the serial structure.
In the Critical Notes we read the following:

In May 1938, Jehan Alain entrusted copies of his Trois Pièces to Alphonse Leduc Editions (according to notes in his appointment book). ‘Monday, July 4, 1938: 2:00 p.m. M. de Miramon Leducq’ (sic).
A first edition of the Trois Pièces bears the copyright 1939. Therefore it was reviewed by the composer before he left for the army.1
In view of my analysis, I think the performer must wonder if Alain really had the time to carefully proof his Variations, a tedious and time-consuming task for any composer. Perhaps he had to entrust this to someone who was not aware of the beautiful and sophisticated patterns Alain had designed, especially since the doubtful accuracy of pitch content in the Fugato stands in contrast to the careful accuracy of pitch content in Alain’s 1935 intricate dodecaphonic “Fugue”. 

Recitalist, teacher and recording artist, Marie-Claire Alain is one of the leading personalities in the world of organ music. Born into a family of musicians at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, she studied music at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, where she won four first prizes, soon followed by several awards in international competitions.
Marie-Claire Alain’s concert tours have led her throughout the world, including numerous trips to the United States and Canada since 1961. Critics praise the clarity of her playing, the musicality of her interpretations, the purity of her style, and her mastery of registration.
Greatly sought after as a teacher and justly famous for her lectures illustrated with musical examples, Marie-Claire Alain bases her teaching on extensive, unrelenting musicological studies in organ literature and performance practices of early music. After teaching for sixteen summers in Haarlem, The Netherlands (1956–1972), she now holds a workshop every summer in Romainmôtier, Switzerland, where the house organ from her family home in France is located. She taught for many years at the Conservatoire National de Region de Rueil-Malmaison, followed by several years at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Paris. Her discography is impressive, containing over 220 recordings, including the famous “integrales” or complete works (J. S. Bach, Couperin, de Grigny, Daquin, Franck, Handel, J. Alain, etc.), which have won her numerous Grands Prix du Disque in France and abroad. In addition, an educational DVD featuring Mme. Alain was produced by the American Guild of Organists in 2002. Marie-Claire Alain has received honorary doctorates from Colorado State University (Fort Collins), Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, The Boston Conservatory of Music, McGill University, Montréal, Canada, and most recently in 2006 from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1984, she was named International Performer of the Year by the New York City AGO chapter, and in 1999 was given the AGO Lifetime Achievement Award. In France, she was awarded the degree “Commandeur des Arts et Lettres.”
As an outgrowth of her great interest in the pipe organs of her own country, Mme. Alain serves on a commission of the French government for the promotion and construction of new pipe organs in France. Classic CD magazine named her one of “The Greatest Players of the Century” in 2001 in a list that included the entire classical music world. For many years, she has been an adjudicator at organ competitions all over the world. In 1999 she was president of the jury of Concours Suisse de l’orgue, and on several occasions she has presided over the juries of the Concours International de Chartres and of the Musashino International Competition in Tokyo.
—Stephen Hamilton
 

In 1965, a brilliant young student of Arthur Poister, Byron L. Blackmore, moved to my hometown of La Crosse, Wisconsin, to assume the city’s only full-time church position. I had the privilege of being his first organ student at the age of 13, and it was Byron who introduced me to the artistry of Marie-Claire Alain. He had me purchase her recordings of de Grigny, Couperin, Bach, Handel and Jehan Alain, and from these recordings my life completely changed. I immediately fell in love with her incredible musicianship, her extraordinary attention to detail, touch, ornamentation, breath, style and, above all, music-making, and I knew I wanted one day to be her student.
I met Marie-Claire for the first time at a concert she performed in Rochester, Minnesota, when I was 14 years old. She made a very ordinary electric-action organ come alive. Following the concert, we spoke at the reception in French, and she patiently coached our conversation along, helping me with my first year “command” of the language. She was so kind, warm and encouraging. She gave me her home address in L’Etang-la-Ville and told me to keep in touch. I couldn’t believe such a great artist would be so kind and take so much time with a young student. Many years later, I realized I was the same age as her only son, Benoit. She has always had a loving maternal relationship with all of her students.
Throughout my high school and early undergraduate years, I followed her around the country for masterclasses and concerts. The most memorable was her week-long seminar at Fort Collins, Colorado, in 1971. It was amazing to see her deal with so many diverse students. She had an uncanny way of meeting every student where they were and helping them change by opening their ears and minds. She received her first honorary doctorate on this occasion and, twenty years later, I had the honor of placing a doctoral hood over her head as Chair of the Organ and Harpsichord Department at the Boston Conservatory. After my junior year at Oberlin, I decided to take a year off and go to Paris to study privately with Marie-Claire. We worked mainly on classical French works, Buxtehude, and Jehan Alain. Her attention to detail, her pleas to always listen to the music, and her insistence that the organ itself was one’s best teacher changed my approach to performing and certainly influenced me greatly in my own teaching. As I was particularly interested in Buxtehude, she encouraged me to go to North Germany and play the historic organs, which I did. Because of this, I devoted the next ten years of my life to an intensive study of Buxtehude and the North German masters of the 17th century.
Marie-Claire Alain taught all her students to question, to be stylish, eclectic, open, inquisitive, ready to do research, always prepared to learn and change one’s mind, and to live as a 20th-century musician. She stressed the importance of knowing, studying and performing music of our entire heritage and to be “diversified” (she was using this term years before investment companies did!). Her performances of music including the complete classical French masters, Muffat, Bruhns, Bach, Franck, Liszt, Widor, Jehan Alain, Duruflé, Messiaen and Charles Chaynes were all equally thrilling.
The most moving day of my life was in Paris in January, 1995, when Marie-Claire invited me to move from “vous” to “tu”—but it never feels right when I do this. The respect I have for our “Mâitresse” is too great. Happy birthday, dear Marie-Claire—thank you for all you have given the world—you will live forever!
—James David Christie
Professor of Organ
Oberlin Conservatory

It is both a privilege and an honor to be invited to join with those who are contributing tributes to Marie-Claire Alain. Like many, I first became acquainted with her through her prolific recordings and writings. It was not until the 1981 organ workshop at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, that I had the opportunity to observe her as a recitalist and teacher, and to get to know her as a person. My wife Marian was at the conference with me, and we were completely captivated at how the remarkable personality of Mme. Alain showed forth in all that she did—conducting classes and performing. Her enthusiasm and love for many different styles of music, along with her attention to detail and appropriate fingering, were things that those of us who were observers could retain far into the future.
Marian and I both found Mme. Alain to be supremely generous with her musical ideas, and gracious in letting us “pick her brain”! I clearly recall Marian remarking wistfully how she wanted so much to play Franck’s E-Major Choral, but her hands were too small. The immediate response was “Oh nonsense! I’ll show you how to do it!”
Aside from music and pedagogy, Marian was quite taken with her many other interests, especially relating to her home life—her children and the roses she tended to with loving care. We couldn’t get over how, being a genius, she was so very down-to-earth!
Regarding Mme. Alain’s stature as a teacher and scholar, the two occasions that gave Marian and me the best opportunities for observation and assimilation were the Fort Collins workshop and then, sometime later, a similar week at the Eastman School of Music.
The five-day Fort Collins event included a recital, which was divided in half and played on two different organs. The first part, devoted to Bach, was played on the 3-manual Casavant (1969) at the university. The second half was at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church where the organ is a 2-manual Phelps (1974). This program included Nivers, Franck, and Alain. It was of interest to me to note the effective way in which she handled the Franck and Alain on an unenclosed instrument that was predominately North German in style.
I was also greatly interested in her class presentation of the connection between French and German organ music. There were five groups of music for illustration:
1. Music written on religious texts. (from Couperin Parish Mass, Bach Partita O Gott du frommer Gott)
2. Use of liturgical melodies (four excerpts from de Grigny Mass; Bach, four chorales from BWV 651) 3, 4. Bach’s influence through the 19th century (Bach Prelude & Fugue in a minor, Franck Choral No. 3 in a minor, Bach Passacaglia, Franck Choral No. 2 in b minor)
5. Connections of J. Alain with J. S. Bach (Bach Sonata No. 3 in d-minor, Alain Variations sur un thème de Clement Janequin, Choral Dorien, Choral Phrygien, Litanies).
Marian and I gained so much from the sessions that week that I find myself wishing I could hear them all over again!
One especial gesture of kindness that I cannot forget is the beautiful note that Mme. Alain wrote to me following Marian’s death ten years ago. This letter completes the esteem and admiration we both had for Mme. Alain for all these years—as a performer, teacher, and a wonderful person!
This is to wish her continuing great joy and success for many, many years!
—David Craighead
Professor Emeritus
Eastman School of Music

Like my friend and colleague Jim Christie, I was also a young person in Wisconsin when I first came to know of Marie-Claire Alain. Playing the organ was my first love, and it was during my senior year in high school that I went to hear her play a recital at Northwestern University. The program made such an impression on me that to this day, 35 years later, I can still remember some of the compositions that she performed.
My decision to enroll at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music was largely based on the fact that their organ teacher, Miriam Duncan, had recently returned to the States after a year of sabbatical study in Europe. During that year she was a student of Anton Heiller, but also took some lessons from Mme. Alain, specifically to study early French music. So, having the opportunity to study with a student of Marie-Claire Alain, I soaked up information and performance practice like a sponge. All I wanted to do my freshman year was to play early French music! Quite coincidentally, in the fall of my sophomore year, I happened to win a contest in which I played Clérambault’s Second Suite. Anton Heiller was on the jury and was the first to plant the seed that perhaps I might want to study with Mme. Alain myself some day. That’s exactly what I did during my senior year. After graduate school I went back to France for two more years.
Mme. Alain’s students traveled to her home in L’Etang-la-Ville, a western suburb of Paris. (In about the mid-1970s, she affiliated herself with the conservatory at Rueil-Malmaison, and so students after me studied in a more structured conservatory environment.) It was such a relaxed environment (including her cat sitting on the window sill) that it was more an atmosphere of friends getting together than a young student in the presence of a great teacher. My lesson time was on Tuesdays at 10:15, and I was her only student of the morning. Sometimes the lessons were an hour; sometimes they stretched to 90 minutes or more.
I’ll never forget my first lesson. One can imagine what a bundle of nerves I was, yet Marie-Claire put me instantly at ease with a simple admonishment: “You’re not here to impress me with how well you play, nor to make me cry with what beautiful music you can produce. You’re here to learn.”
And so it was, for three years, countless lessons during which we covered all of the major French Baroque literature, nearly the complete works of Bach, and most of the music of Jehan Alain, Franck and other French masters, as well as a generous smattering of North German music, too. The repertoire at each lesson was totally different. Only once did I play the same piece twice.
Mme. Alain’s teaching style was similar to what I had been used to as an undergraduate. She started with the assumption that one could at least play the notes and beyond that very little was ever necessarily right or wrong. Often she would throw out a provocative question about interpretation just to quiz general knowledge of a period and style. On more than one occasion I caught her purposely stating something totally contrary just to see if I’d have the wherewithal (or nerve?) to contradict her! More than anything, Marie-Claire made a very conscious effort to allow her students the freedom to express themselves at the organ. I remember her saying “the last thing the world needs is a bunch of little Marie-Claires running around!” Since then I’ve always been of the opinion that the mark of a really great teacher is one who can teach without stifling the spirit or creativity of the student. Her students bear her imprint without being her clone.
In the 30 years that have elapsed since those days as a student in France, I have been continually impressed with Marie-Claire’s continued interest in her former students. It is often said that her students are like her children and that, while they grow up and move away, the bond remains nonetheless. When I consider the sheer number of students that she has taught over her impressive career, I wonder how she has time to do anything else except to keep up with her extended family. Recently, I’ve heard Marie-Claire play any number of times and, like Horowitz or Rubenstein, who played well into their 80s, she continues to play beautifully. Clearly you’re not ready to retire from performance, Marie-Claire! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your wisdom, your guidance, your inspiration, and, most of all, for your enduring and loving friendship.
—Thomas F. Froehlich
Organist, First Presbyterian Church
Dallas, Texas

One of the great pleasures for me during the past 30 years of teaching at McGill has been those numerous occasions when Marie-Claire Alain came to give masterclasses and play concerts. The most memorable of these was in November 2001 when her visit happily coincided with the Fall Convocation, and McGill was able to confer a Doctor of Music, Honoris Causa, on her. The text of the citation that I read was as follows:
“Marie-Claire Alain is one of the legendary musicians of our time. Mme. Alain was born in 1926 at Saint-Germain-en-Laye into a home full of music. Her father, Albert Alain, who had studied with Caussade, Guilmant, and Vierne, was an accomplished church musician, performer, and composer. Her brother, Jehan, killed in action in 1940, left a legacy of some of the 20th century’s finest organ music. A second brother, Olivier, became a leading musicologist. By the age of 12, Marie-Claire was already, on occasion, replacing her father in the organ loft. Her own teachers, after her father, included such illustrious musicians as Marcel Dupré, Maurice Duruflé, André Marchal, and Gaston Litaize: a goodly heritage indeed.
“As concert organist, Mme. Alain has toured worldwide and made over 200 LP recordings and more than 60 CDs, and earned numerous prizes, including multiple Grands Prix du Disque. “As a pedagogue, Mme. Alain has had a spectacular career. Students from the four corners of the globe have flocked to Paris to study with her, their names reading like a veritable Who’s Who of the organ world today. Probably no other organ teacher has produced so many prize winners at international competitions. Her courses are legendary, her teaching marked by an open questioning manner and a quest for authenticity in matters of historical performance practice.
“Mme. Alain has also been a champion of historical instruments, evidenced by the great care she takes to choose the most historically appropriate instrument for each recording project. This obviously entails exhaustive research.
“As a scholar, Mme. Alain has published numerous articles on performance practice, many of which have been widely translated. We are pleased to note frequent citation in musicological literature of one of her articles published by McGill in L’Orgue à notre époque, a collection of papers and proceedings of an organ symposium held at the University in 1981 on the occasion of the installation of the French classical organ in Redpath Hall.
“Marie-Claire Alain has been named a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music. The city of Lubeck granted her the Buxtehude Prize in recognition of her work promoting early German music, and the city of Budapest awarded her the Franz Liszt Prize. In France, she is a Commander of the Légion d’honneur and a member of the Ordre Nationale du Mérite and of the Ordre Nationale des Arts et Lettres.”
The 2001 visit of Marie-Claire also happily coincided with the 20th anniversary of the splendid Wolff organ in Redpath Hall. She gave masterclasses on both weekends before and after convocation and played a memorable recital. During the planning stages of this organ in the late 1970s, she was always ready and willing to answer questions, or to point us in the right direction and open doors. Needless to say, planning an historical copy in the 1970s was somewhat more nerve wracking than it might appear today. It was a great adventure, and Marie-Claire knew how to encourage us to stay the course whenever doubts set in.
There are many anecdotes that come to mind. One of the most memorable for me dates from 1969 when she invited all her students to come to Poitiers. She had just completed a recording session over the preceding two days, and there she was giving us a class on this great Clicquot. The energy and the generosity were breathtaking to say the least. And of course there was wonderful food and wine in a little restaurant sympathique!
A story that I love to tell my students, especially those having difficulty remembering where the stops are, concerns a visit to play a concert on the von Beckerath in my church in Montréal. I met her at the airport around 11 am and we proceeded to the church. She spent about half an hour trying out various registrations and asking my opinion but she never wrote anything down. Then we went off for a leisurely lunch bien arosé. After lunch she went to her hotel to rest and to study her scores. That evening she played her concert from memory and pulled all her own stops in the process. All the registrations worked magically! What métier!
There were the many occasions when she traveled for concerts and I would go along as assistant, especially during the Haarlem organ academies. Not only did I get a chance to play some incredible organs, but we drank some splendid wine.
When all the faculty were assembled to teach at the 2003 McGill Summer Organ Academy, I realized that half of the fourteen were her former students. I think that even she was a little surprised—at least momentarily—when I announced this at the opening dinner. Has there ever been an organ teacher more admired and loved by her former students than Marie-Claire Alain?
—John Grew
University Organist, Chair of Organ Area, Schulich School of Music,
McGill University
Artistic Director,
McGill Summer Organ Academy

It was in 1961, when I was a 13-year-old organ student, that the Des Moines (Iowa) Chapter of the American Guild of Organists presented Marie-Claire Alain in a concert at University Christian Church on the Walter Holtkamp pipe organ. It was impressive to hear her performing from memory, and captivating to hear Litanies for the first time.
From that moment, I became obsessed with finding all of her recordings. My quest took me to every bookstore and record shop in central Iowa, and unearthed recordings of Couperin, de Grigny, Buxtehude, Pachelbel, Franck, Alain, and Widor; Musical Heritage Society had the good sense to issue her performances of all the works of Bach.
In 1967 during my college years, Mme. Alain performed in St. Louis at the Priory on an instrument with mechanical action. I remember her playing all six of the Bach Schübler Chorales, the third Trio Sonata, the St. Anne Prelude and Fugue, and the Franck Pastorale as well as Messiaen’s Dieu Parmi Nous and both of the Jehan Alain Fantasies. The clarity and vibrancy of her rhythm coupled with her registrations made this concert an unforgettable example of personal expression and music making.
From 1972 to 1986, I taught organ and theory at a small college in Virginia that was fortunate to have a new concert hall housing a Flentrop organ. In 1973, 1978, 1982 and 1985, Marie-Claire Alain came to campus for concerts and masterclasses. It was inspiring and exciting to hear her perform and teach as well as to have the opportunity to solidify a blossoming friendship. As a pedagogue, Mme. Alain has sought out scores and documents that helped bring historical research alive and into the mainstream of today’s teaching.
In 1973, an inquiry about private study took me to Paris for the first of several such sojourns. Her enlightened teaching brought current performance practices to my inner musical ear and new expressive sensitivity to my playing especially in early French music and the music of Bach. Our lessons on her house organ or at her church at St. Germain-en-Laye shall forever remain as highlights of my career.
Since moving to New York City in 1991, it has been a joy to present Mme. Alain in concert at The Church of the Holy Trinity (Episcopal) in four special events. Her New York City appearances have been inspiring. Her preeminence as a musician has been noted in the New York Times referring to her as “the Grande Dame of the organ world” and by the New York City AGO chapter bestowing upon her its “Performer of the Year” accolade. The AGO national council presented her with a lifetime achievement award following her concert at The Church of the Holy Trinity in October 1999. The education committee of the Guild further endorsed Mme. Alain’s prominence as a teacher by filming her masterclasses at Holy Trinity and the University of Kansas for the AGO Master Series.
We all come together to honor Marie-Claire Alain on her 80th birthday as a performer, teacher, scholar and friend, and to celebrate her life, her love of music, and her lasting influence on our profession. —Stephen Hamilton
The Church of the Holy Trinity (Episcopal)
New York City

In the late 1960s, while I was an undergraduate student at St. Olaf College, my teacher, Robert Kendall, arranged for his students to travel to Minneapolis to hear a recital by Marie-Claire Alain. The recital was held in the cavernous sanctuary of Central Lutheran Church, and on that evening every seat was occupied. There was a sense of anticipation as the crowd was waiting for the first sight of the performer, and it was evident that we would be experiencing something exceptional that evening. I remember the thunderous applause when she appeared—a tiny figure facing that huge crowd—and I remember that she performed completely from memory. But even now, over 40 years later, I vividly remember being completely transported by her music making. I had no idea that organ playing could be so beautiful, could communicate so clearly. I wanted to meet her after the recital, but the crowd completely engulfed her, and we students were whisked away back to Northfield. That evening I vowed to meet her someday and thank her for that recital. Little did I know how our lives would intersect. Through the years, I heard her play many times both in North America and in Europe. I not only got to meet her, but to study with her, and she became the dominant musical force in my life. I discovered that not only can she communicate with her playing, but that as a teacher Marie-Claire is without peer. Whenever I feel my busy schedule overwhelming me, I have only to remind myself of Marie-Claire’s prodigious output as a performer, recording artist, teacher, and scholar, and I realize I’m moving in slow motion in comparison. While most of us know Marie-Claire as the recipient of numerous awards and honors, her greatest pride has been her family—both the family that she grew up in and the family that she created. Without the inspiration, love and support of her family, she could not have had the career that has brought her so many accolades. Her home is full of laughter, good food and good wine. My wife Patti and I treasure the evenings that we spent with Marie-Claire and her late husband, Jacques Gommier. I don’t think we have ever laughed more than on those occasions. The close and gregarious relationship that she enjoys with her children and grandchildren is reflected in her music making. Marie-Claire likes good food. She likes to read books; in fact, she learned English in large part by reading novels in English. She loves flowers, especially roses, and has always made room for a big garden in her yard. She finds knitting a good way to relax. She loves to drive—fast!! She has traveled more than anyone I know.
I recently reminisced with Marie-Claire about the first time I heard her play. She was pleased to know that she had achieved the goal she sets each time she performs—to communicate her love of the music. It has been my great fortune to know Marie-Claire—as a teacher, a colleague and a friend. Happy Birthday Marie-Claire!
—James Higdon
Dane and Polly Bales Professor of Organ
The University of Kansas

Some 40 years ago, I took a carload of students from Albion College (Michigan) to hear a little-known organist from Paris perform one of her first concerts in the United States. We were all dazzled by her technique, musical sensitivity, versatility of style, but above all, her ability to communicate with the audience. My friendship with this great artist, Marie-Claire Alain, began when we met and visited after her recital.
As a result of that first encounter I arranged to study with her during the early summer of 1966 at the Alain family home in St. Germain-en-Laye on the now famous “Alain Organ,” and also on the smaller house organ in her home in L’Etang-la-Ville. Later that summer I took her classes at the International Summer Academy for Organists in Haarlem, the Netherlands.
This petite young lady sat on the bench at that huge St. Bavo console, would swing around to face the various student groupings, and instantly switch from French to German to Italian to English. Amazing! She had a command of the music like no one else I had ever known. Always gracious and kind, she gently corrected and coached us with skill and authority.
A particularly memorable experience happened during that Haarlem experience. She announced to the class that she would be playing a recital on the famous Schnitger organ in Zwolle, and since I had a car I volunteered to be her chauffeur. Now if I were preparing a recital—anywhere—I’d arrive at least one day in advance. But arriving mid-afternoon on the day of the recital was apparently plenty of time for her, and that commenced only after we first took time for a beer to quench the thirst after a warm afternoon drive.
She graciously let me spend some time “trying out” the great Schnitger—a real challenge for me since its pitch was one step higher than A=440, and my ears and fingers couldn’t reconcile playing the Bach E-flat Prelude in the key of F. Obviously this was not a problem for her.
We had dinner across the town square, and when the check hadn’t arrived just minutes before the recital was to begin, I remained to settle up while she hurried across the plaza. By the time I arrived she had already begun what was to be a brilliant performance to a packed church. What an ability to concentrate!
After that wonderful summer there were many more occasions to experience our friendship, usually in conjunction with a recital. Many of those times she was a guest in our home, occasionally joined by her husband Jacques Gommier. Being a true friend, she invited us to be their guests in Paris and Maule. Marie-Claire Alain has countless friends in this country and Europe as witness the long receiving lines after every recital. Even though she may be exhausted after a demanding day of teaching and playing, she’s always warm and friendly to all who greet her, and always available for advice and counsel—and a hug.
This remarkable artist has made more friends for the organ than any one other person I know. Happy birthday, dear friend.
—John Obetz
Professor Emeritus
Conservatory of Music
University of Missouri at Kansas City Organist Emeritus, the Community of Christ World Headquarters (formerly RLDS), Independence, Missouri

Study

I first heard Marie-Claire Alain play in Detroit in 1964. The following day, she was on campus at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, with Marilyn Mason. Dr. Mason was driving her to Lansing for a masterclass and recital, and I was invited to accompany them. As I observed Mme. Alain’s work with students in the masterclass, I realized that she had not only an enormous wealth of knowledge to share and could immediately analyze what might help the person’s playing, but also was exceptionally kind and down to earth. Right then I began to formulate the idea of studying with her. A few weeks later when she played in Evanston, Illinois, I drove over to hear her. Afterwards I got up the nerve to ask if I might come to study with her.
I went to Paris after completing my master’s degree at Michigan. I was 22 years old, knew little French, yet felt instantly at home. As it turned out, I was her first full-time American student.
On the day of my first lesson, she picked me up at the train station in St. Germain-en-Laye and took me to the family home. In the parlor was a 4-manual organ. My lessons would be on the Alain organ! We got right to work and later that afternoon I went back to Paris with a large list of repertoire to learn. From then on, after lessons I tried to write down everything she said in a notebook as I took the return train. I still have that notebook.
Our lessons were usually two hours in length. As they progressed, I came to understand that pieces needed to be learned in their entirety for the first lesson, and “perfected” by the second. Except for large Bach works, pieces were seldom brought a third time. My repertoire grew by leaps and bounds. She would allow me to play a piece through before making comments. Good work on my part was met with generous praise; criticisms were delivered gently. She got to the important things immediately. Once in a while, for example, she might show me fingerings for a small hand. But her approach to everything was musical first and foremost; technical work came only when necessary to express the music. She was always kind, often funny, and lessons were an absolute joy. (See continuation of this article.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

During the two years I spent with her she frequently took me along to pull stops when she traveled to play recitals. Helping with registration on various organs in France and Holland and observing her perform were additional valuable learning experiences.
Going to Paris to study with Marie-Claire Alain was the best thing I ever did for myself. Not only did I learn so much from her, but we formed a close friendship which I cherish to this day. Bon anniversaire à ma chère amie!

The book

When Marie-Claire Alain compiled the 1971 edition of Jehan Alain’s organ music she asked me to translate the new preface. Then during the 1980s I spent several summers housesitting for her in France, and while there I began some preliminary comparisons of the Jehan Alain manuscript photocopies she had to the three editions of his organ works. We spoke about the possibility of her doing a new edition and perhaps a similar but thorough study of the music. At the Atlanta AGO convention, she approached me about translating such a book on Jehan Alain’s organ music that she had decided to do, along with a new edition based on all the manuscripts.
With that began a project that lasted nearly a dozen years. We struggled at first to find a format that would be clear to the reader, yet be easy to lay out for publication. Leduc took on the publication of the book in both French and English. All the known manuscripts, including many found in 1975 after the death of Jehan Alain’s wife, were compared side by side, measure by measure. Many of the pieces exist in multiple autograph manuscripts, because Jehan Alain would make copies for friends. Thus a piece might include the comparison of its several manuscripts plus the three Leduc editions. Throughout we found few note changes from one manuscript to another, although rhythms might be rewritten in some cases. On the other hand, registrations could be very different among manuscripts.
This book of critical studies of Alain’s organ music, along with the new edition, will provide organists with all the information they need to play this beautiful and timeless music, written by a young man of genius. It is thanks to the tireless efforts of his sister that this music has been disseminated and has become beloved by organists worldwide.

Alain as a performer

Marie-Claire Alain’s playing style has constantly evolved, as does that of any first-rate performing artist. She was never a proponent of the strict legato style of playing in Bach and other Baroque composers’ music. While the prevailing style of organ playing in France (and here as well) was very much the Dupré school with its grand legato, ties of common notes between chords, and exact half-value repeated notes, Marie-Claire Alain had different ideas for touch and did not use legato as much as most performers of her generation. Her earliest recordings reveal her use of a variety of touches as befit the music.
She has continually studied and learned, never relying on her reputation to carry her forward in her career. In more recent times she has studied early fingerings as they relate to touch and phrasing. While not necessarily using early fingering, she has based her ideas of touch and phrasing on them. She has always been interested in the historical aspects of performance. She has not, however, followed every new trend. She studies new ideas and adopts only those that are befitting the music. The music comes first, not virtuosity.
Her sense of style has also evolved along with the kinds of organs she has played. That is to say, she has learned from the organs. Being able to study and play early French music on early French organs brought her to the absolute apex of performance practice of that style. Playing Franck, Widor, and others on Cavaillé-Coll organs taught her that music—not to mention hearing her father and brother play at home and hearing her brother play his own music. Working with organs of every type and every size around the world has also given her insights into registration that few organists have.
Add to this her compelling sense of joy in the music, her infectious rhythm and her exquisite taste and style, and you have one of the finest organists of all time, Marie-Claire Alain.
—Norma Stevlingson
Professor of Organ and Harpsichord
University of Wisconsin-Superior
 

It began at an airport. Nearly 40 years ago I met Marie-Claire Alain at the airport in Syracuse, New York, where, as the most junior member of the organ faculty, it was my job to pick up the visiting artists who were performing at the University. It was a job I did gladly. In looking back, I think we talked non-stop during her entire visit. I knew I had made a friend for life. At that time, I introduced Marie-Claire to a young soprano, Phyllis Bryn-Julson, in whom I had a special interest. Marie-Claire said it was no surprise when word of our marriage crossed the Atlantic the following year. A year or so later, Phyllis was performing in a concert at Hamilton College with the Paul Kuentz Chamber Ensemble, with organist Olivier Alain. Wanting to surprise everyone, I picked Marie-Claire up at the airport and we made a hurried drive to the concert, arriving during intermission, where no one recognized her. It was great fun to see the reactions on everyone’s faces when they finally noticed she was there. A dinner with Olivier and Marie-Claire followed the performance, one of the first of many such occasions.
Following our move to Bethesda, Maryland, Marie-Claire played one of the dedicatory recitals on the new Holtkamp organ at Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church. One of my fondest memories of that occasion was watching our then four-year-old son, David, walking hand in hand into Dulles Airport, “helping Marie-Claire with her bags.” We had just had lunch together at a Roy Rogers, which was David’s choice. Marie-Claire looked elegant in her full-length fur, and loved the idea of having an American hamburger. (She said no one ever took her for hamburgers.)
That was the beginning of what can only be described as a love affair between our son and Marie-Claire, one that is going strong to this day. In 1977, with a daughter added to our family, we met Jacques for the first time, in Paris. As expected, Kaaren fell madly in love with Jacques, and he with her. Our family ties were growing stronger. As woman musicians often traveling and staying in hotel rooms alone, leaving husbands and children behind, Marie-Claire and Phyllis had a special bond, and many stories to share.
Fast forward to the present. As a member of the Peabody Conservatory faculty, I had the opportunity to nominate Marie-Claire for an Honorary Degree from Johns Hopkins University. It took almost three years for her schedule to be clear enough to attend a Hopkins commencement, but it finally happened this year. Her citation read as follows:
“Your brilliant performances and hundreds of masterful recordings emerge not only from virtuoso talent but also from superb scholarship. You study the music, of course. But you also investigate the text on which it is based; the composer’s life, work, and theology; the organ you are playing; and even the historically accurate fingering and position of the hand on the keyboard. “This unyielding pursuit of the ultimate interpretation has led you to three magnificent recordings of Bach’s complete organ works. The first, you said, was ‘instinctive’, the second ‘considered’, and the last the beneficiary of ‘a long life of work and . . . research.’
“You also have recorded definitive integrales of more than a dozen other composers. Though known especially for your work on the 17th- and 18th-century masters, you have brought new life and spirit to the Romantic repertoire. And you champion contemporary organ works, including the magnificent œuvre of your beloved brother, Jehan.
“Admired worldwide for your musicianship, acclaimed for your teaching, you are not just one of the great organists but one of the great musical artists of our time. “Marie-Claire Alain, daughter of France’s premier musical family, metaphorical mother to generations of performers, and venerated member of the extended clan of our own Peabody Conservatory, the Johns Hopkins University is proud to confer upon you the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa.” That, of course, is the Marie-Claire Alain that the world knows and loves. But the Marie-Claire that we know and love is the one who is a “member of our family.”
This tribute ends as it began. On the Sunday following commencement, after a wonderful visit in our home, I took Marie-Claire to the airport for her return flight to Paris, and once again watched her disappear down the long corridor toward the gate, alone.
—Donald S. Sutherland
Coordinator of the Organ
Department, Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University