Robert Sutherland Lord dead at the age of 84

Mystic Modern: The Music, Thought and Legacy of Charles Tournemire, edited by Jennifer Donelson and Stephen Schloesser. Church Music Association of America, P.O. Box 4344, Roswell, NM 88202 (musicasacra.com), 2014, $40.00, ISBN 978-0-9916452-0-6, 456 pages.

Visions of Amen: The Early Life and Music of Olivier Messiaen by Stephen Schloesser. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2014, $40.00, ISBN 978-0-8028-0762-5, 572 pages.

These two new books present the results of academic research on Charles Tournemire and on the life and works of Olivier Messiaen. Through the efforts of Jennifer Donelson, the guiding light behind the academic outreach of the Church Music Association of America and the managing editor of Sacred Music (the official publication of the CMAA), there have been two conferences on Tournemire, the first in Miami in 2011 and the second in Pittsburgh in 2012. Mystic Modern is a reproduction of the papers given at the Miami and Pittsburgh conferences. Stephen Schloesser, author of Visions of Amen: The Early Life and Music of Olivier Messiaen, is a Jesuit priest and professor of history at Loyola University, Chicago, and also the author of Jazz Age Catholicism: Mystic Modernism in Postwar Paris, 1919–1933. 

Mystic Modern was published in the summer of 2014 in time for the annual CMAA Colloquium in Indianapolis. Schloesser’s Messiaen book was also published in July 2014, coinciding with the American Guild of Organists’ national convention in Boston. Beyond the coincidence in publication dates, what is remarkable about the two books is the relationship between Tournemire and Messiaen. Tournemire influenced Messiaen to a much greater extent than is normally assumed; but Messiaen eclipsed his mentor by gaining greater fame during his lifetime. Book after book has been written about Messiaen, while Tournemire has remained in relative obscurity until fairly recently.

A first glance at both of these books reveals that there is much more to understand about Charles Tournemire and Olivier Messiaen than one can know only through a study of their musical scores. This “much more” element encompasses knowledge of the personal lives of the two men and the personal relationship between them. It also focuses on how history, culture, theology, literature, symbolism, and aesthetics affected them both. Mystic Modern and Visions of Amen are a must read not only for scholars or devotees of Tournemire and Messiaen, but for those interested in liturgy, music, and theology. Fortunately both books can be read in small sections, slowly and with the help of excellent indices. In the case of Visions of Amen, Messiaen’s important duo-piano work from 1943, a link to an audio recording of a live performance is included in the text.

Tournemire was certainly a modern composer who influenced Messiaen, Langlais, and many other 20th-century French composers. The extent of his “modernism” led many to dismiss his music as obtuse, and his mysticism certainly was another reason that many dismissed his music as unapproachable. Stephen Schloesser explains Tournemire’s “modernism” in his 2005 book, Jazz Age Catholicism:

Tournemire imagined the musical devices representing ‘passion’—chromaticism, polytonalism, and the perceived resulting ‘dissonance’—as the most appropriate material carriers of the ‘eternal’ and unchanging Latin forms. Images of dress abounded in ancient chants were imagined to be ‘clothed’ in ‘modern’ musical fashions.¹

The main Tournemire scholarship consists of a doctoral dissertation by Ruth Sisson, a picture book of photos by Ianco Pascal, and the notated catalogue of his works by Joël-Marie Fauquet from 1979.² Stephen Schloesser devotes a large part of Jazz Age Catholicism to the study of Tournemire. Lastly, Marie-Louise Langlais has published on the Internet portions of Tournemire’s Memoires that specifically address music (http://ml-langlais.com/Tournemire). The French journal L’Orgue is in the process of issuing the complete Tournemire Memoires. The editors of Mystic Modern had access to the complete version and quoted extensively from it in their essays, The Composer as Commentator: Music and Text in Tournemire’s Symbolist Method and How does Music Speak of God.

Charles Tournemire (1877–1939) died in the same year that I was born, and perhaps for this coincidence, I felt a special connection to this man. My first exposure to the “mystic modern” Tournemire was during the 1950s, in hearing my first organ teacher Paul Sifler play some of Tournemire’s music on several recitals. I remember the music sounded strange and exotic, like the music of Olivier Messiaen that Sifler played, which I, as a teenager, did not understand. It was later, as a pupil of Jean Langlais in Paris during the early 1960s, that I came to know Tournemire’s music in a different way. Langlais often played Tournemire’s music at Sainte-Clotilde on the organ that Tournemire knew and loved and often played the Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani from the Sept Paroles of Tournemire. This blind teacher taught me the first movement and the last movement (Consummatum est) at Sainte-Clotilde during late Wednesday evenings in a dimly lit, empty church with the incomparable sounds of the Cavaillé-Coll organ. And he spoke about Tournemire as someone he knew well—little things about how he taught, how his personality was particularly quirky and unpredictable. He encouraged me to meet Tournemire’s second wife, Mme. Alice Tournemire, in her apartment—the apartment where her late husband had lived and taught. She read portions of his Memoires regarding the Symphonie-Choral, which I was planning to perform at Sainte-Clotilde. The more I played and heard Tournemire’s music, the more fascinated I became with it. His music was not instantly appealing; rather, it permeated my being slowly and compellingly.

Mystic Modern

The contents of Mystic Modern are divided into three sections, which develop the theme of Tournemire’s legacy as liturgical commentator, music inventor, and littéraire. In the preface, “Tournemire the Liturgical Commentator,” Donelson discusses Tournemire’s role as organist in the Roman Catholic Church and especially his place in the long line of composers incorporating Gregorian chant into both their composed works and their improvisations. 

The liturgical commentator

“The Organ as Liturgical Commentator—Some Thoughts, Magisterial and Otherwise” by Monsignor Andrew R. Wadsworth, begins with Wadsworth’s recollections of Messiaen’s improvisations during a Low Mass at La Trinité and then discusses the liturgical norms with an historical overview of the documents pertaining to them. He implores organists to follow Tournemire’s example in L’Orgue mystique: to improvise on the chants proper to each Sunday’s liturgy.

“Joseph Bonnet as a Catalyst in the Early-Twentieth-Century Gregorian Chant Revival,” by Susan Treacy, explains Bonnet’s decisive role in encouraging Tournemire to write L’Orgue mystique. Through explanations of Bonnet’s work as a liturgical organist in churches where he served, Treacy explains why Bonnet did not write any chant-based organ music. Although Bonnet was an abbot in the Benedictine order and was devoted to the propagation of Gregorian chant, he made a distinct difference between his published secular pieces for recital use and his improvised chant-based pieces for the liturgy. As a pupil of Charles Tournemire and fellow native of Bordeaux, Bonnet’s relationships with Dom Mocquereau and Justine Ward were also important in the founding of the Gregorian Institute. Even Bonnet’s church wedding, with a schola from the Gregorian Institute and with Tournemire as one of the organists, reflected his devotion to the propagation of Gregorian chant.

In “Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique and its Place in the Legacy of the Organ Mass,” Edward Schaefer gives an exhaustive summary of the development of the organ Mass, its specific usage in various countries, and the ecclesiastical documents governing organ Masses. A number of charts give illustrations of the use of the organ at the various parts of the Mass. There is a long list of the ecclesiastical ceremonials governing the use of music in the Mass and a chronological list of organ settings of the Mass. Schaefer concludes that with the renewed interest and practice of the Extraordinary form of the Mass, the practical use of Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique is possible. This was demonstrated during the first Tournemire symposium. Some of the material is based on Schaefer’s dissertation from Catholic University.³

“Liturgy and Gregorian Chant in L’Orgue mystique of Charles Tournemire,” by Robert Sutherland Lord, was originally published in 1984 in The Organ Yearbook, edited by Peter Williams. The seminal importance of this article lies in Lord’s identification of all the chants from L’Orgue mystique and their origin, Tournemire’s original plan for the composition of the work, and the ways in which the composer departed from his plan in the choice of chants. The chants from the Liber Antiphonarius (Solesmes, 1897) were the sources of most of the chants that Tournemire used for the Elevation. This volume of chant is out of print, but Lord obtained a copy from the former assistant organist at Notre Dame, Paris, Pierre Moreau. Lord includes copies of these chants in the article.

In “The Twentieth-Century Franco-Belgian Art of Improvisation: Marcel Dupré, Charles Tournemire, and Flor Peeters,” Ronald Prowse discusses differences in techniques between written compositions and improvisations in the works of Dupré, Tournemire, and Flor Peeters and cites musical examples from the chant Ave Maris Stella. Using works by those three composers, Prowse deftly compares the techniques that all three of them used in treating the same chant. He often cites his own experiences studying improvisation with Pierre Toucheque, who had been a pupil of Peeters. He often quotes Tournemire, from his book on improvisation, Précis d’exécution, de registration et d’improvisation à l’orgue, stating that a master improviser creates illusions.⁴ The issue of the difference between written composition and improvisation echoes throughout this collection of essays and remains in some ways an unanswered question.

The musical inventor

Prowse’s essay leads logically into the second section, “Tournemire the Musical Inventor,” which deals with Tournemire’s musical language, including his choice and sense of tempo—as well as his compositional process and impact, not merely on the Sainte-Clotilde school, but on modern French organ repertoire in general. 

In his essay “Performance Practice for the Organ Music of Charles Tournemire,” Timothy Tikker describes his lessons with Langlais and Langlais’s reports of his study with Tournemire. Tikker’s account matched what I had learned from Langlais, including the story of Langlais’s meeting with Tournemire and the invitation to become the latter’s successor at Sainte-Clotilde. The two works Tikker analyzes in detail regarding interpretation (No. 7 from L’Orgue mystique, Epiphania Domini, and Mulier, ecce filius tuus, Ecce Mater tua, from Sept Chorals-Poèmes, op. 67) were pieces that I also had studied with Langlais, and I agree with his conclusions. Tikker gives detailed graphs with measure numbers indicated and, in some places, metronome markings. Of particular interest in this essay is Tikker’s extensive discussion of the Sainte-Clotilde organ. Tournemire’s specific registrations in L’Orgue mystique include the use of sub couplers and the term petites mixtures, which indicates soft mutation stops such as gamba with a nazard. It is interesting to note that Tournemire played all of L’Orgue mystique on his nine-stop house organ, regrettably never at Sainte-Clotilde. Tikker quotes this specification from Tournemire’s Précis. One of Tikker’s particularly insightful points is his comparison of German Romantic organs and their influence on the compositions of Reger and Karg-Elert, which used the full organ in the lower registers, and Tournemire’s use of full organ that was based on the “treble-ascendant voicing for its success.”⁵

“Catalogue of Charles Tournemire’s ‘Brouillon’ [Rough Sketches] for L’Orgue mystique BNF, Mus., Ms. 19929,” by Robert Sutherland Lord, is the result of Lord’s studying the 1,282 pages of rough sketches of Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique found in the Bibliothèque Nationale after Lord had written an extensive article on this seminal work of Tournemire. From these sketches Lord was able to determine the exact date of each office and how Tournemire departed from his original plan. Lord’s conclusion stated: 

After having completed the manuscript catalogue, we can verify that the “Rough Sketches” document—in sharp contrast to the “Plan” considered in my 1984 study—is far more than a mere framework for L’Orgue mystique. The “Rough Sketches” provide the harmonies, the rhythms, and the paraphrases for forty-two of the fifty-one offices. The BNF Ms. 19929 remains the only evidence we have of Tournemire’s musical preparation for any organ work he composed.⁶

From the harmonic and rhythmic details of Tournemire’s plan for L’Orgue mystique, Bogusław Raba’s article, “Creating a Mystical Musical Eschatology: Diatonic and Chromatic Dialectic in Charles Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique” continues the discussion of the conflict between the diatonic and chromatic dialectic in Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique. Raba uses the term dialectic as follows: 

Tournemire’s musical poetics in L’Orgue mystique are constructed by means of a dialectical process of diatonic and chromatic textures. This procedure (along with its symbolic functions) seems to be inherited from the Romantic Liszt-Franck tradition and is used in the service of a large narrative formal structure.⁷

Raba equates diatonicism with “eternal peace” and chromaticism with emotional “passion.” For Raba, the melding of these two elements creates pandiatonic textures, which he believes are Tournemire’s legacy to Messiaen. Finally, Raba confesses that Tournemire’s style goes beyond any structural system, and he calls this a “mystical musical eschatology.” Raba makes interesting parallels between Tournemire’s use of dissonance and that of Scriabin and earlier composers such as Frescobaldi in the Elevations from his organ Masses.

Raba’s observations on dissonance from the numinous leads into the next essay, “From the ‘Triomphe de l’Art Modal’ to The Embrace of Fire: Charles Tournemire’s Gregorian Chant Legacy, Received and Refracted by Naji Hakim” by Crista Miller. Miller’s article locates Middle Eastern elements and Arabic improvisation (taqasim) present in Hakim’s organ works with common elements with Tournemire’s Sitio (I thirst) from the Sept Paroles and Hakim’s Embrace of Fire. Miller compares these techniques with Langlais’s Soleil du Soir. She also probes the creative process of these composers. Were they aware of the techniques that they were using? In interviews with Hakim, she explains that Hakim claimed that his process was “subconscious”—in other words, he was not consciously aware that he was using a particular technique, so much was it a part of his psyche.

I had also asked this question regarding synthetic and octatonic scales with both Langlais and Daniel Lesur, both of whom reported that they were unaware that they were using these scales. The question of awareness is one that pervades our study of these composers’ works and is especially relevant to their improvisations. Miller also examines the specialized use of the Vox humana in works by Tournemire, Langlais, and Hakim.

Miller and Vincent E. Rone both discuss the use of octatonic and synthetic scales in their complementary writings. Rone’s essay “From Tournemire to Vatican II: Harmonic Symmetry as Twentieth-Century French Catholic Musical Mysticism, 1928–1970” focuses on the means by which Tournemire, Duruflé, and Langlais expressed Catholic musical mysticism and, in the case of the two younger composers, the ways in which they did so in response to their frustrations during the period of the Vatican II council. Rone concentrates on the use of octatonic and whole-tone scale patterns in the three composers’ music; he uses examples from the final pieces in Tournemire’s Nativitas and Resurrectionis offices. As examples of post-Vatican II disillusionment, Rone cites Duruflé’s Messe ‘Cum Jubilo’ and Langlais’s Imploration pour la croyance, referring to the former as privileging the Ordinary’s “transcendent and eschatological imagery through harmonic symmetry and stasis, combining a synthetic scale with subtle linear unfolding of two whole-tone collections, third-related, and bitonal harmonies.”⁸ In the latter, however, the expression is pure anger. Rone refers to Ruth Sisson’s dissertation and the discussion of the “Tournemire chord,” which employs a C#-major triad with a G-major 6/3 chord over it. The musical examples are particularly helpful to the reader in understanding these compositional and aesthetic concepts. 

The littОraire

The final section, “Tournemire the Littéraire,” deals with the literary aspect of Tournemire’s music and dwells on the relationship of the symbolic character of Tourmemire’s musical “commentaries” (and the legacy of this role in Messiaen’s oeuvre). It also includes Charles Tournemire’s obtuse and convoluted language in his biography of Franck. Finally, it analyzes Tournemire and Messiaen’s shared inspiration, drawn from Ernest Hello’s writings and Tournemire’s eschatological reading of history. The editors took great care with the ordering of the essays to provide cohesion to the book, and the end of each essay includes a summary. 

Stephen Schloesser’s first essay, “The Composer as Commentator: Music and Text in Tournemire’s Symbolist Method,” shows the importance of the texts in Dom Guéranger’s L’Année liturgique to Tournemire. So what then is this symbolist method? Schloesser describes it simply as “ . . . an essential relationship between a work and the literary text upon which it is based.”⁹ And he further states: 

For the symbolists, realism, naturalism, and positivism evacuated human existence of any mystery, fantasy, imagination, or dream world. In opposition to the positivists’ exclusive privileging of the visible, Symbolists gave pride of place to the invisible.¹⁰

As has been stated, Schloesser’s research on Tournemire was first published in Jazz Age Catholicism (2005). As a historian with appealing linguistic, writing, and musical skills, Schloesser has a gift of getting behind the events he is describing and going to the heart of their meaning. Here Schloesser shows how the literary texts in Guéranger’s L’Année liturgique directly inspired L’Orgue mystique. Schloesser hand-copied one example from Guéranger’s work—the Introit for the Feast of the Assumption—to demonstrate this important link between the text and the music. (It is possible to study the entire Guéranger work hand in hand with L’Orgue mystique and easily follow the plan for the entire work.) The important point is that the music is a commentary or a paraphrase of the linguistic text. All the tone painting and symbols that Tournemire uses are related to the texts, and it is important to study the texts first. Lest there be any confusion, Schloesser quotes Tournemire’s preface, which clearly states: “ . . . plainchant is, in sum, freely paraphrased for each piece in the flow of the works forming this collection.”¹¹ 

Schloesser then contrasts Messiaen’s straightforward use of textual references in all his organ works and explains how Messiaen was indebted to Tournemire for this example. Schloesser subsequently refers to numerous recital programs of Tournemire in which the term paraphrase is used in the program. The notion of symbolism, for Schloesser, comes from Tournemire’s models, Claude Debussy and Richard Wagner. Evidence of Tournemire’s deep involvement in the symbolist movement is carefully presented in the next six pages. Schloesser documents examples of Tournemire’s extensive use of the Wagnerian style of leitmotif, with the chant Ego Dormivi, the antiphon from Holy Saturday based on Psalm 3, used in ten of the L’Orgue mystique offices. Schloesser goes beyond what others have previously explained regarding Tournemire’s use of this leitmotif, relating the composer’s decision both to personal and professional circumstances. Schloesser refers to other music programs and cites the texts that Tournemire used to plan those programs. Particularly moving is the intent behind his concert at the church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in 1932, which opened with a tribute to Leon Boëllmann, the deceased organist of the church. The program is a good example of Tournemire’s manner of presenting an organ recital; it included three selections from L’Orgue mystique with explanations of the importance of the texts behind them. Tournemire’s choice of works by other composers showed his sense of his place in history alongside Bonnet, a musicologist (Bonnet was editor of the multi-volume set of Historical Organ-Recitals), a symbolist, and a truly modern composer. Also touching was Schloesser’s description of the reasons for Tournemire’s choice of themes for the last office of this great work and his four-year struggle to complete it. It is clear in studying Schloesser’s excellent essay that any serious student of L’Orgue mystique must become intimately acquainted with Guéranger’s 15-volume pivotal work, which is available in several English translations.

Again, acknowledging the superb manner in which this book is organized, it is appropriate that Elizabeth McLain’s Messiaen-oriented essay “Messiaen’s L’Ascension: Musical Illumination of Spiritual Texts After the Model of Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique” follows that of Schloesser, whose discussion of Messiaen’s early life and influences in Visions of Amen is also covered in this review. McLain’s main point is that Tournemire’s use of commentaries on sacred texts in his compositions profoundly influenced Messiaen, but that unlike Tournemire, Messiaen’s quest was to take music inspired by sacred texts out of the church and into the concert hall. McLain’s essay explains that this early opus of Messiaen had its birth as an orchestral work, premiered in Paris before he had arranged it for organ. McLain gives many musical examples from the orchestral version of the work and clear structural and harmonic analyses of the entire work.

“Desperately Seeking Franck: Tournemire and D’Indy as Biographers” by R. J. Stove is the shortest of all the essays, but it is a fascinating comparison between Tournemire and D’Indy’s biographies of Franck. Anyone who has read any of Tournemire’s own writings can certainly agree with Stove’s description of Tournemire’s writing style as an “exotic jungle.” And further, “His high-flown French is a burden to imitate in any other language, let alone a language which lays as much stress on understatement, irony, and clarity as modern English usually does.”¹² Stove’s critical assessment of the two biographers, themselves students of Franck, explains much about the differences in their personalities and a possible jealousy on the part of Tournemire toward D’Indy, on account of the differences in the successes of their respective careers and their relationship to Franck. D’Indy had known Franck for two decades, while Tournemire had known him for only two years.

In her essay, “How Does Music Speak of God? A Dialogue of Ideas between Messiaen, Tournemire, and Hello,” Jennifer Donelson compares in great depth the approaches to addressing God through music in the writings of Tournemire, Messiaen, and the mystic writer from Brittany, Ernest Hello (1828–1885). She explains how the writings of Hello, particularly his 1872 work L’Homme: La Vie—La Science—L’Art, “encapsulates an understanding that was friendly to the Symbolist and anti-positivist tendencies of both composers.”¹³ Hello’s influences on Tournemire are found in Tournemire’s writings, particularly in his unpublished memoirs and correspondence between the two composers. Donelson explains with great care the differences in philosophy between Messiaen, seeking a perfect expression of the Catholic faith, and that of Tournemire. In conclusion she sums up the answer to the title of her essay in quoting Hello:

In a “clear vision of the role of the Catholic faith in art and culture, Hello saw spiritual realities as more real than material (indeed, as their source) and concluded that, for art to be truly beautiful or ‘sincere,’ the artist must have a clear vision of the world as redeemed by God with the Incarnate Christ at the center of God’s plan for salvation.”¹⁴

Peter Bannister’s essay, “Charles Tournemire and the ‘Bureau of Eschatology’” explains the meaning of eschatology in the historical context of the first half of the twentieth century in France. Bannister quotes frequently from the 20th-century Swiss Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. The author’s reference to “Bureau of Eschatology” refers to Balthasar’s quote from Troeltsch’s dictum, “The bureau of eschatology is usually closed,” explaining that “this was true enough of the liberalism of the nineteenth century, but since the turn of the century the office has been working overtime.”¹⁵ Bannister explains the notion of life as a progression from darkness to light, often quoting from Léon Bloy, the French agnostic who converted to a strict form of Roman Catholicism, and Tournemire’s unpublished memoirs, and symphonies. Bannister laments the paucity of writings about Tournemire, citing the lack of primary source material. Bannister does not mention that this problem will soon be rectified; a forthcoming issue of the French review L’Orgue will be devoted to the difficult and highly secretive diary of Tournemire, Memoires.

I, for one, am not as pessimistic as Bannister when he states: “The likelihood is that for years to come, Tournemire will sadly continue to be regarded as an obscure figure outside the (dwindling) organ world . . . ”¹⁶ The two Tournemire conferences and these essays belie his conclusion. Consider that such composers as Bach, Mendelssohn, Rheinberger, and Langlais were less appreciated during their lifetimes than after their deaths, and certainly today they are not considered as “obscure figures.” 

Tennille Shuster’s cover, a surrealistic picture of the front of the Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde with dramatic reddish-brown clouds in the background, reflects the book’s mystical nature. The typeface and illustrations are exquisitely reproduced. 

Drs. Donelson and Schloesser are to be commended on the physical beauty of the book and the depth of scholarship that the book represents.

Visions of Amen

Messiaen’s Visions de l’Amen is an esoteric, extremely difficult seven-movement work for two pianists at two separate pianos, and its difficulty lies both in its technical demands (requiring extremes in dynamic range and tessitura) and in its obscure symbolism (which deals with astrology, theology, angels, saints, and birds). In the biographical aspect of this latest book on the early life of Messiaen, Stephen Schloesser develops the themes surrounding the composer’s connections with the mystic Charles Tournemire. 

The driving force behind the book came from Schloesser’s collaboration with pianists Hyesook Kim (Calvin College) and Stéphane Lemelin (University of Ottawa), with whom Schloesser received a $5,000 grant from the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship for a project entitled “Olivier Messiaen’s Religious Perspective and Performance of Visions of l’Amen.” In 2004–2005 the two pianists performed the work at a number of locations in the U.S. and Canada, with Schloesser giving lecture notes on the work and Messiaen’s life. Their original plan was to produce a compact disc with liner notes written by Schloesser. The Messiaen centennial in 2008, however, yielded a plethora of new material for Schloesser, and the project subsequently grew into the present book format, with a link to the audio recording on the Internet. A detailed analysis of the work with timings from the recording makes it possible to follow the work without the score.

The title of the book leads one to believe that Schloesser focuses on the early life and music of this composer. But the extent and depth of the material goes far beyond a discussion of Messiaen’s early years. Schloesser examines Messiaen’s entire life, giving explanations of literary, symbolist, surrealist, mystical, and theological forces that inspired his compositions. In many of Messiaen’s biographies and his own writings, the writers Paul Éluard, Dom Columba Marmion, and Ernest Hello are mentioned, but Schloesser goes farther with extensive quotations from these authors, showing their influence on Messiaen’s music. For example, in the discussion of Messiaen’s Nativity of the Lord (1935), Messiaen frequently quotes Marmion’s book Christ in His Mysteries:

But the main reason for keeping alive such feelings within us is our status as children of God. The Divine Sonship of the Father’s only-begotten is of the essence and eternal. But, in an infinitely free act of love, the Father has willed to add a sonship, a childship, of grace.¹⁷ 

Schloesser divides the book into four sections. The first, dealing with Messiaen’s parents, Pierre Messiaen and Cécile Sauvage, covers 1883–1930. This section can be read by itself without reference to Messiaen’s compositions as an introduction to the psychological underpinnings of his personality. Part two, “Budding Rhythmician, Surrealist Composer, Mystical Commentator: 1927–1932,” continues this psychological approach and discusses in some detail his earliest works. The third part, “Theological Order, Glorified Bodies, Apocalyptic Epoch, 1932–1943,” delves into a detailed description and analysis of Visions of Amen. For musicians, a study of Messiaen’s score is helpful, but even without the score, Schloesser gives a detailed analysis of each movement, with timings from the recording in an appendix. Part four, “Legacy, 1943–1992,” includes a discussion of Messiaen’s last work: Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum. Throughout the book, Schloesser’s use of extensive footnotes on the same page as the text is helpful. The appendix of scriptural references is logical and welcomed.

The recording by pianists Kim and Lemelin is of high quality, with a wide range of dynamics and tessituras. This is a work that Messiaen and his second wife Yvonne Loriod played together frequently, and it is dedicated to her. Much of Messiaen’s piano music is extremely difficult technically and demands the utmost in coordination between the two performers here on two pianos. One could wish that a compact disc had been included with the book, so that one could listen to the performance without using a computer.

But even if the reader has no interest in this difficult piano work, composed during the darkest period of World War II when Paris was occupied by the Nazis, there is more than enough material about Messiaen’s personal life and that of his parents to engage the reader. It is well known that Messiaen’s mother was a poetesse; the drama of her life and the struggles she endured with her husband Pierre is explained in great detail. In the introduction, Schloesser explains his approach as a “history of emotion.” In this age of a “confessional” approach to biography, it is impressive how Schloesser combines very personal material with scholarly writing.

Visions of Amen can be read on two levels: first, theological—the birth of creation, the passion of Christ, angels, saints, birdsong, judgment; and second, as a personal statement of Messiaen’s love for Yvonne Loriod. In general, “Amen” signifies “So be it,” but for Messiaen and other French composers, it was also a code name for an expression of love. This code reference using his second mode of limited transposition is also found frequently in Messiaen’s Turangalila Symphony and throughout Messiaen’s oeuvre. 

Notes

1. Stephen Schloesser, Jazz Age Catholicism: Mystic Modernism in Postwar Paris, 1919–1933 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 281.

2. Ruth Sisson, “The Symphonic Organ Works of Charles Arnould Tournemire” (Ph.D. dissertation, Florida State University, 1984). Ianco Pascal, Charles Tournemire ou le mythe de Tristan (Geneva, Editions Papillon, 2001). Pascal knew Madame Odile Weber, the niece of Tournemire’s second wife Alice Tournemire, who shared many of her photographs with him. Joël Marie Fauquet, Catalogue de l’œuvre de Charles Tournemire (Geneva, Minkoff, 1979).

3. Edward Schaefer, “The Relationship Between the Liturgy of the Roman Rite and the Italian Organ Literature of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries” (Ph.D. dissertation, Catholic University of America, 1985).

4. Charles Tournemire, Précis d’exécution, de registration et d’improvisation à l’orgue (Paris, LeMoine, 1936).

5. Tikker, in Mystic Modern: The Music, Thought and Legacy of Charles Tournemire, edited by Jennifer Donelson and Stephen Schloesser (Church Music Association of America, 2014), 131. 

6. Lord, in Mystic Modern, 137.

7. Raba, in Mystic Modern, 186.

8. Rone, in Mystic Modern, 230.

9. Schloesser, in Mystic Modern, 266.

10. Ibid., 267.

11. Ibid., 257.

12. Stove, in Mystic Modern, 312.

13. Donelson, in Mystic Modern, 317.

14. Ibid., 318.

15. Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Some Points of Eschatology” in Explorations in Theology, Vol. I: The Word Made Flesh (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1964), p. 255, translated by Bannister. 

16. Bannister, in Mystic Modern, p. 352.

17. Stephen Schloesser, Visions of Amen: The Early Life and Music of Olivier Messiaen (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014), p. 230.

Ann Labounsky earned a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Pittsburgh, an M.Mus. from the University of Michigan studying with Marilyn Mason, and a B.Mus. from the Eastman School of Music, studying with David Craighead. She studied in Paris with André Marchal and Jean Langlais on a Fulbright Grant and holds diplomas from the Schola Cantorum and Ecole Normale. Author of the biography Jean Langlais: the Man and His Music (Amadeus Press, 2000), she recorded the complete organ works of Jean Langlais for the Musical Heritage Society (reissued on the Voix du Vent label) and narrated and performed in a DVD of his life based on this biography, a project sponsored by the Los Angeles AGO Chapter. Labounsky is chair of organ and sacred music at Duquesne University, active in the American Guild of Organists, the National Pastoral Musicians, and the Church Music Association of America, and serves as organ artist in residence at First Lutheran Church, Pittsburgh. 

Kenneth Danchik is associate organist at St. Paul Cathedral in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and organist liaison for the Pittsburgh NPM. He earned his MM at Duquesne as a student of Ann Labounsky, and frequently played in masterclasses with Langlais.

Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was the site of a centennial celebration of the birth of French organist-composer Jean Langlais (1907–1991). Organized by Ann Labounsky, Langlais’ leading American disciple, and by Andrew Scanlon, adjunct professor of organ, the event gathered Langlais scholars and students for a six-day celebration, February 16–21, 2007, with workshops and performances on campus at the Mary Pappert School of Music and at local churches. The organ and sacred music department at Duquesne is one of the nation’s largest, and a testimony to the vision and leadership of Dr. Labounsky’s 37-year faculty tenure.
Langlais first visited the city in 1967 at the invitation of the University of Pittsburgh and Robert Sutherland Lord. Later, Langlais presented masterclasses and recitals at Duquesne on his frequent United States tours. One student quipped that “Pittsburgh is the Langlais capital of the world” due to the great local interest in Langlais’ music and the number of local musicians who personally knew Langlais.

Friday, February 16

The centennial celebration began with a recital of Langlais’ music, played on the 1963 Casavant organ (IV/137) at Calvary Episcopal Church, an organ that Langlais played on his 1981 tour. Current organ students of Dr. Labounsky were joined by Mary Pappert School of Music Dean Edward Kocher, who played trombone with a brass quartet in Langlais’ Cortège.

Saturday, February 17

Ann Labounsky presented an organ masterclass at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral on the 1968 Möller organ (IV/92). Drawing on her vast experience of studying and recording the complete organ works of Langlais for Musical Heritage Society, and as author of Jean Langlais: The Man and His Music (2000, Amadeus Press), Labounsky shared her keen insights into Langlais’ music, and explained the musical code that he sometimes used to quote names and textual passages in his music.
Organ alumni of Labounsky and the sacred music department played a recital of Langlais’ organ music at the First Presbyterian Church on its 1988 Casavant organ (IV/77), followed by a dinner at the church.

Sunday, February 18

Sacred choral and organ music of Langlais was featured during church services at St. Paul Cathedral, Duquesne University Chapel, First Lutheran Church, First Presbyterian Church, and Trinity Episcopal Cathedral.
Eric Lebrun, professor of organ at the Regional Conservatory of Saint-Maur des Fossés, France, played a recital on the 1992 Casavant organ (III/44) at First English Evangelical Lutheran Church. Repertoire included works of Langlais, Alain, Litaize, and an improvisation on two submitted themes.
The day ended with a Compline service at Heinz Memorial Chapel on the University of Pittsburgh campus. Organist Mark King played a prelude of Langlais’ Prelude modal from Vingt-quatre Pièces, and Méditation from Suite Médiévale. The choir, directed by Andrew Scanlon, sang Libera me from Langlais’ Deux Déplorations.

Monday, February 19

Music librarian Terra Mobley gave a tour of the Duquesne University Gumberg Library Sacred Music Collection. This collection contains many Langlais scores and recordings, in addition to the Boys Town Collection of Sacred Music and holdings from Allen Hobbs, David Craighead, Richard Proulx, Paul Koch, Paul Manz, Edmund Shay, and Paul Harold. Of particular interest was an edition of César Franck’s Six Pièces, annotated by Charles Tournemire who studied the work with Franck, and a rare copy of Dom Bedos’ Treatise on Organ Building, donated by organbuilder Dan Jaeckel. Also in the collection are Tournemire’s chamber music scores from the Paris Conservatory, given to Alan Hobbs by Tournemire’s second wife Alice.
A noon Mass was celebrated in the University Chapel featuring Langlais’ sacred and instrumental music, including Ave Maris Stella and Ave Verum from Trois Prières.
Ann Labounsky narrated a discussion of her recent DVD The Life and Music of Jean Langlais, produced by the Los Angeles AGO chapter, featuring a rare glimpse into his public and private persona. Along with footage of Langlais’ birthplace and the churches he frequented early in his life, Langlais was seen with his wife and children, and with his beloved dog Paff. Langlais’ teaching style was shown in footage from a masterclass at Duquesne and in his private home.
Ann Labounsky, Eric Lebrun, Robert Lord, and Susan Ferré led a panel discussion, “The Langlais Legacy.” Dr. Labounsky described three distinct styles of Langlais’ compositions: chant-based, of flexible style based on the Solesmes Chant division into groups of two or three; folkloric, based on simple folk melodies; and rhapsodic, freely integrating emotional connotations as the source of inspiration. The endurance of Langlais’ compositions was discussed in light of changing styles, tastes, and the liturgical reforms of Vatican II. Dr. Lord felt that Langlais’ music was a bit out of vogue, but that also was the case with Dupré. Professor Lebrun stated that young organists are beginning to rediscover Langlais’ music in a fresh way. Langlais’ affinity with and appreciation of early composers—Frescobaldi, Couperin, de Grigny, and Dandrieu—was mentioned, along with his dislike of neo-Baroque organs. The panel agreed that Langlais’ enduring legacy embraces both the popularity of certain organ compositions, and the traditions and interpretations that he taught, particularly in the music of Franck and Tournemire. Langlais often referred to those who learned and performed his style as his “grandchildren.”
Susan Ferré presented an organ recital at St. Paul Monastery on the 1981 M. P. Möller organ (III/35). Dr. Ferré, a member of Independent Concert Artists and faculty member at North Texas University, was a long-time student of Langlais and served as his guide during his 1969 American tour. Her recital, “The Organ as Storyteller: A Decade of Impressions,” featured chant-inspired music composed during the years 1928–37 by Langlais, Tournemire, Dupré, and Messiaen.

Tuesday, February 20

Musicologist and organist Robert Sutherland Lord (University of Pittsburgh professor emeritus), long-time student and personal friend of Langlais, developed his ideas about “The Sainte-Clotilde Tradition,” a term that he coined describing the musical lineage of César Franck, Charles Tournemire, and Jean Langlais at the Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde in Paris. He gave four common characteristics of the principal masters of Ste.-Clotilde: 1) all were independent—somewhat apart from the organists of the time; 2) all wrote organ music expressive of the liturgy rather than music for concert use; 3) all composed for the Ste.-Clotilde organ(s)—1859 (Franck), 1933 (Tournemire), and c.1964 (Langlais); 4) Tournemire and Langlais maintained a poetic free (rather than strict) style in performing Franck’s music.
Using notes he had made from Tournemire’s unpublished Mémoire, Dr. Lord pointed out that Tournemire said nothing about his serving in 1892 as suppléant (assistant) to Charles-Marie Widor at Saint-Sulpice. It was Vierne who was appointed to that position. Tournemire did say that after completing his studies at the Paris Conservatory, he had to spend time in military service. It is also curious that Tournemire never mentioned studying composition with Vincent D’Indy at the Schola Cantorum. That institution only opened in 1894. However, Tournemire described Franck’s organ class as really a “class in composition.” For the record, it is worth repeating that Tournemire did not electrify the Ste.-Clotilde organ in 1933. Dr. Lord played that instrument in 1958 and, like many others, reported that the action was very heavy. Indeed, Tournemire mentioned in the Mémoire his great disappointment with the extremely difficult key action.
A recital featuring Langlais’ music for organ, piano, instruments, and solo voice was presented in the University Chapel, including the American premiere of Suite Brève, for flute, violin and viola (op. 15, 1935).
Professors Labounsky, Lord, and Ferré presented “Langlais as a Teacher and Improviser.” All had studied with him in Paris at the Schola Cantorum, privately in his home, and/or at Ste.-Clotilde. They agreed that Langlais had a special way of bringing out the best of a student’s ability in improvisation and repertoire playing, even with students of lesser skills. Langlais inspired such confidence in his students that often it was said “he could make a rock improvise.” An improvisation lesson often would include an assignment to compose a duo, trio, or fugue. At the lesson Langlais would ask the student to expand on the composition and to develop a plan for an improvisation. Most often Langlais talked as the student improvised, giving instructions such as “change key,” “modulate,” “go to the dominant.” If a mistake or bad harmonization was made, Langlais said to “repeat it,” to make it sound intentional. Langlais would lightly tap the beat on the student’s shoulder, and insisted that the student not stop during the exercise. Usually short themes or fragments based on chant themes would be used.
Organbuilder Dan Jaeckel discussed his proposal and aesthetic for a 50-stop mechanical-action organ for a concert hall to be constructed on the Duquesne campus. Key actions, tuning temperaments, and construction details were discussed, along with Cavaillé-Coll organs and their special sonorities.
Ann Labounsky discussed the reason for errata in Langlais’ published music. The process of transcribing the music from Braille sketches began with Langlais dictating the music, note by note, to his wife Jeannette or to another person. The work then was submitted to one of several publishers. The publisher subsequently sent pre-publication proofs to Langlais for correction. A student was asked to play through the proofs in order to aurally alert Langlais to inaccuracies. Often the student mentally corrected certain notes or accidentals that were left uncorrected in the score. The resulting publication contained the errors. Certain reprinted editions contained corrections, others did not. This was a constant annoyance to Langlais who wondered if people would buy his music, knowing that there were many inaccuracies.
Carolyn Shuster Fournier, musicologist and titular organist of the Cavaillé-Coll choir organ at La Trinité Church in Paris, presented “The Sainte-Clotilde Tradition: Neglected Links.” Dr. Fournier, who accompanied Langlais on his 1983 tour of England, spoke of the choirmasters, choir accompanists, and titular organists at Sainte-Clotilde. Although the lineage of Franck-Tournemire-Langlais is most often recognized, Dr. Fournier cited titular organists Gabriel Pierné (titular 1890–1898) between Franck and Tournemire, and Joseph Ermend Bonnal (titular 1942–1944) between Tournemire and Langlais. Later in the lineage were Pierre Cogen (1976–1994) and Jacques Taddei (1988 to the present). Other famous organists served as substitutes, including Maurice Duruflé, André Fleury, Daniel-Lesur, Henriette Roger, Bernard Schulé, Roger Stiegler, and Pierre Denis. Also mentioned were organists Théodore Dubois, Samuel Rousseau, and Maurice Emmanuel, who assisted at Ste.-Clotilde.
Dr. Fournier presented information and specifications of Ste.-Clotilde’s Cavaillé-Coll organ, the Mustel model K harmonium of 19 stops, and the 14-stop Merklin choir organ.

Wednesday, February 21

Carolyn Shuster Fournier presented the final centennial event, an organ recital on the 1995 Reuter organ (III/73) in Heinz Memorial Chapel, on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh. Featured were works by Jean Langlais, Nadia Boulanger, Jehan Alain, and Pierre Cogen.
The centennial celebration was a fitting tribute to Jean Langlais given by Ann Labounsky and a host of students and colleagues who admired him and his music, and who wish to see his great legacy honored and continued both in concert and in liturgy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bonnal performed the inaugural recital on September 27, 1933:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A French-American organist and musicologist, Carolyn Shuster Fournier is an international concert artist and titular of the Aristide Cavaillé-Coll choir organ at La Trinité Church in Paris, France (cf. www.shusterfournier.com). Her latest CD, “An American in Paris” (Ligia Digital, distribution Harmonia Mundi), recorded at La Madeleine church, features French and American music. Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters, Dr. Shuster Fournier has written several articles for The Diapason.

1. In the beginning
As soon as he was appointed choirmaster at the Sainte-Clotilde church in Paris, France, Franck had the ambition of becoming the titular of the Cavaillé-Coll under construction: one of his programs, a concert given on February 22, 1858 in Orléans, attested that “the piano will be played by M. César Franck, the choirmaster and the first organist at the Sainte-Clotilde parish in Paris.”1 During the official inauguration of the church on December 19, 1859, during which he played (as did Lefébure-Wély), the musical press presented him as the “organiste titulaire de Sainte-Clotilde.”2

In his biography of César Franck, Maurice Emmanuel justly reveals:

César Franck was choirmaster at Sainte-Clotilde (1858) where Théodore Dubois accompanied his choir. Imposed upon him by Abbot Hamelin, the parish priest, this choir could be compared to a loose-fitting overcoat whose sleeves hampered him from conducting. Franck was also organist in this same church, where he possessed one of the most beautiful instruments ever constructed by Cavaillé-Coll and whose admirable voices gradually aroused his genius as an improviser.3

Franck generously allowed Théodore Dubois to play this instrument occasionally when he conducted the choir, as on April 2, 1861, for the first performance of his three-voice Mass in A Major, op. 12 (1860) with orchestra.4 As Dubois has confirmed in his Souvenirs, it was only in 1863 that Franck was finally named titular of this most poetic instrument.5
Although Dubois left Sainte-Clotilde to begin his functions as choirmaster at La Madeleine beginning on November 27, 1868, he remained César Franck’s close friend. He strongly supported his nomination in 1871 as organ professor at the Paris Conservatory. He recalled this moment in his short speech given during the inauguration of the monument in César Franck’s memory, by Alfred Lenoir, in the square located in front of the Sainte-Clotilde Basilica on October 22, 1904:

When the position as organ professor became vacant following Benoist’s death, I went right away to see my master Ambroise Thomas, then director, and I said to him, “There is only one man truly dignified to now occupy this post: it is César Franck”; he responded to me: “This is true.” And he named him to this post.6

Dubois dedicated to Franck his Prélude, the first piece in his Twelve Pieces for Organ or Piano Pédalier (Paris, Leduc, 1886).
Among the liturgical works written for ceremonies at Sainte-Clotilde, Franck composed several choral works during the first decade of his service as choirmaster: in addition to his three-voice Mass, op. 12, a dozen offertories, motets and several hymns, his oratorio The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross, finished on August 14, 1859, and notably his Dextera Domini, Offertory for Easter, op. 11, dedicated to the Abbot Pierre Ambroise Hamelin (priest from 1857–1883).7 In 1867, Théodore Dubois composed, at Hamelin’s request, his version of the Seven Last Words of Christ for Good Friday. This work was then traditionally performed each Good Friday at the Madeleine church. Samuel Rousseau, a musician who served this parish between 1870 and 1904, also composed religious music with harmonies openly inspired by Franck, which was used for the ceremonies at Sainte-Clotilde: two collections of his music even indicate this in their titles: Répertoire de Ste-Clotilde (Le Beau, 1887; reissued by Pérégally & Parvy, 1893–94) and Hymne à Sainte-Clotilde (1897, Pérégally & Parvy), with the text by Abbot Le Droz, which was dedicated to Abbot Gardey, General Vicar of Paris, the main priest at Sainte-Clotilde from 1883–1914.

2. The heritage
The Sainte-Clotilde musical tradition remains unique because it produced a group of musicians whose line of transmission from the professors to their students remains unbroken. The line of students of the titulars at Sainte-Clotilde who belonged to this tradition, listed below, is the most complete one to this day, without however pretending to be exhaustive:

César Franck (his organ students at the Conservatory)8
Samuel Rousseau (Nov. 1871; 2nd acc. 1872; 1st acc. 1875 ; 1st prize, 1877)
Guillaume Couture (Canadian) (1873 to 1875)
Charles Bordes (ca. 1880)
Georges MacMaster (ca. 1880), also a student of Théodore Dubois
Gabriel Pierné (Dec. 1880; 2nd prize, 1881; 1st prize, 1882)
Dynam-Victor Fumet (Dec. 1885)
Charles Tournemire (Dec. 1889; 1st acc., 1890)

Théodore Dubois (his students in harmony at the Conservatory)
Guillaume Couture (1873–1875)
Maurice Emmanuel (1st acc. 1883)
Léon Cazajus (2nd prize 1887)
Jules Meunier (ca. 1895)

Charles Tournemire (private organ and improvisation students)
Ermend Bonnal (beginning in 1904)
Maurice Duruflé (beginning in 1920)
Daniel-Lesur (ca. 1927)
Henriette Puig-Roger (ca. 1930)
Jean Langlais (1931)
Bernard Piché (1938–1939)

Jean Langlais (private organ students or those enrolled at the Schola Cantorum)
Pierre Denis (beginning in 1932)
Pierre Cogen (beginning in 1950)
Marie-Louise Jaquet-Langlais (beginning in 1966)
Jacques Taddei (1980).

The example of Théodore Dubois to Maurice Emmanuel
An example of faithful support of a professor to his students, that of Théodore Dubois to Maurice Emmanuel alone illustrates the quality of their relationship. At the time of Emmanuel’s nomination as choirmaster, on October 20, 1904, Dubois wrote him the following letter:

My dear friend,
I am delighted that you have accepted the functions of choirmaster at Ste-Clotilde. You have plenty of ideas, a cultivated spirit; you know how to manage, in these particularly difficult circumstances when we have imposed the “Motu proprio,” the departure of some good and of some bad. You will scarcely be the sectarian and uncompromising man from the “Schola Cantorum,” and you will neither glide to the side of worldly music, so-called more or less religious or rather more or less poorly written. You must be firm and active. You will have all of that, and in addition you are young. Please accept therefore my congratulations and my most sincere wishes, and you know that I am always affectionately devoted to you.
Théodore Dubois9

Two years later, on July 1, 1906, Dubois congratulated him for his actions within this parish:

My dear friend, I would like to express my complete satisfaction with the beautiful performance of my Mass in the Palestrinian style this morning at Ste-Clotilde. I congratulate and heartily thank you for your fine artistic interpretation. It is difficult to acquire the necessary suppleness in such a style. You must then encourage the singers of your choir and give them the compliments they deserve.
Congratulations also for the Plain-Chant [sic], which, thus sung and phrased, loses all of the cavernous severity that one is in the habit of giving to it, and which too often renders it disagreeable.
Beautiful organ pieces, well-played.
All my respects to Mrs. Emmanuel and affectionately to you,
Th. Dubois10

One year later, after Maurice Emmanuel resigned from his position as choirmaster at Sainte-Clotilde, Théodore Dubois wrote to him on April 2, 1907:

My dear Emmanuel,
That which you have told me does not surprise me! My long personal experience in this field where I worked for so many years of my life, has not hardly left me any illusions neither on the goodness, nor on the piety nor on the intelligence of those whom you know!
I was just going to write to you to say that I just learned about your resignation from Mr. Meunier, without a doubt the one whom you refer to with a M.— He just came to visit me, telling me this: “Mr. Emmanuel resigned from Ste-Clotilde, I am most certain; I am not less certain that my candidacy has a chance; I would be grateful if you would support me with a recommendation to the priest.” In these conditions, I could not refuse to write him this note, especially since I have known him for quite a long time. I therefore wrote a small letter to the priest conceived more or less in these terms: “I have been informed that Mr. Emmanuel has left his position as choirmaster at Sainte-Clotilde. If this is true, please allow me to etc. . . .”
Since I always tell the truth, I was going to write this to you, really certain that you did not take this solemn decision until after a series of all sorts of disgusting events in which you did not want to tarnish your dignity.
You remain a Christian and a believer; this is good! Strong souls support without weakness all human iniquities. You are among them!
The last phrase of your letter reminded me of my past. How many times my most sincere efforts remained unknown and were ridiculed and how many times I was treated unjustly and in a biased manner! But like you, I can say that I had “received sympathy from a minor elite, and that a sincere work in view of an elevated art is never entirely lost.”
Madame Dubois joins me and hopes that you will share with Mme. Emmanuel the assurance of our most affectionate sympathy.
Théodore Dubois11

The dedications
The dedications of works by composers from the Sainte-Clotilde Tradition to their colleagues demonstrate their mutual esteem and their fraternal relationships. Samuel Rousseau dedicated his Fantaisie, op. 73, “to the memory of my dear Master César Franck,” the Cantilena of his Fifteen Pieces (Paris, Leduc, 1892) to Léon Cazajus, and an Offertoire funèbre in this same collection to the Abbot Chazot, named second vicar at Sainte-Clotilde in 1889. Maurice Emmanuel dedicated his Three Organ Pieces (Paris, Lemoine, 1986) to his assistant Emile Poillot. Ermend Bonnal dedicated his Prayer and Chorale, op. 27, to the memory of his friend Samuel Rousseau. Gabriel Pierné dedicated the Prelude of his Three Pieces, op. 29, to the choirmaster Samuel Rousseau, and the second piece in this collection, the Cantilène, to Théodore Dubois, who became titular of the Grand Orgue at La Madeleine. Pierné also composed a Tombeau de César Franck for piano (published posthumously), based on one of César Franck’s improvisation themes.
Following Samuel Rousseau, Charles Tournemire dedicated his first important organ work to César Franck, his Triple Choral (Sancta Trinitas), op. 41, written in November, 1910 (Lyon, Janin, 1912) “to the memory of my venerated Master César Franck. This work renders homage to my master’s musical testament, his Three Chorals (1890).” For Tournemire,

the highest expression of organ music is manifest in the choral. The refined style which ensues gives it a special significance. This is not only a question of writing, its significance is higher: it is the result of a special state of the soul. . . . From the instant when the composer enters this temple perfumed with incense, he feels penetrated with dignity: his prayerful soul is filled with light.12

Tournemire’s Triple Choral contains three sources of inspiration:

1st Choral—You are grand, oh Father! You have created the world. You have regulated the grandiose rhythm. You have created life. We glorify you and we love you.
2nd Choral—The one who regulates the immense rhythm of the world, this power that is beyond all our comprehension, in order to save us took on our humanity, was born in a manger, grew up among men, lived a life in a miserable world, taught with sublime maxims, died on a cross between two thieves. Admire Christ’s ineffable sweetness and admire his unfathomable goodness and greatness. Love Christ.
3rd Choral—This grandiose manifestation of the silent march of the stars in space, the sublime act of Christ on the cross, all of these acts beyond our comprehension were dictated by the Holy Spirit.13
Charles Tournemire dedicated several of his works to his substitute organists: in 1930, to André Fleury, no. 15 of the op. 56 from l’Orgue mystique (Laetare), and to Daniel-Lesur, no. 16. In 1934, he dedicated no. 40 (for the XIVth Sunday after Pentecost) to Emile Poillot as well as no. 41, op. 57, from l’Orgue mystique (for the XVth Sunday after Pentecost) to Maurice Duruflé. Duruflé, in turn, reconstituted Five Improvisations for organ, which Tournemire had recorded at the beginning of 1931 for Polydor.
To his former student, substitute, and friend Ermend Bonnal, Tournemire dedicated several of his works: in 1895, Le Ménétrier (one of his Six Pieces for piano, op. 20—Marseille, Georges Kaufmann, 1900), an Offertory in G Major, op. 21, from the Variae Preces for harmonium (edited in Lyon by Janin in 1904, along with an Entrée in B Major, dedicated to Samuel-Rousseau) and in 1931, the 33rd office of l’Orgue mystique, op. 57, for the eighth Sunday after Pentecost (Paris, Heugel, 1931). In turn, Bonnal dedicated to his maître his Paysage landais (Paris, A. Durand & Fils, 1904), and to André Fleury, the third piece of his Paysages pyrénées, rebaptized Paysages euskariens, Cloches dans le ciel. Bernard Schulé dedicated in memory of Ermend Bonnal his Icône, the fifth of his organ pieces entitled Enluminures, op. 12 (Rouart Lerolle et Cie., 1946).
Tournemire dedicated his Fioretti, op. 60, no. 2 (Paris, Hérelle, 1932) to his friend Jean Langlais. It is moving to read the text written to his student, blind since the age of two:

You judge me well because, to punish me for my deep faults you weakened my eyesight and momentarily I lost my sight! Oh! Am I not only too worthy of these tribulations? And don’t I deserve even yet greater ones?14

Let us recall that it was with much emotion that Jean Langlais played this work at a concert at Sainte-Clotilde in homage to Tournemire on November 16, 1989 (to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of his death). This was the last time that Pierre Cogen heard Langlais play in this church that he had served as an artist for 43 years. Too weak to go up to the Grand Orgue tribune, Langlais, who strongly wished to perform this work, decided to perform it on the choir organ. Jean Langlais dedicated his Rhapsodie Grégorienne (no. 9 of his Nine Pieces, op. 40, published in Paris by Bornemann in 1945) to the memory of his maître Charles Tournemire as well as his In Memoriam, op. 231 (Paris, Combre, 1987).
In September, 1986, Langlais dedicated his Three Antiphons to the Holy Virgin, op. 242, for solo voice (or for unison choir) and organ (Pro Organo, 1991) to Father Joseph Choné, who had just been named head priest at Sainte-Clotilde, as well as several works to his colleagues: to his former student and substitute organist Pierre Denis, Hommage à Landino from his Twenty-Four Pieces for Harmonium or Organ, op. 10 (Paris, Hérelle, 1939) and his Suite française, op. 59 (Paris, Bornemann, 1948); to his disciple and substitute organist Pierre Cogen in 1973, “Oh oui, viens Seigneur, viens Seigneur Jésus,” no. 4 from his Five Meditations on the Apocalypse, op. 175 (Paris, Bornemann, 1974); and to the choirmaster François Tricot, Dominica in Palmis, op. 83 (Paris, Schola Cantorum, 1984). Pierre Cogen dedicated several works to his maître: in 1988, Offering (Paris, Combre, 1990) and his Two Chorales (Paris, Combre, 1993); in 1980, he dedicated his Hosanna in exsilio to François Tricot (the first of his Two Hosannas on Gregorian texts; Vienna, Universal, 1985).
To his student and second wife Marie-Louise, Jean Langlais dedicated his “Il était, Il est et Il vient,” no. 2 of his Five Meditations on the Apocalypse, op. 175, and his “Feux d’artifice,” no. 4 of his Rosace, op. 211 (Paris, Combre, 1981). In turn, Marie-Louise Jaquet-Langlais wrote a biography on Langlais and his work: Ombre et Lumière, Jean Langlais, 1907–1991 (Paris, Combre, 1995). To Jacques Taddei, Jean Langlais dedicated, in 1988, “He is Born,” no. 6 of his Christmas Carol Hymn Settings, op. 243 (H. T. Fitzsimons, 1988).

Improvisation
Improvisation on the Grand Orgue played a primary role in the music at Sainte-Clotilde. As Joël-Marie Fauquet emphasized,
the fame of César Franck as an organist was founded on improvisation. . . . As a composer, he rarely put himself in the forefront. . . . Of the six hours of his class each week, the Master devoted at least five of them to improvisation. This says everything. . . . Franck intended to bring it to a level of perfection that had never been achieved, thus transcending the liturgical requirements which motivated this transient art.15
His two books of improvisation themes, which later belonged to Gabriel Pierné, were used especially at Sainte-Clotilde. This art served as a springboard for his imagination, which he expressed with fluidity, poetry and lyricism. Franck transmitted this art to his students. It is notably Charles Tournemire who understood so well his improvisations and their relationship with specific aspects of the Cavaillé-Coll at Sainte-Clotilde. Maurice Emmanuel was a first-hand witness to this transmission:

Please allow me, as one of Charles Tournemire’s comrades, to share a past experience during a heroic moment when, at Sainte-Clotilde, we attempted to charm our parishioners with music that was far too austere. Several weeks ago, while listening to the brilliant postlude he improvised, this brought back distant memories of how amazed I was when I listened to Tournemire’s musical commentaries during the service; on certain days, during the Postlude, his playing produced furious outbursts from the organ: for this mystic is also a genuine dramatist. If his art voluntarily brings serenity and peacefulness, it can suddenly break forth with energy: and, trembling, he attacks the keyboards, which previously sang meditatively, in response to the liturgical functions.16

Tournemire transmitted this art to his students; his pupil Jean Langlais relates:

His pedagogy, as admirable as it was, was not lacking in originality. For example, concerning a plan for improvisation: First, create the atmosphere . . . Secondly, impose it on your listeners, so that the central part is rich. Rise . . . Rise . . . then, your public will follow you . . . They will begin to pant . . . no longer able to breathe . . . Then play for them two brief and dissonant chords on the entire organ . . . Observe a long silence . . . The audience is dead . . . Then, open the gates of heaven with a poetic conclusion on a Bourdon 8? and a Voix Céleste . . .17

3. In conclusion
All of the musicians who served Sainte-Clotilde during the past 150 years had personalities and religious beliefs that were strongly different. César Franck, who kept Ernest Renan’s The Life of Jesus on his bedside table, loved the splendor of the worship services,

that which exalts the exemplary and transcending quality of sublime drama, above all human, as the pediment of Sainte-Clotilde shows, where the sculptor represented Christ showing his wounds, according to the sad bent of the piety that it thus affirms.18
Samuel Rousseau was kind, cordial, obliging and elegant. His compositions were easily accessible to the parishioners. Gabriel Pierné was neither a practicing nor a fundamental Christian, a true contrast to the great mystics Dynam-Victor Fumet, who was closely associated with anarchists and who married into a family close to the founder of the Theosophical Society, and Charles Tournemire, an emotional eclectic fond of the writings of Ernest Hello, Joseph Péladan and Dom Guéranger. For Tournemire, “all music which is not written to glorify God is useless.” This last statement puzzled Jean Langlais who dared to ask his master in 1931: “But what do you do with Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Bartók?” “USELESS, he responded dryly.”19 A firm Christian believer from Brittany, Jean Langlais was attracted at a young age by the ideals of his professor at the Institute for the Blind in Paris, Albert Mahaut, the author of the book, Le Chrétien: l’homme d’action.20
In spite of the many difficulties encountered throughout the history of this parish, the musicians of Sainte-Clotilde were able to respond as best they could to the aristocratic parishioners’ taste for worldly music, to the various reforms of church music (notably to the separation of the church and state in December, 1905, to the restoration of plainchant and Gregorian chants and to Palestrinian music and much later, to Vatican II). They also kept their artistic ideals, in order to strongly adhere to high-quality music. Maurice Emmanuel, who did not succeed in accomplishing his mission within this parish, remains “historically victorious”21 because he later did so in other contexts, notably in the circles in Saint-Germain-en-Laye and in his classes at the Paris Conservatory, where he formed an entire school of church musicians, notably Olivier Messiaen. His lucidity concerning César Franck and Charles Tournemire sums up the role of the musicians in the Sainte-Clotilde musical tradition:

If Franck ignored the joys that the least of artists can ever know, he was conscious of their force and of their liberty. The survivors of the time when the Saint-Clotilde organ sounded under the fingers of a master, his happiness in playing, his improvisations that he delivered, was recalled by privileged listeners, . . . In his organ loft, Franck was king. It took several minutes for his power to break forth in all its fullness, and it brought forth an orchestral tumult, in which the master played an imposing prelude. To compel him to intone the triumphal hymn, he seemed to shake the keyboards; suddenly the hymn appeared in a grandiose construction . . . More than once the horrible bell, rang by the singers’ accompanist “to tell the organist to stop playing,” announced the end of the offertory and the necessity to conclude . . . Franck, who had just played a series of evocative arpeggios, then began to proclaim: “I have not yet said anything!” or if indeed he was completely inspired: “What a shame.” But he obeyed the bell. During the Vespers, the verses of the Magnificat gave him the opportunity to create brief masterpieces in spite of the clergy’s reprimands and the congregation’s impatience, totally insensitive to the splendors of this art. It is at the organ that Franck spent his best moments when his energies were renewed, where the disdain of his contemporaries no longer troubled him, where the dignity of his life without intrigues received in the Lord’s house its supreme reward.
Art is made of new beginnings, the destiny of artists as well. Franck was not the last of musicians for whom life was sparing of favors. The most noble ones, with character and talent, those who avoid pushing others around, meditate, and only claim of their works that they be written, remain ignored for too long. César Franck, the service finished, delivered treasures to them. Have the times changed? The parishioners, do they listen to the artist who today (1926) through a close alliance with liturgy and with art, equally respecting the religious and musical functions, constructs an edifice built on the themes taken from the service of the day that is as disciplined in its structure, as those by César Franck, of whom he was one of the last students? His master bequeathed to him the gift of these contemplative and impassioned improvisations, sometimes serene, other times tumultuous, and which are like mystical dramas conceived in the secret corners of the soul. The successor of the master of the Beatitudes also buries himself in the meditation of his work and only emerges to express the thousand voices of his organ with much lyrical rejoicing, which the congregation does not seem to understand . . .22
For more information concerning the musicians of the Saint-Clotilde church in Paris, France, one may contact the following associations:
Association E. Bonnal
“Héritage Musical”
Chemin des Jardins
30700 St. Victor des Oules, France
www.bonnal.org
[email protected]

Association Théodore Dubois
Christopher Hainsworth, président
Rue de la Fontaine
34800 Lacoste, France
[email protected]

Les Amis de Maurice Emmanuel
Anne Eichner-Emmanuel, présidente
30, rue Céline
92160 Anthony, France
[email protected]

César-Franck-Gesellschaft E. V.
Internationale Vereinigung
c/o Dr. Christiane Strucken-Paland & Dr. Ralph Paland
Berrenrather Straße 134
50937 Köln, Germany
tel: 0049-(0) 221-5103355
[email protected]

L’Association des Amis de Jean Langlais
Brenda Dean, Présidente
3, rue des Moulins
35560 La Fontenelle, France
www.jeanlanglais.eu
Monsieur Denis Havard de la Montagne
“Le Moulin blanc”
87300 Bellac, France
[email protected]

This article first appeared in French in L’Orgue 2007, II-III, no. 278-279, pp. 177–185.

Acknowledgements
Carolyn Shuster Fournier warmly expresses her gratitude to Francis Dubois, Anne Eichner-Emmanuel, Denis Havard de la Montagne, Helga Schauerte and to the Ruth and Clarence Mader Memorial Scholarship Fund for its grant in 2006.

Choirmasters and Organists at the Sainte-Clotilde Basilica, Paris
The following list was established with the kind assistance of Denis Havard de la Montagne (substitutes and assistants are indicated in parentheses).1

Choirmasters
1857–1863: César Franck
1863–Nov 1868: Théodore Dubois
Nov 1868–1869: Edouard Marlois
1869?–1875: Stéphane Gaurion
1876–1882?: Alexandre Georges
1882–1904: Samuel Rousseau
1904–1907: Maurice Emmanuel (Emile Poillot)
1907–1946: Jules Meunier, replaced during the war by Etienne Audfray (Pierre Besson and Robert Vincent)
Dec 1946–June 1987: François Tricot
June 1987–Sept 1988: Yves Castagnet
Sept 1988–Aug 31, 1989: Philippe Brandeis
1989–1993: Pierre-Michel Bédard
1993–June 1994: Marcel Bardon

Organist Accompanists
1857–1863: Théodore Dubois
1863?–1869: Stéphane Gaurion
1870–1878: Samuel Rousseau (Guillaume Couture)
1879–1887: ? (Dynam-Victor Fumet, organist of the Catechism Chapel in 1884)
1888?–1890?: Clotaire-Joseph Franck
1891–1923: Léon Cazajus (Emile Poillot)
1923–ca. 1964: Pierre Besson
ca. 1964–June 1987: François Tricot
June 1987–Sept 1988: Yves Castagnet
Sept 1988–Aug 31, 1989: Philippe Brandeis
Sept 1989–1993: Pierre-Michel Bédard
1993–Dec 2003: Sylvie Mallet
2004: Olivier Penin

Titulars of the Grand-Orgue
1863–1890: César Franck, but already in 1859 he played the Grand Orgue (Gabriel Pierné, after 1885)
1890–1898: Gabriel Pierné (Georges MacMaster in 1893–1894)
1898–1939: Charles Tournemire, numerous substitutes:
Ermend Bonnal ca.1910
Roger Stiegler ca. 1920
Maurice Duruflé 1920–1927
André Fleury ca. 1922–ca. 1930
Daniel-Lesur 1927–1936
Henriette Puig-Roger in 1929
Antoine Reboulot ca. 1935
Bernard Piché in 1938 and 1939
Bernard Schulé 1938–1945
Dec 1941–Aug 1944: Joseph-Ermend Bonnal (Bernard Schulé until 1945)
Nov 4, 1945–Dec 1987: Jean Langlais (Pierre Denis 1945–1972; Pierre Cogen 1972–1975, then titular; Marie-Louise Jaquet-Langlais 1979–Dec 1987)
Jan 1976–June 21, 1994: Pierre Cogen
since Easter 1988: Jacques Taddei (Olivier Penin)

Carolyn Shuster Fournier expresses her gratitude to Pierre Cogen and to Ann Labounsky for providing material and advice for this article, to Marie-Christine Ugo-Lhôte for the loan of her father’s collection of the review L’Orgue, to Mifa Martin for having read through the text, and to the Ruth and Clarence Mader Memorial Scholarship Fund for its grant in 2006.
An international concert artist, Dr. Carolyn Shuster Fournier is titular of the Aristide Cavaillé-Coll choir organ at La Trinité Church in Paris, France. She has written several articles for The Diapason. In October 1983, she was privileged to perform Jean Langlais’ Double Fantasy for Two Organists with the composer, in his concerts during his last tour to England: at the Royal Festival Hall in London (on October 26), at the Salisbury Cathedral, and at the Christ Church Chapel in Oxford.

The Sainte-Clotilde Tradition1 is based on the lineage transmitted in a teacher/student relationship from Franck to Tournemire to Langlais.2 Especially beginning with Charles Tournemire, these organist/composers, as well as many of their substitutes (among others, Maurice Duruflé, André Fleury, and Daniel-Lesur), the choirmaster Maurice Emmanuel,3 and other titular organists at Sainte-Clotilde—notably Joseph Ermend Bonnal, Jean Langlais, and Pierre Cogen—had an intimate, spiritual understanding of the Gregorian chants used in the traditional Catholic liturgy. This was manifest in their deeply poetic and colorful interpretations, and in their use of Gregorian chants in their improvisations and compositions. They all served their art with humility. This article is dedicated to Pierre Cogen, a French organist-composer in the Sainte-Clotilde Tradition.

Pierre Cogen’s musical formation under Jean Langlais’ guidance

Pierre Cogen (see illustration 1) was born in Paris on October 2, 1931. From 1944 to 1951, he studied at the Petit Séminaire de Paris in Conflans.4 He sang in the Schola choir, directed by the Abbot Jean Revert.5 Such a framework provided Cogen with a musical training in the ancient, pure classical tradition—in a church choir school that sang Gregorian chants as well as the classical polyphonic choral repertory. At the age of 14, Cogen began to accompany this choir on the 12-stop Cavaillé-Coll organ6 in the school chapel. Each year, Jean Langlais was invited to give a concert on this instrument. When Cogen heard him improvise brilliantly on the Gregorian Sunday mid-Lent Introit, Laetare Jerusalem, he was moved so deeply that he immediately requested to become his student. At the age of 19, Cogen studied privately with him, taking lessons either on the two-manual harmonium with a pedalboard in Langlais’ home, on the Cavaillé-Coll organ in his class at the Paris Institute for the Blind, or on the chapel organ at Cogen’s school.
After graduating from this school in 1951, at the age of 20, Pierre Cogen studied for one year with Edouard Souberbielle at the César Franck School in Paris, during Langlais’ first tour to the United States. This distinguished and cultivated professor helped Cogen to solidify his technique. Cogen then continued to take private lessons with Langlais, studying organ interpretation (especially of the works associated with the Sainte-Clotilde Tradition), and also harmony, counterpoint, fugue, and improvisation (notably of the fugue). Cogen also studied harmony with Jean Lemaire and took preparatory courses for the exam that would qualify him to become a music professor with Eliane Chevalier (Marie-Madeleine Duruflé-Chevalier’s sister) and Raymond Weber. After obtaining his Certificat d’Aptitude as a music education professor, he taught in Paris, in public schools and at the private Alsatian School from 1961 to 1993. In the meantime, from 1952 to 1966, he directed a children’s choir, Les Petits Chanteurs de Championnet, which sang four-voice a cappella music from Palestrina to Langlais. It toured, notably to Germany in 1964 and 1965.
From 1952 to 1979, in exchange for numerous lessons, Cogen assisted Langlais’ wife Jeanne7 as a musical secretary, notating Langlais’ compositions onto paper and proofreading them for publication. In 1954, he helped Langlais prepare his edition of C. P. E. Bach’s Six Sonatas.8 When Langlais urgently composed his Salve Regina Mass for the Christmas Eve midnight mass at the Notre-Dame Cathedral in 1954, his wife notated the text during the day; each night, Cogen prepared the separate vocal scores. Among other compositions, he notated Langlais’ In Paradisum (Triptyque grégorien) in a hotel in Haarlem, during the International Improvisation Competition in 1978. In 1971, Pierre Cogen decided to complete his musical training, in both organ and improvisation, as well as in counterpoint and fugue. He therefore enrolled at the Schola Cantorum—in Langlais’ organ class from 1971 to 1973, then in Yvonne Desportes’ fugue class from 1974 to 1976—obtaining the Prix de Virtuosité in organ and improvisation in 1973, and Superior Diplomas in harmony, counterpoint and fugue in 1975–76. During the first term of 1973, when Langlais took a leave of absence for illness, Cogen took lessons with his substitute, André Fleury, studying his Prélude, Andante and Toccata, acquiring a more dreamlike interpretation of the Prélude and a more flamboyant spirit in the Toccata. Fleury insisted upon absolute precision and rigor in carrying out registration changes. Cogen greatly appreciated his honesty, his rectitude of character, and his constant friendship.9
In July 1975, Pierre Cogen participated in an improvisation academy in Nice with Pierre Cochereau, driving from Paris to Nice with the American organist George Baker. When Cogen improvised an “Elevation,” Cochereau immediately put him at ease, with his customary simplicity and warmth. Cogen recalls that they began with modulation exercises, all types of canons and toccata formulas, developing numerous forms: the sicilienne, various suite movements, and, of course, the fugue. Among the advice that Cogen retained:

Carry out your effects tactfully. Don’t say everything initially!
Interweave all of the elements, one upon another.
Don’t abuse the use of major and minor scales.
Establish the tonalities of your development.
Beware of your repeated chords, too many arpeggiated formulas.
How can you return to the principal tonality? And the 6/4 chord!10

In 1979, Pierre Cogen obtained, by competition, the Aptitude Certificate for Teaching Organ and Improvisation (C.A.) in the national French conservatories. In 1984, he created the organ class at the Maurice Ravel Conservatory in Levallois, near Paris, remaining there until his retirement in 1993.

Titular at the Sainte-Clotilde Basilica in Paris

Beginning in 1955, Cogen began to substitute for Langlais at the Sainte-Clotilde Basilica when his official assistant, Pierre Denis,11 was not available. The Grand Orgue gave solemnity to the church services, and prepared and prolonged the atmosphere of the liturgical chants during the masses, vespers, weddings and funerals. When Langlais asked him to substitute for him, Cogen played for three Sunday morning masses: the 9:30 a.m. high mass was in Latin and Gregorian chant; the two others, at 11 a.m. and noon, were low masses. At the high mass, Cogen played the Prelude, the Offertory, the Elevation, the Communion, and the Postlude. During the low masses, he played continuously while the celebrant recited his prayers in a “low” voice. During the church services, Cogen based his improvisations and his choice of repertory on the appropriate chants of the liturgical year. For the vesper services, after playing a processional entrance, he improvised fifteen verses, first for the repeated antiphons that follow each of the five psalms, then, in alternation with the choir, for the verses of the hymn and the Magnificat, and then again for the antiphon.
In 1972, Pierre Cogen played the organ regularly, becoming Langlais’ official assistant. During this period, he only played two Sunday morning masses, at 11 a.m. (preceded by a long prelude) and at noon. Although the vespers were no longer held, he still played for weddings and funerals. At the beginning of 1973, when Langlais fell ill, Cogen played for all of the services. When Langlais resumed his activities, he dedicated to Cogen the fourth of his Cinq Méditations sur l’Apocalypse: “Oh oui, viens, Seigneur viens, Seigneur Jésus.”12
On January 31, 1976, at Langlais’ request, Pierre Cogen was named as a co-titular organist at Saint-Clotilde. He still played for the same number of masses. Even more important, since he had unlimited access to the organ, he became well integrated into the Sainte-Clotilde Tradition, playing much of its related repertory. On the occasion of his nomination as co-titular organist, Langlais presented him with Léon Vallas’s biography of César Franck13 with the following inscription (see illustration 2).
From 1978 to 1985, in addition to the two morning masses, Cogen played for a traditional low mass in Latin every Sunday at 6:30 p.m. (except in the summer). On May 17, 1987, Cogen accompanied Langlais’ Messe Solennelle for four-part choir and two organs15 while Langlais played solo pieces during a televised Sunday morning mass that celebrated Langlais’ 80th birthday. In April 1988, when Langlais resigned at the age of 80 due to a bad heart condition, he was named “Honorary Organist at Sainte-Clotilde.”16 Cogen succeeded him as titular, and Jacques Taddei was also named as titular, joining the list of their illustrious predecessors:

1863–1890 César Franck17
1890–1898 Gabriel Pierné
1898–1939 Charles Tournemire
1942–1944 Joseph Ermend Bonnal
1945–1988 Jean Langlais
1976–1994 Pierre Cogen
1988–present Jacques Taddei

After his nomination, Cogen dedicated his Offrande to Langlais and premiered this work during the 11 a.m. Easter Mass at Sainte-Clotilde on April 3, 1988, the day he succeeded Langlais as titular. At the beginning of this piece, a beautiful pentatonic melody is harmonized with refined simplicity (see illustration 3). After Langlais’ death on May 8, 1991, Cogen and Taddei, with other instrumentalists and choirs, played for his funeral on May 30.
From 1988 to 1991, in addition to his service playing, Cogen organized organ concerts at Sainte-Clotilde every Friday after the noon mass. These concerts continued until the church was closed in 1992 for restoration work. When it reopened in 1993, Cogen and Taddei only played for the 11 a.m. mass, but a song rehearsal that immediately preceded the mass prevented them from playing a prelude. On June 21, 1994, Cogen retired at the age of 62, after 39 years of service to this parish (21 years as a substitute organist and 18 years as a titular). On April 2, he played there for the last time—for the Easter Vigil and the midnight Easter mass, ending it with the following postlude: Langlais’ Incantation pour un jour saint, which combines the Lumen Christi chant from the Easter Vigil and the Litanies, which had been sung by the congregation during the vigil to implore heavenly aid.

International concert organist and recording artist

As a concert organist, Cogen had the privilege of premiering several of Langlais’ pieces. On December 30, 1979, he inaugurated his Noëls avec Variations, Op. 204, at the Saint-Louis des Invalides Church in Paris. On November 18, 1985, he premiered Langlais’ Talitha Koum, Op. 225, at a second concert that celebrated Langlais’ 40 years of service as an organist at Sainte-Clotilde. On Sunday, December 13, 1987, at Sainte-Clotilde, Cogen premiered, with Claire Louchet, soprano, Langlais’ Antiennes à la Sainte Vierge, Op. 242, for one voice and organ.
On February 1, 1987, Pierre Cogen performed at the Madeleine Church in Paris, along with François-Henri Houbart and Georges Bessonnet, in a concert that celebrated Jean Langlais’ 80th birthday. On February 15, 1987, Langlais’ 80th birthday, he attended Cogen’s recital at the Notre-Dame Cathedral. Cogen performed Langlais’ Chant de joie, Rosa mystica, Triptyque, and Dans la lumière, an extract from L’Offrande à une âme. At Sainte-Clotilde, Cogen also performed in several memorable organ concerts: one was held in Tournemire’s honor on November 16, 1989. It is particularly moving to note that Cogen heard Langlais play for the last time during this concert—a moving rendition of the second of Tournemire’s Sei Fioretti, which had been dedicated to him 57 years earlier, in 1932!18
Also at Sainte-Clotilde, Cogen played in two concerts that celebrated the centenary of Cesar Franck’s death in 1990 and in several recitals that were held in Langlais’ memory in 1991. On Good Friday in 1989, 1990 and 1991, Cogen was privileged to perform at Sainte-Clotilde Tournemire’s Sept Chorals-Poèmes pour les Sept Paroles du Christ, Op. 67. Father Choné, the church priest, introduced each piece with a commentary of the Gospel.
Cogen also rendered homage to his two predecessors by recording their works on the Sainte-Clotilde Grand Orgue:
1. Langlais’ works (carried out in the composer’s presence): Incantation pour un jour saint, Ave Maria, Ave Maris Stella, Offrande à Marie, Suite medievale (a 33 rpm record published by Tempo FR 760310), 1976;
2. Langlais’ Première Symphonie, Suite folklorique, Triptyque by Cybélia (CY-867), 1986; 3. Tournemire’s Sept Chorals-Poèmes pour les Sept Paroles du Xrist en Croix, L’Orgue Mystique (the Assumption and the Epiphany Offices) (CD, Cybélia, CY-883), 1990. In 1997, he also recorded Langlais’ Suite médiévale, Suite brève, and Suite française on the organ at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Mannheim (CD, Aeolus, AE-10081).

Pierre Cogen’s organ works

After retiring from his post at Sainte-Clotilde in 1994, Pierre Cogen was able to devote more time to performing and to composing. His compositions were inspired by Tournemire’s poetic language and by Langlais’ colorful harmonies. The influence of the Sainte-Clotilde Tradition is also manifest in Cogen’s use of modal tonalities, Gregorian chants, and the imitation of bells. Several of Cogen’s organ works were commissioned, notably by the Austrian organist and composer Thomas Daniel Schlee, by two organists in Switzerland, Eva and Marco Brandazza, and by the Austrian organist Herbert Bolterauer. In the following list of Cogen’s works, the titles are given in French, along with information concerning their dedications, their premieres and their publication. A brief description of each piece provides the composer’s remarks concerning his works.

1. Deux Chorals, dedicated to his dear master Jean Langlais, composed as birthday presents for him; they were premiered privately, on Langlais’ house organ, on February 15, 1974 (the second choral) and in 1977 (the first choral): “Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen,” 1977; “Herzlich tut mich verlangen,” 1974.
Published in Paris: Combre (C 5464), 1993 (6'30").
The association of these two chorals recalls two vital extremities, one’s birth and death, as Cogen explains.
The first choral, with its inherently intimate character, uses the famous Praetorius Christmas carol in a clear, contrapuntal style, with particularly soft registrations (Gambe and Voix Celeste, Bourdon 8', with a soft Pedal Flute). The melody, in long note values in the soprano, is accompanied by a discreet movement of eighth-notes in the inner voices, while syncopated rhythms in the bass line (played on the pedal) lull the upper voices.
Cogen was studying improvisation with Langlais when he composed the second choral. Langlais had insisted that the pedal part should not stagnate in the lower notes. His student followed his advice far beyond his master’s wishes, since the pedal sings entirely in the upper range on the following stops: Flute 4', Nasard 22⁄3', Larigot 11⁄3' and Piccolo 1' (registration that was dear to Messiaen in his Banquet céleste). The choral melody, resolutely sustained with homophonic writing, is confined to the manuals (Bourdon 8', Voix Humaine and tremolo on the Swell or, if this is not available, on 8' foundation stops that can sufficiently balance the opposing chant in the pedal). If the pedalboard does not contain a G3, it is possible to play the entire pedal part an octave lower on a registration based on 2' stops.

2. Nocturne sur un thème populaire Breton, 1976, dedicated to Michèle Vermesse, his future wife; premiered by Ann Labounsky in a concert at Sainte-Clotilde in Paris on May 21, 1979.
Published in Paris: Combre (C 5396), 1992 (7'30").
Recorded by Hans Leitner at the Passau Cathedral in 1995, in Klangfarben der grössten Kirchenorgel der Welt, CD 118, Symicon, Passau, and by Ulrich Karg at the Saint-Vith Church in Belgium, 1999, in Organs in Wallonie, a province of Liège, Blawète Records, Liège.
The theme of this nocturne is a Breton hymn proposed to Pierre Cogen as an improvisation theme to conclude a concert given at Douarnenez (in the southern Finistère) on August 17, 1975. This evening hymn affirms a faith as solid as the granite that is exposed to harsh atmospheric conditions; it is presented as such in the old Breton night legends (ankou, korrigans, etc.). Cogen tried to bring this atmosphere to life in this symphonic, three-part Andante: following the triple exposition of the theme, interspersed with mysterious bell tolls, a sombre and anguished central section develops certain fragments of the theme; then a re-exposition is calmer and more lyrical. This piece finishes with a reminder of the bell tolling: at the beginning and the end of this work, two chords are superposed in the lower keyboard range, solely on the Nasard 22⁄3' and the Tierce 13⁄5' stops.

3. Chorale “Erbarm dich mein, ô Herre Gott,” 1978, unpublished (5').
In an ecumenical approach, Pierre Cogen had planned on writing several suites that would combine Lutheran chorales with Gregorian themes. This is the only work that was completed. In a particularly slow tempo, the chorale theme passes successively from the lower to the upper ranges, from pianissimo to triple forte with dense polyphonic writing, whereas the Gregorian theme, Miserere mei, Deus, serves as a countrapuntal element.

4. Deux Hosannas sur des textes grégoriens: I. Hosanna in exsilio, 1980, to François Tricot; II. Hosanna Escalquensis, 1982, to Jeanne Langlais, in memoriam.
Published in Das neue Orgelalbum II, Vienna: Universal Edition (UE 17480), 1985 (7'30").
The first piece begins with an excerpt of the Sanctus from the Missa Orbis Factor. Then, a two-part development built around a group of four descending notes is followed by a recapitulation with a canon at the seventh and a brief coda. The fear-stricken character of the music alludes to the title of the piece: we are not in heaven (in excelsis), but in this world of banishment (in exsilio), to which the Salve Regina alludes.
In the second movement, the theme, a fragment of the Missa Cunctipotens Genitor Deus in the second mode, appears three times. A fugato, based on a fragment of the theme, introduces the development section. A large-scale rallentando leads to a mysterious carillon: that of the Escalquens Church (near Toulouse), where Jean and Jeanne Langlais are buried. This carillon is played very slowly (see illustration 4, page 28). The bell tolling and the thematic fragments are developed with a crescendo, leading to a brilliant, luminous presentation of the theme in a canon at the interval of a fifth.
5. Psalmodie, composed at Cernay la Ville on December 31, 1985, dedicated to his mother.
Published in Pedals Only, Vienna: Universal Edition (UE 18601), 1988 (5').
The author could have inscribed an epigraph under the title of the piece, citing the passage in the Gospel of St. Luke (chapter I, verse 39), following the text concerning the Annunciation: “Mary left hastily to visit her cousin Elizabeth in the mountains.” At the beginning of Psalmodie, a series of three groups of three quiet F-sharps on the Flute 4' stop recall the Sainte-Clotilde church bells when they toll for the Angelus.19 As Cogen explains, after this introduction comes a three-voice fugue, whose joyful subject is none other than that of the psalmody in the eighth mode, sometimes used to sing the Magnificat. After several expositions and divertimenti, the movement is accelerated while the subject is compressed through several canons (strettos), leading to the tutti, a radiant B-major chord. Two codas are proposed, with solo pedal or with the addition of the manuals.

6. Offrande, 1988 (initially composed in 1963 for an a cappella four-voice choir with the title Le Lotus d’Or), dedicated to his dear master Jean Langlais; premiered by Cogen during the 11 a.m. Easter Mass at Sainte-Clotilde on April 3, 1988, the day he succeeded Langlais as titular.
Published in Paris: Combre (Collection Horizon), 1990 (3').
Recorded by Andrew Cantrill, at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Wellington, New Zealand.
This is a unique piece: Cogen’s only work from the 1960s, when he was strongly influenced by early twentieth-century composers such as Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Bartók, and Milhaud. It is based on a Birman folklore melody in the pentatonic mode and is structured according to its four original strophes. The melody initially appears in the soprano on the Swell Oboe 8', accompanied by the left hand on the Positive Salicional 8' and a soft 16' and 8' in the Pedal. In the second strophe, a trio, the melody appears in the left hand on the Positive Cromorne, while the alto is played by the right hand on the Swell Cornet, with a Grand Jeu de Tierce in the Pedal. In the slightly agitated third strophe, the melody in the soprano is sustained by the two voices in the alto, which develop in imitation before sounding together in parallel thirds. The work finishes peacefully on the Swell Gambe and Voix Celeste stops that accompany the melody on the Great Bourdon 8'. As Cogen indicates, the absence of the B and E notes in the pentatonic melody allowed him to truly modulate: while the first and the last strophes maintained their “white” key signature, the B-flat intervenes in the second strophe and joins the E-flat in the third one.

7. Fantaisie sur une Antienne for organ with four hands and pedal, 1988, finished at Cernay-la-Ville, near Paris, on November 4, 1989, dedicated to Claire and Thomas Daniel Schlee; premiered by Cogen and Schlee in a concert that celebrated 50th anniversary of Tournemire’s death, at Sainte-Clotilde on November 23, 1989, along with T. D. Schlee’s Prisme, also a work for four hands and pedal.
Published in Vienna: Universal Edition (UE 19550), 1988 (7').
Recorded by Eva and Marco Brandazza at the Schloss Church in Bad Mergentheim (Germany), in Ite, missa est, Organum Musikproduktion, Öhringen, 1996; and by Sylvie Poirier and Philip Crozier on the Casavant organ at the Très Saint Sacrement de Jésus Church in Montréal, Canada, in Historic Organs of Montreal, CD 1.
Pierre Cogen’s fantasy contains three main sections of polyphonic writing—Lento, Andante and Allegro—that alternate with freely expressive recitatives. The Lento section sounds like a funeral march on the soft 8' foundation stops, After progressing from the lower to the upper registers, a heavy pedal note imitates a bell-like toll on low C. The Andante presents a fugue whose vigorous rhythmical theme appears in the alto, then in the tenor and in the bass. In the final Allegro, a litany-like dialogue on the foundation stops with the mixtures, the composer presents the Gregorian antiphon on which this piece is based: the “Ego dormivi” from the Easter matins, which Tournemire used several times in his L’Orgue mystique, notably in his Paraphrase Carillon. Cogen’s work ends majestically on the full organ.

8. L’Epiphanie du Seigneur, 1991, in homage to the painter, Werner Hartmann, dedicated to Geneviève and Daniel Hartmann; premiered by Pierre Cogen on November 10, 1991, for the tenth anniversary of the death of this painter, at the Parish Catholic Church in Gerliswill-Emmenbrücke, near Lu-cerne, Switzerland. Unpublished (14')
Werner Hartmann’s series of large paintings (5.60m x 1.90m) of the Epiphany of the Savior, which inspired this piece, are located in the choir of the Catholic church, Pfarrkirche Gerliswill, in the Gerliswill-Emmenbrücke district of Lucerne. They depict the three miracles related in the Epiphany Gospel: the star followed by the Wise Men (who ride on horses instead of camels), the water changed into wine, and the descent of the Holy Spirit during Christ’s Baptism. While looking at these paintings, Cogen was struck by their link with the Gregorian antiphon in the first mode, the “Tribus miraculis” from the Magnificat of the Second Vespers of Epiphany. Since this work is based on this theme, it may be sung as an introduction.
According to Cogen, in the first movement, “The Star, the Three Wise Men and the Manger Scene,” mysterious and stark sonorities (due to the light discord on the Nazard stop) recall the night and the starlit sky. The central part of this movement recalls the Wise Men (who travel on horseback to follow the star that led them to the cradle). At the end, a slow descent leads to a lulling movement, a sweet evocation of the manger scene.
In the second movement, “The Wedding at Cana and the Baptism of Jesus,” light flutes sound a discreet carillon, while the rustic reed stops introduce a folk melody full of Mediterranean light. The development, initially calm, becomes more intense, leading up to a brief and turbulent agitato that represents the servants’ astonishment when the miracle takes place. Then, the melody is transformed into a Grand Plein Jeu—solemn and hieratic—the manifestation of the Divine Presence. This fragment finishes with the first notes of Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.
The Baptism of Jesus by John, a penance baptism, begins with low notes and rustic sonorities that depict the universe filled with minerals and the dry desert where John the Baptist carried out his mission. This long tension is resolved in less dissonant harmonies, the first fruits of the salvation announced by John the Baptist. The quotation of the Veni Creator recalls the descent of the Holy Spirit onto Jesus. The work concludes in a luminous atmosphere with the initial Gregorian theme—that of the antiphon Tribus miraculis.

9. L’Exaltation de la Sainte Croix, Diptyque for Organ, 1994, dedicated to Monseigneur Jean Revert, Honorary Choirmaster at the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, for the 50th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood; premiered by Pierre Cogen at the Notre-Dame Cathedral on Palm Sunday, on March 27, 1994. Unpublished (11')
According to Cogen, this work is a grand Gregorian paraphrase in the spirit of similar pieces by Tournemire and Langlais. The title refers to the Feast of the Holy Cross. The melodic material is taken from several liturgical antiphons and hymns from the Holy Week, in particular, the antiphons Ecce lignum Crucis, Crucem tuam adoramus, and the hymn Vexilla Regis. A Meditation on the Mystery of the Cross, an instrument of Christ’s torture but also a symbol of the Redemption, this work is in the form of a diptyque in two connecting parts:
I. After an introduction inviting one to the Adoration of the Cross, a somber procession intones the hymn Vexilla Regis in the lower ranges of the organ. This first part ends peacefully, in expectation of the Resurrection.
II. At the very beginning of the second part, the atmosphere changes. A theme of exaltation, Exaltavit illum, first in the upper range of the organ, gives birth to a fugato. Profiting from secondary episodes, the theme of the hymn Vexilla Regis winds its way into the low ranges before powerfully bursting forth. The work concludes with a fanfare, recalling its various themes.

10. Lucernaire for two organs, “Paravi lucernam Christo meo” (Ps. 131/132, v. 17), for the Christmas season or for a celebration of the Light, 1994, commissioned by Eva and Marco Brandazza and premiered by them on January 10, 1995, at the Jesuit Church in Lucerne, Switzerland (with Eva on the choir organ and Marco on the tribune organ). Unpublished (17')
Recorded by Eva and Marco Brandazza (see item 7 above).
Underneath the title, the composer placed a verse of the Psalm 131 (132): “I have prepared a lamp for my Christ.” According to Cogen, this expectation and coming of the Light, an idea that repeatedly occurs in the Christmas season liturgical texts, guided him during his preparations, from the antiphon O Oriens (for the winter solstice) and the Lumen ad revelationem gentium of the Feast of the Purification, until the hymn Jesu, Redemptor omnium and its verse. By referring to these texts that were sung during the vespers of the Christmas season, the composer thought of structuring his work in the manner of an evening service, notably the one that was formerly referred to as Lucernaire, because one lit lamps during this service. In addition, the composer did not neglect to bring out the similarity between the Latin word lucerna, the lamp, and the name of the city of Lucerne.

11. Cortège, 1996, in memory of Adrien Maciet, the organ builder; Herbert Bolterauer premiered it on November 8, 1996, at the Mariahilf in Graz, Austria.
Published in Paris: Combre (C 05909), in Enluminures. Dix Pièces pour orgue sur un thème donné, 1999 (5').
Herbert Bolterauer, the organist at the Mariahilf Church in Graz, Austria, had requested nine different composers to write a short piece on a theme by Alexandre Schrei. The title of this collection, Enluminures [Illuminations], refers to the way the composers, through the variety of their styles, were able to “illuminate” the various aspects of the thematic material. Since Cogen’s piece is a memorial one, he chose a writing style that is essentially contrapuntal, quasi-vocal. He begins his piece in a slow and grave tempo: Schrei’s theme initially appears when the pedal enters. The piece intensifies until its conclusion. According to the composer, each interpreter can choose either to maintain its restrained character throughout the work, or to increase the sonorities, leading to a maximum of sound at the end of the piece.

12. Psalm “De Profundis” for organ and brass, 1998, in memory of his father-in-law, Edouard Vermesse; Pierre Cogen premiered it on July 17, 1998, with the brass ensemble Hexagone and the solo trumpeter Pierre Dutot, at the Abbatial Church in Guîtres, France (in Gironde, near Bordeaux). Unpublished (8')
This piece develops the various aspects of Psalm 129 (130), from its initial distressful plea to its message of the Lord’s kindness and redemption expressed in verse seven. It uses various Gregorian melodies: the antiphons from the Requiem and the Christmas Vespers, the Offertory from the twenty-third Sunday after Whitsun, and the chorale Aus tiefer Not schrei’ ich zu dir (the Lutheran equivalent of the De profundis).

13. Introduction, Thème et Variations sur “Innsbrück, Ich muss dich lassen” (Variations on a song by Heinrich Isaac), 1999–2002, dedicated to Thomas Daniel Schlee; on July 8, 1999, Cogen premiered an excerpt of this work at the parish church in Igls-Innsbruck; he then premiered it in its entirety on June 18, 2002, at Saint-Sulpice in Paris, France.
Published in Paris: Combre (C 06460), 2006 (13').
In 1996, when Cogen gave a concert in Igls, in the immediate vicinity of Innsbruck, he was inspired to compose a work on Isaac’s tune known as Innsbrück. The association between its name and that of the river Inn inspired him to write an introduction followed by five variations on this theme. As in most variations, this work enables the performer to present the various tonal colors of the organ. An initial Andante introduction develops several motives of the theme, on the foundation stops and the Swell Trumpet 8¢; the theme is then presented un poco più vivo, on the 16', 8', and 4' foundation stops. After the addition of the manual mixtures and the Pedal Basson 16', Isaac’s theme is entirely presented on the full organ, with harmonies reminiscent of those of the fifteenth century, when the melody was originally composed. The following five variations present the various colors of the organ:
Variation 1: an Adagio presents the theme in the lowest part of the pedalboard, using the Swell Bourdon 8', Voix Humaine 8' and tremulant, with the Pedal Flutes 8' and 4' and, if possible, the mutation stops forming the Grand Jeu de Tierce;
Variation 2: an Andante, with the theme played by the left hand, in a light character, on the Gambe stops;
Variation 3: a lyrical movement that dislocates the theme, using dissonances and “harsh” sounding reed stops, such as the Great horizontal Trumpet 8' with the mixtures;
Variation 4: a Moderato movement on the Swell Gambe 8' and Voix Celeste, with a canon between the alto (played by the right hand) and the soprano (played on the Pedal Flute 4');
Variation 5: a vigorous Fugue, Allegro ma non troppo, that begins on the Swell 8', 4', and 2' foundation stops with the mixtures; a progressive crescendo leads to the triumphal return of Isaac’s song, in a “resolutely modern harmonization” (P. Cogen).
A coda concludes this work on the full organ, resounding an open fifth: D–A.

A New Look at the Chronicle of the Years 1857–1863

Through her concert tours, radio recordings and CDs (the complete organ works of Jehan Alain and Dietrich Buxtehude, portraits of Buttstett, Reger, Boëllmann, Dubois and Langlais, comprising some twenty recordings), as well as her musicological research, Helga Schauerte-Maubouet has become one of the outstanding musicians of her generation. Organist of the German Lutheran Church in Paris, teacher at the Paris Conservatoire Nadia et Lili Boulanger, lecturer and jury member for international organ competitions, she maintains a brilliant career as a performing artist in Europe and the USA. Author of the first book in the German language on Alain’s music, she has discovered and acquired some 40 of Alain’s musical autographs. She has been engaged by Bärenreiter to contribute to the new edition of MGG, to write on French organ music subjects in the Handbuch Orgelmusik, and to publish scholarly-critical editions of the complete organ works of Léon Boëllmann, Théodore Dubois and Louis Vierne as well as of vocal music of Marc-Antoine Charpentier. She has also composed French Noël and German carol settings for other instruments and organ published by Merseburger-Verlag. In 1987 she received the cultural prize of Olpe, Germany. Since 1990 her biography has been included in the International Who’s Who in Music, and she has been included in 2000 Outstanding Musicians of the 20th Century.
A French-American organist and musicologist, Carolyn Shuster Fournier is an international concert artist and titular of the Aristide Cavaillé-Coll choir organ at La Trinité Church in Paris, France (cf. <www.shusterfournier.com&gt;). Her latest CD, “An American in Paris” (Ligia Digital, distribution Harmonia Mundi), recorded at La Madeleine Church, is dedicated to French and American music. Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters, Dr. Shuster Fournier has written several articles for The Diapason.

Much is known about the first musical activities at Sainte-Clotilde in the years 1863 to 1868 when César Franck, the organist of this church, worked together with the young Théodore Dubois, his choirmaster. Much less known is the reversal of these roles, which occurred precisely from 1857 to 1863 when César Franck was choirmaster and Théodore Dubois was the choir organist. Dubois’ memoirs,1 recently rediscovered at the Bibliothèque nationale de France and partially published in the complete edition of his organ works,2 shed new light on many of the unclear details in the unfolding of what has been labeled as “the Sainte-Clotilde Tradition.”
In 1857, at the time of the inauguration of this church, Théodore Dubois (1837–1924) was only twenty years old. The son of a modest basket maker in the Champagne region, Dubois was a third-year student at the Paris Conservatory, earning his living as a choir organist at the nearby Saint-Louis des Invalides Church. He recalls:

The Church of Sainte-Clotilde was to be consecrated and I learned that the newly appointed choirmaster César Franck (still unknown at that time) was looking for an organist accompanist. In spite of my shyness, I didn’t hesitate and introduced myself to him without any recommendation. He immediately subjected me to a test in accompanying Gregorian chant, sight-reading and transposing. He finally engaged me on the spot for an annual salary of 1200 francs. With the incidental emoluments (700 or 800 francs) it was a fortune! Just imagine my joy at finally being delivered from all financial worries! […] This was how I got to know C. Franck, who was always good and very kind to me, whose friend and admirer I became and remained up to his last hour.
Shortly after the consecration of the Ste-Clotilde Church, since no organ had been built yet, I accompanied the singers on a good Mustel harmonium. […] Through my daily contact with C. Franck, I grew to love and admire this great artist. I was lucky enough to witness him composing his Mass, his Motets, and the beautiful Offertories, and to be the first to accompany them, including top-level works—due to their sublimity and their personally colored expressive harmonies—such as Dextera Domini [1861], Quae est ista [1861] and the Offertory for Lent. What a contrast with the works usually heard then in most of the churches in Paris! This was the beginning of a reaction against banality and poor taste which, after so many years, had not completely disappeared from the repertoire found in the church choir schools!”3

Religious music was in fact in a state of real decadence, sung with dramatic sentimentality; the tonal result was closer to that of salon romances [for house gatherings]. This was the bona fide beginning of the tradition that distinguished Sainte-Clotilde from other Parisian churches. Here, the music was made with serenity, power and lyricism. As there was no organ in the church, it was essentially vocal. The choir, directed by César Franck (1822–1890) and made up of three male voice parts (soprano, tenor and bass), sang with an orchestra or was simply sustained by a double bass and a Mustel harmonium played by Théodore Dubois. Dubois, who was fifteen years younger than his choirmaster, did not hide his admiration for him.

These memories are dear to me because they remind me that C. Franck was such a noble-minded artist. The affectionate kindness that he showed towards me and also the great impression that his works made upon me; they were written in a style so new for me. Nobody will be surprised to hear that the church members of Ste-Clotilde took a somewhat refractory view of their music director’s compositions. They preferred the banalities of the current repertoire. Hasn’t it always been like that and doesn’t one see that time finally puts everything right in its place and that the name of C. Franck is met with universal admiration today!
The artist’s outward appearance did not correspond to his talent, to his genius. Had his eyes not been lively, flashing and full of intelligence, one would more likely have taken him in a peaceful moment for a sort of upright provincial citizen. But as soon as he started talking, he changed: with the persuasive power of his words he focused his attention with brilliant observations on art and literature, becoming convincing, almost fascinating; one felt that one was in the presence of a powerful strong will! There are in fact few young artists who knew him that were not influenced to some degree by him.4
Very concerned about the splendor and the magnificence of the worship services, the abbot Pierre Ambroise Hamelin (1800–1883), priest at Sainte-Clotilde, only moderately appreciated his choirmaster’s music. Nevertheless, Franck dedicated his motet Dextera Domini, Offertory for Easter Sunday, to him. Théodore Dubois describes in detail one of the dreadful confrontations between the two men. It was in 1861, the year of the composition of this motet, that Hamelin launched this quip to Franck in front of the choir members:

“Mr. Franck, you do not know your job!” Franck simply replied to this, but with a firm and convincing voice: “Father, I affirm to you that I know my job!” I believe that he did know it. But our good priest never suspected so. He loved blaring music: and still the blaring music, this was not at all Franck’s cup of tea. We were all appalled at such an outburst. Franck alone remained impassive and with an angelic air he told us upon leaving: “He does not know; he cannot know!” Deep thought, simple, just, full of philosophy, of observation and of kindness!5
Until then, Franck only carried out his duties as choirmaster. Accumulating the multiple functions of this post hardly left him any free time:
Lessons for the choristers nearly every day, general rehearsals, services on Sundays and feast days, Thursday masses, Friday Benedictions of the Holy Sacrament, certain evening services, the Marian month, the octaves of certain feast days, weddings, funerals, the preparation and the choice of the programs, engaging additional artists if needed for a service; the choirmaster was responsible for calculating each person’s salary at the end of each month; he supervised the music library and the performance repertory; he recruited children to sing after some voices had broken and other various circumstances.6
Also in 1861, Théodore Dubois won the Prix de Rome with his cantata Atala. He had to leave Paris on December 26, 1861, to travel and stay in Italy for two years, until the end of 1863. Concerned about resuming his accompanying post upon his return from Rome, he quickly went to see his priest in order to request his permission to find a substitute among one of his students during his absence.
With the agreement of C. Franck my choirmaster, I asked him if he would allow Mr. Bourjuge’s nephew, one of my occasional students who knew what the job entailed, whom I had already shown what the post involved, to substitute for me during my absence. My request was accepted and I was thus assured to find my position upon returning. My mind was at ease and I was then able to look forward to the happiness that I anticipated for this trip and stay in Rome.7
This account contradicts Joël-Marie Fauquet’s version, which states that

when Dubois left for the Villa Médici in 1861, Franck held concurrently the functions of organist and of choirmaster so that Dubois could resume his position upon returning.8
Moreover, from a practical point of view, concurrently carrying out both positions could hardly be imagined. Théodore Dubois then boarded at the Villa Medici while keeping his position as organist-accompanist. Very happy in Rome, he later described these two years of absence from Sainte-Clotilde as the most beautiful days of his life. However, in November 1863, upon returning from a tour in Italy, he was actually urged to decide on the spot to shorten his stay and return hastily to Paris in order to succeed Franck. Here is his account:

Shortly after returning to Rome I received news from Ste-Clotilde that made me happy and sad at the same time. I was told that they had finished constructing the ‘Grand Orgue’9 and that César Franck wished to exchange his position as choirmaster for that of organist, that the priest had agreed to this, and that they would gladly offer me this position if I was prepared to return forthwith(!). The prospect of this situation, which would insure my livelihood—so difficult for so many musicians returning from Rome—made me happy of course, but at the same time the thought of having to leave the Villa Medici before the end of my two years greatly grieved me. After all, it was in November and I should normally have stayed until the end of December. My parents wanted me to have a secure position. After much hesitation and thoughtful consideration, I decided to apply for permission to leave Rome in November, and to forgo my travels to Germany, which I would have gladly carried out, but which—I don’t know why—few of the scholarship students took at that time.10

After returning from Rome in November, 1863, the roles at the Sainte-Clotilde Church were reversed. With César Franck at the Grand Orgue tribune, Théodore Dubois immediately assumed his new job as choirmaster. His account is of utmost importance because it reveals precisely and without ambiguity that the Sainte-Clotilde Grand Orgue was not completely finished before the fall of 1863 and that Franck was not named titular organist until after the completion of the work.11 It also clearly reveals the unexpected urgency of the missive from Sainte-Clotilde. Why did Franck so suddenly make up his mind to change roles and become organist? This crucial moment of the completion of the organ was thus revealed to be the real turning point in his musical career. Until that time, he had not yet composed any important organ pieces. But suddenly in September and October of 1863, he began composing with great intensity, which until now seemed to be surprisingly unexplained.
Théodore Dubois’ account thus allows us to place in its true context the genesis of Franck’s Six Organ Pieces, his first symphonic works, composed in 1863/1864 and edited in 1868. It establishes a link between the Sainte-Clotilde organ on the one hand, and his nomination to the organist position on the other hand. The Six Pieces, as the composer presented them at their first performance at Sainte-Clotilde in November 1864, are thus indebted to the finished state of the Cavaillé-Coll organ in the fall of 1863. Two of the Six Pieces, the Grand Pièce symphonique and the Pastorale (dedicated to Cavaillé-Coll), are dated precisely on September 16 and 29. The other ones—such as the Fantaisie, one of whose versions is dated October 1863, or the Final—were revised. It is incontestably the new aesthetic of the Sainte-Clotilde organ, one of Cavaillé-Coll’s most beautiful instruments, which is at the origin of Franck’s new genius and which transformed and directed his creative thoughts towards new horizons.
Théodore Dubois’ memoirs attest that the “completed” Sainte-Clotilde organ does not date from 1859 but from 1863. In his memoirs (cited above), the composer specifically uses the same phrase “the Grand Orgue was just constructed.” A second witness concerning the work carried out between 1860 and 1863 was Charles-Marie Widor. He reports that one of the first to try out the instrument “which had just been finished” in the Sainte-Clotilde Church was the “old Hesse,” on June 30, 1862.12
However, since the archives are missing, the rereading of the chronicle of these years shows uncertainties concerning the different revisions of the organ. Actually, the known documents concerning the construction of this organ suddenly end on December 2, 1859, namely three days before the originally determined date for the inauguration. Following some uncareful work carried out by the workers of the architect Théodore Ballu (1817–1885) during the installation of the top of the organ case, Cavaillé-Coll declared that

the instrument has become unplayable. Sawdust, wood shavings and even heavy objects had fallen into the organ, had stifled the sound of the pipes and altered their sonority so much that it was then impossible to repair the organ for the inauguration, announced for the fifth of this month.13
The date of the inauguration was then moved to December 19, the time allowed to “repair, clean and tune all the damaged material.” To accomplish this, the organ builder not only required this delay, but also requested a compensation of more than 500 francs from the architect. Since the new date was set fifteen days later, what was he able to do in such little time? Was the organ entirely repaired? The reference found in the newspaper articles is evasive and puzzling. Adrien de la Fage announced that he would speak about “the organ in another article or that certain questions, rather serious, would eventually be dealt with.”14 La France musicale praised Ballu’s marvelous case and reported that

this instrument ought to have been as complete as possible, in keeping with the proportions of the church, that is, to possess 46 stops on three keyboards and a pedalboard, 14 combination pedals and 1796 pipes. This is, in fact, the Sainte-Clotilde organ.15
Why then was new work carried out on an organ supposedly “complete,” finished and inaugurated? Moreover, the caliber and the undetermined length of the work threatened to put the organ “out of service” for many long months, restricting the parish to remain without a titular. Théodore Dubois’ memoirs lead us to believe that this work continued until the fall of 1863. After studying the various archives (estimations, letters) published in Fenner Douglass’s book, quoted above, only one explanation emerges. To render our hypothesis more pleasant and more familiar we imagine it under Théodore Dubois’ pen, who, of course, in his memoirs does not say one word about these events.

The year 1859 marks a date in my career: I finally obtained my First Prize in organ and in November La Maîtrise published my first organ piece, an Offertory that I composed with the inspiration of the Sainte-Clotilde organ. The construction of this large three-manual instrument was finished at the end of August, the great Lefébure-Wély who had been chosen to inaugurate it had come to play it in September in the presence of the Duchess d’Albe as well as at the ceremony of the large wedding celebrated by the Bishop of Carcassonne. The previously announced inauguration, which was to have been brilliant, had been set for December 5 and it had become urgent to install the top of the imposing organ case. Pressed for time, the architect’s workers allowed some debris and even some heavy objects to fall into the organ. One of these ‘shells’ had violently crashed into a special device for the wind chests of the Grand Orgue placed at the base of the great case towers. Regardless of the pneumatic levers, Cavaillé-Coll had to construct this new mechanism that required this special very expensive device (3,000 francs) in order to overcome the difficulties that had been raised. Alas, all attempts to tune the Grand Orgue were useless and the inauguration took place using only the rest of the undamaged stops.
It was then necessary to dismantle, verify, repair or reconstruct the damaged mechanism—or to change it. This took time and new funding. Wouldn’t it just be easier to inverse the keyboards? Our hypothesis is then that Cavaillé-Coll would have inversed, between 1860 and 1862, the order of the Positif and the Grand-Orgue keyboards to simplify the mechanism of the note transmission to the pipe valves of the Grand Orgue. More appropriate to the quite special location of this tribune, the new layout thus presented the Grand-Orgue on the first keyboard and the Positif on the second one.16
The first public performance of all of the Six Pieces was given by Franck himself in the Sainte-Clotilde Church on November 17, 1864: this represented, in a way, a second but genuine inauguration of the completed organ. The columnist S. Dufour from the Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris underlines the immense influence that the organ’s construction had on these compositions. Here is his report published in the 47th number of this periodical, on November 20, 1864:

Last Thursday at Sainte-Clotilde the elder M. César Franck gave a recital on the Cavaillé-Coll Grand Orgue which was attended by a great number of artists and amateurs. M. Franck performed the pieces he had composed, written by a master, and one remarked in the first a choir on the Voix Humaines which was most effective; and in the Grande Pièce symphonique a most distinguished melody was played initially on the Clarinet and then repeated on the Voix Célestes stops. This recital, in which M. Franck was revealed as much as a learned composer as a skillful instrumentalist, will have proved once again that the artistic level of the organist is rising from day to day in France, and that the accomplished proficiency in modern building, far from harming the musical composition, gives it, on the contrary, a precious and powerful means of expression. The beautiful organ at Sainte-Clotilde was not less brilliant in this recital by this learned organist.17
Concerning Franck as an improviser, Maurice Emmanuel (1862–1938), who met him for the first time in June 1881, reports that his sonorous creations

were always colored with very rich registrations. He even was able, through ingenious devices, to multiply the resources that the master builder had put at his disposal. It is thus that he gladly improvised on the Positif coupled to the Récit, in order to profit from the Positif 16′ stops and to surround them momentarily on the voices of the Récit in a more vast choir; this realization thus anticipated the great Récit with 16′ stops, which Cavaillé-Coll later endowed in the Saint-Sulpice organ.18

In his memoirs, Théodore Dubois boasts about having seen the birth of Franck’s Six Pieces, for which he helped the composer by pulling stops when Franck practiced on the Grand Orgue. In 1866, he also witnessed firsthand the famous meeting between César Franck and Franz Liszt who “religiously listened to these beautiful pieces which appeared to produce a great impression on him.”19 The happy collaboration between Franck and Dubois at Sainte-Clotilde continued until 1868, the year when Dubois was named choirmaster at the Madeleine. The relationship between the two musicians, founded on mutual esteem, always remained very fraternal. Théodore Dubois dedicated to Franck the first piece of his Twelve Pieces for the organ (Leduc, 1886), whereas Franck indicated that one of his Three Chorals would be dedicated to Dubois.20 Shortly after the success of his oratorio The Last Seven Words of Christ, when Théodore Dubois changed his post at Sainte-Clotilde with that at the Madeleine and became professor at the Paris Conservatory, he did everything he could to renew his collaboration with César Franck by pleading favorably for his nomination to the post of organ professor in 1872.
The discovery of Théodore Dubois’ memoirs permits us to maintain that the Sainte-Clotilde organ, whose completion in 1863 no longer corresponded to the initial 1853 project, is later than that of Saint-Sulpice (1862). Closely related to the emergence of his symphonic works, the “Sainte-Clotilde Tradition” was established beginning with Franck’s Six Pieces, which he composed or finalized at the time when he took possession of the completed organ. If the young Dubois’ testimony irrevocably clarifies the mystery that hung over the genesis of these works, it engenders on its own another mystery widely accepted by all the biographies, organ monographs, dictionaries and encyclopedias: that of Franck’s false nomination as titular organist at Sainte-Clotilde in 1859.n

Notes
1. Théodore Dubois, Souvenirs de ma vie [Memories of My Life], autograph, BNF Rés. Vmc. Ms. 3. Signed and dated in August, 1912, this autobiography, written in Rosnay between 1909 and 1912, consists of seven books that are continuously numbered. Given to the Bibliothèque nationale by his son Charles Dubois (1877–1965), these books, which were lost for a longtime in the archives of the Music Department, were refound in 1997 after an investigation by Christine Collette Kléo.
2. Théodore Dubois: The Organ Works, edited by Helga Schauerte-Maubouet, published by Bärenreiter, Kassel. The urtext edition has been in progress since 2005. Three of the six volumes are actually available: Volume I (BA 8468): the early works and organ pieces with minimal pedal or optional pedal; Volume II (BA 8469): The Twelve Pieces from 1886; Volume IV (BA 8471): The Twelve Pieces from 1893, Ascendit Deus. All the volumes are provided with explanatory texts in three languages and numerous illustrations.
3. Théodore Dubois: The Organ Works, edited by Helga Schauerte-Maubouet, Vol. I, Kassel, 2005, p. XIII.
4. Ibid.
5. Dubois, Souvenirs de ma vie, pp. 138–139.
6. Cf. note 3, p. XIV.
7. Ibid.
8. Joël-Marie Fauquet: César Franck, Paris, 1999, p. 313.
9. Should one read “grand orgue de tribune” [“Grand Orgue in a gallery”] or “Grand-Orgue” in relation to the Positif and the Récit keyboards?
10. Dubois, Souvenirs de ma vie, p. 134; cf. illustration. On page 137 Dubois marks the exact date of his return to Paris: “November, 1863.”
11. According to the past organ literature, the construction of the Grand Orgue at Sainte-Clotilde lasted from 1853 to 1859. As to Franck’s nomination to the organist position, it is usually presumed to coincide with the organ inauguration, in December 1859.
12. “Cavaillé-Coll recalled, with the same astonishment, the slow tempo of the Fugue in D Major under the fingers of the old Hesse on the organ that had just been completed in the Ste-Clotilde Church in Paris.” Charles-Marie Widor in his Preface (Venice, October 20, 1904) to Albert Schweitzer: J. S. Bach, Edition Maurice and Pierre Foetisch, Lausanne [1905], 6th printing, page IX. Hesse came to Paris twice: in 1844 and in June 1862.
13. Cited in Fenner Douglass: Cavaillé-Coll and the Musicians, Raleigh, 1980, p. 1501.
14. Revue et Gazette Musicale de Paris 27, no. 1, 1er janvier, 1860, pp. 4–5.
15. La France musicale 23, no. 52, December 25, 1859, p. 506.
16. The established order of an organ with three keyboards was the Positif (1st keyboard), the Grand-Orgue (2nd keyboard), and the Récit (3rd keyboard). Until then, Cavaillé-Coll disapproved of the idea of changing this accepted order (cf. Douglass, op. cit., p. 1440). All of the estimates of the Sainte-Clotilde organ mention the keyboards in the generally adopted order. This said, the little applied notation of certain estimates (cf. for example Douglass, p. 1391) can lead to a misunderstanding: one may read “2nd [Article] [ - ] Positif Keyboard” and not “2nd Positif Keyboard” (cf. the writing, more explicit, in other estimations, for example, in that of the Invalides Church communicated in Douglass, p. 1315).
17. The indication of the cited stops is in accordance with that of the Durand 1880 Edition (Maeyens-Couvreur, 1868). The Sainte-Clotilde organ then included an Unda Maris on the Positif and a Voix Céleste on the Récit. Cf. my article on the organ music in France in Handbuch Orgelmusik, Kassel, 2002, p. 376.
18. Maurice Emmanuel, César Franck, Paris, 1930, p. 108.
19. Cf. note 3, p. XIV.
20. According to Théodore Dubois (Souvenirs, page 223), César Franck, in 1890, had named him as a dedicatee of one of his Three Chorals. The posthumous publication (Durand, 1892) changed the names of the dedicatees.

This article appeared in French in L’Orgue, no. 278-279, 2007, II-III, pp. 7–13.