Toulouse-les-Orgues

Bill Halsey

Bill Halsey was born in Seattle, where he studied piano and composition from an early age. He fell in love with the organ after hearing a Corrette suite played on the Montreal Beckerath, and began organ lessons in his teens. While a student at the Sorbonne, he had the good fortune to gain access to the two-manual unmodified tracker-action Cavaillé-Coll organ at Saint Bernard de la Chapelle, in a northern arrondissement of Paris. This fueled his interest in historic organs, and after spending fifteen years serving in organist positions at St. John Cantius, St. Peter Claver, Church of the Assumption, and the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, all in Brooklyn, New York, he took a permanent leave of absence to explore historic organs, first in France, and later in Italy.

The 14th Toulouse International Organ Festival (known as Toulouse les orgues) took place October 8–18, 2009 in Toulouse, France and the Midi-Pyrénées region. Concerts honored the anniversaries of Handel, Haydn, and Louis Braille (1809–1852). Performers included Elisabeth Amalric, Stéphane Bois, Gilbert Vergé-Borderolle, Yasuko-Uyama Bouvard, Anne-Gaëlle Chanon, Pieter-Jelle De Boer, Matthieu De Miguel, Tania Dovgal, Jean-Baptiste Dupont, Pierre Farago, Bernard Foccroulle, Jan Willem Jansen, Maïko Kato, Adam Kecskès, Rudolf Kelber, Eric Lebrun, Mathias Lecomte, Philippe Lefèbvre, Marie-Ange Leurent, François Marchal, Jean-Baptiste Monnot, Yves Rechsteiner, Benjamin Righetti, Juan de la Rubia Romero, William Whitehead, and others. The festival is also presenting concerts covering the entire canon of Bach’s organ works, on Sundays at 4 pm at the Musée des Augustins in Toulouse. The series began on September 13 and continues through June 2010. (For information:
www.toulouse-les-orgues.org.)
I had spent time visiting the historic organs of Italy, and felt the need to reconnect with my first love, French organs, both Classic (that is, pre-Revolution) and Romantic, and the annual organ festival of Toulouse-les-orgues seemed a good place to do it. Two years ago, my wife and I went to part of the festival and then spent the rest of October going from one French town to another throughout south central France, visiting different organs and being inspired by the quality of the instruments and the hospitality of the organists.

About Toulouse
Toulouse seemed both more beautiful and more foreign than I remembered, with its monumental rose-colored brick buildings spread out on the banks of the Garonne. After living in Italy, I found French formality strange but charming, almost quaint.
There is something different about the churches in Toulouse—they have been described as church fortresses, with the explanation that one of the first Crusades was against the Cathar heresy, in some ways a precursor of Calvinism, which was centered in the southwest of France, Toulouse and Albi especially. These immense and stark Gothic edifices contain a number of fine Romantic organs, their dark walnut cases and dull metal pipes looming from either the choir loft in back or sometimes above and to one side of the altar. Many were built by two nineteenth-century firms from the region, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, from Gaillac, a half-hour train ride outside of Toulouse, and the Pugets, who continued the family business into the modern era, in Toulouse itself.
There are also churches from the classical period, and in one of these, St. Pierre-les-Chartreux, is a fine Micot organ, from the end of the 18th century, barely pre-Revolutionary. One of the most impressive sites in Toulouse, oddly enough, doesn’t even have an organ—the Gothic church Les Jacobins, where St. Thomas Aquinas is buried.

Day one
Our first event was a series of three student concerts at Saint-Pierre les Chartreux, Saint-Nicolas, and the Institut Catholique’s modern Bonfils organ. The best concert was the one at Saint-Nicolas, on a really interesting transitional 1844 Daublaine et Callinet, by Matthieu de Miguel, an organist with a bright future ahead of him. I especially liked his rendering of the Intermezzo from Widor’s Sixth Symphony.
That day, in addition to the memorial concert for the fall of the Berlin Wall, which we didn’t attend, there were two concerts on the recently restored Puget (1888) at Notre-Dame la Dalbade, with three manuals, 50 stops, and two expression pedals, this last very unusual for organs outside of Paris. In the afternoon was a choral concert by the Maîtrise du conservatoire de Toulouse, directed by Mark Opstad and accompanied by William Whitehead, and in the evening an organ recital by Philippe Lefèbvre.
The Maîtrise is a chorus of children, mostly girls, and their program consisted of four Misse Breves, by Delibes, Fauré, Caplet, and Leighton, done in chronological order. The Delibes (1875) was a revelation, full of dramatic, almost operatic, contrasts. The Fauré is a minor work, and the Caplet and Leighton had interesting moments but did not seem like very distinguished pieces. The children were very well trained, but although it was possible to admire their skill in the more contemporary pieces, they were really at their best in the Delibes, where the quasi-operatic nature of the vocal writing allowed their resonance to blossom. William Whitehead’s accompaniment was masterful—gently supportive for the kids and making exuberant full use of the organ on the codas.
The evening concert by Philippe Lefèbvre, one of the three titulaires of Notre Dame de Paris, was excellent. He started with Franck’s Trois Pièces pour le Grand Orgue, of which the best was the first, the Fantaisie en la, where he showed off the wonderful power of the organ’s monumental reeds. He then played the Choral from Vierne’s Symphony No. 2, Boëllmann’s Suite Gothique, and Duruflé’s Prélude et fugue sur le nom d’Alain, concluding with a vast improvisation. Lefèbvre made expert use of the organ’s tone colors and the (two) swell pedals, but I wish he had played more music, like Widor or Guilmant, that was really designed for such a grand instrument.

About the festival
Toulouse-les-orgues offers a wide variety of events, from formal evening concerts to more relaxed afternoon events and lunchtime concerts, two of which I attended. The first, on October 13, was by William Whitehead on the Cavaillé-Coll at Saint-Sernin entitled “Bayreuth Aftershock!” and the theme was Wagner’s influence on French organ music. Whitehead played two transcriptions by George Bennett of selections from Parsifal, a Scherzo by Edward Bairstow, and two pieces by César Franck. His playing was wonderful, but the Wagner seemed thin without the orchestra. Even a Cavaillé-Coll organ is no substitute for a Wagner orchestra!
The other noon concert I attended, also at Saint-Sernin on October 16, was all improvisations, played by Juan de la Rubia Romero: first, chorale variations in the style of Bach, then a fantasy in the style of Mahler, and finally chorale variations done in a modern style. These improvisations seemed weak, especially considering Romero had the leisure to plan them; they weren’t true improvisations in the Franz Liszt sense, where the artist is given a subject from the audience and has no time to prepare beforehand.
The Toulouse festival is also known for offbeat concerts that pair the organ with dancers, brass ensembles, spoken word, etc. I saw two of these on October 11: an organ suite with narration, written for children, entitled Parade of Animals, and inspired by Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals, and a concert of works for organ and instruments, with many either Toulouse or world premières. The Parade of Animals, by Iain Farrington, played at Saint-Sernin by William Whitehead, with spoken verses about different animals, followed by musical portraits that drew on the organ’s vast tonal repertoire, was well done; the children present certainly seemed to eat it up. The other concert’s new pieces seemed a little dated—surely this type of modernist writing, the Nadia Boulanger plus a little Stravinsky and atonalism school, is passé by now?

Events outside Toulouse
Toulouse les orgues festival also always has several “Journées-région,” excursions by bus to various sites near Toulouse. I joined one to the Frontonnais, with visits to Verdun-sur-Garonne (Lépine organ, 1767), Fronton (B. Feuga organ, 1852), Vallemur-sur-Tarn (Maurice Puget organ, 1960), and Moissac (Cavaillé-Coll, 1864). The most interesting was the Feuga—the only Feuga organ apparently still playable. It is in need of restoration, and there was a group from the community, the “friends of the organ,” who have been trying to raise money to restore the instrument and wanted to use the event to evaluate the state of the organ and get advice from Jan Willem Jansen, the festival director, whose baroque-style improvisations on an organ he had never seen were brilliant. The organ obviously did have major problems; one of the front pipes had even fallen out of the case—luckily, no one had been standing underneath at the time! But the core of it seemed very solid, with nice flutes, a stentorian trumpet, and an oboe full of plangency and character.
The Lépine organ seemed a little tinny. Benjamin Righetti played pieces by Du Mage and a sonata by Mozart. The Du Mage was nice enough if a little perfunctory; the Mozart worked fairly well. It’s always a challenge that devotees of the French Classic organs face, to prove that this instrument can do justice to other music besides French Classic music. The modern Puget just didn’t seem like a very good instrument. The Cavaillé-Coll in the Moissac monastery church was wonderful, powerful, and somber by turns, and the building itself—even in a region of wonderful churches—was amazing.
The concert, however, suffered from being entirely composed of lugubrious music and also from the numerous program changes announced by Jansen, who wasn’t audible past the first few rows of seats. The selections were organ solos and songs for mezzo-soprano and organ, including some of Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death. The organist was Matthieu de Miguel, and Marylin Revel was the vocal soloist. De Miguel, who had been so excellent at St. Nicolas, didn’t seem to have properly prepared the music. Everything sounded underrehearsed.
On the way to these events, we had a wine tasting with snacks at Chateau Caze, in Villaudric, followed by a recital of pieces for soprano, French horn and piano, and then an excellent lunch of regional specialties at Fronton. On the whole, the day was disappointing; too many of these concerts seemed less than well prepared, and the festival’s concerts of Romantic and modern repertoire contained too much music in minor keys that didn’t really seem to go anywhere.

Other notable concerts
Thursday I went to the all-Schütz concert of the Sacqueboutiers, a pioneering early music group. The second half of this concert was much more interesting than the first, especially Fili mi Absalon, sung ringingly by Renaud Delaigue to bring the house down, and then Schütz’s masterwork, Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross, which was splendidly done.
On Friday, the grand finale was the third event of the day, an evening Ciné-concert, with Jean-Baptiste Dupont at Saint-Sernin accompanying Jacques Feyder’s Visages d’enfants, a silent film from 1923–25. The film was wonderful, with beautiful outdoor shots of the Swiss Alps and excellent child actors. Dupont’s work at the organ was adequate without being inspired.

Summing up
Overall, I enjoyed the festival without thinking it really lived up to its promise. There were a number of problems, some small and some big, with the way the festival is run, the level of preparation of the artists, and probably also with the way they are selected. One minor quibble I have is the lack of information in the programs about the organs themselves, such as the builder and date of construction. This information, including complete stoplists, is fortunately available on their website, <toulouse-les-orgues.org>, under the rubric “patrimoine,” but concert programs still should include a minimal description of the organ, along with information about the music and the performers.
A bigger issue is the lack of commitment to the French Romantic organ repertoire. They do include, obviously, many works from the nineteenth- and twentieth-century organ tradition, but without much sense of context, of purpose, or of exploration. This year, the festival was severely curtailed because of their Bach cycle. But even so, it seems a shame, given that most of Toulouse’s historic instruments are from the nineteenth century, that there weren’t at least one or two concerts devoted to an in-depth look at one of that period’s composers. After all, even with the attention paid to Bach, they still managed to devote an entire concert to Schütz.
Widor and Guilmant, in particular, are fundamental to the French organ repertoire. The sonatas of Guilmant would make a fascinating cycle. They show an evolution from his early neo-classical work to the impressionism of the final sonatas, and as the hinge between early and late sonatas there is the monumental Fifth Sonata with its searing Romanticism, the skillful but never academic fugues, and the final explosion of the chorale, fugue and variations on “Ein Feste Burg.”
A real presentation of French organ romanticism—something the festival should aim for each and every year—would also include the precursors and the earlier nineteenth century, namely Rossini, Donizetti, and Meyerbeer. These three opera composers made Paris their home in the 1830s and ’40s, and created works that are essentially French. They, along with Franz Liszt, who lived in Paris and wrote his “Ad nos” based on Meyerbeer’s theme for Le Prophète, and the native French composers active at around the same time, such as Daniel François Esprit Auber and Adolphe Adam, established the foundation for the French musical culture that evolved toward the end of the century.
The Toulouse organ festival’s new-music programming also seems not as interesting as it could be. Even if a work is a première, that doesn’t by itself make it interesting and important; the new pieces programmed this year seemed already dated. One of the best “new music” events at the festival was one that, probably, the festival took least seriously—the Parade of Animals. Some of the pieces were really special, like low hums on the organ to evoke the blue whale. That piece sticks in my mind, which is really the fundamental test of new music—would you ever want to hear it again?
The quality of the concerts was also very uneven. Too many of them were obviously underrehearsed and slapdash, and this was especially true for the Romantic repertoire. In short, this festival, which has the potential to be a wonderful celebration of the history of French music, seems to almost shy away from the core of the repertoire. People don’t come to Toulouse-les-orgues for Bach cycles or the type of Baroque or Renaissance concert you can hear—often done better—in New York or Boston. They come for the core French Romantic and modern repertoire—and this includes all the wonderful works written in France by foreigners, like Rossini’s Masses and his other liturgical music—done in spaces and on instruments that really are hardly to be found outside of France. 

 

Oberlin’s Organ Tour de France

Simon Thomas Jacobs

Despite the best efforts of Winter Storm Hercules, all but one of our group of seventeen made it to Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport as scheduled on Friday, January 3. Once we had gathered our luggage, we headed off to our first point of interest: a cemetery . . . where else!?

The cemetery at Montparnasse is the final resting place of a number of notable figures from French history and culture. Among the graves we visited were those of Jean-Paul Sartre, Louis Vierne, César Franck, and the tombs of the Cavaillé-Coll, Saint-Saëns, and Guilmant families. Interestingly enough, while the map at the entrance to the cemetery (marking the burial locations of those considered worthy of listing) includes Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, César Franck, and Camille Saint-Saëns, Louis Vierne and Alexandre Guilmant were not listed. Fortunately, Professor James David Christie knew where they were and many a photograph was taken!

We then took the wonderful Train à Grande Vitesse (TGV)—France’s high-speed rail service—for a three-and-a-half-hour trip to Bordeaux where, after a glass (or two!) of wine, we rested in preparation for what would be a life-changing two weeks for all involved.

 

Bordeaux

The next morning, we rose early and made our way to the eleventh-century abbey of Sainte-Croix, home to the only remaining instrument of Dom Bedos, a monk and secretary of the abbey as well as a mathematician, clock builder, and author of the monumental treatise The Organ-Maker’s Art. We gathered in the large church as Professor Christie demonstrated the instrument with Louis Marchand’s Grand Dialogue in C. It was clear from the first few notes on the mighty reed chorus, the Grand Jeu, that this organ was to set the tone (no pun intended!) for our entire visit. It is impossible to describe just how powerful this instrument is—it must be heard to be believed. The entire space was filled with a raw brilliance supported by one of the finest acoustics I have ever experienced. Next we heard the instrument’s other “big” chorus—the Grand Plein Jeu—made up of foundations and mixtures. On this instrument the Grand Plein Jeu is built on a 32′ foundation and its 23 ranks of mixtures produce thrilling and rich sound.

The original instrument was constructed in 1748; during the nineteenth century it was moved to the cathedral in Bordeaux and tonally romanticized, while the organ’s case remained in the abbey church, now fitted with the former cathedral organ. Thankfully, the organ was saved in the second half of the twentieth century and restored and returned to the abbey church, with Dom Bedos’s aforementioned treatise acting as an incredibly detailed guide as to what should be done. As part of this restoration, the red paint that then covered the case was stripped, initially so that the case could be repainted. In the process, the instrument’s original green was revealed along with the beautiful stop labeling at the console. As a result, we have today one of the finest and most aurally and visually beautiful organs in all of Europe, if not the world.

After hearing the instrument in the church, we made our way up to the large organ gallery, walking through the enormous blower room (where, before electricity, the instrument required seven people to pump it!), eventually arriving at the exquisite five-manual console: Positif de dos; Grand-Orgue; Bombarde; Récit; Echo. The Positif de dos and Grand-Orgue contain the majority of stops. The Bomdarde contains only two large reed stops—this was for practical reasons concerning the winding of the instrument. Nevertheless, the Bombarde can be coupled down to the Grand-Orgue to create an astonishing Grand Jeu chorus built on the 16′ reed. This is neither common nor necessarily appropriate for a majority of the so-called French Classical repertoire, but used judiciously and in the right pieces, this registration creates one of the greatest sounds in all organ music.

Perhaps the most “alien” aspect of the French Classical organ is the Pédale division. Unlike its German or Dutch counterparts, the pedalboard and stops of a French Classical instrument are not designed for counterpoint, but to provide a bass part centered around an 8′ flute pitch (with occasional 16′ pitch added by use of manual couplers) or to play the cantus firmus on the 8′ Trompette, accompanied by the Plein Jeu of the manuals. In the case of the Sainte-Croix Dom Bedos, the Pédale division has both flue and reed stops at 16′ pitch as well, but this was by no means common. We all had some challenges negotiating the odd pedalboard at Sainte-Croix: not only was its design different from anything else we had ever encountered, its compass stretched down to F below the C where modern pedalboards stop. This meant that no note was where we thought it should be! That being said, the mighty 16′ Pédale Bombarde extended down to low A, allowing Bach’s French-inspired Pièce d’orgue, BWV 572, with the usually unplayable low B in the middle section, to be played on this instrument. As with everything on this organ, the sound of these low reed notes was something to experience!

We were incredibly fortunate to spend the entire day and much of the evening with this wonderful instrument and were soon to discover that the organ’s uncompromising mechanical action and the church’s glorious acoustic could teach us a great deal about how to play—certainly something that would be a recurring theme throughout the trip. I should also mention that the food and wine in Bordeaux were exquisite, and I could not help but think of Julia Child—it was easy to see why she fell in love with French cuisine!

The next morning, a number of the group attended Sunday Mass at Sainte-Croix. Titular organist Paul Goussot, a winner of the improvisation prize at St. Albans in 2011, and the winner of the Haarlem International Organ Improvisation Competition in 2012, improvised brilliantly during the Mass. 

Then we took the train to the city of Toulouse, in southwest France, near the Spanish border. Toulouse is, without a doubt, one of the great organ “capitals” of the world, and we had four days to explore some of its treasures.

 

Toulouse

Following a wonderful supper of bread, cheese, foie gras, and “king’s cakes” (in honor of the Epiphany) at the home of Michel Bouvard, as well as a private fortepiano performance by Madame Yasuko Bouvard, we made our way to the stunning Romanesque Basilica of Saint-Sernin, where Professor Bouvard is titulaire. The organ, built in 1889, was among the last instruments of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll and, for many of us, the first Cavaillé-Coll we had ever encountered “in the flesh.” Although based in Paris for most of his professional career, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll was originally from Toulouse and came from a family of organ builders. From the age of twenty, he worked with his father; this included restoring a number of instruments in Spain. The Spanish influence can be seen in a number of Cavaillé-Coll’s instruments that make use of en chamade reeds, and Saint-Sernin is no exception.

Saint-Sernin is a vast church with an incredibly long nave extending into a choir that certainly had an influence on Cavaillé-Coll’s concept for the organ. There is one word to describe the tutti of the Saint-Sernin Cavaillé-Coll: TERRIFYING! The huge wall of sound produced was definitely intended to travel from the organ gallery to the high altar, and it does so with ease. That being said, Professor Bouvard treated us to a spectacular performance of César Franck’s Grand Pièce Symphonique in which we also heard the more lyrical side of this outstanding organ.

Every evening during our time in Toulouse, we had unfettered access to the organ in Saint-Sernin, which, while very different from the Dom Bedos in Bordeaux, also had a great deal to teach. Much of the time was spent adjusting to the large space, Barker-lever action, and a very heavy swell shoe! As was the case with nearly all the organs we played, “inflicting one’s self” was not an option—you had to listen, feel, and respond to what the instrument and room were telling you in order to achieve the most satisfying musical results. It was also huge fun to “let rip” on full organ, although after 11 p.m. the tutti had to be used sparingly owing to its audibility throughout most of the surrounding area.

While the name of Cavaillé-Coll is well known among organists throughout the world, the name of Théodore Puget is perhaps not quite so well known. . . but it should be! We encountered two instruments by the Toulouse-based organ builder in his native city: Notre Dame du Taur—Puget’s first large instrument in the city, inaugurated by Guilmant in 1880; and Notre Dame de la Dalbade, inaugurated by Widor in 1888. We were all in awe of these exceptionally fine instruments placed in churches with glorious acoustics. In contrast to the fiery directness of the Cavaillé-Coll in Saint-Sernin that bellows “I’m here,” the two Puget instruments enveloped the listener with a far warmer sound. While perfect for the music of the great French Romantic composers, it was unfortunate that none of us had brought along any Howells or Whitlock, which would work equally well. Sadly, Puget never built a major instrument in Paris owing to Cavaillé-Coll’s monopoly in that city.

We also spent time at the church of Saint-Pierre des Chartreux, home to a four-manual French Classical instrument dating from 1683, with rebuilds in 1783 and 1983. While more modest in scale than the instrument at Sainte-Croix, it was perfectly suited to the ornate Baroque church and gave us another chance to work on our French-Classical pedaling!

On the evening of Wednesday, January 8, four students—Nicholas Capozzoli, Mitchell Miller, Alcee Chris, and I—performed a short concert at the Musée des Augustins. This former monastery, which was used to store horses during the French Revolution, became a museum in the nineteenth century and is home to a North-German influenced organ built in 1981 by Jürgen Ahrend. It was here that we probably encountered the largest acoustic of our entire visit—nine seconds, which would have been closer to twelve were it not for an exhibition at the back of the space.

This was followed by a visit and reception held at Toulouse les Orgues, headquarters for the annual organ festival that brings countless organ enthusiasts to visit the numerous musical masterpieces of this city. The festival staff, headed by Yves Rechsteiner, is housed in the former Church of the Gesu, a stunning Victorian Gothic edifice. The rear gallery of the nave houses a modest two-manual Cavaillé-Coll organ in absolutely original condition.

The next day we took the train to Albi, whose cathedral dedicated to St. Cecilia—claimed to be the largest brick building in the world—is home to one of the most impressive organ cases in Europe. At the neighboring (and considerably smaller) church of Saint-Salvy, parts of which date back to the eighth century, we heard the 1930 Maurice (grandson of Théodore) Puget organ. While containing some seventeenth-century pipework and being housed in the original case (which had once been in the cathedral) this was certainly a twentieth-century instrument in the French-Romantic style.

We then returned to Toulouse; a small group of us visited the church of Saint- Nicholas, home to an 1844 organ by Callinet. This was certainly one of the hidden gems of the trip—an instrument indebted to its French-Classical predecessors, but also looking forward to the larger romantic instruments that would follow it, particularly in its foundation and solo voices.

We then took the TGV to the city of Poitiers—the birthplace of Louis Vierne. We made our way to the beautiful cathedral, home to the 1791 François-Henri Clicquot organ—one of the crown jewels of all the organs in France. Compared with the “rustic” and almost bombastic Dom Bedos in Bordeaux, this instrument was incredibly refined, with a sweet, singing tone, even in the Grand Jeu. It was therefore not surprising to learn that this is the same Clicquot family who make the famous Veuve Clicquot champagne—everything about the instrument suggested elegance and class. Our gracious host was the cathedral organist, Olivier Houette. A couple of hours later we arrived in Paris, where we were to spend the remainder of our visit. 

The next morning we took a train to the small town of Houdan, about 40 miles west of Paris, to visit the church of Saint-Christophe Saint-Jacques and play the church’s Louis-Alexandre Clicquot (father of François-Henri) organ. This was certainly an unexpected highlight of the whole trip: the instrument has remained almost completely untouched since it was built in 1734, with some of the pipework dating from as far back as 1667, making it one of the most ancient instruments in France. Sadly, this is only one of a handful of such instruments in the Paris area that survived the French Revolution. The sound of the instrument was absolutely exquisite and it was a joy to play; the pitch (ca. A=390) and meantone temperament added additional spice and color. Its modest size also made it particularly suited to playing the works of earlier French Classical composers such as Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers, François Couperin, and Nicolas de Grigny (to name but a few), despite having been constructed relatively late in the period. The organ was demonstrated by its titulaire, Régis Allard. In addition to its delightful organ, Saint-Christophe Saint-Jacques also had the distinction of being the coldest church we had visited to date, making all that French ornamentation a little tricky!

On our return to Paris, we stopped in Versailles. After a private tour of the King’s and Queen’s Apartments and the Hall of Mirrors, our host and organist of the Royal Chapel at Versailles, Jean-Baptiste Robin, gave us a wonderful demonstration of the 1994 Bertrand Cattiaux organ, which is housed in the original and lavish 1709 case. Although a modern instrument, it is a faithful reconstruction of what would have reigned supreme in the early eighteenth century. Sadly, the original Robert Clicquot of 1711 was subjected to a number of changes over the centuries eventually being replaced by a Cavaillé-Coll which was, in turn, rebuilt by Gonzales. 

The chapel itself is a fascinating space, and it would be impossible to describe in words just how beautiful and ornate it is. For one, there are no “hard” edges—everything, including the organ case, is curved—quite a contrast to the more conservative cases in Houdan and Poitiers. Unusually, the organ is above the altar, but it is customary in French churches for the organ to be behind the congregation, and in the Royal Chapel, the congregation faced the King, who would be seated in a gallery at the back of the chapel, facing the altar and the organ. Jean-Baptiste also informed us that the Holy Trinity is very important to French Roman Catholics and drew our attention to a number of allusions to the Holy Trinity in the Royal Chapel. He went onto say that it is perhaps not coincidental that the French-inspired organ works of J. S. Bach, namely Pièce d’orgue, BWV 572, and the Prelude and Fugue in E-flat, BWV 552, can also be viewed in a Trinitarian light.

 

Paris

On our only Sunday in Paris, we were encouraged to attend Mass at one of the city’s many churches. While some opted to go to Notre Dame or Saint-Sulpice, a few of us went to the church of Saint-Gervais, perhaps most famous for its association with the Couperin family who served as organists of the church for almost 200 years. The church was full for this celebration of the Mass in French. One of the most pleasant surprises was the music: although the organ provided a number of interludes at certain points of the liturgy in a variety of styles, a majority of the service was sung without accompaniment. While the singing was led by a large chorus of nuns, it was wonderful to hear the congregation joining in enthusiastically. Perhaps the most unusual, yet incredibly effective and beautiful moment of the service was during the Eucharistic prayer, when the clergy around the altar started singing in three-part harmony, accompanied by slow moving chords hummed by the nuns. It was nice to be involved in a real French parish Mass and to see that, although very different to what the Couperins would have known, music still plays an important part in the life of the parish.

Later that afternoon we made our way to La Madeleine for an organ recital performed by Vincent Grappy. It was quite a welcome surprise to see the church almost full—several even likened the audience size to an AGO convention recital. This magnificent church is perhaps most famous for hosting the premiere of Fauré’s Requiem, and we even had a chance to briefly glance at the intact Cavaillé-Coll choir organ which was used at that performance. 

Following the recital, it was time to make our pilgrimage to perhaps one of the most famous and important (especially for organists) Parisian churches—Saint- Sulpice. We received a warm welcome from the present titulaire, Daniel Roth, one of a line of distinguished musicians who have held this important and coveted post. Both Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers and Louis-Nicolas Clérambault were organists there, although neither knew the present building that was commenced in the middle of the 17th century and finally completed 100 years later. The great five-manual, 64-stop organ by François-Henri Clicquot was dedicated in 1781. It was reported that Clicquot was so happy with the results that he danced for joy during the dedication, and the organ became very famous throughout Europe. The organ survived the French Revolution in 1789 thanks to a blind organ pumper who, wishing to save the instrument, cleverly stamped the official seal of the government on the door to the gallery, making it seem as though that part of the church had already been inspected and approved.

Mendelssohn visited the church in 1833, and it was clear that the organ was in desperate need of restoration, with the renowned composer likening its sound to a choir of old women! In 1835, the builder Callinet began a restoration project that took ten years; it was ultimately unsuccessful and left him bankrupt. In 1854, one of the priests at Saint-Sulpice, a great admirer and friend of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, declared that such a beautiful church needed two beautiful organs. And so it was that Cavaillé-Coll began work on the instrument in 1857. When it was completed five years later it was one of the three largest organs in the world. By retaining all of the Clicquot stops—which account for about 40 percent of the instrument—Cavaillé-Coll not only demonstrated his respect for the craft of his predecessors but also created an instrument that successfully melds old and new styles into a coherent whole.

If there was one thing we learned about Cavaillé-Coll, it was that he was a consummate artist whose concept was perfectly suited to the space for which it was intended. While he had very little to do with the actual building of his instruments, the concepts were his and he knew just whom to employ to get the results he wanted. This project was clearly very important to Cavaillé-Coll: following the aborted Callinet project that had cost the church a fortune, with nothing to show for it, Cavaillé-Coll’s initial proposal was for a four-manual, 74-stop instrument. Over time, the instrument grew larger with the addition of a fifth manual and 26 more stops—none of which had been contracted or paid for. It is no surprise that Cavaillé-Coll was often close to bankruptcy with many of his projects, but if he had not cared so much, we probably would not have some of the great instruments we have today.

After Saint-Sernin, we were all rather surprised at how elegant and soft-spoken the Saint-Sulpice Cavaillé-Coll was in comparison, even the tutti. The overall tone was darker and more rounded than Saint-Sernin, and this seemed totally in tune with the majestic building, creating a wash of sound that filled the room rather than launching a battery of sound directly to the other end of it. Another contributing factor to the sound is the enormous case, with its huge 32′ façade pipes and colossal statues, keeping the sound contained to a certain extent.

Finally, a lucky few had the opportunity to play the instrument, and it was such a privilege to be able to hear the sounds Widor and Dupré knew and worked with. I played Dupré’s exquisite Prelude and Fugue in F minor, op. 7, no. 2. I had been warned that after playing this piece at Saint-Sulpice it would be difficult to play it anywhere else, and after hearing the first few sixteenth notes of the Prelude, on the 8′ Gamba and 2′ Octavin of the distant Récit, I understood—the eerie sound combined with the building’s acoustic was like nothing I had ever encountered before.

The vast five-manual console required some getting used to; the Récit is the fourth manual—it used to be the fifth (!)—and therefore presented the more vertically challenged among us with quite an extensive reach. At one point, Monsieur Roth kindly held on to my shoulders to prevent me falling off the bench while both hands were playing on the Récit! He was also gracious enough to operate the hitch-down swell pedal which, being located to the far right of the console, would have required my left foot to be considerably busier than it wanted to be. Cavaillé-Coll used these until 1870, when he introduced the more convenient but certainly less expressive balanced swell pedal. 

Upon playing a wrong note, I apologized, but was told by Monsieur Roth, “Don’t worry, he [Dupré] is not here, but with Widor, we have to be far more careful . . .” Yes, Widor’s tomb is down in the crypt and we were taken down to pay homage, following our evening with Professor Roth.

The next morning we made our way to the church of Saint-Louis-en-l’Ile to hear and play the church’s Bernard Aubertin organ, in North-German Baroque style. This is one of the finest of its kind in Paris and somewhat of a rarity. It was a welcome palate cleanser at this point of the trip to hear the sound of baroque-inspired principals and a particularly beautiful double-flute stop.

Having never been inside Notre Dame, a number of us stopped in briefly to gaze in awe at the gorgeous stained glass of one of the most famous buildings in the world. Unfortunately, the main organ was then undergoing restoration work and was unplayable. We then headed up to La Trinité, the church of Guilmant and, more recently, Olivier Messiaen.

This was somewhat of a pilgrimage for me personally, being particularly devoted to the music of Messiaen, and upon arrival at the church, I was greeted with a deeply moving vision: it had been raining, but as I approached the church, the sun came out, and a perfect rainbow appeared over the church—it could not have been more appropriate with Messiaen’s love of nature and the importance of color in his music.

The organ’s curator, Olivier Glandaz, was our host and had been a close friend of Messiaen. The organ has been well cared for and is in excellent condition. It was incredibly special to be able to hear Messiaen’s music on his organ, the combination of instrument and room creating what I can only describe as a glorious “shimmer.”

Day 12 was spent in the old French town of Rouen, perhaps most famous for being the place of Joan of Arc’s martyrdom. It is also home to Cavaillé-Coll’s last organ—the mighty four-manual instrument in the former Abbey Church of Saint-Ouen, which knocked the church in Houdan to second place as the coldest building of the entire trip! While in need of thorough restoration, it was wonderful to hear (and play) this “Grand Old Lady,” and yes, that 32′ reed really is as earth shattering as it sounds on recordings! Our hosts were the titular organist Marie-Andrée Morisset-Balier and her husband, trumpet virtuoso Michel Morisset.

Upon our return to Paris, we visited the van der Heuvel organ at Saint-Eustache, beautifully demonstrated for us by Vincent Crosnier, Jean Guillou’s assistant. 

Our penultimate day in France began at the Paris Regional Conservatory where those students who didn’t perform in Toulouse played a concert on the school’s Grenzing organ—the same instrument used for the preliminary rounds of the Chartres International Organ Competition. The performers were Richard Gray, Rees Roberts, Abraham Ross, Jillian Gardner, Albert Bellefeuille, Matthew Buller, Donald VerKuilen, and Jay Yau. Following the concert, Sylvie Mallet, the current professor of organ, and Marie-Louise Langlais, professor emerita of organ, were our hosts and joined us for lunch at a small restaurant that was once frequented by the likes of Debussy, Ravel, and Poulenc.

That afternoon, we visited the church of Saint-Roch where Claude-Bénigne Balbastre, Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wely, and Pierre Cochereau are among its most notable titulaires. The instrument, built by Cavaillé-Coll but retaining all the reeds from the previous Clicquot organ, is equally suited to French Classical music as it is to French Romantic music. The magnificent oak case also dates from the original Clicquot organ and contained the only clock we had seen which actually worked! While the music of Lefébure-Wely may not be all that sophisticated, hearing it on this thrilling instrument, in the highly-ornate Baroque church only a short walk from the Paris Opera certainly helped to put the music in context. Our host was the present titulaire, Françoise Levéchin-Gangloff.

The Cathedral Basilica of Saint-Denis was our final stop for the day. This former Benedictine Abbey—the first gothic building in the world—was incredibly powerful in its day and is particularly famous for being the final resting place of the French Kings. This association with French royalty, however, meant that it suffered greatly during the Revolution. One of the most damaging occurrences was the removal of the abbey’s roof (almost certainly so it could be melted down and made into other things), leaving the large and fine eighteenth-century organ open to the elements for twenty years. This organ was eventually removed in the hope that it would be restored one day, but it ended up being poorly stored and was entirely lost. It is quite likely that much of the instrument still exists in pieces throughout the organs of Paris, but we shall never know for certain.

In 1833, the French State decided to have a new organ built for this important church, and the 22-year-old Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who had just moved from Toulouse to Paris (at the suggestion of Rossini), submitted a proposal that won the contract. The organ was eventually completed in 1841, having been delayed due to the lack of an organ case, which was the responsibility of the church’s architect. The delay, however, worked in Cavaillé-Coll’s favor because it was during this time that he met Charles Barker. Owing to the size of the instrument, the mechanical action was incredibly stiff and heavy, but the new “machine” of Charles Barker changed all this.

The Saint-Denis Cavaillé-Coll, while by no means perfect, was revolutionary in organ building and was the prototype for everything that followed, especially in Cavaillé-Coll’s own work. Not only was it the first instrument to make use of the new Barker machine, it also had the first harmonic flute and trumpet stops. That being said, Cavaillé-Coll never cited the instrument as one of which he was particularly proud.

Pierre Pincemaille has been titulaire at Saint-Denis since 1987 and is one of the greatest improvisers in the world, having studied with the legendary Pierre Cochereau. He improvised for us on the hymn tune Down Ampney, enabling us to hear the many colors of this important instrument.

Our final day in Paris began at Saint-Gervais, where everyone had the opportunity to see and play the 1768 François-Henri Clicquot organ, which retains much pipework from the c. 1680 organ of François Thierry. Here again, while several of us had the opportunity to listen to the organ during Sunday liturgy, now we all had the unique opportunity to experience the masterpiece firsthand.

That afternoon, we reconvened at the Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde—set back almost out of sight except for its two spires, which can be glimpsed on the Paris skyline. A number of great organists have been associated with this famous church: César Franck, Charles Tournemire, and Jean Langlais. Sadly, very little of the organ Franck knew remains, the instrument having been electrified and, beginning with Tournemire, altered tonally to embrace the aesthetics of the new neo-classical movement. Nevertheless, it was interesting to hear the music of Tournemire and Langlais on the instrument for which it was conceived. The original Franck console is now in a museum in Belgium, having been bequeathed by Tournemire to his friend, Flor Peeters. The organ was rebuilt in 1999–2005 by former titulaire, the late Jacques Taddei, with the addition of two new consoles, a 32′ Contra Bombarde, and a Trompette-en-chamade, placed on the floor of the second gallery at the location of the old console.

And so, as our two weeks drew to a close, we arrived at the final church of our visit, Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, where Monsieur and Madame Maurice Duruflé had spent many years working and living in a small apartment just across the street. It felt especially humbling to be so “close” to these two towering figures in the world of organ music, and while we all have our favorites, I’m not sure I can think of anyone who doesn’t adore the music of Monsieur and the playing of Madame.

The church itself is very elegant—not unlike Duruflé’s music—and is home to the only rood screen (a beautiful, stone structure) and the oldest organ case in Paris, dating from 1633. Duruflé was also influenced by the neo-classical movement and this can be heard in the clear and bright sound of the instrument, making it especially good for counterpoint. After a stunning improvisation by Thierry Escaich on “Happy Birthday” (performed in honor of Donald VerKuilen’s 19th birthday), Alcee Chris performed Duruflé’s Toccata from Suite, op. 5, and Nicholas Capozzoli performed Escaich’s Évocation II for the composer.

I shall confess that writing this report has been incredibly difficult. It is almost impossible to express in words all that we experienced and learned on this amazing trip. One could easily write an entire article on just one of these churches and its rich musical and cultural heritage—we visited 31 organs in 13 days! Nevertheless, it is my hope that this overview will inspire further research—the Internet has a wealth of information and recordings of almost all the instruments we visited—and if you are able, go to France to see these masterpieces for yourself. We could not have been more warmly welcomed and it was clear that all those whom we met were very proud of their history and delighted to share it with others. Just be prepared to do LOTS of walking! 

Ronald Ebrecht

Ronald Ebrecht, an international performer for more than three decades, has been heard in concert on four continents. His articles have been published on three continents, including two forthcoming in Russian and the present article, which was requested for the Bulletin de l’Association Maurice et Marie-Madeleine Duruflé, where it appeared in a French version in December 2008. He continues work on his next book on the Cavaillé-Coll project for Saint Peter’s, Rome, to be published in 2011. As University Organist at Wesleyan University, he has taught for more than twenty years. Ebrecht has commissioned works from composers such as William Albright, Xiaoyong Chen, Raul de Zaldo Fabila, David Hurd, Christian Wolff and Wesleyan composers Anthony Braxton, Neely Bruce, Jay Hoggard, Ron Kuivila and Alvin Lucier. Many are available from major publishers. His latest performances of the Poulenc Concerto were at Minsk Philharmonic Hall on November 5.

Maurice Duruflé altered his organ works many times from when he composed them in his youth to the end of his life. My intent to know the original led me to strip away these layers.1 I now perform from my restored early versions in which I include Duruflé’s later note corrections. Duruflé’s changes to the Scherzo, opus 2 and Prélude, Adagio et choral varié sur le thème du “Veni Creator,” opus 4 are quite extensive. Informed listeners are often surprised to hear the original published scores.

The Polignac organ
In the process of researching these first editions and my book, I studied the earliest version of the Poulenc Organ Concerto and the instrument where it was premiered by Maurice Duruflé, the Cavaillé-Coll house organ of the Princesse de Polignac, who commissioned the work—the last in her distinguished collection of commissions.2 She was a capable organist and patroness of the arts, who also commissioned Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos. Poulenc, with no skills as an organist, sought advice from the Princesse’s house concert director, Nadia Boulanger, regarding the solo part. Her interest in early music is revealed in the concerto’s reminiscence of two German Baroque pieces: Buxtehude’s and Bach’s Fantasias in G Minor.
From manuscript sources, I have reconstructed the specification of the Cavaillé-Coll as it was for the premiere, December 16, 1938. Most performers reference the sound of the organ in the 1961 recording of the concerto as performed by Duruflé on the newly restored organ of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont; however, there was no west-end organ in this church when the concerto was premiered, nor when Poulenc consulted with him for the registrations in the published score, because it was removed in spring 1939. Two newspaper articles, one with a photo showing the pipes being removed, chronicle this planned rebuild: Anonymous, “Les Orgues de St-Étienne-du-Mont,” Le Petit Journal, Paris (28 April 1939), and Stephane Faugier, “On transforme les orgues de Saint-Étienne du Mont,” Le Journal, Paris (3 March 1939).
During the previous summer, with Felix Raugel and Marcel Dupré, Duruflé prepared a proposed specification to rebuild the organ.3 The neo-Classic sounds he imagined from the 1938 specification (or those of the quite different 1956 specification of the organ once restored after the war), were not available to the performer on the Polignac organ at the time of the private premiere, nor the Mutin of the public one (see below). The Polignac concert room allowed only a small orchestra, which, combined with its Romantic Cavaillé-Coll organ, certainly produced a melded ensemble quite apart from the ‘oil and water’ effects of Duruflé’s famous recording.
Unfortunately the manuscript does not give the registrations initially used, leaving the problem that the published registrations would not have been possible on the two organs where it was first played. On these the effect was certainly more blended with the orchestra, and more importantly, the timbre of these instruments was decidedly Romantic.
Winnaretta Singer originally commissioned her Cavaillé-Coll in 1892 for the balcony of the atelier of her residence on the corner of what was then the Avenue Henri Martin and is now the Avenue Georges Mandel and the rue Cortambert. After her divorce from her first husband, the Prince de Scey-Montbéliard, she married the Prince Edmond de Polignac, thirty years her senior, in 1893. When Polignac died in 1901, she took down the house leaving the atelier, and built a grand mansion with a separate music room incorporated into the main house on her property. The two-story atelier was also reconstructed, with an apartment on the upper level and a large music room with the rebuilt organ provided on the ground floor. In these two spaces many concerts were given, and the musical and artistic elite of the age gathered: Cocteau, Colbert, Dupré, Fauré, Proust, Stravinsky, etc. Prominent organists often gave recitals, but Duruflé seems not to have been among them, and only had access to the instrument to practice the day before the premiere of the concerto.
Jesse Eschbach in “A Compendium of Known Stoplists by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll 1838–1898” (Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, Vol. 1; Paderborn: Verlag Peter Ewars, 2003, p. 557) omits the Grand orgue Bourdon 16. However, as Eschbach remarks in a footnote, it is included in René Desplat, “L’Orgue de salon dans la région parisienne depuis un siècle,” L’Orgue 83 (April-September 1957): 79–90.4 Similarly, Carolyn Shuster-Fournier in “Les Orgues de Salon d’Aristide Cavaillé-Coll Paris,” L’Orgue: Cahiers et Mémoires, 1997, p. 95, omits it in the specification but mentions it in a footnote. I will prove Desplat correct. The Bourdon 16 was present in all versions of the organ.

Princesse de Polignac, Cavaillé-Coll, 1892, 56-note manuals, 30-note pedal

Grand orgue expressif
Bourdon 16
Montre 8
Flûte harmonique 8
Bourdon 8
Prestant 4
Flûte douce 4
Basson 16
Trompette 8
Clairon 4

Récit expressif
Flûte traversière 8
Gambe 8
Voix céleste 8
Flûte octaviante 4
Octavin 2
Plein jeu
Basson-Hautbois 8
Clarinette 8

Pédale
Soubasse 16
Flûte 8

Orage
Tirasse GO
Tirasse Récit
Anches Récit
Anches GO
Copula
Trémolo
Nadia Boulanger, known in the USA as “the famous French organist,” gave the premiere of the Copland Organ Symphony, written for her, with the New York Philharmonic on January 11, 1925. The Princesse was also quite an accomplished organist, and continued to play and study major works of Bach in her London exile during World War II. The Poulenc Organ Concerto was originally intended to be performed by the Princesse. Duruflé was Mlle. Boulanger’s very natural suggestion: she knew him from having judged him in the organ contests he won in 1929 and 1930, and from his teaching of harmony at the Conservatoire Americain at Fontaine-
bleau, which she directed.
The organ was again rebuilt in 1933 before Duruflé played for the premiere of the concerto under the baton of Nadia Boulanger.5 The Princesse wrote to Nadia Boulanger from Italy October 23, 1933, authorizing the work to be done to her organ to cost 11,500 francs.6 These alterations made by Victor Gonzalez, when Rudolf von Beckerath was in his employ, are as follows: make the expression boxes open more fully, repair the pedal mechanism, and most importantly, add a Plein jeu 4 ranks to the Grand orgue in the place of the Basson 16, which is transferred to the Pédale.7 Also enumerated at a cost of 500 francs is removal of the 32′ stop. Though it is possible that one may have been added in 1904, given the size and reduced height of the space where the organ was re-installed and the fact that no one who saw the organ remarked upon such an addition, I think it most unlikely. This expense was probably for the removal of the Orage mechanism.
The Princesse encloses the typed estimate from Gonzalez:

WORK TO BE DONE
I—The most urgent
1. Take the pipes out, clean them, repair them and clean the organ: 11,000 frs
2. Take apart the bass windchests and modify them to have more wind for the pipes: 4,000 frs
X 3. Do away with the 32 foot stop and take it out of the organ: 500 frs X
4. Move the Bourdon 16′ wood pipes to permit the placement of a three-rank cornet on the main chest: 1,500 frs
5. Redo the lead windlines that are oxidized: 4,000 frs
X X 6. Give the expression boxes maximum opening—redo the mechanism: 1,000 frs X
X X 7. Move the Basson 16′ of manual I to the Pédale: 4,000 frs X
X 8. Replace the Basson 16′ on G.O. with a Plein jeu of 4 ranks, which will brighten the main manual: 4,500 frs X
9. Redo the voicing of the organ to make stops more distinct: 7,000 frs
X 10. Repair the mechanism of the Pédale, which has frequent ciphers: 1,500 frs X
11. Modify the Bourdon 8′ and Flûte douce stops of the G.O. which must serve as bass for the Cornet, by giving them chimneys: 800 frs
12. Make new pipes for: Nasard 22⁄3′, Doublette 2′, Tierce 13⁄5′: 6,000 frs
13. Make a new chest for these three stops (Nasard, Doublette, Tierce): 2,800 frs
= 48,600 frs X

On it she makes annotations mentioned in her letter and marked X.8 The total for the work to be done equals the 11,500 francs she agrees to pay for those items on the invoice she accepts. This offers much to consider, as much by what she decides to do as by what she declines—changes that would have given the organ a neo-Classic sound. How fortunate that the efficient person who typed the estimate provides precisions that allow one to establish the original and modified specifications. The estimate references the addition of a 3-rank Cornet (by moving the Bourdon 16′ pipes and modifying the Bourdon 8′ and Flûte douce), and completing it with pipes and a new chest.
We thus know that originally there were both 16′ and 8′ Bourdons on the Grand orgue and that there was no Cornet, even though Duruflé suggests Cornets on both the Récit and Positif in his concerto registrations. It is clear that it was the Baroque-minded Mlle. Boulanger who wanted the Cornet, not the Princesse herself.9 More importantly, we can establish what the balance was between this organ and the small orchestra. Some have thought of the work as a chamber piece, but the Princesse’s instrument was certainly very powerful relative to the smaller cubic volume of the space where it was re-installed in 1904. Thus, the Organ Concerto is not like the Concert Champêtre where the orchestra overwhelms the harpsichord, but rather the reverse. Duruflé had to exercise care in registration not to swamp the orchestra. Performers with large orchestras in large halls can therefore use more organ to achieve the appropriate balance.

Princesse de Polignac, Cavaillé-Coll, 56-note manuals, 30-note pedal, as modified in 1933

Grand orgue expressif
Bourdon 16
Montre 8
Flûte harmonique 8
Bourdon 8
Prestant 4
Flûte douce 4
Plein jeu IV
Trompette 8
Clairon 4

Récit expressif
Flûte traversière 8
Gambe 8
Voix céleste 8
Flûte octaviante 4
Octavin 2
Plein jeu III
Basson-Hautbois 8
Clarinette 8

Pédale
Soubasse 16
Flûte 8
Basson 16

Tirasse GO
Tirasse Récit
Anches Récit
Anches GO
Copula
Trémolo

Six months after the private premiere was the first public performance, June 21, 1939 on the Mutin in the Salle Gaveau.

Salle Gaveau, Mutin, III/36, 56/3010
Grand orgue
Bourdon 16
Montre 8
Gambe 8
Flûte harmonique 8
Bourdon 8
Praestant 4
Nasard 22⁄3
Doublette 2
Fourniture III
Basson 16
Trompette 8
Clairon 4

Positif expressif
Principal 8
Salicional 8
Cor de nuit 8
Flûte douce 4
Flageolet 2
Carillon III
Cromorne 8

Récit expressif
Diapason 8
Flûte traversière 8
Viola de gambe 8
Voix céleste 8
Flûte octaviante 4
Octavin 2
Plein jeu IV
Trompette harmonique 8
Basson-Hautbois 8
Soprano 4

Pédale
Contrebasse 16
Soubasse 16
Basse 8
Violoncelle 8
Bourdon 8
Flûte 4
Tuba Magna 16

Tirasse GO
Tirasse P
Tirasse R
Forte Péd
FF Péd
Positif/Récit
Machine GO
P/GO
R/GO
Anches GO
Anches R
Récit/R 16

Poulenc dedicates his score to the “Princesse Edmond de Polignac” and credits Duruflé for the registrations: “La registration a été établie avec le concours de Monsieur Maurice Duruflé.” (The registration was established with the assistance of Maurice Duruflé.) The following specification is derived from Duruflé’s suggested registrations for the Concerto. It produces an organ that is interesting to compare with those at his disposal for the first two performances, as well as that of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont at the time of the first recording: the specification as below concurs with none of these three. Normal type is used for stops inferred from generic suggestions, viz: fonds. Italics indicates specific stop names.

Grand orgue expressif
Montre 16
Bourdon 16
Montre 8
Flûte 8
Bourdon 8
Gambe 8
Octave 4
Flûte 4
Mixture
Trompette 8
Clairon 4
Positif/G.O. 8
Récit/G.O. 8
Positif/G.O. 4
Récit/G.O. 4

Positif expressif
Montre 8
Flûte 8
Bourdon 8
Gambe 8
Dulciane 8
Octave 4
Flûte 4
Nazard
Mixture
Cornet
Clarinette 8
Trompette 8
Clairon 4
Récit/P.

Récit expressif
Quintaton 16
Montre 8
Gambe 8
Flûte 8
Cor de nuit 8
Voix céleste
Octave 4
Flûte 4
Octavin 2
Cornet
Mixture
Hautbois 8
Trompette 8
Clairon 4

Pédale
Bourdon 32
Montre 16
Bourdon 16
Montre 8
Flûte 8
Bourdon 8
Octave 4
Bombarde 16
Trompette 8
Clairon 4
Grand orgue/Péd.
Positif/Péd.
Récit/Péd.

Since these Poulenc Concerto registration suggestions follow those of Duruflé for his own works so closely, readers seeking more background are referred to my discussion of the organs he knew at this time.11 Of note, there is no request for sixteen-foot manual reeds. The suggestions of mixtures on secondary and tertiary divisions and for super-couplers to the main division are curious, as these were normally not commonly available in France at that time. Also of particular interest is the Dulciane in the Positif, which he did not have on any organ he knew or designed, but he also suggested in the “Sicilienne” of Suite, opus 5.
The Princesse wished to perpetuate her artistic and philanthropic activities by establishing the Fondation Singer-Polignac in 1928. The first president was Raymond Poincaré, former President of France. After the Princesse’s death in London during the war (November 26, 1943), she left her organ to the singer Marie-Blanche, la comtesse Jean de Polignac, niece of Edmond. Marie-Blanche was not an organist, and the organ remained in the house until she donated it to the Séminaire du Merville, where it was reinstalled by Victor Gonzalez with a revised specification and electric pedal chest. Carolyn Shuster-Fournier publishes its present disposition in her excellent book.12 Though the organ is no longer extant in the Paris house, the spaces are still used regularly for performances sponsored by the foundation.

The Woolsey Hall performance
The New Haven Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1894, is the fourth oldest in America. Since the completion of Yale’s splendid Woolsey Hall in 1901, the NHSO has performed on that stage, beneath one of the grandest of all organ façades in an ample, embracing acoustic. The orchestra programs an occasional organ concerto, featuring the 200-rank E. M. Skinner organ. When I was asked to perform, nothing seemed more appropriate than the Poulenc with my new registrations, which I premiered two years before at the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing. Given the Poulenc/Duruflé connection, some of Duruflé’s music was de rigueur. I invited the Yale Camerata, directed by Marguerite Brooks, to perform the Requiem, opus 9, and I arranged with the Association Duruflé to include the American premiere of the orchestrated “Sicilienne.”
As far as we know, Duruflé orchestrated only two of his organ works: the Scherzo, opus 2, published as Andante and Scherzo, opus 8, and the “Sicilienne,” from Suite opus 5 (b), which is unpublished. Duruflé’s adaptation of these scores is quite similar in approach. I have long theorized that harmonic and stylistic links join the Scherzo and “Sicilienne.” I add to that argument another: Duruflé orchestrated them alike.
The Andante and Scherzo, and “Sicilienne” together with the Trois Danses, opus 3, comprise the entire solo orchestral oeuvre of Duruflé. William Boughton, the new conductor of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, shares my passion for them. Eventually the NHSO will present the complete orchestral pieces over the next few seasons, but in Boughton’s October 18, 2007 début concert with the orchestra it seemed appropriate to begin with a premiere of the unpublished “Sicilienne.” Though presented several years ago at the American Cathedral in Paris, it has not been programmed by a regular orchestra. Though his instrumentation of the largest version of the Requiem and of his Trois Danses for orchestra has the punch and verve of the most energetic orchestral compositions of Dukas or Ravel, the gentle, intimate and lilting “Sicilienne” required a quite different approach.
Maestro Boughton began the program with Fauré’s orchestral suite Pelleas et Melisande. Much of Fauré’s music gained a hearing only in the salons of cultivated aristocrats like the Princesse Edmond de Polignac, to whom this piece is dedicated. Fauré’s haunting “Sicilienne” set the scene for that of Duruflé—not just in genre and atmosphere, but it also prepared the audience with the familiar Fauré work to appreciate the unknown one that followed. Organists in the audience were given much to think about from hearing the orchestrated version of the second movement of the Suite. For instance, a clarinet plays the triplets in the accompaniment in the final da capo of the A theme. At the organ, this is often played faster than is possible for a clarinet. One also could note solo lines given to a single stop on the organ that are shared between instruments quite different in timbre in the orchestrated version. Closing the first half of the program, I played the Poulenc.
Readers may be interested in a synopsis of what is unique about my re-edition of the registrations and how I adapted it to this large symphonic organ. As an example, phrases in the concerto pass from first violins to second violins when they are repeated. Since this organ has multiple possibilities—with two clarinets, several solo flutes, two French horns, etc.—I followed the orchestration and registered repeated phrases on similar solo stops in alternate locations. Since the timbres suggested by Duruflé in the score were not available to him in the first two performances nor to me on this instrument, I applied the pattern of Duruflé’s revisions of registrations in his organ works. In these, as an example, Flûte harmonique later becomes Flûte, then even later in some cases Cornet. Neither the Princesse’s Cavaillé-Coll nor the Salle Gaveau Mutin had a Cornet. The Princesse had a solo flute, a Clarinette, a Basson-Hautbois, and a Trompette. In the Poulenc, I therefore used a few beautiful solo flute registrations rather than synthesizing a poor cornet with the available stops where it was suggested, except in the left-hand entry at measure 142, where I used alternating French horns instead of a cornet. Similarly, I used the two exquisite orchestral clarinets for the clarinet lines and did not try to produce a buzzy Baroque-sounding one. For some other solo lines, I used various oboe stops.
In general the effect made the organ more blended into the orchestra because the Woolsey solo stops are more orchestral in timbre than neo-Classic ones, and the foundations are smoother. The solo lines therefore arose from the organ-plus-orchestra texture sounding like orchestral instruments. Even informed audience listeners thought they were hearing orchestral wind instrument solos. At other points, to bring out the organ more, I made other adjustments. For instance, the multiple mixture plenums suggested in the score are not as snappy as reed choruses, and Duruflé did not have access to them. In Woolsey at measure 325 I used the Great mixtures, but answered with the Swell chorus reeds.
After intermission, to accompany the procession of the choir onto the stage, a select group of Yale Camerata men sang the Gregorian Introit. Thus began a marvelous rendition of the Requiem, opus 9. I am very grateful to the Yale Institute of Sacred Music (Martin Jean, director) for their substantial support of this concert. To introduce the audience to the program, musicologist and Polignac biographer Sylvia Kahan gave a pre-concert lecture.13 All were gratified to read the review by David J. Baker in the New Haven Register, which appeared on October 21. 

 

Concours Internationaux de la Ville de Paris

Kenneth Matthews

Kenneth Matthews is Director of Music at Old First Presbyterian Church in San Francisco.

The City of Paris 5th International Organ Competition took place June 1-9, 2004. The Paris Concours d'Orgue, which occurs biannually, has grown in importance each year. One reason for its popularity is no doubt the generous prize money:

Interpretation Competition

1st Grand Prize of the City of Paris: Euros: 9000

2nd Grand Prize, offered by the Academy of Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France: Euros: 6000

3rd Prize: Euros: 2500

Improvisation Competition

1st Grand Prize of the City of Paris (dedicated to the memory of Pierre Cochereau): Euros: 5000

Prize for the best performance of the 6th Concerto for Organ and Orchestra op. 68 of Jean Guillou (commissioned by Musique Nouvelle en Liberté), offered by the Academy of Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France: Euros: 1500

Prize for the meilleur espoir (most promising young artist), offered by SACEM: Euros:1500

Of the 250 organs in Paris, some 130 belong to the City of Paris itself, including many historically important and significant instruments. It was recognition of this great diversity and richness that led to the creation in 1994 of the first Concours d'Orgue, part of the series Concours Internationaux de la Ville de Paris. For the 5th Concours, 57 candidates applied to the recorded pre-selection elimination round, and 39 candidates of 17 nationalities were accepted for the Concours.

One of the principal characteristics of the Paris Concours is that each round of the competition is held on a different organ, the various organs being those most appropriate for the literature being played (for instance, Couperin at the Chapelle Royale, or Franck at Sainte-Clotilde). At the same time, candidates are required to adapt quickly to instruments that are often quite different from each other.

Members of the jury were Michel Chapuis, president, France; José Enrique Ayarra Jarne, Spain; Martin Haselböck, Austria; James Higdon, USA; François-Henri Houbart, France; Leo Krämer, Germany; Roman Perucki, Poland; Ville Urponen, Finland; Yang-Hee Yun, Korea.

For one reason or another, four candidates elected not to attend (one each from Australia, France, USA, and Korea). For the original round 33 interpretation candidates (three of whom were also improvisation candidates) and two more improvisation candidates (for a total of five improvisation candidates) participated, representing 17 countries.

First round of interpretation finals:

Conservatoire supérieur de Paris-CNR

The initial interpretation elimination round was held at the Conservatoire supérieur de Paris-CNR on the rue de Madrid, Tuesday and Wednesday, June 1-2, and consisted of two movements of a Bach trio sonata, and one of the 11 Brahms chorale preludes. The organ at the Conservatoire is a three-manual of 32 stops built by the German builder Gerhard Grenzing working in Spain, and was completed in 1996. At the end of the second day, the jury selected nine candidates of the 33 (listed in order of performance). The playing was all of a high level of excellence, worthy of an international competition (although one or two candidates had an off day). Paolo Oreni (Italy) was the only candidate to play the required Bach and Brahms pieces from memory.

Douglas O'Neill, USA

Yevgenia Semeina, Russia

Kirsten Eberle, Germany

Ekaterina Kofanova, Belarus

Elke Eckerstorfer, Austria

Els Biesemans, Belgium

Ghislain Leroy, France

Henry Fairs, UK

Paolo Oreni, Italy

Second round of interpretation finals / First round of improvisation finals:

Saint-Ferdinand-des-Ternes

The second round of interpretation finals and the first round of improvisation finals began on Friday, June 4, at Saint-Ferdinand-des-Ternes. The church, in a Romano-Byzantine style with cupolas, was designed in the 1930s and completed in 1957. In the 1990s, the choir was redesigned according to Vatican II ideas, and a new organ incorporated in a new organ tribune. Following an international competition, the new organ was built in 1995 by Pascal Quoirin, who also designed the organ tribune. The organ contains 34 stops on three manuals of 56 notes and a pedal of 30 notes. The specification of the organ is described as “suitable for classical or baroque music.”

Candidates for both the second round of interpretation finals and the first round of improvisation finals were required to play two works of J. S. Bach: one of three Leipzig chorales, Schmücke dich, O liebe Seele, BWV 654; Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659; An Wasserflüssen Babylons, BWV 653; and either the “Dorian” Toccata, BWV 538, or Pièce d';Orgue, BWV 572, or ?Fugue in G Major, BWV 577.

The acoustic of the church is somewhat vast, and candidates were challenged in finding appropriate registrations. The chorale preludes were registered differently of course but every registration I heard was thoughtful and interesting. A preferred approach was accompaniment on an 8 ft. principal, with solos on various mutation combinations.

I found the pedal lightweight in effect except when the 16 ft. reed was engaged (which, when it occurred, was during the middle section of the Pièce d'Orgue), and I suppose it is characteristic of this style of instrument. The French seem to have arrived at a common denominator for a “Bach organ,” as evidenced by the organs at the Conservatoire and at Saint-Ferdinand-des-Ternes. It seems rather dated when one compares it to work in this country by such builders as Paul Fritts & Co., Richards, Fowkes & Co., or Taylor & Boody Organbuilders.

La Madeleine

The second round of interpretation finals continued on Saturday, June 5, at 8:00 pm at the Church of the Madeleine, home of Cavaillé-Coll's landmark organ of 1841-46. Containing 48 stops on four manuals and pedal, the organ remained more or less intact until 1971, when the firm of Danion-Gonzalez electrified the action and recast the organ in a neo-classic form. Since 1988, organbuilder Bernard Dargassies has made some changes in order to return more closely to the original sound. Recently, he added a chamade, “a stop planned for but not included in the original organ.”

For this round, candidates selected pieces by two composers from the following list of works:

Marcel Dupré

Prelude and Fugue in F Minor, op. 7;

Symphonie Passion (first movement, Le Monde dans l'attente du Sauveur)

Symphonie Passion (second movement, La Nativité)

Evocation (Final)

Cortège et Litanie

Louis Vierne

2nd Symphonie (1st movement, Allegro)

2nd Symphonie (2nd movement, Choral)

3rd Symphonie (Finale)

4th Symphonie (4th movement, Romance)

4th Symphonie (Finale)

Charles-Marie Widor

5th Symphonie (1st movement, Allegro vivace)

5th Symphonie (2nd movement, Allegro cantabile)

6th Symphonie (1st movement, Allegro)

Symphonie gothique (2nd movement, Andante sostenuto)

Symphonie romane (3rd movement, Cantilène)

From these required pieces, we heard quite a bit of the Dupré Evocation, the Cortège et Litanie, and the first movement of the Widor 5th Symphonie. So some of the less frequently chosen pieces took on a bit of added interest: Els Biesemans's playing of the Dupré La Nativité; Ghislain Leroy';s Dupré F-Minor Prelude & Fugue, and then the last two players, Henry Fairs and Paolo Oreni, who offered contrasting versions of the Andante sostenuto of Widor's Symphonie gothique.

Saint-Étienne-du-Mont

The first improvisation series took place on Sunday, June 6, at Saint-Étienne-du-Mont. Improvisation candidates were given a theme, a response for the Office of Tierce (“Inclina cor meum Deus in tabernacula tua”) and asked to improvise a triptych lasting around fifteen minutes. Saint-Étienne-du-Mont is famous for being the church of the Duruflés and the 1956 Beuchet-Debierre, which Duruflé had built for his tonal ideas. (The organ, rebuilt by Victor Gonzalez in 1975 and then by Bernard Dargassies in 1991, is the fourth largest organ in Paris, with 83 stops on 4 manuals and pedal).

None of the candidates had any problem treating the theme (or at least the head of it, which is what most of them used) for 15 minutes and using a wide variety of registrations and improvisation skills. However, only one of them, Noël Hazebroucq, was able to communicate (to my listening skills, at any rate) the stated requirement of a triptych. It was almost as if the other players were unwilling to quit playing for even a moment in order to clearly delineate sections of their improvisation. I suppose it would be possible to have a triptych where the sections flow into each other (I am thinking of the Adagio and Choral variations of the Duruflé Veni Creator, which are connected without pause; even so, the diminuendo to a single stop, followed by the plainsong statement on principal choruses, serves as a marker between the two sections). As a result, with the other players, it was not possible to say where sections might have been. One player, for instance, began an adagio on flutes, progressed to fonds, played a mf statement of the theme in canon, followed by a slow crescendo to ff reeds, with the plainsong theme in the pedal, followed by a decrescendo to Gemshorn Celeste plus 32' with quick decorated bits of the theme, followed by a crescendo to fonds, then staccato reeds, then a vivace section on swell reeds, followed by a short toccata figure, followed by a chordal full organ statement of the theme.

Hazebroucq, by contrast, began with a scherzo with the theme in canon, followed by a quick outburst on tutti, followed by the original scherzo with theme in canon, again followed by a short outburst on tutti. Section two began with flutes and bits of the theme, colored by high bell effects; followed by fugal bits on fonds and reeds, then an ornamented version of the head of the theme in dialogue on the cromorne and clarinet stops. The third section began with fast statements on the theme, and subsided into bits on the theme on various piano stop combinations.

Following the improvisation round at Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, the candidates for the Finale were announced; for interpretation: Els Biesemans, Belgium; Henry Fairs, UK; Ghislain Leroy, France; Paolo Oreni, Italy; and for improvisation: Noël Hazebroucq, France; Robert Houssart, The Netherlands.

Finale

Chapelle Royale du Château de Versailles

The first round of the Finale was held at the Chapelle Royale du Château de Versailles on Monday, June 7, at 2:30 pm. Interpretation candidates were required to play:

François Couperin, extracts from the Messe pour les Paroisses:

Plain Chant du premier Kyrie, en taille

Dialogue sur les trompettes et tierces du Grand Clavier et le bourdon avec le larigot du Positif

4th couplet, Tierce en taille

6th couplet, Offertoire sur les Grands jeux

or

Nicolas de Grigny, extracts from La Messe:

Premier Kyrie en taille, à 5, qui renferme le chant du Kyrie

Cromorne en taille à 2 parties

Trio en dialogue

Dialogue sur les Grands jeux

or

Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, Suite du deuxième ton:

Plein Jeu

Duo

Trio

Basse de cromorne

Flûtes

Récit de nasard

Caprice sur les Grands jeux

The organ case at the Chapelle Royale at Versailles originally contained a Robert Clicquot. This organ was rebuilt in turn by Louis-Alexandre and then François-Henri Clicquot, then by Dallery, Abbey, and Cavaillé-Coll, before being replaced in 1938 by an organ by Gonzalez. It took until the end of the 20th century to recreate the famous Clicquot, work entrusted to the builders Boisseau and Cattiaux. The present specification comprises 37 stops on three manuals and a pedalboard à la française. Its tuning (A=415) refers to the time of Louis XIV, and the temperament is meantone. Some of the most famous of French organists have been named to the Chapelle Royale: Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers, Nicolas Lebègue, Louis Marchand, Jean-François Dandrieu, François Couperin. The current organist is Michel Chapuis.

For the round at Versailles, Biesemans and Oreni played the required Couperin pieces, while Fairs and Leroy played the required de Grigny pieces. (Due to a missed train connection, I had to listen to Ms. Biesemans through the door.) It was interesting hearing the subtle differences between two players, each playing the same literature.

Basilique-Sainte-Clotilde

The second round of the Finale was held at the Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde on Tuesday, June 8: first that for interpretation, then for improvisation on the very famous organ of the basilica, built originally by Cavaillé-Coll for César Franck. At the moment, it seems impossible to consider the sound of the organ at Sainte-Clotilde apart from recent developments there. I was quite surprised to discover that the console of the organ at Sainte-Clotilde had been relocated from one of the most celebrated of organ tribunes to the choir balcony. Also, according to Les Orgues de Paris (Paris: Délégation à l'Action Artistique de la Ville de Paris, [c. 1991]) and descriptions I have seen of the stoplist, the organ at Sainte-Clotilde has 61 stops. The official handbook of the Concours d'Orgue 2004, published under the signature of M. Jacques Taddei (M. Taddei is the current titulaire of Sainte-Clotilde), describes the organ as having 68 stops. It appears that stops are in the process of being added. (One wonders what they are and if they are there yet.) The work is being done by organbuilder Bernard Dargassies.

The Sainte-Clotilde organ sounds different from the neo-classic 1962 Langlais rebuild of the organ. The Récit seems louder, both the Hautbois and the Trompette sounding considerably louder than before. The Hautbois no longer “disappears” beneath the fonds of the organ, as had been the case, robbing the organ of an effect with which generations of organists had been familiar. The volume of the Récit Trompette seems equally upset, more definitively coloring every registration with which it is used. Now the Positif seems frequently louder than the Grand-Orgue, and the movement from Positif to Grand-Orgue is either minimized (fonds) or seems actually inverted (reeds).

Interpretation candidates were required to play:

any one of the three Chorals of César Franck

and one of the following:

Jehan Alain: Scherzo (Suite)

Maurice Duruflé: Scherzo

Jean Langlais: Arabesque sur les flûtes (Suite française)

Olivier Messiaen: Alleluias sereins d';une âme qui désire le ciel (L';Ascension)

Els Biesemans played the second Choral and the Duruflé Scherzo. Henry Fairs played the first Choral and the Messiaen Alleluias sereins. Paolo Oreni played the second Choral and the Messiaen Alleluias sereins. Ghislain Leroy played the third Choral and the Duruflé Scherzo.

The playing was quite good, even if the organ left something to be desired. One wished for more expressive playing in the Franck from virtually all the players (the exception being Oreni, who phrased very musically). Players were less than scrupulous in following the various crescendi and decrescendi, which are so important to Franck's music. It was interesting hearing the paired linkings of the Duruflé and the Messiaen. I regretted not having had the opportunity to hear Jean Langlais's Arabesque sur les flûtes at Sainte-Clotilde.

Next followed the section for improvisation. Candidates were given a literary text for their improvisation at Sainte-Clotilde: verses from the Apocryphal Prayer of Azariah, additions to the book of Daniel between 3:23 and 3:24. The verses were not in strict order and I was only able to note verse numbers, but the following is a close if perhaps not exact English version of the text given to the improvisation candidates:

52 Let the earth bless the Lord: let it sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever

37 Bless the Lord, you angels of the Lord . . .

60 . . . all people on earth . . .

43 . . . all you winds . . .

44 . . . fire and heat . . .

45 . . . winter cold and summer heat . . .

47 . . . nights and days . . .

56 . . . you springs . . .

57 . . . you whales and all that swim in the waters . . .

52 Let the earth bless the Lord: let it sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.

Noël Hazebroucq and Robert Houssart approached the text from different viewpoints. Hazebroucq, who was first, chose not to approach the text as an opportunity for tone painting, but as the basis for an improvisation with many sections of contrasting effects, linked by a disjunct 4-note motif, closing with a very busy few minutes at the end where all creation seemed to be called to praise. In his improvisation, Houssart seemed to be trying to reflect the various text passages (vivace swell flutes for the angels, ascending and descending chordal passages for the winds, etc).

Saint-Eustache

Wednesday, June 9 found us at Saint-Eustache for the required performances of Jean Guillou's 6th Organ Concerto, opus 68, commissioned by the Concours under the aegis of Musique Nouvelle en Liberté. The administration of the Concours had decided, before the Concours began, to make a cut in the Concerto for Organ and Orchestra (in the interests of time, it was said) of a little less than 200 measures out of a total of 413 measures. Hence, what we heard was a portion of the work Guillou composed. The orchestra was that of the Conservatoire supérieur de Paris-CNR under the direction of Pierre-Michel Durand; the orchestra and M. Durand also participated in the final concert of laureates Wednesday evening, when the organ concerto was heard one more time.

We heard the two improvisation candidates, Hazebroucq and Houssart, perform the concerto first. As improvisation candidates, they were required to insert two (the entire score called for three) cadenzas. These were followed by the four interpretation candidates, who were required to perform a cadenza written by Guillou.

The organ at Saint-Eustache, built by the Dutch firm Van den Heuvel, with 101 stops on five keyboards and a pedalboard, is the third largest in the City of Paris (after Notre-Dame, 112 stops, and Saint-Sulpice, 102 stops). Van den Heuvel may be Dutch, but the plan sonore of the organ is unquestionably French. All candidates played the console placed in the nave, with its electrical transmission.

Again, the playing was of a uniformly high level. What was interesting (albeit somewhat fatiguing) was six sequential hearings of the same piece: each player managed to bring some personal approach to the piece, even though the broad registrational outlines were indicated. Some elected for a slightly smaller, chamber approach (if one can approach 101 stops as any sort of chamber instrument!), while others used the full declamatory powers of the massive tutti with its five 32 ft. stops.

About 4:30 pm we heard the last required performance. Those attending were invited to either remain or return at 8:00 pm for the awarding of the prizes and a concert by the laureates. I suspect most of us elected to retire to various bars and cafés to pass the time.

Awarding of prizes and concert of laureates

Saint-Eustache, 8:00 pm

First, the members of the jury were presented to the audience by Michel Chapuis, the president of the jury. Following the presentation of the jury, the prizes were awarded.

The SACEM prize for meilleur espoir (most promising young artist) was awarded by the jury to the 21-year-old Russian organist Yevgenia Semeina.

The jury also awarded a "Special Mention" to Italian organist Paolo Oreni.

Third prize for interpretation was awarded to 25-year-old Els Biesemans of Belgium. Second prize for interpretation went to 28-year-old Henry Fairs of the United Kingdom. First prize for interpretation was won by 22-year-old Ghislain Leroy of France.

First prize for improvisation (dedicated to Pierre Cochereau) was awarded to 24-year-old Noël Hazebroucq of France.

The jury also awarded a “Special Mention” to Robert Houssart.

The prize for best interpretation of the 6th Concerto for Organ and Orchestra went to Henry Fairs.

Following the awarding of the prizes, we heard a concert of the laureates. Noël Hazebroucq was given two themes for improvisation: the Salve Regina, and Salut à la mère de la miséricorde. Ghislain Leroy played the Duruflé Scherzo, followed by the first movement, allegro vivace, of the Widor 5th Symphonie.

The concert was then to conclude with Henry Fairs and the orchestra of the Conservatoire supérieur de Paris-CNR, under the direction of Pierre-Michel Durand, in the seventh (abbreviated) performance of the day of the Guillou Concerto for Organ and Orchestra.

While the orchestra was assembling for the performance, Jean Guillou, organiste titulaire of Saint-Eustache, took advantage of the opportunity to extend a welcome to Saint-Eustache, and to speak for a moment about the concerto he had been commissioned to write. He said that he had not been asked about the substantial cut the administration had elected to make in his piece. He pointed out that he had fulfilled the terms of the commission regarding the length of the piece. Since something like half of the piece was omitted, he pointed out that it was not the concerto that he had written that we were hearing, but rather a “denatured” (or perhaps “diluted”) version. He did not wish any of the candidates any ill will, but felt compelled to make his objections known.

M. Jacques Taddei, the director of the Concours, attempted to explain the reasons for the modification, but his remarks were met with booing. In spite of this, Henry Fairs, Pierre-Michel Durand, and the orchestra of the Conservatoire supérieur de Paris-CNR presented the seventh (abbreviated) and last performance of the day of the Guillou Concerto for Organ and Orchestra to general acclaim.

So ended nine days of one of the most interesting of competitions (although one not unmarked by strife and controversy), and the opportunity to hear many of the most gifted young organists of the present day.