Voices of French Organists’ Experience

John Joseph Mitchell

John Joseph “JJ” Mitchell is a musician and scholar from Arlington, Virginia. He is director of music at Saint John Neumann Catholic Church in Reston, Virginia, where he oversees several musical groups and accompanies liturgies. JJ graduated summa cum laude from Westminster Choir College with a bachelor’s degree in sacred music. He then earned his Master of Sacred Music degree in organ performance from the University of Notre Dame, where he attended on a full-tuition scholarship. He also studied at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Toulouse, France, where he practiced and studied on the organs of the Puget family. JJ then earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ performance from the University of Houston (UH). During this time, he worked as a teaching assistant in the UH Music History Department and served as musician in multiple churches. The article published in this magazine is a cut of his dissertation on the Puget family, which was finished in May 2023.

JJ has served as organist on the music staff of churches such as Christ Church Cathedral, Houston, Texas; the Cathedral of Saint Thomas More, Arlington, Virginia; and the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, South Bend, Indiana. He has performed in these churches and various other churches and concert halls in the United States, Canada, France, and England. In July 2024, JJ will give a lecture recital on the Puget family at the location of one of their instruments in Sydney, Australia. He is the winner of the Nanovic Grant for European Study for Professional Development and was a finalist for the Frank Huntington Beebe Grant. He also won second prize in the graduate division of the Hall Pipe Organ Competition in 2022. JJ’s research on César Franck and his musical influences was published in the Vox Humana organ journal. In September 2020 he was a guest on Jennifer Pascual’s Sounds from the Spires SiriusXM Radio program in which his organ recordings were broadcast. He has played liturgies and concerts for international television audiences on the Salt + Life and EWTN networks. JJ is a member of the American Guild of Organists (AGO) as well as the National Association of Pastoral Musicians (NPM), from which he has received several scholarships. A leader in the field, he has served on NPM’s national publications committee and will serve on the board of the Northern Virginia AGO chapter beginning later this year. He is a member of The Diapason’s 20 Under 30 Class of 2021. JJ’s career goal is to teach sacred music to the next generation. For more information: 
jjmitchellorganist.com.

Editor’s note: Part 1 of this series appeared in the May 2024 issue, pages 12–18.

The progressive era, 1892–1922: Jean-Baptiste Puget

Unlike his older brother Eugène, Jean-Baptiste, the youngest of Théodore’s children, was more interested in science and technology than musical aesthetics. He was a gifted visual artist who designed organ façades such as that of Notre-Dame de la Dalbade and the choir organ of Notre-Dame du Taur, both in Toulouse. He was also different from Théodore and Eugène because he did not study music and had not been tasked with voicing pipes.¹⁰³ Though Jean-Baptiste’s skills were a major asset to the family, he did not have much authority until he assumed leadership of the business following Eugène’s sudden passing in 1892.¹⁰⁴ He married Zélie-Augustine Raynaud, and together they had three children: Maurice, Louis, and Germaine.¹⁰⁵

Enamored with innovation, Jean-Baptiste introduced progressive changes to the company’s organ building style. For example, he favored zinc bass pipes instead of tin due to practicality and low cost.¹⁰⁶ This choice in materials, which was controversial at the time, resulted in a robust sound without having to use as much metal.¹⁰⁷ The use of zinc reflects Jean-Baptiste’s knowledge of English organs, particularly the work of Henry Willis. Eugène’s metal pipes were mostly constructed with tin.¹⁰⁸

Another significant change under Jean-Baptiste’s tenure was the shift from mechanical action to tubular-pneumatic action.¹¹⁰ Organbuilders of the Romantic era through the early twentieth century wanted to modify actions to make their instruments easier to play, employing wind-based solutions to do so.¹¹¹ The Barker lever, which was common on French symphonic organs, was a wind-activated mechanism to lighten mechanical action. Eugène and Jean-Baptiste used Barker levers when building their instruments. The two brothers traveled together to London to study tubular-pneumatic action, in which a pneumatic tube connection takes the place of a tracker in conveying the key action from console to windchest, thereby lightening the key action.¹¹² Eugène typically maintained the status quo of mechanical action with Barker levers, but Jean-Baptiste embraced the new tubular-pneumatic technology.¹¹³

Jean-Baptiste’s professional connections attracted new attention from the scientific community. One prominent ally of the company during Jean-Baptiste’s reign was Dr. Gabriel Bédart, a medical doctor who had an advisory role at the Puget company.¹¹⁴ Penning an opinion in a Toulousian newspaper in 1895, Bédart discussed the benefits of turn-of-the-century advances in organ technology and advocated for the implementation of tubular-pneumatic systems. He praised the work of Jean-Baptiste by citing recently constructed Puget organs.¹¹⁵ Much of what is known about Jean-Baptiste’s organbuilding philosophy comes from Bédart’s writings.

Jean-Baptiste connected with other professionals differently than Eugène, whose relationships with masterful Parisian organists had elevated the family’s status. Jean-Baptiste maintained these connections while devoting much attention to fostering friendships with other organbuilders around the world. At a conference of organbuilders held in 1895 in Paris, Jean-Baptiste established professional relationships with other prominent constructors of the time, including Henry Willis, Samuel Casavant, and Charles Mutin. In 1899 Jean-Baptiste became a member of the jury of the Exposition Internationale Paris-Neuilly.¹¹⁶ Through his professional correspondences and promotion from colleagues, Jean-Baptiste elevated the reputation of the Puget family both nationally and internationally.¹¹⁷ This fame was expanded further when the Pugets constructed an organ at la Cathédrale de Sainte-Cécile d’Albi, hereafter referred to as Albi Cathedral.¹¹⁸

La Cathédrale de Sainte-Cécile d’Albi

Albi is located about fifty miles northeast of Toulouse on the Tarn River. This picturesque city, the home of painter Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, has a distinguished artistic history.¹²⁰ The cathedral, considered to be the largest brick building in the world, is easily identifiable in Albi’s cityscape. The fortress-like structure was constructed in the thirteenth century to suppress the Albigensian heresy and assert the Catholic Church’s dominance. Albi Cathedral’s thick walls, buttresses, and tall windows tower over the surrounding streets.¹²¹

The 1736 Moucherel instrument that preceded the Puget organ at Albi Cathedral had been in disrepair for decades.¹²² In 1841 the Claude brothers, two organbuilders from Mirecourt, tried to romanticize this French Classical organ cheaply. The result was described as a “mutilation” upon its reception, according to one listener.¹²³ Jean-Baptiste was familiar with this instrument since the Puget family had repaired it and made slight adjustments to its specifications in 1875.¹²⁴ In 1902 Jean-Baptiste wrote to the rector of the cathedral and described a proposal for a new instrument. Jean-Baptiste was both persuasive and persistent, arguing for his project to clergy members in Albi four times within one year.¹²⁵ The clergy signed a contract for a new Puget organ in March 1903 and amended it in October of the same year, paying the Pugets 31,650 francs.¹²⁶

Jean-Baptiste designed a gargantuan organ with four manuals and seventy-eight ranks for Albi Cathedral.¹²⁷ He preserved some of the existing pipework while adding much of his own.¹²⁸ Forty-two of the stops were placed behind shades, making it the only organ in France to have so many pipes under expression.¹²⁹ The tonal scheme was diverse, featuring orchestral stops such as a Euphone.¹³⁰ There was also a Clarabella, an English stop that was unusual for a French symphonic organ.¹³¹ The Great division boasted seven stops speaking at 8′ pitch, which provided a plethora of foundational tone for the upperwork. Upon completion, Albi Cathedral contained the largest French symphonic organ outside of Paris. Only two organs exceeded its size in France at the time: the Cavaillé-Coll instruments of Notre-Dame de Paris and l’Église Saint-Sulpice.¹³²

Jean-Baptiste and his team of technicians devised solutions for the challenges of making an instrument of such magnitude to function. Three enormous bellows and four pairs of blowers installed in the cathedral tower powered the Albi organ.¹³³ The entire organ was on tubular-pneumatic action.¹³⁴ This manner of construction allowed the resistance in the keyboards and pedalboard to remain consistent regardless of how many manuals were coupled.¹³⁵ This instrument also featured a crescendo pedal with a dial that indicated which stops were added based on the position of the shoe.¹³⁶ Though the Pugets did not invent tubular-pneumatic action or the crescendo pedal, the builders demonstrated originality in applying these innovations to such a large organ. There was no existing prototype or precedent for constructing a French symphonic organ of this size with these technological innovations.

Adolphe Marty, who was the organ instructor at Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles in Paris at the time, dedicated the instrument on the feast of Saint Cecilia, November 22, 1904. The performance date was significant as Saint Cecilia, the namesake of the cathedral, is also the patron saint of music.¹³⁹ This premiere program by Marty, a former student of César Franck, included works by Bach, Buxtehude, and a new composition of his own specifically for the inauguration of the organ. It was called Sonate héroïque Sainte Cécile and had four movements: “Extase,” “Chant d’Hyménée,” “Entretien et Conversion,” and “Triomphe et Apothéose.”¹⁴⁰ This piece is significant as it represents a contribution to the French symphonic organ repertoire inspired by a Puget organ.

The organ in Albi Cathedral was judged to be the Puget family’s masterpiece. In a review of this concert, the cathedral rector wrote the following week in a local publication that only two organs exceeded the greatness of that in Albi: Notre-Dame de Paris and l’Église Saint-Sulpice.¹⁴¹ A prominent Parisian organist of this era, Albert Perilhou, echoed the sentiment of this review with even more praise. He declared in a message to Puget that the Albi organ was a “deserving rival” of the two massive Paris organs.¹⁴² These testimonies demonstrate awe and respect for Jean-Baptiste’s work ranging from local members of the Albi religious community to two of the most distinguished French musicians at the turn of the century.

In addition to pleasing mid-career professionals at the turn of the century, the Albi instrument also inspired young organists. Léonce de Saint-Martin was born in Albi in 1886 and was the deputy organist at the church by age fourteen in 1900. Four years later, while he still served in this position, the cathedral organ was inaugurated by his teacher, Marty.¹⁴³ In the years after Saint-Martin had moved to Paris, Jean-Baptiste received a letter from him. He described that he spent his holiday vacations playing the Albi organ and told the builder: “I bless the Lord one hundred times to have been so well privileged.”¹⁴⁴ Saint-Martin went on to succeed Louis Vierne as the organist of Notre-Dame de Paris in 1937.¹⁴⁵

For fifty years, the Puget organ filled the expansive nave of Albi Cathedral with music and rarely required maintenance. However, the instrument did not survive into the modern age. Following a recital given by André Marchal in May 1954, musicologist and organist Norbert Dufourcq, who was in the audience, declared that the organ was in disrepair. Speaking metaphorically, he described the organ as having a “vocal illness” and in dire need of a “remedy.”¹⁴⁶ He was describing problems in the instrument’s winding system and the failing tubular-pneumatic action. Dufourcq also bemoaned the organ’s tonal palette, crying for more mixtures and upperwork rather than reeds and 8′ tone.¹⁴⁷ He was a major proponent of Victor Gonzalez’s neo-Classical organs and tended to besmirch the Pugets.¹⁴⁸

A restoration of this instrument would have involved hundreds of hours of meticulous work on the organ’s tubular-pneumatic systems. This type of organ technology had fallen out of style by the 1930s because the thin leather membranes had aged and needed to be replaced.¹⁴⁹ Air leaks that had developed over time impaired the pneumatic system. In 1971 the Puget organ was dismantled and would ultimately be replaced by 1981 with an organ in the neo-Baroque style.¹⁵⁰

The Puget instrument of Albi Cathedral represents both desirable and unpreferable aspects of organbuilding at the turn of the century. One could perceive Jean-Baptiste poorly for choosing low quality materials that risked unsustainability over time. Others may be tempted to pass judgment on Dufourcq’s criticism and Albi Cathedral’s governance for choosing not to restore the Puget organ in the latter part of the twentieth century. Regardless of opinions, the organ of Albi Cathedral was ultimately a product of its time.¹⁵² Jean-Baptiste could not have known the long-term sustainability problems of tubular-pneumatic systems because his decisions were cutting-edge at the time of the organ’s construction. The French Culture Ministry and its commission of Albi Cathedral acted practically when electing to replace the Puget organ.¹⁵³

The neo-Classical era, 1922–1960: Maurice Puget

During the tenures of Théodore, Eugène, and Jean-Baptiste, the family business operated under a rapidly changing French political landscape. The company endured the separation of church and state (1789–1905); the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871); the Expulsion of the Congregations (1880); the civil unrest following the assassination of the charismatic socialist orator Jean Jaurès, a native Occitanian (1914); and the numerous inefficacious post-Napoleonic governing systems that rose and fell in nineteenth-century France.¹⁵⁵ The Pugets also survived competition against Cavaillé-Coll and managed to establish themselves in the south of France. Though technology had evolved during these years, the family’s instruments up to the 1920s were French symphonic organs indicative of the Romantic era. The external factors of political turmoil, new competition, and changing artistic aesthetics all were challenging factors in Maurice’s career.

Life and works

In his youth, Maurice attended the Toulouse Conservatory and took organ lessons with Georges Debat-Ponsan. During these years, he was awarded medals for his proficiency in solfège, piano, and organ while learning from his father in the family workshop. Young Maurice was the chief voicer of his father’s Albi Cathedral organ, ensuring all seventy-four stops sounded harmoniously.¹⁵⁷ To continue his study in organ performance, he left Toulouse and joined the studio of Adolphe Marty in Paris. After two years he came back to Toulouse to work again with his father and married Elia-Jane Desmons in 1912. His organbuilding career was interrupted when he was conscripted in World War I.¹⁵⁸

During the war, Maurice put his training as an organ technician to use. To trace enemy planes flying in the night sky, a French military captain, René Baillaud, designed a primitive sonar that he named the “Parabaloïde Baillaud.”¹⁵⁹ In order to operate this echolocation device, the user needed to have a keen ear, which Maurice had developed from his years of musical training and labor in the family workshop. He was directed by the French military’s general headquarters to help Baillaud develop the tool further.¹⁶⁰ For his successful work, which helped keep French soldiers and civilians safe during the war, Maurice was awarded the Croix de Guerre.¹⁶¹

Maurice officially took over the family business from his father in 1922, though Jean-Baptiste likely transferred responsibilities to his son gradually in the years prior.¹⁶² The same year Maurice and his wife had a son, Jean, whose descendants are alive today.¹⁶³ Maurice had several apprentices, the most famous of whom was Robert Boisseau.¹⁶⁴ However, neither his son nor any other apprentice succeeded Maurice after his sudden stroke in 1960.¹⁶⁵ By 1965 a central heating company had taken the place of the Puget workshop on Rue de Négreneys.

As Maurice assumed his role as head of the Puget workshop, organbuilding aesthetics in France were shifting. In the early twentieth century, Norbert Dufourcq and André Marchal spearheaded a movement to create eclectic organs. These instruments would have the foundation tone of a French symphonic organ but would also have sounds common to French Classical and German Baroque organs, such as brilliant mixtures, lustrous mutation stops, and soft reeds. Spanish organbuilder Victor Gonzalez, a former employee of both Cavaillé-Coll and Merklin based in Paris, constructed instruments in this style. This type of organbuilding became known as the neo-Classical movement. Shortly after his business was established in 1929, Gonzalez dominated the market with the help of his powerful allies, who included Dufourcq, Marchal, and German organbuilder Rudolf von Beckerath.¹⁶⁶ The Puget family faced more difficulty competing against the Gonzalez firm in post-war France than they did against Cavaillé-Coll at the height of his business’s power.¹⁶⁷

Maurice was aware of the rapid changes occurring in the organ industry and started constructing instruments in the neo-Classical style at least seven years before Gonzalez’s firm was founded. He was a gracious man who made concessions to his clients, though some scholars argue that his acceptance of customers’ neo-Classical demands damaged the reputation of the family. For example, Maurice made modifications to the organ in the Salle Franklin, the opera house in Bordeaux, by adding an 8′ Bourdon made of zinc; a three-rank Mixture, two ranks of which were made with spotted metal and the third plain metal; and a Voix humaine, also made of zinc.¹⁶⁸ After World War I, tin, oak, and other durable materials became even more expensive and scarce than they had been previously. Many critics decried Maurice’s work and reminisced about the organs of Eugène’s tenure.¹⁶⁹

Three notable reconstructions from Maurice’s first decade as head of the workshop include the organs of la Cathédrale Saint-Just et Saint-Pasteur in Narbonne in 1927, la Cathédrale de Perpignan in 1930, and la Collégiale Saint-Salvy d’Albi in 1931. These projects are defined by their Stentor stops and plethora of mutations.¹⁷⁰ Maurice also installed electro-pneumatic systems in his instruments throughout his career, and he altered mechanical blowers by adapting them to electricity. By using the electro-pneumatic system, Maurice was able to create extended and borrowed stops that shared the same rank of pipes. For example, on the organ at Saint-Salvy, there are sixty stops for forty ranks of pipes.¹⁷¹ Maurice constructed his instruments with strong foundation stops, similar to the robust 8′ tone his father designed at Albi Cathedral as well as other French symphonic organs by the family. By voicing his instruments to produce a vigorous sound, Maurice differed from Gonzalez, whose foundation stops were quieter.¹⁷²

World War II wreaked havoc on the Puget dynasty.¹⁷⁴ Materials that were already rare and expensive in France after World War I became even more scarce during the 1940s, which affected organbuilding as well as numerous other industries. The country’s economy was in shambles due to soaring inflation. The Puget family’s net worth was depleted, and clients for new organs were few and far between. French clergy were also lacking money after the separation of church and state, and Gonzalez snatched up whatever major organ projects were available at the time.¹⁷⁵ Cavaillé-Coll’s workshop, which had been succeeded by Charles Mutin and Auguste Convers after Aristide’s passing, closed its doors during this war. The once formidable giant of French symphonic organbuilding throughout the nineteenth century fell victim during these difficult years.

Despite dire circumstances, Maurice had some advantages to keep the family business afloat. First, he had a thorough understanding of organs throughout Occitania. He was a desirable restorer because he had an encyclopedic knowledge of many organs in the south of France. He always approached restoration projects respectfully, voicing organs from different eras in an appropriate, tasteful manner. Maurice also had influential Parisian contacts, continuing in Eugène and Jean-Baptiste’s tradition of professional correspondences.¹⁷⁶ Thanks to his friendships with prestigious organists such as Marcel Dupré, Alexandre Cellier, and Xavier Darasse, he was able to win contracts despite Gonzalez’s grip on the French organ scene. Three of Maurice’s most notable restorations were in the cathedrals of Toulouse in 1947, Monaco in 1953, and Nice in 1958.¹⁷⁷

In both Maurice’s time and the present day, one finds critics of France’s neo-Classical movement. Oftentimes, when builders tried to create eclectic organs with the versatility to perform multiple kinds of repertoire authentically, they produced instruments that could not interpret any single style well. Maurice’s organs were controversial because of their electrification, specification, and materials.¹⁷⁸ However, Maurice’s proficiency in technology, music, and history was never questioned. He brought artistry to neoclassicism with the resources that were available to him.

Maurice was adaptable, enduring several challenges in his environment. Before he succeeded his father, he was forced to sacrifice years of his early career to serve his country in World War I. He built with cheaper materials because those were what was available to him at a price the business could afford. Maurice prioritized his customers’ preferences in his work, which some critics perceived as a detriment. He treated each organ that he restored with a sensitivity to its history and its original construction.¹⁷⁹ Ultimately, by navigating through uncertain, turbulent cultural shifts with minimal resources, Maurice brought honor and prestige to the Puget family. After Maurice passed away, Marcel Dupré wrote a letter of condolence to the family: “I had not only the highest esteem for his value and talent as an organbuilder, and the deepest admiration for his courage and dedication to his art, but a deep friendship for him.”¹⁸⁰

Conclusion

Of the twenty-five largest Puget organs, fifteen were destroyed, typically replaced by neo-Classical instruments of other builders.¹⁸² Of the remaining ten large instruments, three are not functioning but are well preserved; another three are playable but are in need of restoration; and four have been restored.¹⁸³ Over the course of roughly 120 years, the Puget family constructed 350 organs and worked on 742 in total.¹⁸⁴ These instruments were found in churches, salons, theaters, conservatories, and concert halls not only in France but also in other European nations as well as in Asia, Africa, and Australia.¹⁸⁵ The Pugets built thirteen organs in Paris, a city defined by the work of Cavaillé-Coll.

The international demand for Puget organs was a result of the instruments’ caliber. For example, the Taur organ was durable and designed for the comfort of the performer. The Albi Cathedral instrument astonished onlookers with its five tubular-pneumatic systems. With seventy-four stops, there were limitless possibilities of combinations. The organs of the Taur and Albi Cathedral encapsulate the Pugets’ work as masterful technicians and artists.

Puget organs represent the best of Toulousain culture. A historic city, Toulouse has a rich musical heritage that can be traced as far back as the troubadours in the Medieval era. Toulouse also displays a distinct architectural style that, like many European metropolises, contains a variety of buildings both ancient and modern. By choosing local materials and constructing in the symphonic style, the Pugets created a distinct Toulousain organ sound that balanced normative French trends at the national scale with unique developments, such as voicing in a darker tone and consistently placing multiple divisions under expression. Puget façades tastefully reflect the architectural styles of the rooms in which they reside, maintaining aesthetic consistency. In perfecting aural and visual aspects of their instruments, the Pugets created a distinct Toulousain organ identity.¹⁸⁶

The Pugets were unique because of the culture of their workshop in which each of the four heads of family constructed organs differently from one another. They did not feel pressure to always build instruments in a prescribed manner and were quick to make changes. For example, Eugène made radical innovations at the Taur just after assuming control from his father, and Jean-Baptiste stopped building with mechanical actions immediately after he succeeded Eugène in 1892. Though Théodore likely apprenticed with Moitessier and abided by Bédos’s treatise, he was largely self-taught and instructed his sons in the craft of organbuilding. When asked why he preferred Puget organs to those of Cavaillé-Coll, Jean Daldosso said that every Puget organ is a new revelation since the family did not fear unorthodox experimentation.¹⁸⁸

By studying organs of the Puget family, performers can create better informed interpretations. For example, organists may be surprised to learn that on Puget organs, the Hautbois-Bassoon and Voix humaine were both activated by the reed ventil, unlike a Cavaillé-Coll instrument. Though Widor’s Symphonie V was written for his instrument at l’Église Saint-Sulpice, which had a single expressive division, one could deliver a historically informed performance of his work by manipulating the shades of an expressive Positif division like the Puget organ of Notre-Dame de la Dalbade. Jean-Claude Guidarini argued that timbres of mystic organ composers such as Louis Vierne, Charles Tournemire, and Olivier Messiaen are easy to produce on Puget instruments because the composers’ registrations feature somber 8′ foundations with tastefully balanced upperwork.¹⁸⁹ If Cavaillé-Coll’s and Gonzalez’s organs are the sole instruments upon which performers conceive their interpretations, the possibilities for artistry and creativity are constrained. The many testimonials in which generations of formidable French organ composers expressed respect and honor towards the Pugets indicate the validity of the family’s works, which allowed for tasteful interpretations of symphonic organ repertoire. Some compositions inspired by Puget organs include Georges Debat-Ponsan’s Elévation and the aforementioned sonata by Adolphe Marty, written for Albi Cathedral.¹⁹⁰

Organ builders also can benefit from learning about the Puget family. Each head of the family was attuned to the history of instruments, the desires of their clients, current trends in organ building, and how to voice organs in a tasteful manner. As a result, their numerous technical innovations, voicing styles, and materials were always calculated risks. The engineering details of their instruments, such as scalings, pneumatic system components, and façade blueprints are a worthy area of study that can inform organbuilders on different types of approaches to French symphonic organbuilding. Théodore, Eugène, and Maurice were especially considerate of the needs of performers since they were organists themselves.

Musicians and scholars are still seeking further information on the Puget family. For example, little is known about Jean-Baptiste’s organ in the prestigious Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris. It was constructed in May 1913, and the façade is still visible today above the proscenium.¹⁹¹ Léonce de Saint-Martin was appointed as the theater’s organist.¹⁹² At the inauguration of this fifty-two-rank instrument, which had an array of percussive stops, an orchestra was conducted in turn by Claude Debussy, Vincent d’Indy, Paul Dukas, Gabriel Fauré, and Camille Saint-Saëns.¹⁹³ Though some details of the organ’s history are known, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées did not keep many records on the instrument, and in 2020 the theater petitioned the general public to provide information about the organ so that they could begin a restoration.¹⁹⁴

Many questions about the dynasty puzzle Puget experts today. For example, one wonders if the organ of the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées provided prelude music to audience goers at the premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, an infamous disaster in which the performance by the Ballet Russes resulted in a riotous uproar from the audience.¹⁹⁵ There are many questions surrounding Théodore’s life, especially concerning the exact year of his company’s founding. In addition, one wonders when did Eugène discover the possibility of having two expressive divisions, and what organ, if any, inspired him to implement this organbuilding technique at the Taur. For many of the Puget instruments, both surviving and lost, there is a need for further research. I hope that this essay will serve as a springboard that inspires future study of the Pugets and their instruments.

The organs of the Puget family remain relevant in the modern age. Annually, thousands of organists flock to southern France for the festival of “Toulouse Les Orgues” to hear instruments such as the Puget organs of Notre-Dame du Taur and Notre-Dame de la Dalbade in concert. Students at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régionale de Toulouse come from around the world to study and perform repertoire on these organs. Many people can describe a Puget instrument they have experienced, but few are able to share information they have learned about the builder.¹⁹⁶ If the Pugets’ legacy is to be celebrated and their organs are to survive, further scholarship is needed. The priceless, masterful works of the Puget family deserve more recognition from the international organ community.

Notes

103. Guidarini, “La Dalbade France 1888, Beethoven, Berlioz, Chopin, Saint-Saëns. . .,” page 74.

104. Bachet, page 17.

105. Guidarini, page 74.

106. Rohan, pages 19, 76.

107. Delmas; Rohan, page 19. Delmas read a letter by Jean-Baptiste saying that zinc pipes were more expensive than tin, but that the organbuilder sought after the material for the sound it produced. Other evidence from Rohan suggests otherwise.

108. Bachet, page 10; Delmas.

109. Archives of the Musée de Lavaur, shared by l’Association Jean-Claude Guidarini.

110. De Lasala, “The Eugène Puget Organ Is Reborn,” page 10.

111. Shannon, page 8.

112. Comments made by Katelyn Emerson, April 26, 2023; Shannon, page 177.

113. Hamilton, page 56. One instance in which Eugène did use the pneumatic system was in the pedalboard of the Dalbade, as previously mentioned.

114. Rohan, page 19. It is unclear just how involved Bédart was with the Puget company. Rohan describes his role as “éminence grise,” which means “gray eminence.” He was influential in the philosophy of the company and its direction without having an official title.

115. Gabriel Bédart, “Les Orgues Tubulaire à Membranes de M. Puget,” L’Art Méridional, July 1, 1895.

116. Rohan, page 19.

117. Guidarini, Les Puget, Une Dynastie de Facteurs d’Orgues à Toulouse, page 4.

118. Albi is a town located northeast of Toulouse in Occitania.

119. Archives of the Musée de Lavaur, shared by l’Association Jean-Claude Guidarini. White-bearded Jean-Baptiste is standing in the center of the image with his arms folded.

120. Justin Postlethwaite, “Albi: The Birthplace of Toulouse-Lautrec,” France Today, August 3, 2022, https://francetoday.com/travel/travel-features/city-focus-albi/.

121. “Albi Cathedral,” World Monuments Fund, December 2020, https://www.wmf.org/project/albi-cathedral.

122. Gérard Terrissol, Les orgues de la Cathédrale Sainte-Cecile d’Albi (Albi: Éditions Grand Sud, 1992), pages 8–16. Several other builders had made minor adjustments to Moucherel’s organ, which was built in 1736.

123. Terrissol, pages 20–22; Chris Van Doodewaard, “Pipe Organs: Albi Cathedral France 1736 Christophe Moucherel,” Pipe Organs (blog), October 20, 2010, http://mypipeorganhobby.blogspot.com/2009/01/albi-cathedral-france.html.

124. Terrissol, pages 20–22; “Composite of Sainte-Cécile,” Organa Reginae Caeli, November 18, 2019, https://organareginaecaeli.wordpress.com/composite-of-sainte-cecile/.

125. Jean-Claude Guidarini, “Le Grand Orgue Jean-Baptiste Puget de La Métropole d’Albi,” Le Dermogloste, March 17, 2009. Accessed January 25, 2022, http://dermogloste.viabloga.com/news/le-grand-orgue-jean-baptiste-puget-de-la-metropole-d-albi.

126. Terrissol, pages 20–22.

127. Guidarini. See Figure 8 for an image of the console.

128. Terrissol, pages 20–22.

129. Guidarini.

130. Guidarini.

131. Brown.

132. Guidarini. In 1932 the organ of Saint Eustache in Paris was expanded significantly, making the Puget organ the fourth largest in all of France.

133. Delmas; Guidarini. The wind pressure on the Albi organ was much higher than a typical French symphonic organ of this time.

134. Guidarini.

135. Shannon, page 72.

136. Guidarini; Terrissol, pages 20–22.

137. Reprinted from Guidarini.

138. Reprinted from Guidarini.

139. J. Lapeyre, “Variétés: Un Orgue et Une Sonate d’Orgue,” La Semaine Religieuse Du Diocèse d’Alby, November 26, 1904, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6390560d. November 22 was also the anniversary of the Dalbade organ dedication.

140. Lapeyre; Adolphe Marty, Sonate Héroïque de Sainte-Cécile (Paris: A. Nöel, 1905); Poliquin.

141. Lapeyre.

142. Guidarini.

143. Jean Guérard, “Leonce of Saint-Martin,” Musica et Memoria, 2016, http://www.musimem.com/st-martin.htm.

144. Ibid.

145. Philip Andrew Smith, “Léonce de Saint-Martin: Organist and Composer” (Doctor of Musical Arts dissertation, Hamilton, New Zealand, The University of Waikato, 2018), https://hdl.handle.net/10289/12116, 82.

146. Delmas; Guidarini; Terrissol, page 22. Dufourcq was a staunch political opponent of the Puget family. He championed organs built by Gonzalez.

147. Guidarini.

148. Delmas.

149. Delmas; Shannon, pages 66–67. Delmas says that pneumatic membrane decay, lead tube corrosion, and lack of maintenance were likely the sources of the problems.

150. Guidarini; Terrissol, pages 20–22; Timothy Tikker, “Albi Cathedral–Moucherel Organ,” Mander Organ Builders Forum, September 3, 2005, https://mander-organs-forum.invisionzone.com/topic/182-albi-cathedral-moucherel-organ/.

151. Neither the Pugets’ organ nor the 1981 instrument altered the existing casework, so Jean-Baptiste’s organ would have looked identical to this one.

152. Guidarini.

153. Delmas; Guidarini. Dufourq’s critiques were not the only red flags concerning this instrument’s condition. Delmas describes a report in the French Ministry of Culture in Paris from 1958, which states what organists Alexandre Cellier and Pierre Cochereau found when they were sent to evaluate the instrument. They claimed that a lack of maintenance and drastic temperature fluxes made the organ unplayable, especially in warm weather. The two recommended electrifying the action, moving the Echo into the Positif case, and swapping one or two stops. Regrettably, no action was taken following this report. At French cathedrals, decisions such as organ projects are made by the French Ministry of Culture and the commissions they assemble for their restoration projects.

154. Mitchell, reprinted from Guidarini, “Compositions Du Quelques Instruments Construits Ou Reconstruits Par La Manufacture Puget de Toulouse.”

155. B. S. Bennet, “19th Century French Politics,” University of Botswana History Department, September 11, 2000. http://www.thuto.org/ubh/ub/h202/fr19p1.htm; Musée protestant. “The Law of 1905.” Accessed April 12, 2023. https://museeprotestant.org/en/notice/the-law-of-1905/.

156. Reprinted from “Histoire et Anecdotes,” Toulouse Les Orgues, accessed April 12, 2022, https://toulouse-les-orgues.org/orgues-2/histoire-et-anecdote/.

157. Guidarini, “La Dalbade France 1888, Beethoven, Berlioz, Chopin, Saint-Saëns. . .,” pages 74–75.

158. Rohan, page 37.

159. Guidarini, Les Puget, Une Dynastie de Facteurs d’Orgues à Toulouse, page 6. Paraboloïde Baillaud was a precursor to flight radar.

160. “L’Inauguration du Grand Orgue,” Le Cri de Toulouse, December 1921, 11ème Année, No. 47 edition.

161. Guidarini, “La Dalbade France 1888, Beethoven, Berlioz, Chopin, Saint-Saëns. . .,” page 75. “Croix de Guerre,” which is a military medal, best translates to “War Cross.”

162. Évrard, page 8.

163. Delmas; Guidarini, Les Puget, Une Dynastie Toulousaine de Facteurs d’Orgues, page 37. Jean, who passed away in 2018, was a career pharmacist. His daughter, Françoise, was born in 1953. She and her son, Nicolas, are living descendants.

164. Vincent Hildebrandt, “Boisseau–Cattiaux–Chevron,” Organs of Paris, accessed April 9, 2022, https://www.organsparisn.vhhil.nl/boiscat.htm. Boisseau and his apprentices built several organs. His son, Jean-Loup Boisseau, restored the organs of la Basilique Saint-Denis, Notre-Dame de Paris, la Cathédrale de Poitiers, and la Basilique Saint-Sernin in Toulouse.

165. Rohan, page 37.

166. Vincent Hildebrandt, “Gonzalez-Danion-Dargassies,” Organs of Paris, accessed March 19, 2023, https://www.organsparisn.vhhil.nl/gonzalez1.htm.

167. Guidarini, Les Puget, Une Dynastie Toulousaine de Facteurs d’Orgues, page 36; Rohan, page 28. One reason Dufourcq wrote scathing critiques about the Albi Cathedral organ when its tubular-pneumatic systems failed was he saw the Pugets as competitors of Gonzalez, with whom he was aligned. Dufourcq did complement the Pugets on their restorations, citing their remarkable knowledge of instruments throughout the south of France.

168. Bachet, page 18.

169. Delmas; Guidarini, “La Dalbade France 1888, Beethoven, Berlioz, Chopin, Saint-Saëns. . .,” page 75. Another struggle Maurice faced came in 1936 when the French government instituted paid holidays. This law did not help organbuilders generate profit.

170. Bachet, page 18; Edward J. Stauff, “Stentor Bombarde,” Encyclopedia of Organ Stops, 1999, accessed March 20, 2023, http://www.organstops.org/s/StentorBombarde.html. Stentor stops were loud stops common on organs in the early twentieth century. A Stentor stop may refer to a Stentorphone, Stentor Octave (sounding at 4′ pitch), or a Stentor Bombarde, which is a penetrating reed.

171. Bachet, pages 18–19.

172. Hamilton, page 62.

173. Joseph Rivel, “Bénédiction & Inauguration Solennelle du Grand Orgue,” Le Bourdon de la Basilique Saint-Just & Saint-Pasteur Narbonne, October 23, 1927, 6ème Année, No. 11 edition, in Organ Historical Society Library and Archives, Villanova, Pennsylvania.

174. World War II was a particularly dark period for pipe organs and organbuilders. Across Europe, thousands of organs were dismantled so that metal pipes could be melted down to make ammunition. Many historic organs were bombed and lost forever. The Pugets were fortunate since their most famous instruments were not destroyed as a consequence of the war.

175. Delmas.

176. Guidarini, Les Puget, Une Dynastie Toulousaine de Facteurs d’Orgues, page 40.

177. Bachet, page 19.

178. Bachet, page 19.

179. Bachet, page 18.

180. Rohan, page 26. Translation by Mitchell.

181. Rohan, page 26. Translation by Mitchell.

182. Guidarini, Les Puget, Une Dynastie Toulousaine de Facteurs d’Orgues, page 40. The dismantling of large organs was common in the neo-Classical era of organbuilding. The instruments of Merklin and other notable builders were also destroyed in similar fashion in the latter part of the twentieth century.

183. Guidarini, “Les Puget, Une Dynastie Toulousaine de Facteurs d’Orgues,” page 40.

184. “Histoire de l’orgue et Concert Lyrique: le Public Conquis,” La Dépêche, March 4, 2015, https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2015/03/04/2059782-histoire-de-l-orgue-et-concert-lyrique-le-public-conquis.html; Guidarini, Les Puget, Une Dynastie Toulousaine de Facteurs d’Orgues, page 40. It is unclear exactly how many organs were built for their homes outside of France and how many were moved there later. One of the Pugets’ instruments in Sainte-Marie College in Toulouse, built in 1875, was supposed to be transferred to Madagascar. Since Théodore could not oversee its completion in Africa, the organ remained in France and was later moved to Saint Barthélémy Church in Montastruc-la-Conseillère.

185. Delmas; Le Cri de Toulouse; Pastór de Lasala, “A Puget Organ in Sydney: A Fortunate Historical Accident,” OHTA News 44, no. 1 (October 4, 2018): pages 14–21. There was a single cinema organ constructed by the Puget family at Le Royal Cinéma in Toulouse.

186. Rohan, page 17. Because of their unique elements regarding aesthetics, some scholars such as Rohan argue that Puget organs are not comparable to Cavaillé-Coll’s instruments.

187. Reprinted from Guidarini. Addressed to the Pugets, the perimeter of the image lists all the family’s organs that Marty had dedicated up to 1901.

188. Hamilton, page 62.

189. Hamilton, page 62.

190. Rohan, page 30.

191. Delmas.

192. Smith, page 80.

193. Guidarini, Les Pugets, Une Dynastie de Facteurs d’orgues à Toulouse, page 6.

194. Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, “Le Saviez-Vous? L’Histoire de l’Orgue du Théâtre N’Est Pas Évidente à Retracer,” December 2020, YouTube video, 2:41, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxvUGQV3NC8.

195. Delmas. The Puget organ was examined and accepted exactly one week before the Rite of Spring premiere.

196. Simon Thomas Jacobs, “In the Organ Lofts of Bordeaux, Toulouse, and Paris,” The Diapason, volume 105, number 8, whole number 1257 (August 2014), pages 20–24.

 

References

Key:

BNF=Bibliothèque National du France, Paris

OHS=Organ Historical Society Library and Archives, Villanova, Pennsylvania

 

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Paul, Vivian. “The Beginnings of Gothic Architecture in Languedoc.” The Art Bulletin 70, no. 1 (1988): pages 104–22. https://doi.org/10.2307/3051156.

Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. “César Franck–Classical Music Composers.” Accessed March 18, 2023. https://www.pcmsconcerts.org/composer/cesar-franck/.

Poliquin, Robert. “Orgues En France.” Organs Around the World, 1997–2023. Accessed March 3, 2023. http://www.musiqueorguequebec.ca/orgues/orguef.html.

Postlethwaite, Justin. “Albi: The Birthplace of Toulouse-Lautrec.” France Today, August 3, 2022. https://francetoday.com/travel/travel-features/city-focus-albi/.

Puget, Théodore. “Copie In-Extenso Du Devis Inséré Au Registre Des Délibérations Du Conseil de Fabrique de l’église St-Vincent.” Edited by Conseil de Fabrique de l’église St-Vincent, January 22, 1870. Archives of the Musée de Lavaur, shared by l’Association Jean-Claude Guidarini.

Radio Présence. “Immersion à Notre-Dame Du Taur.” Recorded by Jean-Claude Guidarini and Radio Présence in 2012 in Toulouse. YouTube video, 26:12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy69JOvYnsE.

Ramackers, Robert. “Les Orgues de L’Abbé Clergeau,” February 2015. https://rmcks.pagesperso-orange.fr/orgue/orgues_clergeau/les_orgues_de_l_abbe_Clergeau.pdf.

Religiana. “Church of Notre-Dame de La Dalbade, Toulouse.” Accessed March 21, 2023. https://religiana.com/church-notre-dame-de-la-dalbade-toulouse.

Rivel, Joseph. “Bénédiction & Inaugration Solennelle du Grand Orgue.” Le Bourdon de la Basilique Saint-Just & Saint-Pasteur Narbonne, October 23, 1927, 6ème Année, No. 11 edition. OHS.

Rohan, Henri de. Th. Puget: Une Famille de Facteurs d’orgues à Toulouse, 1834–1960. Bibliothèque Municipale de Toulouse, 1987. Exhibition catalog, Bibliothèque Municipale de Toulouse, October 1–31, 1987. https://orguesaintantonin.fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Puget-Rohan-catalogue-expow.pdf.

Rumsey, David. “Norman Johnston, 1917–2012.” Organ Music Society of Sydney, April 28, 2012. Accessed March 1, 2023. https://sydneyorgan.com/Norman.html.

Rushworth, G. D. “Richardson, Charles (1847–1926).” In Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 2006. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/richardson-charles-8200.

Shannon, John R. Understanding the Pipe Organ. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2009.

Smith, Philip Andrew. “Léonce de Saint-Martin: Organist and Composer.” DMA diss., The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand, 2018. https://hdl.handle.net/10289/12116.

Stauff, Edward J. “Stentor Bombarde.” Encyclopedia of Organ Stops, 1999. http://www.organstops.org/s/StentorBombarde.html.

Terrissol, Gérard. Les orgues de la Cathedrale Sainte-Cecile d’Albi. Albi: Éditions Grand Sud, 1992. OHS.

Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. “Le Saviez-Vous? L’Histoire de l’Orgue du Théâtre N’Est Pas Évidente à Retracer.” Filmed in December 2020 in Paris, France. YouTube video, 2:41. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxvUGQV3NC8.

Théodore Puget Pére et Fils 1834–1960, Une dynastie de facteurs d’orgues. Lavaur: Musée du Pays Vaurais, n.d. Exhibition catalog. https://orguesaintantonin.fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/plaquette-Lavaur.pdf.

Thomas, Louis. Rapport de la Commission de Réception du Grand-Orgue de la Cathédrale de Montauban. Montauban: Imprimerie Catholique Jules Prunet, 1917. OHS.

Tikker, Timothy. “Albi Cathedral–Moucherel Organ.” Mander Organ Builders Forum, September 3, 2005. Accessed February 6, 2022. https://mander-organs-forum.invisionzone.com/topic/182-albi-cathedral-moucherel-organ/.

Toulouse Les Orgues. “Grand Orgue de l’Église Saint-Barthélémy.” Accessed March 16, 2023. https://toulouse-les-orgues.org/instrument/grand-orgue-de-leglise-saint-barthelemy/.

———. “Histoire et Anecdotes.” Accessed April 12, 2022. https://toulouse-les-orgues.org/orgues-2/histoire-et-anecdote/

​Vallas, Léon. César Franck. Translated by Hubert J. Foss. New York: Oxford University Press, 1951.

Van Doodewaard, Chris. “Pipe Organs: Albi Cathedral France 1736 Christophe Moucherel.” Pipe Organs (blog), October 20, 2010. http://mypipeorganhobby.blogspot.com/2009/01/albi-cathedral-france.html.

Widor, Charles-Marie. The Symphonies for Organ: Symphonie V. Edited by John Near. Volume 15. Recent Researches in the Music of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. Madison: A-R Editions, Inc., 1993.

Weigle, Carl G. “Nouvelle construction pneumatique pour les tuyaux d’orgues, d’églises, et de concerts. Paris, 1890.” Archives of the Musée de Lavaur, shared by l’Association Jean-Claude Guidarini.

World Monuments Fund. “Albi Cathedral,” December 2020. https://www.wmf.org/project/albi-cathedral.

Appendix A: Finding aid to selected topics

Organs

Albi Cathedral (la Cathedrale Sainte-Cecile d’Albi): Bachet; Deschamps; Guidarini; Lapeyre; Organa Reginae Caeli; Orgue Aquitaine; Poliquin; Postlethwaite; Rohan; Smith; Terrissol; Tikker; Van Doodewaard; World Monuments Fund.

The Taur (l’Église Notre-Dame du Taur): L’Association Orgues Meridionales; Amann; Bachet; Basilique Saint-Sernin de Toulouse (Site officiel); ECHO-Organs; Guidarini; Guilmant; Gullet; Hamilton; Jacquin; Le Journal de Toulouse: Politique et Littéraire; Poliquin; Masson; Micot; Nayrolles; Radio Présence; Rohan; Théodore Puget Pére et Fils 1834–1960, Une Dynasty de Facteurs d’Orgues; Toulouse Les Orgues.

Puget family

Eugène Puget: Bachet; Évrard; Guidarini; Hamilton; Rohan; Théodore Puget Pére et Fils 1834–1960, Une Dynasty de Facteurs d’Orgues; Toulouse Les Orgues.

Jean-Baptiste Puget: Bachet; Bédart; Évrard; Guidarini; Hamilton; “L’Inauguration du Grand Orgue;” Les Orgues de Paris; Rohan; Théâtre des Champs-Elysées; Théodore Puget Pére et Fils 1834–1960, Une Dynasty de Facteurs d’Orgues; Toulouse Les Orgues; Weigle.

Maurice Puget: Bachet; Évrard; Guidarini; Hamilton; “L’Inauguration du Grand Orgue;” Rohan; Rivel; Théodore Puget Pére et Fils 1834–1960, Une Dynasty de Facteurs d’Orgues; Thomas; Toulouse Les Orgues.

Théodore Puget: Les Amis de l’Orgue Puget Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val; Les Amis de l’Orgue de Seysses; Art Lyb; Bachet; Cicchero; Dufourcq; Évrard; Guidarini; Hamilton; Les Orgues de l’Abbé Clergeau; Orgues en France et dans Le Monde; Ramackers; Rohan; Théodore Puget Pére et Fils 1834–1960, Une Dynasty de Facteurs d’Orgues; Toulouse Les Orgues.

Appendix B: Discography

Albums

Avot, Lionel. Franck: Pièces pour orgue. Toulouse: Hortus, 2011. http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2011/Mar11/Franck_organ_Hortus083.htm.

De Miguel, Matthieu. Symphonic Acclamations and Gregorian Paraphrases. Toulouse: Priory, 2019. https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8716922--symphonic-acclamations-and-gregorian-paraphrases.

Ensemble Vocal Les Élements, Frédéric Desenclos, and Joël Suhubiette. Alfred Desenclos: Requiem. Toulouse: Hortus, 1997. http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2005/oct05/Desenclos_hortus009.htm.

Ensemble Vocal Les Élements, Michel Bouvard, and Joël Suhubiette. Duruflé: Requiem. Toulouse: Hortus, 1999. http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2005/may05/Durufle_requiem_hortus018.htm.

Monin, Virgille. Mulet: L’œuvre pour orgue. Toulouse: FY & Solstice, 2015. https://www.resmusica.com/2015/11/08/lorganiste-henri-mulet-revele-par-virgile-monin/.

Ormières. Clair-Obscur. Toulouse: Priory, 2021. https://www.prioryrecords.co.uk/Ormieres-St-Vincent-Church-Carcassonne-Puget-Franck-Vierne.

Rechsteiner, Yves. Organ recital: Rechsteiner, Yves–Beethoven, L. van, Berlioz, H., Chopin, F., Saint-Saens, C. (L’univers de l’orgue–La Dalbade, France 1888). Toulouse: Alpha, 2011. https://uh-naxosmusiclibrary-com.ezproxy.lib.uh.edu/h5/catalogue/ALPHA652.

YouTube

Bach, Johann Sebastian. Erbarm’ dich mein, O Herre Gott, BWV 721, performed by Mary Prat-Molinier, Albi. 5:52. YouTube, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoB0t59V6O0.

Bélier, Gaston. Toccata in D Minor, performed by Pastór de Lasala, Sydney. 4:21. YouTube, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27dtjo2asj4&ab_channel=tormus1.

Boëllmann, Léon. Élevation in E-flat Major, performed by Titus Greyner, Sydney. 3:08. YouTube, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzHK6ES-saU&ab_channel=PepOrgan.

Franck, César. Chorale in E Major, performed by John J. Mitchell, Toulouse. 15:43. YouTube, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae-EC8S2J3Y.

Lemaigre, Edmond. Prelude et Cappricio, performed by Pastór de Lasala, Sydney. 3:20. YouTube, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27dtjo2asj4&ab_channel=tormus1.

Vierne, Louis. “Final” from Premiere Symphonie, opus 14, performed by Mary Prat-Molinier, Albi. 6:34. YouTube, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri6wJB65d4w&ab_channel=EricCord%C3%A9.

Shelby Fisher

Shelby Fisher earned Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees in organ performance and pedagogy from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, where she studied under Kenneth Udy. She is organist and director of music at Christ United Methodist Church in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Jean Langlais (1907–1991) composed his organ Mass Suite médiévale in 1947, drawing on a rich tradition of French organ suites composed for use during the “low” Mass. Changes to the liturgy after the Second Vatican Council (“Vatican II”) in 1962 drastically reduced the role of the organ during the Mass, thereby eliminating the need for the French organ Mass. Suite médiévale is one example of a body of small-scale liturgical organ compositions that no longer carry their intended relevance due to changes to the liturgy. These works are often neglected in both concert and liturgical settings, yet they can be appropriate for both. Exploring the musical and liturgical heritage that influenced Langlais, as well as the changes resulting from the Second Vatican Council, provides today’s organists with a frame of reference to interpret and understand his organ compositions.

Organ music and the liturgy in twentieth-century France

During the four centuries between the Council of Trent in 1563 and the Second Vatican Council between 1962 and 1965, liturgical organ playing in France became highly developed in large part due to the autonomy afforded French bishops to govern the liturgy within each diocese.

The most widely known liturgy used in France was the Parisian Rite, which was used until the middle of the nineteenth century. Accordingly, most French liturgical organ music from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries was written for the Parisian Rite.¹ Eventually the Parisian Rite was supplanted by the more universally recognized Roman Rite. This affected the evolution of the French organ Mass in at least two ways. First was the retention of the “low Mass,” during which the organist played for virtually the entire service, pausing only for the reading and homily as described by Gaston Litaize:

During this era, the organist at the main organ normally played two Sunday Masses:

1) The “Grand Messe,” which involved a processional, an offertory, often an elevation, a communion, and a postlude; in addition, he alternated with the choir for verses of plainchant for the Ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Agnus Dei); they sang a verse and the organ commented on in, changing registrations for each verset.

2) The “Messe Basse,” where the organist could virtually play a recital. With everything spoken in a low voice [“à voix basse,” hence “Messe basse”], this is what happened: the priest left the sacristy, the organist played a procession, which lasted until the Gospel reading, then came the sermon. The organ then resumed and didn’t stop until there was no one left in the church. So, one could easily play a complete Choral by Franck.²

Second, with the introduction of the Roman Rite, French organists largely moved away from chant-based organ music, favoring all-purpose Offertoires or Grand Choeurs.

A chant revival movement soon made its mark on French liturgical organ music. In 1889, the Benedictine Abbey of Solesmes published a new chantbook based on extensive research of early manuscripts that sought to restore chant to its medieval form.³ Interest in chant revival trickled into Parisian music circles, where in 1894, organist-composers Alexandre Guilmant and Vincent D’Indy founded the Schola Cantorum de Paris. The school’s founding manifesto called for the “performance of plainchant according to the Gregorian tradition; restoration of polyphonic music in the Catholic Reformation style of Palestrina; the creation of ‘new modern Catholic music;’ and improvement of the repertory for organists.”⁴ Guilmant in particular championed a return to organ compositions that used chant, writing that, “The German organists have composed some pieces based on the melody of chorales, forming a literature for the organ that is particularly rich; why should we not do the same with our Catholic melodies?”⁵

No French organist-composer produced more of this literature than Charles Tournemire. He studied at the Paris Conservatory with César Franck and Charles-Marie Widor, eventually succeeding Franck as titular organist of Sainte Clotilde in 1898. His largest organ work was L’Orgue mystique, a cycle of 51 organ Masses, one for nearly every Sunday of the liturgical year. Each Mass comprises five movements: Prélude à l’Introït, Offertoire, Élévation, Communion, and Pièce terminale, all drawing motivic material from the proper chants for the given day.6

Jean Langlais and Suite médiévale

Charles Tournemire mentored only a few private students who showed the greatest promise. One of these students was Jean Langlais. Earlier Langlais had studied organ with André Marchal at the National Institute for Blind Students, then with Marcel Dupré at the Paris Conservatory. Upon graduation from the conservatory, Langlais continued improvisation studies with Tournemire and served as his assistant at Sainte Clotilde. Langlais chose Tournemire as his instructor specifically for Tournemire’s fluency with improvisation on plainchant.⁷

Langlais eventually succeeded Tournemire as organist at Sainte Clotilde in 1945. The Cavaillé-Coll organ at Sainte Clotilde had been enlarged and slightly modified at the end of Tournemire’s tenure, and Langlais was eager to compose for the new instrument. Langlais composed four organ Masses between 1947 and 1951.⁸ His Masses are important not only because they demonstrate both the pervasiveness of the plainchant revival movement and the development of the French School of improvisation and composition, but they are also significant because they are some of the last French organ Masses to be published.⁹

In 1947, Langlais completed Suite médiévale: en forme de messe basse.¹⁰ As indicated by the subtitle, the suite was intended for use at the “low” Mass. Langlais not only followed the same five-part structure as Tournemire, but also used chant as inspiration. However, unlike Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique, Langlais chose chants appropriate for use throughout the liturgical year rather than those tied to a specific day.

The first movement of the suite is titled “Prélude: Entrée” and can be divided into two parts. The first half opens on full organ with a succession of parallel fourths and fifths suggestive of Notre-Dame organum followed briefly by the incipit to the chant “Asperges me, Domine,” or “Thou shalt sprinkle me, oh Lord,” before returning to the fortissimo parallel fourths and fifths. The antiphon, taken from Psalm 51, typically accompanied the Asperges, or ritual sprinkling of the congregation with holy water at the principal Mass on Sunday. The first half ends with the rubric, “If not needed, do not play further,” suggesting the flexibility of the suite to be adjusted to fit requirements of the Mass at the moment of performance. The second half further develops the chant, first in parallel fifths, and then in parallel fifths doubled at the octave in the manuals. In a nod to the Solesmes style of chant singing with its unpredictable pulse, the time signature throughout the “Prélude” changes frequently.

The second movement, “Tiento: Offertoire,” was intended for use during the offertory of the Mass, hence its longer performance length of four minutes. Here Langlais honors Spanish keyboard music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, constructing a loosely imitative four-voice fugato, punctuated three times in the pedal by the Kyrie trope “Fons bonitatis” from Mass II. The Medieval practice of chant troping, or the insertion of additional texts and/or melodies within the standard chant, had long been abandoned. Langlais’ inclusion of the Kyrie trope is a clever acknowledgment of this historical practice rather than a modern application of chant. The movement ends with a final appearance of the chant accompanied by soft, homophonic chords. In order to keep rhythmic freedom without frequently changing the time signature, Langlais indicated “0” as the beginning time signature, explaining, “The sign 0 signifies free measures as for their length but regular as for their note value.” Langlais continued to employ this practice in later compositions.¹¹

“Improvisation: Élévation” is the calm and meditative third movement, utilizing a simple registration of only a single stop for each manual. It begins in A major, then moves to E-flat Mixolydian just before the introduction of the well-known and ancient Eucharistic hymn “Adoro te.” The final four measures are in E major, a key favored by Frescobaldi and other sixteenth-century composers for use during elevation toccatas.¹² The key of E and its cousin, the Phrygian mode, were traditionally used to express the mystical. The elevation represents the high point of the Mass at which time the celebrant elevates the host and chalice, having been transformed into the body and blood of Christ, so they may be adored by the congregation.¹³

The fourth movement, “Méditation: Communion,” was intended to be played as the congregation receives communion. It is based on two chants: “Ubi caritas,” an antiphon traditionally sung during the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday, but also appropriate as a Eucharistic hymn; and a second Eucharistic hymn, “Jesu dulcis memoria.” Langlais unifies the emergence of these themes with a sixteenth-note motive in multiple keys.

“Acclamations: Sur le texte des acclamations Carolingiennes” is the dramatic postlude of the suite. Langlais uses fragments of the ancient Roman chant “Laudes Regiae” from the Carolingian Acclamations, a hymn historically sung at solemn occasions and adopted by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne. The melody for the words “Christus vincit” repeats six times in the pedal in alternation with the phrase “Exaudi Christi” from the same chant. Langlais adds two more chant fragments, “Christus regnat” and “Christus imperat,” and repeats them employing an ascending harmonic pattern he often used to create tension. Similarly, the manuals play the “Christus vincit” theme first in F, then in G, and finally in A, to which the pedal responds with “Christus imperat” first in F, then F-sharp and then G. Langlais concludes by introducing a pedal carillon of C–F–G–D played in long notes against the “Christus vincit” theme stated in manual octaves. Marie-Louise Langlais notes that these final measures are reminiscent of the bells of Reims Cathedral, where French kings were crowned during the Medieval period.¹⁴

Langlais’ reaction to the Second Vatican Council

As early as 1900, French clergy began holding grassroots meetings to study the Church’s handling of religious expression, particularly with regard to participation of the congregation at Mass.¹⁵ By 1945 this populist movement became known as Catholic Action, and its followers known as the “new liturgists.”¹⁶ At the heart of the new liturgists’ agenda was the democratization of the liturgy brought about partly through changing the musical context of the Mass. Other clergy and most professional musicians saw the new liturgists as a threat to the traditional practice of church music. The new liturgists championed simple, approachable music that favored congregational singing and the use of the vernacular rather than Latin. Furthermore, many in favor of liturgical reform sought to also diminish the role of both the organ and chant.

Langlais was distraught by the changes the new liturgists brought to the Mass. He regarded these changes as a departure from the artistic mission of the Church and wrote:¹⁷

All religious composers, of which I am one, are deeply discouraged by this movement, which is the negation of art. In my opinion nothing is beautiful enough for God. Our forebears knew this and held that to pray surrounded by beauty was central to worship.

The new liturgist movement reached its peak during the Second Vatican Council. In December 1963, the council issued the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. Initially the constitution alleviated the concerns of the professional musicians by declaring the musical tradition of the Church as “a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art.”¹⁸ While the council supported the use of Gregorian chant and polyphony, it also seemed to support the new liturgists by stating that “to promote active participation, the people should be encouraged to take part by means of acclamations, responses, psalms, antiphons, hymns as well as by actions, gestures, and bodily attitudes. And at the proper time a reverent silence should be observed.”¹⁹ In the practical application of the constitution, it was the new liturgists that seemed to gain the upper hand.

In 1962, Langlais and other organists served on the French Episcopal Commission on Sacred Music, tasked with interpreting the Second Vatican Council’s new guidelines on liturgical music. A second group, the Commission of Expert Musicians, was formed in 1964 to supply new music to accompany the Propers that had been newly translated into French.

The role of the organ was a troublesome point in the new liturgy. Monsignor Maurice Rigaud, who acted as president of both the French Episcopal Commission on Sacred Music and the Commission of Expert Musicians, indicated that silence was to replace the use of the organ after the collect, at the offertory, at the elevation, and at communion; and in addition, that sung chant rather than the organ was the preferred method of balancing music with silence. The organists serving on both commissions lamented to Rigaud that there was nothing left for the organists to do during the Mass:²⁰

If the role of the organist is so reduced to this sort of humming in the background, in this role of “hole-filling” between two verses of songs in French and to serve as accompaniment for eventual new songs, one wonders . . . if it is now necessary to train young organists and to place them in careers that are reduced to such a farce, a career that is so long in its preparation, so costly, so laborious and difficult. One no longer even sees the necessity to maintain organ classes in our Conservatories and Schools of Music.

Musically, Langlais was slow to respond to Vatican II. Though initially supportive of attempts to write music for the new liturgy, Langlais became discouraged not only with the Commission of Expert Musicians’ tendency to favor the opinions of clergy over those of professional musicians but also with the low quality of new music that was admitted. In an interview with L’Est Républicain, Langlais was bold in his opinion of this new music, saying, “The goal of those who are currently writing religious songs is good, but the quality of the music is mediocre.”²¹

Langlais’ shameless musical response to Vatican II was his Trois Implorations, commissioned as the final organ exam piece at the Paris Conservatory in the spring of 1970. The third movement of the set, “Imploration pour la croyance,” expresses Langlais’ continued frustration with the Catholic Church. In his program notes Langlais writes, “The composer has tried to translate the state of the soul of a Christian in revolt against the current desacralizing atmosphere.”²² Langlais uses the chant intonation of the Credo from Masses I, II, and IV “Credo in unum Deum,” answered by staccato chord clusters with full organ as if in protest. The juxtaposition of chant and chord clusters continues until the piece finally ends with five staccato chords that use all twelve tones of the scale simultaneously. Marie-Louise Langlais writes that “Imploration pour la croyance” is Langlais’ way of shouting to the world, “I believe with all my strength, but with all my strength I also suffer from what I hear in the Church.”²³

Conclusion

Langlais represents the culmination of the Sainte Clotilde organist-composer tradition, which began with César Franck and continued with Charles Tournemire. His style represents a unique synthesis of twentieth-century compositional techniques, traditional influences, and theological commentary. His close personal and professional ties to the Catholic Church at a time when it was experiencing major changes significantly influenced his work.

One cannot understand Langlais’ music without considering his Catholicism. To appreciate Langlais’ “other-worldly” harmonies and diverse colors, it is important to understand the religious context that inspired his compositions. Langlais saw himself not just as a composer, but also as a theologian, whose role was to connect the faithful to God. Although Vatican II reforms have erased its original context, Suite médiévale remains an excellent representation of Langlais’ compositional style and techniques; with short movements, contrasting tone colors, and recognizable chant fragments, it is an exciting and convincing work that merits continued recognition in the organ repertory.

Notes

1. Orhpa Ochse, Organists and Organ Playing in Nineteenth-Century France and Belgium (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1994), 127.

2. Marie-Louise Langlais, Jean Langlais Remembered (New York: American Guild of Organists, 2016), 136–137.

3. Stephen Schloesser, Jazz Age Catholicism: Mystic Modernism in Postwar Paris, 1919–1933 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 284.

4. Ibid.

5. Edward Zimmerman and Lawrence Archbold, “Why Should We Not Do the Same with Our Catholic Melodies?: Guilmant’s L’Organiste liturgiste, Op. 65,” in French Organ Music from the Revolution to Franck and Widor, ed. Lawrence Archbold and Willliam J. Peterson (New York: University of Rochester Press, 1995), 203.

6. Edward Schaefer, “Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique and Its Place in the Legacy of the Organ Mass,” in Mystic Modern: The Music, Thought, and Legacy of Charles Tournemire, ed. Jennifer Donalsen and Stephen Schloesser (Richmond, Virginia: Church Music Association of America, 2014), 40.

7. Langlais, Jean Langlais Remembered, 41.

8. Langlais published Suite brève and Suite médiévale in 1947, Suite française in 1948, and Hommage à Frescobaldi in 1951.

9. Schaefer, 31.

10. Langlais, Langlais Remembered, 133.

11. Langlais, Langlais Remembered, 145.

12. Willi Appel, The History of Keyboard Music to 1700 (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1972), 478.

13. John Caldwell and Bonnie J. Blackburn, “Elevation,” In Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press, 2001).

14. Langlais, Langlais Remembered, 138.

15. Ann Labounsky, Jean Langlais: The Man and his Music (Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 2000), 211.

16. Labounsky, 211.

17. Labounsky, 214.

18. Anthony Ruff, Sacred Music and Liturgical Reform: Transformations and Treasures (Chicago, Hillenbrand Books, 2007), 314.

19. Labounsky, 219.

20. Labounsky, 226.

21. Labounsky, 229.

22. Labounsky, 272.

23. Langlais, Jean Langlais Remembered, 263.

Bibliography

Apel, Willi. The History of Keyboard Music to 1700. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1972.

Archbold, Lawrence and Edward Zimmerman, “Why Should We Not Do the Same with Our Catholic Melodies?: Guilmant’s L’Organiste liturgiste, Op. 65,” in French Organ Music from the Revolution to Franck and Widor, ed. Lawrence Archbold and William J. Peterson. Rochester, New York: University of Rochester Press, 1995.

Caldwell, John and Bonnie J. Blackburn. “Elevation,” Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline/ezproxy/lib/utah.edu/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000023373 (accessed March 22, 2019).

Darasse, Xavier, and Marie-Louise Jaquet-Langlais. “Jean Langlais,” Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/ezproxy.lib.utah.edu/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000023373 (accessed March 22, 2019).

Donelson, Jennifer, and Stephen Schloesser, ed. Mystic Modern: The Music, Thought and Legacy of Charles Tournemire. Richmond, Virginia: Church Music Association of America, 2014.

Labounsky, Ann. Jean Langlais: The Man and His Music. Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 2000.

Langlais, Jean. Suite médiévale en forme de messe basse. Paris: Éditions Salabert, 1950 (originally published 1947).

Langlais, Marie-Louise. Jean Langlais Remembered, trans. Bruce Gustafson. New York: American Guild of Organists, 2016.

Mahrt, Peter William. The Musical Shape of the Liturgy. Richmond, Virginia: Church Music Association of America, 2012.

Ochse, Orpha. Organists and Organ Playing in Nineteenth-Century France and Belgium. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1994.

Piunno, John. “Restoring Liturgy and Sacred Music in the Latin Roman Rite.” The American Organist 135, 4 (2010): 82–85.

Poterack, Kurt. “Vatican II and Sacred Music.” Sacred Music 125, 4 (1998): 5–19.

Rone, Vincent. “A Voice Cries Out in the Wilderness: The French Organ School Responds to the Second Vatican Council of the Catholic Church.” PhD diss., University of California, 2014.

Ruff, Anthony. Sacred Music and Liturgical Reform: Treasures and Transformations. Chicago, Illinois: Hillenbrand Books, 2017.

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

The Parish Book of Chant. Richmond, Virginia: Church Music Association of America, 2008.

Steven Young

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

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

Personal history

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Queen of the airwaves”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bracquemond’s unusual repertoire

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

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

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

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

Compositional career

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Notes

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

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

3. Le Temps, Dec. 17, 1924, page 4. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

15. Also entitled Variations sur un air Auvergnat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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