The character of the Concert Hall’s organ
About the Concert Hall’s organ on the Mariinsky Media website
The name of 19th–20th century Belgian composer Joseph Jongen (1873–1953), a professor at the Brussels Conservatoire whose style stands out for its remarkable eclecticism, is almost unknown in Russia. Nevertheless, he wrote several symphonies, including the symphony for orchestra and organ Impressions d’Ardennes, 1913, the symphonic poem Lalla Rookh (1904), Triptych (three orchestral suites, 1935), three symphonic pieces (1951), Fantaisie sur deux Noëls populaires wallons (1902), overtures and other pieces including chamber, piano and organ works such as the Hymne pour Orgue et Orchestre, Op. 78 (1924) and orchestral concerti for the violin (1899), cello (1900), piano (1943) and harp (1944).
Prelude, Fugue and Variation is in an anthology which César Franck entitled Six pièces, Op. 20 (1858–1863). Like Schumann’s Novelettes or Fantasiestücke, his works include independent and complete pieces in their own right. Work on this anthology coincided with the time when the composer began working at the Église Sainte-Clotilde. At this time, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll’s firm was building a new organ for the church, and this was inaugurated in 1859. Because of this, this organ was one of Franck’s favourite instruments. By then it already had all of the features typical of a Cavaillé-Coll organ: special flute registers, a strengthened reed section which the composer used in all of his finales to impart unity to the sound palette and “subtle” registers with “flickering timbres”. For his Prelude, Fugue and Variation Franck chose the model of the baroque triptych (Dietrich Buxtehude’s Prelude, Fugue and Chaconne or Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata, Adagio and Fugue). Moreover, the baroque fantaisie becomes a romantic ballade. Instead of a toccata-like, bravura opening which must be present in a triptych, Franck wrote a Prelude in the spirit of Chopin. The Fugue contrasts with the prelude thanks to its active, lively character. The Variation almost literally “repeats” the prelude. Its mood is imbued with humility and peace.
Charles-Marie Widor (1844–1937) is known mainly for his organ music. Throughout his entire life he performed at services at the Église Saint-Sulpice, which is home to one of the finest organs in France. As a professor at the Paris Conservatoire, Widor taught the organ to Charles Tournemire and Louis Vierne and composition to Marcel Dupré, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Edgard Varèse and Nadia Boulanger. He assisted Albert Schweitzer in his work on a book about the organ music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Inspired by his pupil César Franck, he wrote ten symphonies for organ, thus creating a new genre in music; moreover, he wrote many works that vary in form. Like Camille Saint-Saëns, he outlived his own generation, in his twilight years becoming certain that most of his works had lost their popularity. But today they rouse interest once more, and hardly any evening of organ music fails to include some of Charles-Marie Widor’s music.
Jean Langlais (1907–1991) was an outstanding 20th century French organist. Langlais held the post of parish organist at Paris’ famed Église Sainte-Clotilde, where César Franck and Charles Tournemire had worked before him. Langlais had a profound love for the instrument, which dates back to the time of César Franck and Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, and he composed all of his own organ works for it. | The two Piano Concerti by Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) are among the most significant works in the genre. First turning to the concerto genre as late in his artistic career as 1929-1931, Ravel was drawn by the search for various possible resolutions within one and the same genre. He worked on both concerti at the same time. Ravel found this to be particularly interesting.
An internationally acclaimed composer, organist and master of improvisation, Frenchman Thierry Escaich (1965) is one of the present day’s most outstanding musicians. His friendship with Olivier Messiaen played an extremely important role in his development as a musician. Messiaen, having listened to the young musician, bid him an artistic farewell with the words “work as an organist, work as an improviser, and, again, work as a composer.” “Messiaen told me that his masses were a synthesis of his improvisations. He would write down whatever came into his head during a church service. On the other hand, he found it easy to move from the organ – a space of manuals – to orchestral space,” Thierry Escaich has remarked. Escaich mainly composes for the organ (solo compositions, chamber music and concerti including the two La Barque solaire concerti for organ and orchestra), but he is open to all genres and forms, and is continuously investigating the realm of sound. His style can be seen clearly in such works as Choral’s Dream (2003) for piano and organ, Scènes de bal for string quartet and in larger-scale orchestral compositions – Chaconne (2000), Vertiges de la croix (2004), Les Nuits hallucinées for mezzo-soprano and orchestra (2004) and the oratorio Le Dernier Évangile for double chorus, organ and orchestra (1999). He also recently completed a violin concerto which is dedicated to David Grimal, and he is currently writing a clarinet concerto for Paul Meyer and a ballet for New York City Ballet. Love of cinema has brought Thierry Escaich to compose music for silent films. In 1999 he received a commission from the Louvre to compose the musical accompaniment for Frank Borzage’s film L’Heure suprême.
Camille Saint-Saëns’ organ legacy includes three fantaisies, three Rhapsodies sur des cantiques bretons, six preludes and fugues, seven improvisations, several independent works, orchestral music featuring the organ and duets for piano and organ. Camille Saint-Saëns’ interest in the traditions of German polyphony of the 17th and 18th centuries provided the motivation to compose the fantaisies and fugues. As in the series of Johann Sebastian Bach and Dietrich Buxtehude, the fantaisie and the fugue are con affetto pieces that are consistently in a shared imagistic key. Yet at the same time the romantic expression inherent in Saint-Saëns’ music is reflected in the fantasy character of the former. |