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1980 Hartford CT Connecticut St. Joseph Cathedral Organ John Rose The French Romantics Volume 3 Vinyl LP Record VG+
Record Grade per Goldmine Standard: VG+
The Spectacular Organ at the Cathedral of St. Joseph, Hartford, Connecticut Produced and Engineered by Michael Nemo Side One (27:47) FRANCK: Piece HeroTque (8:17) FRANCK: Cantabile (6:56) VIERNE: Claire de Lune (8:20) VIERNE: Toccata (3:49) Side Two (21:52) SAINT SAENS: Prelude and Fugue in B Major (7:09) BOELLMANN: Suite Gothique (14:35) Choral (3:25) Menuet (2:10) Priere (5:27) Toccata (3:24) The onset of the French Revolution -generally dated from May 1789- marked the end of a great “golden age” of French culture. Among the casualties was a magnificent culture of organbuilding and organ music, whose monuments were the instruments of the Clicquot, Thierry and Lefebvre families, and the music of Grigny, Couperin, Du Mage and Clerambeau. The seeds of its destruction-as with that of the monarchy-had been sown earlier, though: With the rise of the bourgeoisie as consumers of art, French organ music had become increasingly “vernacular” in character, more and more removed from the esoteric spirituality of Titelouze and Grigny. There is from the catchy tunes and rhythms of Couperin’s two organ masses (1690) a clear continuum of decadence, leading first to the charming triviality of the popular noel variations of Daquin and Balbastre, and ultimately to the third- rate Mozartean vulgarity of Lasceux’s Nouveau Journal (1804). French organbuilding retained its distinction longer-providing the magnificent instrument of Poitiers Cathedral as late as 1790-but after the death of Francois-Henri Clicquot in that year it languished for half a century. Ruined by the Revolution and lacking the resources to commission large new instruments, the churches had to content themselves with mechanical repairs and limited tonal “modernizations” by relatively conservative builders such as Dallery pere and fils, Daublaine and Callinet. To ears becoming accustomed to the thrilling new sounds of the Berlioz orchestra these “patchwork” instruments-with their vestigial pedal divisions, their unequal temperaments, and their inability to produce subtle dynamic nuances- would have seemed increasingly anachronistic. When, under the July Monarchy (1830-48), the churches finally regained a measure of prosperity, attention naturally turned to the organs, many of which had by then become quite decrepit, and the purchasing of large new instruments was soon to become a matter of barely-concealed parochial rivalry. It was at this promising juncture that a young organbuilder named Aristide Cavaille-Coll moved to Paris to “set up shop.” Beginning with his first major instrument at Saint-Denis in Paris, Cavaille-Coll evolved a new organbuilding esthetic that very quickly captured the imagination of France’s musicians-and clergy. Within twenty years he was virtually unrivalled as the nation’s most eminent organbuilder, and by the time of his death in 1899 he had built or rebuilt many of the most important instruments in France. Cavaille-Coll preserved and expanded certain features of the late eighteenth-century French organs, while introducing characteristic modifications. From Clicquot he took the relatively high wind pressures (yielding a more massive sound from the reeds, and greater stability), the generous pipe scalings, the foundational emphasis, the relatively low-pitched mixtures, and the aggressive Irompeltes. He went on to expand the organ’s palette of colors by introducing penetrating harmonic flutes and strings, both strongly imitative of their orchestral counterparts and both further contributing to the wealth of 8’ foundation tone. He also developed the Recit into a uniquely important manual division, with Venetian shutters permitting subtle nuances of volume, and the pedal was enlarged to provide a solid bass for the organ. Cavaille-Coll’s mechanical innovations included improved accessibility of stop controls, devices to facilitate adding and removing stops, and the use of small pneumatic motors (Barker levers) to “assist” the mechanical key action. These innovations expanded the dynamic and timbrel scope of the organ to orchestral dimensions-from the soft murmur of strings to the brilliant roar of the full organ. The last major representatives of the “bourgeois school,” Louis Lefebure-Wely and Edouard Batiste were perhaps the first composers to seize upon the expanded expressive possibilities of the Cavaille-Coll organs in their lurid storm pieces and “boleros de concert," but the first works truly worthy of the instruments’ noble sonorities came from the pen of Cesar Franck (1822-1890). Although a Belgian by birth, Franck spent virtually all his adult life in Paris, playing the superb Cavaille-Coll organ of Sainte-Clotilde from 1859 until his death, and teaching organ at the Conservatoire from 1972. Trained by Benoist (organ) and Reicha (counterpoint), Franck brought to French organ music a seriousness of conception, a level of inspiration, and a spirituality unmatched since the publication of Grigny’s Livre d’orgue in 1699. Franck’s organ works appeared in three collections, the second of which-the Three Pieces published in 1878-was produced specifically for the inauguration of the great Cavaille- Coll organ of the Trocaddro Palace in Paris. The last of the Three Pieces, the Pidce Heroi'que begins with an urgent-sounding theme over an insistent pattern of repeated chords. “Timpani strokes” announce a second theme, a characteristic Franckian “chorale” melody which is developed with growing intensity, after which the first theme returns. Ultimately, the “chorale” theme emerges victorious, stated in great chords, with a final echo of the timpani strokes. The second of the Three Pieces, the Cantabile is suffused with Franck’s warmest religiosity. Alternating at first with solemn chords played on rich foundations, a trumpet melody is elaborated into a sort of ecstatic vocalise. The gathering urgency is dismissed as the trumpet melody appears in canon between soprano and bass, and the movement ends in peace. Among Franck’s most devoted proteges was Louis Vierne (1870-1937), who overcame the handicap of nearly total blindness to preside at the Cavaille-Coll organ of Notre-Dame-de-Paris from 1900 until his death-at the console, in the middle of a recital. In his compositions-notably the six “symphonies” for organ-Vieme combined a Franckian gift of melody and ah expressive chromaticism with a formal clarity inspired by Widor (Franck’s successor at the Conservatoire). Composed in 1926-7 and published in four volumes (each with its own opus number), the 24 Pieces de fantaisie reveal something of the range of Vierne’s inspiration. Claire de lune (“moonlight”) is an exquisite piece of impressionism dedicated to the American organbuilder Ernest M. Skinner, while the dramatic Toccata (inscribed to the American organist Alexander Russell) is a particularly distinguished example in a form beloved of French organist/composers from the time of Widor onwards. Trained by Benoist and Boely, Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921) was during his own lifetime a famous pianist and organist. He was titulaire of Saint-Merry in Paris from 1853 to 1857 (during which time he arranged for a rebuilding of the church’s organ by Caviall6-Coll), and for twenty years thereafter he played the Cavaille-Coll at the Madeleine Church. As the very incarnation of the French classical tradition of clarity and; logic, Saint- Saens was a devoled'aclmirer of the music of the eighteenth century, and in his two sets oGpreludes-and-fugues for organ (Op. 99 and 109) he paid tribute to a favorite form of an earlier age. The second of the Op. 99 preludes (in B Major) is a sort of barcarolle, with a melodic canon over a supple accompanimental figuration; it evokes “strange resonances of a carousel organ” (Jean-Gabriel Gaussens), and in the ensuing three- voice fugue (with episodes of unusual length) Norbert Duforcq detects “a mordant irony.” Born in the year that Franck published his first organ works, the Alsacian Leon Boellmann (1862-1897) studied organ with Eugene Gigout (himself a protege of Saint Saens) and for the last year of his tragically short life he was master of the Cavaille-Coll instrument of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in Paris. Boelmann composed in every form except dramatic music, but today he is remembered mainly for the first of his two organ suites-a work about as “gothic” (observes Felix Aprahamian) as London’s Albert Memorial. The first movement is a ‘chorale” in the manner of Franck, with succeeding phrases alternating between Grand- orgne (Great) and Recit (Swell). This leads without pause to the “gothic minuet" (!) where, once again, phrases are echoed between manuals, and after a rhythmic intensification the initial strain returns triumphant. The sentimentality of the ensuing movement-whose title may be translated as either “Prayer at Notre- Dame [cathedral]” or “Prayer to Our Lady”-is perhaps a bit treacly, and the pomposity of the concluding Toccata harks back to Lefebure-Wely, but the music still displays a staying power that has utterly confounded its detractors. Program notes by Scott Cantrell ®1980 The Artist John Rose is known to concert audiences throughout the United States and Canada and has made frequent performance trips to Europe where he has been presented at Notre Dame de Paris, Westminster Abbey and other celebrated cathedrals. He is widely noted for his performances of the French Romantic era organ composers, as when a Melbourne. Australia, critic hailed “one of the most stimulating concerts of romantic organ music we have been privi- leged to hear in this city....This was our civic organ’s finest hour!” (Victorian Organ Journal). From 1968 to 1977 John Rose was organist of the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Newark, N.J., and since 1977 has been Artist-in-Residence and College Organist at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut.



LP406