Widor on Organ Performance, Practice and Technique

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Notes

1 William J. Gatens (1989), ‘Reviews of Books,’ Music and Letters, vol. 70/1, 120.

2 Andrew Thomson. (1987), Widor: The Life and Times of Charles-Marie Widor, 1844-1937. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

3 John R. Near. (2011), Widor: A Life Beyond the Toccata. Rochester, New York: University of Rochester Press.

4 Near, Organ Performance, 115.

5 Rollin Smith. (1999), Louis Vierne: Organist of Notre Dame Cathedral. Hillsdale, New York State: Pendragon Press, 35.

6 Near, Organ Performance, xvii; Albert Schweitzer. (1911), (trans. Ernest Newman), J.S. Bach. New York City: Macmillan, 2 vols., vol. 1, x.

7 Near, Organ Performance, xvii; Schweitzer, J.S. Bach, vol. 1, ix.

8 Near, Organ Performance, xvii; Fannie E. Thomas, ‘Organ Loft Whisperings,’ Musical Courier 27/26 (27 December 1893), 11.

9 Near, Organ Performance, 7; Charles-Marie Widor. (1914–1916), Jean-Sébastien Bach: Oeuvres complètes pour orgue: Édition critique et pratique en huit volumes, 5 [sic] vols. New York City: Schirmer, vol. 4, 33.

10 Near, Organ Performance, 15–16; Widor, vol. 1, 6–7.

11 Near, Organ Performance, 16; Widor, vol. 4, 14.

12 Near, Organ Performance, 64; Thomas, ‘Organ Loft Whisperings’, 11.

13 Near, Organ Performance, 65; Henri Doyen. (1966), Mes leçons d’orgue avec Louis Vierne. Paris: Musique Sacrée, 14.

14 Near, Organ Performance, 28; Smith, Louis Vierne: Organist of Notre Dame Cathedral, 73.

15 Widor, Jean-Sébastien Bach: Oeuvres complètes pour orgue: Édition critique et pratique en huit volumes, vol. 1, 24.

16 Dupré absorbed Widor’s emphasis upon textural precision, however rich the counterpoint. Sceptics who refuse to credit Dupré’s Bach (French Romantic registrations and all) with the smallest legitimacy should track down his 1954 Saint-Sulpice rendition of the BWV538 Dorian Toccata and Fugue: an LP (Lumen LD-3-106) so obscure that even the Association des Amis de l’Art de Marcel Dupré has yet to include it in its CD reissue list (www.marceldupre.com/boncdefr.php, accessed 25 September 2019), but now improbably available—in part—via YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loDr0m2YmUM). The recorded sound’s vividness, acoustic splendour, and careful microphone placement (free from the oppressive dryness apt to afflict the organist’s American productions) belie the monophonic technology and the passing of 65 years, whilst Dupré’s actual performance remains a marvel. Moderate in tempo with no shortage of grandeur, it nevertheless eschews all sluggishness, and exhibits as much fine polyphonic detail as many a latter-day speed-merchant can manage to convey on a tracker-action machine half the size.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert James Stove

Robert James Stove organist and musicologist, is an Adjunct Research Affiliate at Monash University, and is currently undertaking his PhD in musicology at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, his thesis’s subject being the organ works of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford. His book César Franck: His Life and Times was released by Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland, in 2012; in August 2019 he released the second CD of his organ-playing, Pax Britannica (Ars Organi AOR002), devoted to music by Stanford and other Victorian-Edwardian British composers. Email: [email protected]