The Genius of Cavaillé-Coll

The Genius of Cavaillé-Coll

The Genius of Cavaillé-Coll celebrates the life and work of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll (1811 – 1899), the great French organ builder whose work inspired the magnificent compositions of the French Romantic Organ School – Franck, Widor, and Guilmant.

“The Genius of Cavaillé-Coll is a triumph – a fascinating and captivating film of huge scope and ambition. Lovers of organ music will be very grateful indeed.”

BBC Music Magazine

“I can unreservedly commend this magnificent production which so eloquently celebrates Cavaillé-Coll, and which lays before us such a glorious banquet of ravishing sounds and images.”

The Organists’ Review

Best DVD Documentary – BBC Music Magazine Awards 2014

The Genius of Cavaillé-Coll celebrates the life and work of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll (1811 – 1899), the great French organ builder whose work inspired the magnificent compositions of the French Romantic Organ School – Franck, Widor, and Guilmant.

The centrepiece of this lavish boxed-set is a three-part, 156-minute documentary about Cavaillé-Coll’s life and work. Two further DVDs include demonstrations of fifteen organs and more than three hours of music (all recorded in full surround sound). Two CDs feature a survey of French organ music from 1830 to 1900. An 80-page booklet contains specifications and colour photos of all the organs, track details and an introductory essay.

  • 5 Disc Pack: 3 x DVD, 2 x CD
  • 80 Page full-colour booklet containing organ specifications and photos
  • 16:9 Widescreen
  • Region Free NTSC DVD, will play anywhere in the world
  • DTS Digital Surround 96/24™ 2.0 / 4.0 / 5.1 (96kHz 24bit playback on compatible equipment, compatible with all DTS equipment for 48kHz playback)
  • Dolby Digital Surround 2.0
  • All music recorded by ‘BBC Music Technical Excellence’ award winning engineer, David Hinitt.
  • Languages: English and Français
  • Subtitles: English, Français, Deutsch
  • DVD1 The Genius of Cavaillé-Coll (Three-Part Documentary – 156 minutes)
  • DVD2 The Organs of Cavaillé-Coll (Demonstrations and Music – 202 minutes)
  • DVD3 Après Cavaillé-Coll (Demonstrations and Music – 139 minutes)
  • CD 1 and 2 The Sounds of Cavaillé-Coll (Music – 142 minutes)

Basilique-Cathédrale de Saint-Denis (1840)
Gerard Brooks

Alexandre-Pierre François Boëly 1785 – 1858
Fantaisie and Fugue in B flat major

Saint-Louis, Bédarieux (1843)
Gerard Brooks

François Benoist 1794 – 1878
Andantino in C minor
Élévation in D major (4e Suite)

Charles-Alexandre Fessy 1804 – 1856
Offertoire in F major

Cathédrale Sainte-Croix d’Orléans, orgue de choeur (1846)
Jean-Pierre Griveau

César Franck 1822 – 1890
From L’organiste
Quasi Andante in D major
Lento in C-sharp minor
Poco Allegro in F-sharp minor

Henri Victor Tournaillon 1832 – 1887
Introduction and March in D major

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Saint-Omer (1855)
David Noël-Hudson

César Franck 1822 – 1890
Fantaisie in C major

Saint-Louis d’Antin, Paris (1858)
David Noël-Hudson

César Franck 1822 – 1890
Prière

Saint-Sulpice, Paris (1862)
Daniel Roth

Camille Saint-Saëns 1835 – 1921
Prelude and Fugue in B major

Saint-Maurice de Bécon, Courbevoie (1865)
Thomas Monnet

Louis-James-Alfred Lefébure-Wély 1817 – 1869
Sortie in E-flat major

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris (1868)
Olivier Latry

Louis Vierne 1870 – 1937
Carillon de Westminster

Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Long-sur-Somme (1877)
Kurt Lueders

Alexandre Guilmant 1837 – 1911
Fugue alla Handel

Cathédrale Sainte-Croix d’Orléans, grand-orgue (1880)
Gerard Brooks

Charles-Marie Widor 1844 – 1937
Intermezzo from Symphony no. 6

Saint-Etienne, Elbeuf, orgue de choeur (1882)
Kurt Lueders

Léon Boëllmann 1862 – 1897
From Vingt-six Versets Posthumes
Allegro in C major
Moderato in C minor
Lento in A minor
Andantino in D-flat major

Basilique Saint-Sernin, Toulouse (1889)
Michel Bouvard

Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens 1823 – 1881
Prélude à 5 parties
Alexandre Guilmant 1837 – 1911
Finale from Sonata no. 3
Louis Vierne 1870 – 1937
Stèle pour un Enfant Défunt

Saint-Ouen, Rouen (1890)
Gerard Brooks

Charles-Marie Widor 1844 – 1937
Theme and Variations from Symphony no. 5

Saint-Rémy, Selongey (1893)
Carolyn Shuster Fournier

Charles-Alexis Chauvet 1837 – 1871
Prélude
Andantino
Théodore Salomé 1834 – 1896
Pièce en forme de canon

Saint-Antoine des Quinze-Vingts, Paris (1894)
David Noël-Hudson

César Franck 1822 – 1890
Fantaisie in A major

Part 1 1811 – 1840

Chapter 1 Grandson of a Classical Organ Builder
Chapter 2 Saint-Denis
Chapter 3 The Resistance of Air
Chapter 4 Cavaillé-Coll the Man

Part 2 1840 – 1862

Chapter 1 Danjou Attacks
Chapter 2 Napoleon III and a New Vision of France
Chapter 3 Cavaillé-Coll and the Salon Organ
Chapter 4 Lefébure-Wély and Lemmens
Chapter 5 Franck and the Orchestral Organ
Chapter 6 The 100-Stop Organ

Part 3 1862 – 1899

Chapter 1 Widor
Chapter 2 Grandeur at Notre Dame; Grand Ideas for the Vatican
Chapter 3 Industrialisation and Riches; German Influence and German War
Chapter 4 The Symphonic Organ & A Project for Rome
Chapter 5 Bankrupts and Oligarchs
Chapter 6 Eternity

Basilique-Cathédrale de Saint-Denis (1840)
Gerard Brooks

Alexandre-Pierre François Boëly 1785 – 1858
Fantasia on the Verset Judex Crederis from the Te Deum

Saint-Louis, Bédarieux (1843)
Gerard Brooks

Demonstration of organ by Gerard Brooks
François Benoist 1794 – 1878
Grand Choeur in C major
Allegretto in B-flat major

Cathédrale Sainte-Croix d’Orléans, orgue de choeur (1846)
Jean-Pierre Griveau

Demonstration of organ by Jean-Pierre Griveau
César Franck 1822 – 1890
From L’organiste
Poco Andantino in D-flat major
Andantino in F-sharp minor
Quasi Allegro in D major

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Saint-Omer (1855)
David Noël-Hudson

Demonstration of organ by David Noël-Hudson
César Franck 1822 – 1890
Final

Saint-Louis d’Antin, Paris (1858)
David Noël-Hudson

Demonstration of organ by David Noël-Hudson
César Franck 1822 – 1890
Prélude, Fugue et Variation

Saint-Sulpice, Paris (1862)
Daniel Roth

Charles-Marie Widor 1844 – 1937
Marcia from Symphony 3

Saint-Maurice de Bécon, Courbevoie (1865)
Thomas Monnet

Demonstration of organ by Thomas Monnet
Franz Liszt 1811 – 1886
Fantasia and Fugue on “Ad nos, ad salutarem Undam”

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris (1868)
Olivier Latry

Louis Vierne 1870 – 1937
Impromptu

Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Long-sur-Somme (1877)
Kurt Lueders

Demonstration of organ by Kurt Lueders
Alexandre Guilmant 1837 – 1911
Fugue alla Handel

Cathédrale Sainte-Croix d’Orléans, grand-orgue (1880)
Gerard Brooks

Demonstration of organ by Jean-Pierre Griveau, Kurt Lueders and Gerard Brooks
Charles-Marie Widor 1844 – 1937
Cantabile from Symphony no. 6

Saint-Etienne, Elbeuf, orgue de choeur (1882)

Demonstration of organ by Kurt Lueders
Kurt Lueders

Léon Boëllmann 1862 – 1897
Andantino in C major
Allegro ben Marcato in D minor

Basilique Saint-Sernin, Toulouse (1889)
Michel Bouvard

Demonstration of organ including a presentation on Widor’s Toccata by Michel Bouvard
Louis Vierne 1870 – 1837
Adagio from Symphony no. 3

Saint-Ouen, Rouen (1890)
Gerard Brooks

Demonstration of organ by Gerard Brooks
Charles-Marie Widor 1844 – 1937
Toccata from Symphony no. 5

Saint-Rémy, Selongey (1893)
(orgue de salon de Charles-Marie Widor, construit par Gabriel Cavaillé-Coll)
Carolyn Shuster Fournier

Demonstration of organ by Carolyn Shuster Fournier
Charles-Marie Widor 1844 – 1937
Andante Sostenuto from Symphony no. 9

Saint-Antoine des Quinze-Vingts, Paris (1894)
(orgue de salon du baron Albert de l’Espée)
David Noël-Hudson

Demonstration of organ by Eric Lebrun
César Franck 1822 – 1890
Cantabile

Cathédrale Sainte-Croix d’Orléans, grand-orgue (1880)
Jean-Pierre Griveau

Jean-Pierre Griveau 1968 –
Quatre Variations sur le nom de Cavaillé-Coll

Commissioned by le père François Marchal and premiered by Carolyn Shuster Fournier on Friday, October 9, 1998, for the centennial concert of the Cavaillé-Coll organ in Saint-Sever.

Maurice Duruflé 1902 – 1986
Variations on Veni Creator

Basilique Saint-Sernin, Toulouse (1889)
Michel Bouvard

Jean Bouvard 1905 – 1996
Variations sur un Vieux Noël Français
Variations sur un Noël Jaon Handiak
Variations sur un Noël Provençal

Basilique-Cathédrale de Saint-Denis (1840)
Pierre Pincemaille

Demonstration of organ including improvisations by Pierre Pincemaille

Saint-Sulpice, Paris (1862)
Daniel Roth

Demonstration of organ including improvisations by Daniel Roth

Improvisation

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris (1868)
Olivier Latry

Demonstration of organ including improvisations by Olivier Latry

Improvisation

 

To mark the 200th anniversary of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll’s birth, and the 150th anniversary of his organ at St Sulpice, Paris, in 2012, Fugue State Films plans to produce a DVD / CD boxed set containing the first ever full-length documentary about his life and work.

Aristide Cavaillé-Coll was the greatest organ builder of the 19th century and also probably the most famous of all organ builders. Creator of such instruments as those in St Sulpice, Paris, St Ouen, Rouen, he devised a new way of building organs that led directly to the development of the French Romantic school of organ composition. Franck, Widor, Vierne and all their contemporaries and followers were directly inspired by the sounds and possibilities of Cavaillé-Coll’s organs. They composed pieces that pushed the boundaries of composition for the instrument and are now at the very heart of the organ repertoire. This music is indivisible from the organs of Cavaillé-Coll. Each is made for the other.

The documentary will be accompanied by a plethora of recordings and filmed performances of magnificent works by Franck, Saint-Saëns, Guilmant, Boëllmann, Widor and Vierne on a superb selection of Cavaillé-Coll’s best organs – expect to see St Sulpice, St Ouen, St Sernin, and more. The performances will be given by the very best players – expect to see famous French titulaires as well as leading English organist Gerard Brooks. As well, a fully illustrated booklet will include photos, details and specifications of all the organs and essays about the composers and music.

Saint SulpiceFugue State Films is the company to make this project happen – no-one else has our track record. We have established ourselves as the leading producer of films about the organ. Films such as Martinikerk Rondeau, and boxed sets such as The Art of Fugue and The Elusive English Organ have garnered excellent reviews. This eagerly anticipated new production about Cavaillé-Coll will be our largest and grandest production thus far.

 

Organists:
Michel Bouvard
Gerard Brooks
Jean-Pierre Griveau
Olivier Latry
Kurt Lueders
Thomas Monnet
David Noël-Hudson
Pierre Pincemaille
Daniel Roth
Carolyn Shuster-Fournier

Improvisations by:
Olivier Latry
Pierre Pincemaille
Daniel Roth
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Organs:
Basilique-Cathédrale de Saint-Denis (1840)
Saint-Louis, Bédarieux (1843)
Cathédrale Sainte-Croix d’Orléans, orgue de choeur (1846)
Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Saint-Omer (1855)
Saint-Louis d’Antin, Paris (1858)
Saint-Sulpice, Paris (1862)
Saint-Maurice de Bécon, Courbevoie (1865)
Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris (1868)
Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Long-sur-Somme (1877)
Cathédrale Sainte-Croix d’Orléans, grand-orgue (1880)
Saint-Etienne, Elbeuf, orgue de choeur (1882)
Basilique Saint-Sernin, Toulouse (1889)
Saint-Ouen, Rouen (1890)
Saint-Rémy, Selongey (1893)
Saint-Antoine des Quinze-Vingts, Paris (1894)

Music by:
François Benoist 1794 – 1878
Alexandre-Pierre François Boëly 1785 – 1858
Léon Boëllmann 1862 – 1897
Jean Bouvard 1905 – 1996
Charles-Alexis Chauvet 1837 – 1871
Maurice Duruflé 1902 – 1986
Charles-Alexandre Fessy 1804 – 1856
César Franck 1822 – 1890
Jean-Pierre Griveau 1968 –
Alexandre Guilmant 1837 – 1911
Louis-James-Alfred Lefébure-Wély 1817 – 1869
Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens 1823 – 1881
Franz Liszt 1811 – 1886
Camille Saint-Saens 1835 – 1921
Théodore Salomé 1834 – 1896
Henri Victor Tournaillon 1832 – 1887
Louis Vierne 1870 – 1937
Charles-Marie Widor 1844 – 1937
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Gerard Brooks is one of the foremost performers and interpreters of French Romantic organ music. A concert organist and teacher of wide experience, he studied music as Organ Scholar at Lincoln College, Oxford and then won the Stephen Arlen Memorial Award which enabled him to study with Daniel Roth in France where he was also active as an accompanist and tutor. He also studied with John Webster, Susi Jeans and Nicolas Kynaston. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists and was the first recipient of the Forsyth-Grant/Hurford Travelling Scholarship awarded by the RCO.

In April 2008, he took up the post of Director of Music at Methodist Central Hall, Westminster. Previous to this, he was for twenty years Associate Director of Music at the world-famous church of All Souls, Langham Place in London, where he was in charge of the choir and regularly conducted instrumental ensembles; he is the composer or arranger of many religious works for choir and orchestra.

Gerard is a Tutor for the St. Giles International Organ School and Latymer Upper School, professor of organ and improvisation at the Royal Academy of Music and Director of the London Organ Improvisation Course. He has become particularly associated with French repertoire and has contributed many articles to musical journals as well as writing the chapter on French and Belgian organ music for the Cambridge Companion to the Organ. His acclaimed recordings on the Priory label have all been broadcast on national radio and he has recorded the complete works of Eugène Gigout. The first volume of the series was voted an Editor’s Choice in the May 2002 edition of Gramophone magazine.

He has taught and played on the Edinburgh Organ Academy and the RSCM London organ week, as well as running the London Organ Improvisation Course. Concerts in recent years have taken him to England, Scotland, France, Germany and Yale University in the USA.

Gerard has also had close association with schools: for five years he taught class music in a state secondary school, and it was here that he began to write and perform musicals with the children he taught. ‘Nativity News’ is published by Boosey & Hawkes and has received many performances throughout the country. His most recent schools work ‘David vs. Goliath’ has also been performed several times.

This article by Will Fraser appeared in the December 2011 edition of The Organists’ Review.

2011 is the 200th anniversary of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll’s birth. 2012 is the 150th anniversary of the completion of his organ at St Sulpice, an instrument that the late Stephen Bicknell described as the best organ in the world. Whether or not one thinks that Cavaillé-Coll is the greatest of all organ builders, or that one or other of his instruments is the greatest organ ever built, there is no doubt that he is a figure of monumental importance in the history of the organ and its music. As such, we decided to make a documentary about him to mark the anniversaries of 2011 and 2012. We raised the money to do this by pre-selling DVDs, which are still available on our website. The project went into production on September 12, filming at St Ouen in Rouen, and will continue with filming and recording in October and November. This article describes the project and the exacting but exciting challenge of filming and recording at St Ouen, where history looks over your shoulder as you work.

Cavaillé-Coll

It may be best first to establish a few brief facts about Cavaillé-Coll. He was from a family of organ builders, and so it was natural for him to assume that trade. However, he came of age in the 1830s, a period which was not a good time for organ building in France. The secularisation and upheaval of the revolutionary period had stopped organ music in its tracks, especially as the eighteenth century style of French organ music was very much a style of the ancien regime. Therefore Cavaillé-Coll had two great challenges – to develop a new kind of organ, and to ensure that music would be written for and performed on these instruments.

With his background and education in organ building and his technical aptitude, the first of these challenges was relatively easy for him. His first major commission at the age of only thirty was the organ of St Denis in Paris. When he finished the organ some years later he had emerged as a fully-fledged master. There are some conservative aspects to this instrument. It was originally tuned in meantone and retained some elements of the French classical organ such as a small recit division. But essentially it was a bold step in a new direction. Through the use of pneumatic Barker levers that assist the tracker action, he was able to make a three manual mechanical action organ with a very large number of stops – 69 in total. He introduced his groundbreaking system of divided windchests controlled by ventils. He divided manual divisions over more than one windchest, with the reeds and mixtures on one and the foundations on another. Above the pedalboard are ventils, very like composition pedals, and by depressing these the organist is able to switch on, as it were, different wind chests. Therefore one can draw stops – the reeds and mixtures say – but only activate them when you want to by pressing the pedal. As such, this system is a precursor to the pistons with which we are all familiar, and meant that the organist could control the dynamics of what he played without an assistant.

Between 1840 and 1870 Cavaillé-Coll’s style went through various changes as his career developed. He turned the French classical recit into a full swell division based on 16-foot reeds. He moved away from having two different choruses on the grand orgue – a grand jeu and a plan jeu – and created a single chorus with progressive mixtures. He developed colourful stops that inspired the comment of Franck – “my organ is an orchestra.” After the Franco-Prussian War he returned to using classically inspired repeating mixtures, but combined this with designing the organ as one monumental block, rather than a collection of manual divisions, and adding new colour stops – quintatons and clarinets for instance – to create the symphonic organ. These instruments, built in the 1880s and 90s, include St Etienne, Caen, Orleans Cathedral, and St Ouen, Rouen.

The second of Cavaillé-Coll’s challenges, overcoming the fact that no organ music was being written that matched his organs – took longer. It is a testimony to his character that he allowed years for the completion of this goal. He took young composers under his wing – principally Franck, Widor and Guilmant – and arranged educational and professional opportunities for them as organists. They, captivated by the sound and resources of his instruments, went on to create a new and vibrant school of organ music.

It is worth stating that none of them may have written their famous organ works if it wasn’t for the inspiration of Cavaillé-Coll’s organs. Widor said as much. They all had plenty of other fields in which they worked – only ten percent of Widor’s compositions were for the organ – and could have had perfectly fulfilled careers without writing a note of organ music.

As a result of this patronage, Cavaillé-Coll can claim not only to have revitalised and revolutionised organ design, but also to have started a new school of organ music composition. What other organ builder can claim this?

The Film

The goal of the project The Organs of Cavaillé-Coll is to make the first documentary film about the life of Cavaillé-Coll, and to augment this with both recordings and filmed performances of the music directly related to him and his organs on about ten of his best instruments. These will include both famous organs such as St Sulpice and less famous but important organs such as St Louis D’Antin. The resulting CDs and DVD will be packaged together with a detailed booklet. The resulting boxed set will aim to do justice to this remarkable and important man.

Such a project needs a very good team of people to be involved. The presenter of the film, and the organist for much of the recording, is Gerard Brooks, a superb player and authority on the repertoire and history. Our main scholarly contributor is Kurt Leuders, an American based in Paris who is in charge of the Cavaillé-Coll Association and is the foremost scholar on the subject.

We also will involve where possible some of the best French organists, including Daniel Roth and others.

St Ouen, Rouen

The first location for filming and recording was St Ouen, Rouen. I had never been to Rouen before, so I was entranced by the lovely medieval cobbled streets filled with characterful half-timbered houses. The spire of the city’s large cathedral dominates these streets, but Rouen also boasts a cathedral-sized abbatial church – St Ouen. The building is massive – 137 metres long and with a vault 33 metres high. To put that in perspective, it’s a couple of metres longer and the roof is some eight metres higher than Salisbury Cathedral. As you enter into the south transept, your eye is immediately drawn upwards towards a lovely rose window with multi-coloured glass. The church is flooded with light from dozens of other stained glass windows twenty metres in the air, and the sun projects multi-coloured pools of light from these that move around the walls and floor as the day goes by.

However, the place is rather neglected. Every surface is dusty. The altars in the side chapels are decaying. Pigeons and bats live inside the building – if you looked up at more or less any point one or two pigeons would usually be flying the length of the nave, and they were replaced by bats as darkness fell. Unfortunately there are obvious results – you find dead bats all over the place and the organ is covered in pigeon droppings. Perhaps if it was in England the church would be cleaner, and would be filled with volunteers, tourists, brass-rubbing enthusiasts, and would have a teashop, choral foundation and such. But in its present state it is nothing if not atmospheric.

At the west end, beneath another bright blue rose window, sits the organ built by Cavaillé-Coll in 1890. This instrument is from the final period of his career, when he built organs in a symphonic style, and was immediately recognised as a masterpiece. Widor described it as ‘a Michelangelo of an organ’ and dedicated his ninth symphony, the Gothique, to it. It is an instrument that combines awesome power with heart and a beautiful array of colour. All of these are amplified by the cavernous acoustic of the building.

The organ has a number of peculiarities. The lowest keyboard is the positif, not the grand orgue as one might expect, and there is no recit to positif coupler; instead there is the rather more idiosyncratic positif to recit coupler. The grand orgue is divided over two manuals – the two foot, mixtures and reeds are playable from the fourth manual. The windchests of these two divisions are next to each other, and the divisions work together as a unit. Effectively it is a three manual organ with four keyboards.

Cavaillé-Coll was always happy to reuse good quality older material in his organs. Here, the case dates from 1630, and many of the pipes date from between 1630 and 1890. However Cavaillé-Coll did add the curved mouldings at the top of the grand orgue and positif, which give the case much of its character.

The sound of the organ is staggering. The tutti, complete with en chamade reeds, is vast and complex, and combines to beautiful effect with the acoustic. The recit is enclosed in an enormous swell box, and the huge area of shutters allows for a vast dynamic range from ppp to fff.

Recording

The organ has a reputation for being difficult to record. This is because the acoustic of St Ouen is so huge that the sound of the organ quickly loses focus and, at its worst, becomes something of a mush. As a listener in the building, one’s powers of perception can overcome this to some degree. For instance you actually feel the vibrations caused by the music. Therefore you can perceive greater clarity than a microphone can pick up. The challenge of making a recording in such a church is to keep the monumental acoustic and sense of scale, to retain the enormous power of the organ, but also to keep clarity so that the music always shines through.

One of our goals with this project is to record these organs to a standard that has not been achieved before. As such we said to our engineer, Dave Hinitt, that earth-shattering, cataclysmic or titanic sound would not be good enough. We wanted results that would be truly apocalyptic.

Dave’s approach to audio is refreshing and very sophisticated. Many engineers simply throw up one mic-stand with a pair of microphones, on the basis that people have two ears, therefore two mics will do, and on the assumption that there is one optimum place to hear the organ from.

However, microphones are not very much like ears, and crucially, mics do not have a brain – we are able to perceive sound in a far more complicated way than any audio equipment can reproduce it. Also, there are many optimum places to listen to an organ from, and what may be the best place to hear the colossal 32-foot bombarde is perhaps not the best place to hear the high sounds of the mixtures. Furthermore, a person hears an organ in surround sound, and to achieve a surround sound mix you need more than a pair of mics.

Therefore we adopted a plan to use many mics – 22 in total. In addition to a boom that was close to the organ, several mics were placed close to it on the organ gallery. A good battery of mics were placed in the nave, midfield as it were, and a final pair in the far distance completed the room ambiance that a building this size requires.

Therefore mics covered every valuable position that you would want to hear the organ from. We can therefore create a mix that properly represents the organ in all its complexity. There will be the option of 5.1 surround sound on the DVD.

Filming

We arrived in Rouen just after Gerard had given a recital at St Ouen. He has also recorded on the organ before. He was as always inspired by the wonderful expressive and musical possibilities of the instrument, but was aware of the difficulties involved in playing it. It has never been restored, so anything can go wrong mechanically at any moment. Luckily, the organ builder who maintains the instrument would be present for all of the recording. But it is also a difficult instrument to control – Gerard would need two registrands, one on each side. We needed to adopt a workflow that would take account of the challenges of performing on the organ, but would allow Gerard to produce the best performances he could. We decided that we would record everything first as a straightforward CD session, and then perform everything a second time on camera as a separate live performance. This means that the CD and DVD will have two different and distinct performances of the works.

The CD would aim for Gerard’s fullest interpretation of the piece, with editing available to allow the very best takes to be cut together. The DVD would capture the drama and verve of a live performance.

Music

Albert Schweitzer wrote in his memoirs the following about Widor’s feelings about the role of the organist: ‘Organ playing,’ Widor once said to me on the organ bench at Notre-Dame as the rays of the setting sun streamed through the dusk of the nave in transfigured peace, ‘is the manifestation of a will filled with a vision of eternity. All organ instruction, both technical and artistic, has as its aim only to educate a man to this pure manifestation of the higher will. This will, expressed by the organist in the objectivity of his organ, should overwhelm the hearer. He who cannot master the great, concentrated will in the theme of a Bach fugue – so that even the thoughtless hearer cannot escape from it, but even after the second measure grasps and comprehends it whether he will or not-he who cannot command this concentrated, peaceful will imparting itself so powerfully, may be a great artist in spite of this but is not a born organist. He has mistaken his instrument; for the organ represents the rapprochement of the human spirit to the eternal, imperishable spirit, and it is estranged from its nature and its place as soon as it becomes the expression of the subjective spirit.’

In this context, it is not quite enough to say that Cavaillé-Coll’s symphonic organs are particularly suitable for the music of Widor. With the above quote in mind, we wanted to find an organ and acoustic where we could record Widor’s fifth symphony with the aim of making time stand still and imbuing his music with a sense of the eternal. St Ouen is the perfect location. To take just one example, the broken chord figuration in the famous Toccata produces the most beautiful ripples in the acoustic as if the music and acoustic are in perfect harmony. We also recorded the Trois Pièces by Franck, published within a year of the Widor and a very interesting comparison. The final section of the Pièce Heroique sounds truly monumental in St Ouen. In the pauses between the chordal statements the echo of the music goes on and on. Time really does seem to stand still.

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous?

Cavaillé-Coll built upwards of 500 organs, and maintained an extraordinarily consistent level of high quality. The small organs he built are built to the same standards as the huge organs. The day after finishing recording and filming at St Ouen we drove to Elbeuf, a town just south of Rouen, to film and record an orgue de choeur with just one manual and seven stops, built in 1882. This was an example of a type of mass-produced organ that you could buy from a catalogue with a choice of facades. Cavaillé-Coll built about sixty of them.

It was rather odd to go from a cathedral sized building and an organ on which anything is seemingly possible to a modest church with an organ of the smallest size. But we wanted to take this organ as seriously as the larger instruments, so we duly set up a large battery of microphones to capture the sound of the organ absolutely at its best for a performance of some miniatures by Boëllmann. The music sounded charming, and the performances revealed an organ that although small, was complete. The montre was mature, and with prestant and octavin formed a full chorus. It had both a trompette and hautbois, and a divided keyboard allowed the use of solo stops. The tone of the organ filled the church – there was nothing small about its sound.

As a conclusion, it is wonderful to be impressed by superb works of art such as the organ at St Ouen. However, the reality for most people is that their parish will only have a modest church and a modest organ. I find it very impressive that Cavaillé-Coll put so much care into the production of tiny instruments for insignificant parishes, because it says something about his humanity. He was not a man who was only interested in big projects for important clients. He maintained his standards for all of his commissions. He created the instruments and inspired the composition of music that allowed high quality music-making to be present everywhere from the smallest parish to the largest cathedral. It is no surprise that 200 years after his birth we are still inspired by this great man. I look forward to discovering more about him as we continue filming and recording The Organs of Cavaillé-Coll.

£78.50

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