PHI
CD 218: French Organ Music from Chester Cathedral
Philip Rushforth - organ
Quatrième Symphonie
(Op 32) Louis Vierne (1870 - 1937)
[1] Prélude [2] Allegro [3] Menuet [4] Romance [5] Final
[6] Arabesque (24 Pièces en style libre) (Op 31) Louis Vierne
Symphonie-Passion (Op 23)
Marcel Dupré (1886 - 1971)
[7] Le Monde dans l'attente du Sauveur [8] Nativité [9]
Crucifixion
[10] Résurrection
TOTAL PLAYING TIME: 68.50
Released 6/3/07
Recorded on the evenings of 23 &
24 October 2006 at Chester Cathedral.
Console assistant: Ian Roberts. Recording sessions produced by
Roger Fisher.
Recorded & produced by Martin Monkman, Amphion Recordings.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Philip Rushforth and Amphion Recordings wish to thank the Dean
and Chapter of Chester Cathedral, and the administrative staff
and vergers, for their unstinting support and help which ensured
that the recording sessions were a pleasure for us all; David
Wells Organ Builders of Liverpool for their care in ensuring that
the organ was in the best possible condition for these recordings;
David Sanger for his advice on the score of Vierne's Fourth Symphony;
John Naylor and the Falcon Inn at Hinstock.
Philip Rushforth would also like to thank his wife, Louise, for
her endless support and encouragement.
PHILIP
RUSHFORTH
Philip Rushforth began his musical training as a chorister at
Chester Cathedral where he began learning the organ with the Cathedral
Organist, Roger Fisher. In 1991 he went up to Trinity College,
Cambridge, as Organ Scholar under Dr Richard Marlow. At Trinity
he broadcast and recorded frequently with the world famous college
choir, and toured with them extensively in Europe, Canada and
the USA. Organ studies continued with David Sanger.
Graduating in 1994, he took up the post of Assistant Organist
at Southwell Minster and became the first director of the Southwell
Minster Chorale. For eight years he directed the choir in Southwell
and further afield.
Active as a recitalist, he has performed throughout the country
and at many cathedrals and concert halls, including Westminster
Cathedral, St Paul's Cathedral, and King's College, Cambridge.
In September 2000 he was a finalist in the prestigious Royal College
of Organists' Performer of the Year Award, performing the Poulenc
Organ Concerto with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, which was
broadcast on BBC Radio 3. He won many recital awards, including
performing at St John's, Smith Square and at the Dublin International
Organ and Choral Festival. Invitations to Italy have seen him
perform in two International Organ Festivals in Cantu and Senigallia.
In September 2002 he returned to Chester Cathedral as Assistant
Director of Music. He works closely with the cathedral choirs
and, in addition to the daily worship of the cathedral, regularly
directs them in concert, on CD, Radio 3 and Radio 4's Daily Service.
He also organises the weekly organ recital series at the cathedral,
performing regularly as a recitalist. He is in constant demand
as an accompanist and soloist, both on organ and piano, performing
with the Chester Music Society and Chester Bach Choir, and has
appeared in the Chester Summer Music Festival and International
Church Music Festival.
This is his first recording for AMPHION having previously recorded
works by Hovland, Lemare, Swayne, Vierne, and Whitlock for the
OxRecs label.
PROGRAMME NOTES
As with so many of the famous Parisian organists, Louis Vierne
and Marcel Dupré are inextricably linked. César
Franck (1822 - 1890), with whom the renaissance of French organ
music began, and the first composer to utilize the potentials
of the symphonic organ, taught Vierne at the Paris Conservatoire,
albeit for just a few months. Charles-Marie Widor (1844 - 1937)
took over as teacher and also taught Dupré. In turn, Dupré
became Vierne's pupil.
Vierne was born in Poitiers in 1870. He was partially blind from
birth, and completely so towards the end of his life. In 1892
he became Widor's assistant at Saint-Sulpice, Paris, and in 1900
he became Organiste Titulaire of Notre-Dame, a post that he held
until his death, on the organ bench, in 1937. In 1906 an accident
in a Paris street led to a lengthy period of unhappiness. His
marriage was annulled in 1909 and his youngest son became ill,
dying four years later. His mother and his friend, Alexandre Guilmant,
died in 1911.
The Fourth Symphony in G minor is dedicated to the American organist
William C. Carl and dates from this difficult period in Vierne's
life. Begun in 1914, the Great War had just erupted. (In those
early years of the war he was to lose both his brother Réné
and another son, Jacques). An ominous repeated G begins the Prélude
and an austere theme [A] containing four pairs of chromatic notes,
two ascending and two descending, is heard containing material
which underlines the whole work. Twice, a more calming theme [B]
announced on the Swell Trompette, interrupts the restless chromatic
theme. The following Allegro, strong and confident in mood, is
based on the Trompette theme [B]. A fugal passage is heard built
from the theme and it is also heard in inversion. A triumphant
passage, with arch-like phrases, concludes the movement in a blazing
G major.
The Menuet is far removed from the horrors of war and uses entirely
new material. A charming theme heard on the Hautbois (in the remote
key of E major) leads to the trio section, where again the Trompette
is heard. As expected, the graceful Menuet returns after the trio.
The haunting atmosphere of the Prélude and its main theme
[A] interrupts the beautiful and tender melody heard at the outset
of the Romance. After this recollection of the turbulent times
through which Vierne was living, the mood of the Romance returns
in the tonic key of D flat. The sustained pedal notes and rippling
left hand give a luminous quality to the serene ending.
In the Final we return to intense rhythmic and harmonic drive
as themes [A] and [B], mirroring the first movement, are combined
in an exciting Allegro. The original theme ends the movement,
but as a series of slow chords, followed by four repeated chords
of G major, echoing the opening bars of the first movement.
The 24 Pièces en style libre also date from 1914. Although
Vierne envisaged that they be played at the Offertory during Mass,
so varied are they in style that Vierne obviously intended them
for non-liturgical use as well. The Arabesque (No 15) is one of
the most interesting from a stylistic point of view. The florid
melody, heard above a static harmonic accompaniment, is full of
unexpected melodic intervals reminiscent of Maurice Ravel
(1875 - 1937, nearly an exact contemporary of Vierne) and a foretaste,
perhaps, of some passages in Olivier Messiaen's (1908 - 1992)
organ music. After a more chordal central section, complete with
faint echoes of the melody, there is a return of the opening.
The sublime ending is full of repose, but is, however, not resolved.
Marcel Dupré (1886 1971), born in Rouen, heard Widor
play when he was just four years old, vowing then to become an
organist and many years later succeeded him as organist of Saint-Sulpice
in 1934. Dupré became well known in Britain during the
first-world war when, during a four year absence by Vierne, he
was acting organist at Notre-Dame, Paris. Thereafter, his life
was spent in teaching (he was Organ Professor at the Conservatoire
in Paris, and eventually its Director) and recital tours. His
first recital in Britain was given at the Royal Albert Hall in
1920, and he came to play in Chester Cathedral on two occasions
in 1922, when the cathedral was seen to be 'thronged from end
to end' with spectators.
In December 1921 an improvisation given by Dupré on the
six manual organ in the Wanamaker store in Philadelphia saw the
birth of the Symphonie-Passion. Having been offered several plainsong
melodies, he decided to improvise an organ symphony of four movements
depicting the life of Jesus Christ; 'The world awaiting the saviour',
'Nativity', 'Crucifixion' and 'Resurrection'. The improvisation
was greeted with such acclaim that he undertook to write the work
down, but it was not until October 1924 that the work was heard
again in Westminster Cathedral. Understandably, Dupré admitted
that the improvisation and final version of the symphony were
different. For example, speaking to Jeanne Demessieux in reference
to the first movement, he said that the essence of the earlier
improvisation was there, but that the end was different.
'Le monde dans l'attente du Sauveur' portrays a world of restless
souls awaiting the birth of the Saviour, but gives way to the
Christmas Hymn Jesu Redemptor omnium as a second subject. The
opening music returns, and after an enormous crescendo, we again
hear the plainsong, this time in canon between the treble and
bass and ending in a series of massive chords.
'Nativité' opens with a lullaby, the Virgin rocking her
child, oriental in flavour, leading to a March of the Shepherds
to Bethlehem. Finally, Adeste fidelis is presented before two
distant angelic Alleluias complete the movement.
The halting steps of Jesus Christ are harrowingly portrayed in
'Crucifixion', depicting the agony of his suffering. With the
use of ostinato rhythms throughout, the procession to Golgotha
culminates with the three nails being hammered in and the Cross
hauled upright in some of the most shattering music in the organ
repertoire. Descending chords, successively softer, ending with
a single soft pedal note, represent Christ's death. The closing
Stabat Mater dolorosa illustrates 'the bleak, frozen image of
the sorrowing mother', as described by Olivier Messiaen.
'Résurrection', a vast crescendo, is based on the Eucharistic
hymn Adoro te devote. A gentle beginning builds to the harrowing
of Hell, after which a powerful toccata is heard, the plainsong
resounding in canon between treble and bass, until a huge chordal
climax concludes the symphony.
© Philip Rushforth, 2007