French Organ Research Articles

Some Thoughts on the Baroque Organ Suite

This article deals with the Baroque organ suite, which arose in France in the Reign of Louis XIV, when the tradition of publishing organ books was formed. And such books usually consisted of liturgical versets, grouped according to certain church tones. Since the musicological literature does not have a clear understanding of what an organ suite is as a genre, the author decided to clearly differentiate it among organ masses, magnificats and hymns that are similar in structure. In his opinion, an organ suite is an ordered collection of different musical pieces (usually from 6 to 13) in a single tone, without a common liturgical name. In total, there are approximately 75 such suites written by Nivers, Lebègue, Clérambault, Marchand and other masters of the French Baroque, although only a few samples are designated as Suite. Organ suites were not generally characterized by structural unification. However, they usually begin with a piece in the character of a solemn introduction, which is called Prélude or Plein jeu (by type of registration). The second most often is Fugue. Next follows a diverse group of textural and register genres. And as the completion of the entire suite, as a rule, are full-sounded Grand jeu or Plein jeu. At the same time, performance of the suites entirely “in one sitting”, as in modern concert practice, was not intended. French organ suites were addressed primarily to provincial organists, who could use individual pieces both as a guide for their own improvisations, and in the form of already “ready-made” versets for various services. If necessary, they could also combine these pieces, including other music. Therefore, any attempts of modern musicologists to find in the structure of the Baroque organ suite any purely musical meaning and to analyze them on the model of multi-movement compositions of later times have nothing in common with the authentic practice.

A Multi-Dimensional Analysis of a Modernist Work Composed in Captivity: Olivier Messiaen, "Quartet for the End of Time"

French composer Olivier Messiaen, who joined the French army as a medic in the Second World War, was imprisoned by the Germans as a prisoner of war in Görlitz's Stalag VIII A camp in June 1940. Because he did not actively fight in the war as a medic, a German officer sympathized with Messiaen, secretly delivering him paper, pencils and erasers and even having a room in the rectory cleared for him to compose. Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time) was composed in such an environment. The fact that the piece includes a non-standard instrumental combination consisting of piano, cello, violin, and clarinet as a quartet is a result of the existing instruments in the camp and the presence of competent musicians playing them. The structural design of the work includes both musical and mystical qualities on the axis of Messiaen's personal belief. The work, which consists of eight parts in total, symbolizes timelessness, that is, eternity, by depicting the seven days of creation and the eighth day when God rests, as represented in the Bible. The premiere of the work took place on January 15, 1941, in front of an audience of four thousand prisoners and guards. In this article, the non-musical motivations and the composition techniques used in the work titled Quatuor pour la fin du temps are examined in relation to each other. The main purpose of the research is to discover the determining effects of the non-musical motivation, which guides the compositional process of the work, on the musical elements of the work. In addition to some technical aspects such as Indian rhythms/Indian modes, Greek rhythms, medieval classical rhythmic principles, French organ music tradition, synthetic modes/synthetic rhythms, and total serialism, Quatuor pour la fin du temps is also analyzed in terms of phenomena and concepts such as Catholicism, ornithology, and synesthesia. In the Introduction chapter, Messiaen's life is summarized on the basis of his personality as a composer, the compositional process of the Quartet is reviewed in the historical framework, and the research purpose, including the research methods used in this article are explained. In the following chapters, all movements of the Quartet are analyzed one by one. The compositional techniques used by the composer are examined in detail through the written out (text) analysis of the musical passages detailing them with footnotes whenever necessary, and these prose analyses are supported by musical examples of the relevant musical passages quoted from the Quartet’s score. The Conclusion chapter consists of the inferences and evaluations made from the findings.

SAT252 - Liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma with extended criteria: performance and applicability of the AFP score after official adoption by the French Organ Sharing Organization ABM: 5-year outcomes

SAT252 - Liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma with extended criteria: performance and applicability of the AFP score after official adoption by the French Organ Sharing Organization ABM: 5-year outcomes

Неоклассицизм во французском органостроении ХХ века

Неоклассицизм во французском органостроении ХХ века

Widor on Organ Performance, Practice and Technique by John R. Near

Reviewed by: Widor on Organ Performance, Practice and Technique by John R. Near Annette Richards (bio) John R. Near, Widor on Organ Performance, Practice and Technique (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press and Boydell & Brewer, 2019). xvii, 151 pp. Charles-Marie Widor took over the organ class at the Paris Conservatoire on the death of César Franck in 1890. It was an abrupt transition. In place of the kind, saintly, lavishly sideburned “Père Franck,” whose teaching focused largely on improvisation, students found themselves commanded by the martially moustached Widor and his regime of relentless physical discipline, attention to detail, and rigorous technique. Despite the initial shock, the best soon came to revere their new teacher. Among them was Louis Vierne, then a twenty-year-old student in the class who would rise to become the titular organist at Notre Dame in Paris. Vierne reports that Widor did not mince his words: “In France we have neglected performance much too much in favor of improvisation. This is not only wrong, it is nonsense.”1 Organists, just like other musicians, would now be required to learn their instrument’s repertoire, which, in Widor’s view, consisted of a single body of music: “I shall cite only that incomparable miracle, the organ works of Bach, the greatest musician of all time.” Performance of this repertoire demanded the precise observation of every detail and scrupulous dedication to technical perfection: “To interpret Bach’s works in their absolute integrity, it is necessary to have the technique of which I speak. It must be scientific and methodical, not empirical,” Widor insisted.2 Widor turned out to be an inspiring teacher, effectively founding the “French organ school” that would come to dominate much of twentieth-century European and northern American organ culture with a vast and varied repertoire that was virtuosic, erudite, emotionally rich, and sedulously accessible to listeners, nurtured by a remarkable succession of teachers. By the later twentieth century, the monster organs and monstrous virtuosity that seemed to define the French school would be held as the antithesis of the new-old historically informed Bach organ world, with its light and clear sound [End Page 91] ideals, based in the refined instruments of the German eighteenth century and their neo-baroque imitations. Yet, as John R. Near’s book reminds us, Bach was at the heart of the French enterprise. Widor was unequivocal on the matter: “People think of a new French organ school: it is founded on Bach” (11). Why had Widor agreed to take the job at the Conservatoire in 1890? He had, he explained, hesitated before accepting it, but finally “I decided to take it with the determination to restore the level of organ playing in general, and, in particular, to revive the authentic tradition of the interpretation of the works of Bach.”3 Near has done much over a long career to bring the multifaceted Widor, in all his complexity and brilliance, into full color; Near has produced scrupulous, user-friendly editions of Widor’s twelve organ symphonies for A-R Editions, and his 2011 biography Widor: A Life Beyond the Toccata offers an often inspiring portrait of the towering figure who presided over the Conservatoire organ class for more than three decades and over one of the greatest of French organs—that at Paris’s St. Sulpice—for more than six.4 Widor was also, as Near has reminded us, a prolific composer in all genres, conductor, editor, journalist, and, immensely well connected, he was a man who knew everyone. In his organ loft at St. Sulpice, Parisian society gathered on Sunday mornings to watch the great man in action. The present book collects Widor’s own words on organ performance and technique, from which emerge detailed accounts (not without significant repetition at times) of Widor’s approach to Bach, to the organ, and to organ pedagogy more generally, which was inextricable from his Bach teaching. For Near, the important insights to be gleaned here have less to do with how one might perform the organ works of Bach than how to play the organ works of Widor: how the ideas and ideology expressed and exposed in...

Crises of commemoration: Cold War, decolonization and the bungled 1954 D-Day commemoration

Abstract In 1954, international dignitaries and veterans joined the commemoration of the Allied landings on the beaches of Normandy, though not everything went according to plan. For the French organizers, chief among them Gaullist deputy Raymond Triboulet, the event was intended to communicate a unifying, pro-Allied message amid a turbulent political climate. By June 1954, France had recently suffered a decisive defeat at Dien Bien Phu and was politically gripped by the divisive prospect of a European Defence Community. In debates over these crises, war memories surfaced and France’s experience of the Occupation and Liberation enflamed passions. For many who attended the Normandy ceremony in 1954, the missteps of organizers created tension and upset, endangering Allied participation in the Paris Liberation ceremonies to follow. This moment of disjuncture illuminates how currents of memory, international diplomacy, decolonization and broader Cold War tensions all intersected and influenced each other on the Normandy beaches.

К вопросу о роли Ф.-Ж. Фетиса в формировании французской органной школы второй половины XIX века

The article focuses on life and work of the Belgian musicologist F. J. Fetis— the first director of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. His enthusiasm about Bach’s music influenced the formation of the French-Belgian organ playing school and the repertoire of the second half of the 19th century. His influence would not be possible without his active journalistic work and his high profile as a musicologist and a theorist. He managed to create favorable working environment for the first graduates of the conservatory, in particular, J.-N. Lemmens. His position as a follower of Bach’s tradition was instrumental in raising the profile of the conservatory. It also helped to attract musicians not only from Belgium, but also from France. In the 1860s, Lemmens used Bach’s works to train Guilmant and Widor, young French organists and composers studying at the Brussels Conservatory. By the end of the 19th century, the work of the two composers laid the foundation for the “new” organ repertoire, which was very much needed already in the middle of the century. “Serious” music that followed Bach’s tradition contrasted with the spontaneous sentimental improvisation of a number of other French organ composers. Towards the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Fetis's aesthetic preferences, through Lemmens' pedagogical work, eventually shaped a substantive part of the organ repertoire. The new repertoire was marked by the revival of choral works based on Gregorian chants. Thus, a series of examples shows the continuity of the traditions of choral works by the 18th century German composers and the 1950s and the 20th century French composers.

Potentiel de patients éligibles à un prélèvement d’organes de type Maastricht III dans le cadre du protocole de l’Agence de la biomédecine dans un service de réanimation polyvalente

ObjectiveBecause of graft shortages, an experimental programme of organ donation after Maastricht 3-type circulatory death (M3) has been proposed by the French organ procurement organization (Agence de la biomedicine: ABM). The aim of the study was to estimate how many potential patients were eligible for an M3-type organ donation, amongst deceased patients who have had life-support withdrawn. Patients and methodsWe conducted a retrospective study looking at the notes of deceased patients in a French general intensive care unit (ICU), where organ donation is arranged in DBD donors. ResultsOver the year 2013, 1475 patients were admitted in ICU and 215 died. One hundred and one patients were brain-injured and 26 of them died following a decision to withdrawn life-support and without contraindication to organ donation. Among them, 2 patients (8%) met the criteria for the French M3-type organ donation protocol. A 12.5% increase in organ donation activity of our team and five organ transplantations could have been considered. ConclusionIf M3 organ donation is considered, a significant increase in transplantation would be expected.

High-emergency waiting list for lung transplantation: early results of a nation-based study.

The high mortality rate observed on the regular waiting list (RWL) before lung transplantation (LTx) prompted the French organ transplantation authorities to set up in 2007 a dedicated graft allocation strategy, the so-called 'high-emergency waiting list' (HEWL), for patients with an abrupt worsening of their respiratory function. This study reports on the early results of this new allocation system. Among 11 active French LTx programmes, 7 were able to provide full outcome data by 31 December 2011. The medical records of 101 patients who were listed on the HEWL from July 2007 to December 2011 were reviewed for an intention-to-treat analysis. Ninety-five patients received LTx within a median waiting time on the HEWL of 4 days (range 1-26), and 6 died before transplantation. Conditions were cystic fibrosis (65.2%), pulmonary fibrosis (24.8%), emphysema (5%) and miscellaneous (5%). The median age of the recipient was 30 years (range 16-66). Patients listed on the HEWL came from the RWL in 48.5% of the cases and were new patients in 51.5%. Forty-nine were placed under invasive ventilation and, in 26 cases, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) prior to transplantation was necessary as a complementary treatment. ECMO for non-intubated patients was performed in 6 cases. Eighty-one bilateral and 14 single LTx were performed, with an overall in-hospital mortality rate of 29.4%. One- and 3-year survival rates were 67.5 and 59%, respectively. Multivariate analysis shows that the use of ECMO prior to transplantation was the sole independent mortality risk factor (hazard ratio = 2.77 [95% CI 1.26-6.11]). The new allocation system aimed at lowering mortality on the RWL, but also offered an access to LTx for new patients with end-stage respiratory failure. The HEWL increased the likelihood of mortality after LTx, but permitted acceptable mid-term survival rates. The high mortality associated with the use of ECMO should be interpreted cautiously.

Augmenter le prélèvement d’organes sur donneurs décédés en mort encéphalique, Cristal action : un nouvel outil pour les établissements de santé en France

To improve organ transplantation in France, the first step is to maximize organ donation from deceased donors. The profile of donors is changing: donors are older with extended criteria from the emergency departments and the intensive care units. Cristal action is a method based on European recommendations, proposed by the French organ procurement organization “Agence de la biomedicine”, to continuously analyse the possibilities of organ procurement in each hospital. The hospital coordinator performs a simple analysis of the major stages of organ procurement processes of deceased patients. Feedback is given to the emergency and intensive care teams to improve their working practice and training. The objective of this method is to create or strengthen the links between emergency physicians, intensivists, and the transplant coordinator. This method also offers the possibility to carry out investigations on scientific purposes, practical attitudes, and routine practices regarding all the involved teams. Cristal action aims to improve quality assurance and evaluate the professional practices. In the future, a better analysis of organ procurement activity will be possible by sharing information on the possibilities of organ donation as well as on the different determinants of the health care system.

Le nouveau climat des expéditions naturalistes au sud

À partir de tensions apparues lors du montage de l’expédition Santo 2006 entre certains membres du gouvernement du Vanuatu et les organisateurs français de cette expédition, nous analyserons les liens entre sciences et sociétés dont témoigne la politique culturelle mise en place par ce pays. La notion de Consentement informé préalable, l’apparition d’une « nouvelle question indigène » et les débats internationaux actuels en matière de bioprospection fournissent un arrière-plan complexe dans lequel prennent sens les tensions évoquées.

Francois Couperin and 'the Perfection of Music' (review)

François Couperin and 'The Perfection of Music.' By David Tunley. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004. [viii, 172 p. ISBN 0-7546-0928-6. $94.95.] Music examples, index, bibliography, appendices.

On the development of German beating-reed organ pipes during the 19th century

In the 19th century organ literature, it is often claimed that German organ builders generally adapted the way of building their beating-reed pipes after being influenced by new developments from England and France. To investigate whether this hypothesis is true or false, the reed-pipe sounds of several German historic organs and an English organ by Henry Willis were measured and analyzed. The outcome of the analysis, however, cannot confirm the given hypothesis. Organ builders of the 18th century, such as Gottfried Silbermann for example, were already able to build beating-reed pipes similar in sound to the pipes that are used nowadays in Germany. It is noteworthy that Silbermann used closed shallots in some of his stops, although they are thought to be one of the main inventions in the English and French organ reforms. The use of higher wind pressures, which is also a main part of this reform, on the other hand, never became a common standard in Germany, as was the case for France and Great Britain.

“SICK MAN OF EUROPE” OR “JAPAN OF THE NEAR EAST”?: CONSTRUCTING OTTOMAN MODERNITY IN THE HAMIDIAN AND YOUNG TURK ERAS

The [Japanese] government, adorned with great intelligence and ideological firmness in progress, has implemented and promoted European [methods] of commerce and industry in its own country, and has turned the whole of Japan into a factory of progress, thanks to many [educational institutions]; it has attempted to secure and develop Japan's capacity for advancement by using means to serve the needs of the society such as benevolent institutions, railways, and in short, innumerable modes of civilization.—Malumat, mouthpiece for Yıldız Palace, 1897We should take note of Japan, this nation which has become rivals with the Great Powers in thirty to forty years. One should pay attention to that—that a nation not separating patriotic public spirit and the good of the homeland from its life is surely such that [though] sustaining wounds, setting out against any type of danger that threatens its existence, it certainly preserves its national independence. The Japanese successes of Port Arthur…are a product of this patriotic zeal.—Şura-yı Ümmet, Ottoman newspaper, Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), 1904While the despot of Turkey and the despot of Russia tremble and hide…it has come to pass in the Far East among this admirable people that, like the Turks, have been treated…as barbarians…[that] the Japanese tended to develop in all the Far East their material and moral influences, “to make themselves the guardians, otherwise the masters, of the yellow world.”…And that is how one has to see this vast intellectual and moral organization…. They whose civilization, achieved in half a century, has become superior to European civilization which has fallen into decay; they who do not have to reproach massacres, who do not have to gag any mouths out of which a liberal word came, who do not have to exile or suppress patriots…. Indeed, for our part, it is this “yellow” civilization that we wish to see universalized because it is the fruit of a principled, faithful and highly intelligent organization, because it is based on a conception of human destinies that excludes holy icons and false sentimentalities, because, above all, it is the daughter of a constitutional government which Ottoman patriots—all their efforts striving for this goal—will conclude by understanding the absolute necessity for the poor Turkish people that Hamidian terrorism be plunged into the mire.—Mechveret Supplément Français, French organ of the CUP, 1905

Performing the Future of Memory: Algerian Playwrights in France

Amid controversy and fanfare, the year 2003 was declared Djazaïr or Year of Algeria in France. Not surprisingly, Algerian and French organizers and artists alike faced the challenge of determining how to commemorate a long and contentious colonial and post-colonial history set in the more recent context of a brutal civil war which raged between security forces and armed Islamic groups from 1992–1998. In addition, Algeria's Berber population, with its long history of resistance to repressive governmental policies. organized protests and a boycott against the government's sanctioned role as "official" purveyor of Algerian culture in the context of the 2003 program. Deeply rooted in a pre-Islamic identity layer, this vocal community has long represented the voice of the pluralistic cultural heritage of the "other" more essential and democratic Algeria. This latest controversy is another reminder of the Algerian nation's long and arduous struggle toward self-definition, as played out both within and outside of its borders. For Algerian playwrights and performers living in Paris, the past, both distant and recent, asserts itself as an omnipresent and seemingly inescapable backdrop against which the creative process takes place. This paper briefly outlines that backdrop before exploring the various ways that Algerian playwrights have articulated exile over the past thirty years.

French Organ Music: From the Revolution to Franck and Widor

Part 1 From the revolution to Franck: evolutionary schemes -organists and their revolutionary music, Kimberly Marshall and William J. Peterson organ music in the Mass of the Parisian rite to 1850 with emphasis on the contributions of Boely, Benjamin Van Wye Boely's Quatorze Preludes sur des Cantoques de Denisot op.15, and the creation of a French Christmas Orgelbuchlein, Craig Cramer Lemmens, his Ecole d'orgue and 19th-century organ methods, William J. Peterson. Part 2 Franck - the texts: Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS 8707 - a new source for Franck's registrational practices and its implications for the published registrations of his organ works, Jesse E. Eschbach from manuscript to publication - Franck's Choral no.1, Karen Hastings-Deans. Part 3 Franck - issues in performance: the organ works of Franck - a survey of editorial and performance problems, Marie-Louise Jaquet-Langlais some thoughts on the interpretation of the organ works of Franck, on his organ and on the Lemmens tradition, Daniel Roth. Part 4 Widor and his contemporaries: Why should we not do the same with our Cathlic melodies? - Guilmant's L'Organiste liturgiste op.65, Edward Zimmerman and Lawrence Archbold Widor's Symphonie romane, Lawrence Archbold the organ of the Trocadero and its players, Rollin Smith.

The classical French organ

The classical French organ

French organ music: from the revolution to Franck and Widor

French organ music: from the revolution to Franck and Widor

The language of the classical French organ: a musical tradition before 1800

The French Organ in the 16th Century Toward Understanding the Language of the Jeux Registration in the Pre-Classical Period (1531-1636) The Classical French Organ Registration in the Classical Period (1665-1770) Toward the Restoration of Grace in Early French Organ Ornamentation. Appendices: Texts of 16th-century Organ Contracts Instructions for Registration (1504-1636), in English translation Instructions for Registration (1636-1770), in English translation.

Recent Publications on Modern Russian Art

Recent Publications on Modern Russian Art