Issue 25 - The Musicians of St. Clotilde

This week's prelude and postlude are from organists who make up the rich legacy of musicians at St. Clotilde Basilica in Paris. By European standards, St. Clotilde is a relatively new church, its neo-Gothic structure completed just in 1857. The first organist at St. Clotilde was the father of French Romantic organ music: César Franck, who was inspired by the church's new Cavaillé-Coll orchestral-style organ to take French organ music in a new orchestral direction that was a complete departure from the past.

During Franck's tenure at St. Clotilde, Théodore Dubois (1837-1924) was choirmaster during the 1870's. (You may know Dubois' most beloved composition, The Seven Last Word of Christ.) This Sunday's postlude, the Toccata in G, is among the most well-known of his organ works. It's a very typical French Romantic toccata and parts of it might even remind you of Widor's Toccata from Symphonie V (which was composed ten years before Dubois'). Dubois opens with a lively toccata - however, the development section that follows is a clever juxtaposition between a lyrical hymn on the swell and the toccata material on the great. Dubois then reintroduces the toccata and closes the piece with a triumphant hymn.

Jean Langlais became organist at St. Clotilde in 1945, nearly sixty years after Franck's death. Langlais is definitely a "modern" composer and while his works might not be tonal in the Classical sense, they never cross over into the atonal either. I personally have a great affection for Langlais' music - it has a personality unto itself that is quite playful and his more dramatic compositions, while skeletal in nature, have a depth that really captivates me.

The prelude this Sunday (by Jean Langlais) is Chant de Paix (Song of Peace) from his Neuf Pièces pour Orgue. The collection was written in 1943 in the midst of World War II and also contains Chant Héroïque which was an homage to his friend Jehan Alain (famous French organist and composer) who was killed in battle as a French soldier. The Song of Peace is slow with an ascending legato melody that is traded between the pedal and right hand. The melody slowly rises in large, deliberate leaps and finally ends on a major triad that holds for, well, a long time - Langlais literally writes "long" above the final chord, thus indicating that the resolved chord should keep its peaceful tone reverberating in the sanctuary for as long as possible.

(Image: St. Clotilde Basilica, Paris)