Tripple disc in digifile format. Comes with booklet article written by Kåre Nordstoga.
Tracklist:
CD I
Six pièces pour Grand Orgue
CD II
Six pièces pour Grand Orgue (cont.)
Trois Pièces pour Grand Orgue
CD III
Trois Chorals pour Grand Orgue
Includes unlimited streaming of César Franck: Organ Works
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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
If anyone were to figure high on the list of organ composers throughout history, just under J. S. Bach, it would have to be the Paris organist César Franck, originally Belgian. He is considered the founder of the French Romantic organ style of the 1800s, which emerged after the entire organ tradition had been so brutally interrupted in a Europe that was plagued by revolutions and Napoleonic wars, but which would later enjoy a golden age featuring such composers as Widor, Vierne, Dupré, Duruflé and Messiaen. Naturally, organ music was also written in France during the years before Franck began composing his works in the 1850s, not least after another great stylistic innovator, the young organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, of Spanish lineage, had introduced his first major instrument in Saint-Denis in 1841. However, up to that point no-one had exploited the new timbres and the dynamic potential of the “symphonic” organ for such elegant and inspired compositions as those of César Franck.
In the art world the important balance between tradition and renewal is often discussed. Seldom has such a hackneyed phrase been more appropriate than for our two style innovators, organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll and organ composer César Franck. Just as Cavaillé-Coll changed the classical French organ of the 1700s using relatively small but significant tactics, thus forging a new concept of sound, Franck developed his style by building on types of movements and form from the 1700s, using recognisable features of both older French organ music and the harmonies, voice leading techniques, approach to dissonance, and phrasings of the Bach style. New for both of them were the dynamic possibilities, ranging from floating string voices to the powerful pipework tutti , along with the ability to carry out quick changes of sound and expressive runs , with the aid of swell shutters that can moderate the sound by being opened and closed in front of the pipes enclosed in the swell box. This was a period when the symphony orchestra was expanded with new timbres and nuances, and the very concept of a “symphony organ” implies that the orchestra had, literally, become the cutting-edge ideal for organ artistry.
It must be regarded as one of the most fortunate coincidences in music history that César Franck was engaged as the organist at Saint-Clotilde in 1858, around the same time that a new organ by Cavaillé-Coll had been installed. The impact of the piano virtuoso Franck playing this instrument, perfecting his organ technique, and drawing inspiration to create great music can hardly be overestimated. Not only has Sainte-Clotilde’s 46-stop organ become a reference instrument for Franck’s organ works, but it has also served as a basis for guiding the general development of organ building ever since.
Upon its publication in 1868, Franck’s collection of six organ pieces, Six Pièces, op. 16-21, was the most significant contribution to French organ music for over 100 years. It was a comprehensive collection of symphonic organ music, astonishing in scope and rich in musical ideas that were adapted to a new organ ideal, while it also represented a revitalising of the idea of abstract organ music, which was not associated with a specific chorale or a textual programme, but was developed exclusively on musical premises, as long narratives with short, generalised titles. Musicologist J.P. Defourcq goes as far as to evoke a moral aspect when he calls these six pieces revolutionary, and suggests that Franck brings the Beethovenian ideal of freedom into organ music for the first time. What is most striking is the confident sense of form with which César Franck constructs his compositions, where his artistic idiom is as harmonious and precise as the churches and cathedrals for which they were written.
credits
released September 11, 2022
Recorded in January and February
2022 by Geir Inge Lotsberg
Design: Erik(sen)
Translation: Shari Nilsen
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