Charles Tournemire, Complete Recordings. Cavaillé-Coll organ of Sainte-Clotilde, Paris, 1930–1931. Arbiter 156, P.O. Box 541336, Linden Hill Station, NY 11354. Available from the Organ Historical Society, CDARB156, $15.98, www.ohscatalog.org.
As evidence of the playing of Tournemire, these recordings, issued complete for the first time, are historically invaluable. Organ history buffs will realize also that they were recorded before the 1933 changes that enlarged the instrument.
Five of Franck’s compositions are played: Pastorale, Cantabile, Choral No. 3 in a minor and two selections from L’Organiste. Tournemire studied with Franck and Widor, succeeding Gabriel Pierné at Ste. Clotilde in 1898 (chosen from thirty candidates), and remained there until his death in 1939. One would suppose this playing is as close as one can get in our lifetime to the playing of Franck himself. The sound by current standards is of course inadequate; nonetheless, we hear surprisingly frequent changes of registration and articulation, considerable use of the tremolo, and what Tournemire referred to as “ . . . the surge and ebb of the Expression Box.”
Tournemire’s own compositions include “Andantino” and “Paraphrase-Carillon” from the fifty-one (!) volumes of L’Orgue Mystique and five breath-taking improvisations. For whatever reason, reproduction of the exciting “Paraphrase-Carillon” is clearer, with considerably less surface noise. Duruflé referred to “those inspired improvisations whose secrets he alone possessed . . . It was miraculous.” Here is a priceless opportunity to hear five of them. Don’t miss it.
A splendid twenty-page booklet accompanies the CD with great pictures and details. Kudos to Dr. Ralph Kneeream, the author, for this, and to the engineers who restored this miracle to us.
—Charles Huddleston Heaton
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
[email protected]
April 27, 2009
THE DIAPASON
