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The Rise and Fall of a Famous Collaboration: Marcel Dupré and Jeanne Demessieux

June 30, 2005
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Demessieux's Salle Pleyel debut series in 1946 was indeed a fitting climax to the teasers that had been sent out.68 Those present at any of the six recitals heard the consummate clarity of her articulation, her sensitive musicianship, her comprehensive command of the organ literature, her unprecedented pedal technique and the paradoxical polish of her improvisations on themes submitted to her immediately before; they also observed her cool self-control. Recital number one included the première of her own composition, Six Études, the execution of which proved that what the sonorities of Chopin and Liszt ask of the wrists in suppleness and control can also be asked of the ankles and wrists simultaneously.69 At the conclusion of the last recital of the series, listeners were awed by excerpts from another Demessieux composition, her modernistic and mysterious Sept Méditations sur le Saint-Esprit.70 While her recital series was in progress, Demessieux was already in direct communication with a government department regarding funding for touring outside the country;71 through one of Dupré's agents a recording contract had been proposed72 and there was an offer of an engagement with the BBC.73 In view of the tremendously favorable publicity, the director of the Salle Pleyel must have been very pleased to agree to underwrite another six-concert Jeanne Demessieux series the following year. The difference was that by 1947 and the second series of six recitals the Duprés were no longer involved.

The Search for Fault Lines in the Collaboration

Demessieux's journal does not bear out Trieu-Colleney's theory that, by 1946, she was weary of Marcel and Jeanne Dupré's micro-management of her career, and rebellious of some of the plans put forth for her first North American tour.74 Admittedly, none of their correspondence from the summer and autumn of 1946 has come to light; but neither does Demessieux comment in her journal entries for that period on any business dealings with the Duprés. From notes that Trieu-Colleney typed when doing research for her book, it is clear that for part of the chapter entitled "The Rupture" she drew upon views that originated in two letters written to Yolande Demessieux by a mutual acquaintance of the Dupré and Demessieux families, Jean Berveiller.75 From the wider subject matter and tone of each letter, Berveiller was evidently indignant over Dupré's refusal to break his silence on the cause of the rupture; in a well-meant effort to be helpful to the Demessieux family by means of these letters, Berveiller searched for every uncharitable interpretation of Dupré's attitude toward Demessieux's career that he could imagine. Trieu-Colleney's statement that Dupré would, perhaps, even have liked to "Americanize" Demessieux--to show her off like a film star in Hollywood--is one of several such off-hand remarks in Berveiller's letters to Yolande Demessieux. The tenor of both his letters was that, from his point of view, her sister was better off in her sudden independence from Dupré.

Demessieux's journal entries, on the other hand, for as often as they express her good fortune to have the benefit of the collaboration with Dupré, never hint, as Trieu-Colleney does, that the younger organist felt she was being made to work in the shadow of someone else.76 Nor does her journal suggest, as Berveiller assumed she must have, that she ever felt constrained from being herself. On the contrary, to submit even temporarily to constraint would have been uncharacteristic, for, in her accounts of her dealings with people generally, Demessieux comes across as strongly in charge of what she herself thought and someone who gloried in her individuality. That she and Dupré happened to think alike on the future of the organ, and have a common mission, was part of the marvel of it all. Dupré, for his part, knew when to bow out. When they said their last good-bye at a Paris train station in June 1946, he affirmed: "I am no longer your 'Master'! I am your old friend, and I will stay that way."77

Ironically, these words marked the last occasion upon which they ever shook hands. To reckon why, we must, first of all, underline how extremely important the collaborators' oneness of mind had become to Dupré's sense of purpose in life. The following incident is illustrative. During final preparations for her first Salle Pleyel recital, in a meeting of all persons involved in producing the event, a technician grumbled that it had not been possible to adjust the organ's pedal action as requested because what Demessieux had asked for and what Dupré had demanded were inconsistent with each other. Dupré took strong exception to this remark, saying, "'I will thank you to note something for your guidance: between Jeanne Demessieux and me, there is not, and there will never be, any differences of opinion! It's strange how someone has me saying something I've not said!'"78 Similarly, Demessieux's journal shows time and time again that, both in public and in private, the collaborators' mutual trust and respect were very important, to all members of the Dupré family.79 The day following her debut, she noted down the following conversation:

[JD:] "Following my first success, I shall remain faithful to you in my art; you can count on me! I swear this." . . .

Dupré reacted with an indefinable expression: "I know, oh! I know."

We were walking; he stopped: "Marguerite said to me this morning, 'Jeanne Demessieux will be faithful to you.' I have never doubted it. I know you. And you know that I will be your support and your defence against our enemies."

If our affection and our trust could possibly have been strengthened, they were that afternoon with this mutual profession of faith.80

It is evident from the above that Demessieux's utter loyalty was foundational to her adoption by the Dupré family and had become a cornerstone of Dupré's happiness.

The Downfall

What, then, destroyed the family's impression of Demessieux's worthiness? The Duprés must have come to believe that Demessieux had said or done something disrespectful of Marcel Dupré's art or person. How could this be? From reading the journal Demessieux wrote during the years 1941-46, I believe that Trieu-Colleney came closest to an explanation for the rupture (and she, too, may have believed this) when she wrote: "In the final analysis, friends, then Jeanne herself, more or less sensed the calumny of individuals who, searching to destroy this outstanding amity, profited from a propitious moment . . . ."81

To explain the reference to calumny, it is time to recapitulate what has been demonstrated concerning the Paris organ scene, and about the roles in it of Dupré and Demessieux during the five years of the grand scheme. An intellectual and psychological war for the allegiance of students and audiences was underway between proponents of two opposing visions of the organ and its repertoire. Dupré was so convinced of the rightness of his beliefs in the future of the organ that he regarded any display or espousal of an artistic principle inconsistent with his own as a personal affront. Equally intransigent, members of the opposing side maintained that they, and only they, stood for progress. From the point of view of this faction (and with deliberate provocation from Dupré) Demessieux was the "spoiler" among young Paris organists: a performer who was able to attract attention to herself without participating in the fashion for neoclassicism, and who honestly respected Dupré's vision of a modern organ and modern organ repertoire. To those who hated what Dupré stood for, Demessieux's achievements, beginning with her Paris Conservatory first prize in organ, constituted an anti-revolutionary influence and an intolerable anomaly. She needed either to be brought in line, or put out of commission, by any means possible.

Evidence of a concerted and ongoing effort to do so has been cited from her journals. Because she avoided the social circles that included Dupré's detractors, their members badgered her with invitations to soirées. After she declined to play at Chaillot, supporters of the neoclassic Gonzalez organ at Chaillot plotted to derail plans for renovation of the Salle Pleyel Cavaillé-Coll organ. Because, in her words and in her musical practice, she praised Dupré, his intellectual adversaries became vicious in needling her about him. Having exalted Dupré and damaged the prestige of the neoclassic cause with her Salle Pleyel debut, she invited yet more determined efforts to disempower her.

The Paris organ world knew that the tangible emblems (not to mention the economic lifeline) of Demessieux's future success in Paris depended upon Dupré's leverage in the choices of his eventual successors at the Conservatory and at Saint-Sulpice. From Dupré's boasting, they knew he attached utmost personal importance to her oneness of mind with him. Meanwhile, it was natural for Dupré to assume that, for all he had done on Demessieux's behalf thus far, he had earned her strict allegiance to his lonely social position among Paris organists. This need for utter personal loyalty and Dupré's tendency to suspect and distrust his colleagues had become two sides of the same coin. The tendency to suspect and distrust others had been to his and Demessieux's advantage in the Salle Pleyel organ renovation incident, but this paranoia could just as well be turned to their adversaries' advantage.

Logically, during the Duprés' absence in the summer and fall of 1946, those who were resentful of the public success of the Dupré-Demessieux collaboration, or who feared it would cause further strategic setbacks to the neoclassic cause, would have brought to bear the most effective tactics to destroy that collaboration. The "propitious moment" was a juncture when Marcel and Jeanne Dupré were most susceptible: the nadir of fatigue after six months of travel by train and ocean liner, the end of a period of intense work that included championing Demessieux in North America. For "Mlle Demessieux" to have proven "unworthy" of their efforts on her behalf, as Dupré would eventually view the whole affair, the likely explanation is that, upon their return to France, someone conveyed to them (in person, or by letter) information of a word or action by Demessieux that appeared disrespectful of Marcel Dupré.

What could this be? Probably an out-of-context (or fictitious) remark attributed to Jeanne Demessieux, or perhaps one of her actions, slanderously reinterpreted. It is futile to think we can know exactly what form this slander took. As a mere possibility, I point to the fact that in the summer of 1946 Demessieux finally agreed to accept, on one occasion, a repeatedly extended invitation to a dinner party at the home of a Monsieur Régnier, whom she describes as a friend of Dufourcq.82 She recorded in her journal that she did not have a pleasant time that evening, perhaps an indication of what directions the conversation took. Her presence at this gathering could be truthfully reported and its implications could have been given a traitorous spin.

Why would Dupré accept at face value a mere report of a traitorous action, or words, by Demessieux? Like the example just mentioned, the words or incident may have had a basis in undeniable fact that blurred the edges of truth and falsehood. Why would he not have given her the benefit of the doubt? The stark contrast between his most recent labors on Demessieux's behalf and the first news he had of her upon returning home was like a slap in the face that would have upset his judgment as to who, truly, had deceived him. The seed of suspicion would have progressively wounded his self-esteem: if Dupré even suspected that Demessieux had said or done something disparaging of his musical likes and dislikes, his thoughts on the matter would likely set off in an uncontrollable mental spiral; as a result of this mental spiral, far from giving her the benefit of doubt, his next thought would be to imagine that she had long been insincere in her regard for his ideas ("[a]lthough during the years after her prize I worked with her for nothing, she was unworthy of me and Madame Dupré").

Why did he not confront her with his anger? It was consistent with his customary stance toward people who offended him to match the extremity of his reaction to the extremity of the offense: we know that he was not on speaking terms with those who had offended him by some remark made or stance taken. Evidence of unashamed betrayal would, then, be matched by ruthless rejection. If Dupré believed Demessieux had betrayed him, even in one small matter, he would not have thought it necessary to tell her how he now felt; he would not even have been able to address her.

For Dupré to destroy a close friendship and do so irrevocably was not without precedent. As a young man he had revered and aided Vierne, his beloved master in the study of improvisation; but by the time Demessieux came to study organ and improvisation with Dupré, he (as the result of influence by a deliberate troublemaker, if Gavoty is to believed) had little if any regard for Vierne, so that, as an excerpt from Demessieux's journal has already shown, she had no notion of the greatness of the late organist of Notre-Dame-de-Paris. It was in character that, once Dupré's regard for Demessieux had been tarnished, he never examined or rethought his initial reaction.

Dupré was too embittered and, probably, too humiliated to reveal what had angered him. Berveiller's final, regretful words on the matter to Yolande Demessieux were that, for his unexplained repudiation of Jeanne Demessieux, "impartial" public opinion was solidly against Dupré. Berveiller added:

For this, I hold responsible certain feminine influences (I do not speak of his wife) that, without any personal advantage to be gained, are compromising him ridiculously. I've written to tell him so, just as I think! Without success, of course!83  

Berveiller's perception that the actions of an unnamed woman were further compromising Dupré's credibility cannot be confirmed (Demessieux's journal ends abruptly at the end of December 1946 with mention that the Duprés were expected to return any day). Nevertheless, after the many occasions on which Dupré had gloated over his pride in Demessieux's accomplishments in front of those who were skeptical or envious of his claims--for instance, before the parents of other students--it is difficult to imagine that no one would have succumbed to the temptation to publicly ridicule him for his change of stance toward his former protégée.

Afterword

Despite the trauma she underwent at the beginning of 1947, Demessieux never disavowed her admiration for, and her debt to, Marcel Dupré.84 Meanwhile, she struggled to forge new links with incumbents of Paris organ tribunes and directors of Paris recital series, none of whom ever forgot that she had first presented herself in Dupré's image.85 In 1948 she played a thirteenth Salle Pleyel recital; in 1952 she was heard live and in radio rebroadcasts with the Orchestre radio-symphonique conducted by Eugène Bigot, performing, among other works for organ and orchestra, the première of her own Poème and the première of Langlais's Concerto. Paris organ critics never ceased to shower praise on her recordings and live performances. Nevertheless, during the 1950s, although she concertized intensively in France, Europe and the British Isles (as well as making three North American tours86), and the French capital remained her home base, she only very occasionally enjoyed the privilege of being featured in a Paris organ recital. She also had difficulty getting permission to make recordings on that city's church organs.87 Belatedly, this changed in 1962, when she was named principal organist of the Cavaillé-Coll organ of the Church of the Madeleine.88 The year 1963 was also a turning point: Dufourcq invited her to play a Bach recital in his series "Les Heures Liturgiques et Musicales de Saint-Merry," which she did, to enthusiastic acclaim.89 Never in good health, just five years later she succumbed to cancer.

Dupré, despite the wound he said would never heal, paid his last respects to Demessieux: he attended her funeral at the Madeleine in 1968.90

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