Pièces de fantaisie

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

Vierne wrote the manuscript of the first suite in Dinard, in August-September, and in Paris, in December 1926. It was premiered on February 4, 1927, even though some titles would be changed for the published version. The premiere took place in the auditorium of the New York Wanamaker department store. Vierne only performed the set in four of the 34 documented recitals he gave in America, but he played it in full every time. The composer himself is known to have recorded the "Andantino" in December 1928, together with some improvisations, at Notre-Dame de Paris. The suite was published by Henri Lemoine & Cie in 1926.^[1]

The second suite was composed along with the first, between the months of August and December 1926. It was published upon Vierne's return from America, in May 1927. Many of these pieces are dedicated to people linked in one way or another to organ playing in the United States. The suite was published by Henri Lemoine & Cie in 1927.^[1]

Vierne wrote his third suite after his return from the 1927 United States tour, in July and August 1927, in Luchon. The individual pieces in this set were never formally premiered, but they were included in different recitals around 1927 and 1928. The dedicatees of these pieces include Rodman Wanamaker, the son of the founder of the department stores that welcomed the premiere of his first suite, and André Marchal, to whom Vierne sent a letter asking for his approval to dedicate his "Impromptu" to him. Marchal went on to premiere it in June 1928, on a program of the Société Nationale, and recorded it twenty years later at Saint-Eustache.^[1]

I just finished my 24 Pièces de Fantaisie . . . I took the liberty of putting your name at the top of one of them [the Impromptu]. Do you accept the dedication? In doing this I wanted first to express my highest admiration of your great talent, then, to recognize by an abiding homage the extreme kindness with which you have always supported my music and myself whenever you could. Above all, I am sensitive to loyalty.

This suite also includes "Carillon de Westminster", arguably the best-known work from the set. which was premiered on November 29, 1927, in Notre Dame. It received a more formal premiered eight days later in a recital in Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet. The Carillon is famous for featuring the "Westminster Quarters", the sound of the Big Ben bells. The suite was published by Henri Lemoine & Cie in 1927.^[1]

As in the case of the third suite, the fourth suite was also composed in Luchon during July and August 1927. There is little information about its premiere. It was published by Henri Lemoine & Cie in 1927.^[1]