Trois improvisations
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| Trois improvisations | |
|---|---|
| by Louis Vierne | |
| Year | 1932 |
| Performed | 1932 - Paris |
| Duration | 11 minutes approx. |
| Movements | 3 |
| Scoring | Solo organ |
Trois improvisations (from French, Three improvisations) are a series of improvisations recorded by French organist and composer Louis Vierne in 1928.
Reconstruction
Louis Vierne's recorded improvisations were constrained by the limitations in size of the 78 rpm format, which allowed only about three to three and a half minutes per side on a 10-inch disc and roughly four and a half minutes on a 12-inch disc. According to Madeleine Richepin, who was present at the recording session, the composer complained about the allowable length being too short by saying: "“What? Three minutes, thirty seconds per side? What do you want me to do in three and a half minutes? Oh, well, some pompous, Republican marches will do." Consequently, the Marche left one minute and twelve seconds of disc time unused; the Cortège left one minute and ten seconds; the Méditation, the longest of the three, had a duration of three minutes and fifty seconds, still leaving around forty seconds free.[1]
Vierne recorded these three improvisations at the 1858 Cavaillé-Coll grand organ located in Notre Dame in Paris, in December 1928. It is doubtful he ever wrote them down prior to recording them. The matrices of those recordings were kept by Odeon, and circulation became rare since then.
On April 1, 1953, many years after the composer's death, French organist and composer Maurice Duruflé obtained a copy of the recordings thanks to the ORTF, which produced several discs from the original copy owned by Odeon. After listening to the improvisations, Duruflé became captivated by them: "It's rapture! This music puts you in a euphoric state that you can't imagine... What tender emotion, what sweet melancholy in the Méditation."[2] At the request of Madeleine Mallet-Richepin, Vierne's lifelong patron and companion, Duruflé transcribed the three pieces and published them in 1954,[2] under Éditions Durand. Since then, others have made new transcriptions of the piece, including the Croatian-German organist Danijel Drilo in 2015.[3][4]
Duruflé premiered the three works on April 5, 1954, at Sainte-Clotilde, Paris, in a recital sponsored by Les Amis de l'Orgue.[2] The recordings were preserved and only remastered on 33⅓-rpm long-playing discs by Odeon in 1959 and EMI in 1981. Two of these improvisations (Marche épiscopale and Cortège) were later reissued in 1993 by EMI Classics as part of their "Composers in Person" series.[1]
Structure
The three improvisations have a total duration of around 11 minutes. The movement list is as follows:
- Marche épiscopale
- Méditation
- Cortège
