UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA PERFORMING ARTS
presents
CHRISTIAN LANE,
ORGAN
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25 2015, 2 P.M.
UNIVERSITY AUDITORIUM
Sponsored by
PROGRAM
Imperial March Edward Elgar
Canzona
Scherzetto
Percy Whitlock
From Sonata in C Minor
Pastorale Jean Jules Aimable Roger-Ducasse
Intermezzo, Op. 118, No. 9
Marco Enrico Bossi
Allegro from Symphonie VI, Op. 42
Charles-Marie Widor
INTERMISSION
Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543
Première Sonate, Op. 42
Johann Sebastian Bach
Alexandre Guilmant
Introduction et Allegro
Pastorale
Final
PROGRAM NOTES
Imperial March (1897)
Edward Elgar
(Born June 2, 1857, in Broadheath, England; died February 23, 1934, in Worcester, England)
The work of Sir Edward Elgar finally put to rest the widespread 19th century belief that
England was somehow an unmusical country. Elgar, the son of an organist who provided
him with most of his musical education, also became an organist as well as an orchestral
violinist; initially, he found his youthful ambition to be a composer and performer difficult
to realize. His earliest professional engagements were as music teacher at a school for the
blind and then as conductor of an orchestra of patients at a mental hospital. From these
beginnings finally emerged the masterful composer of oratorios, symphonies, concertos
and the Enigma Variations. Elgar became the model of Edwardian artist-gentleman, and in
1904, he was knighted.
The Imperial March is one of only three formal marches Elgar composed, each for a
ceremonial occasion. In 1896, Elgar’s publisher, Novello, suggested he write an “Imperial
March” for the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee to be held the next year. He did
so. The Imperial March was first performed at the Crystal Palace on April 19, 1897 under the
direction of Sir August Manns. It was played by several bands together at the Crystal Palace
a week later, at a state concert on June 18, at a Royal Garden Party on June 28, which was
the actual anniversary of the Queen’s coronation, and at the Albert Hall in October.
The Imperial March artfully captured the mood of public confidence and national
celebration, and was an immediate success. It is a lively, melodious, cheerful and
exuberant piece, and yet it displays a sense of restraint in its trio section.
Canzona and Scherzetto from Sonata in C Minor (1937)
Percy Whitlock
(Born June 1, 1903, in Chatham (Kent) England; died May 1, 1946)
Whitlock was a prodigiously talented English composer. Whether writing for cathedral
or parish use, or for his later involvement as a municipal organist, Whitlock was
considered conservative, but his distinctive music was full of rich emotion and sly wit.
Mostly, Whitlock composed for the organ; he wrote works that were secular as well as
ecclesiastical. One of his most renowned secular works was his monumental Organ
Sonata, which includes as its second and third movements this Canzona and Scherzetto.
Whitlock studied composition at the Royal College of Music; his professors were Charles
Villiers Stanford and Vaughan Williams. When he was 18, Whitlock became assistant
organist at Rochester, and for the next 10 years, from that base, he established a solid local
reputation as an organist and composer. The cathedral organist Charles Hylton Stewart
described him as the finest all-round organist he had ever heard, and added that he was
“writing cathedral music better than anyone else at the present day.” Whitlock preferred
the secular musical life; as borough organist at the Bournemouth Pavilion, he was able to
express his passion for the concert organ.
In 1928, Whitlock was diagnosed with tuberculosis; he spent the last 13 years of his
life in Bournemouth; during the 1930s, he became a broadcaster for the BBC, and was
recognized as one of Britain’s finest concert organists. In 1932 Whitlock took on the
responsibility as part-time borough organist at the new Bournemouth Pavilion. The
four-manual Compton organ in the Pavilion Concert Hall was, he wrote, “a veritable giant
among organs. [It] has been most skillfully designed, so that it is possible to perform on it
music of the most severe type or the latest fox-trot with equal facility!” In Bournemouth,
Whitlock found the ideal setting for his gift as a master of memorable melody and deft
harmonic coloring, which he was able to incorporate in organ works for both church
services and recital.
Many contend that Whitlock’s monumental four-movement Organ Sonata in C Minor
represents a landmark in British organ music of its time; it has been called one of the
greatest sonatas in the organ repertoire. Whitlock dedicated it to his favorite detective
writer Dorothy L. Sayers.
The briefer middle two movements, which you hear in this concert, have memorable
melodic invention and structural simplicity as they recreate orchestral writing for the
British organ. The Canzona, said to have been inspired by country walks, is an eloquent
and tranquil song-without-words, while the high-spirited Scherzetto is charming with
unusual, artful rhythms and harmonies that reflect the composer’s love of dance music of
his day. Critics have found the Scherzetto the finest of the light British organ pieces. It was
inspired by a recuperative holiday that the composer and his wife, Edna, took in the spring
of 1934, when they visited Bath Abbey and its then organist Ernest Maynard. Arguably one
of the best extended light movements written for the organ by an Englishman, one early
commentator described it as reflecting Whitlock’s “puckish sense of humor.”
The first, full public performance of the sonata was given by the composer in a recital at
the West London Synagogue on March 8, 1938.
Pastorale (1909)
Jean Jules Aimable Roger-Ducasse
(Born April 18, 1873, in Bordeaux; died July 19, 1954, at Taillan, near Bordeaux)
At the Paris Conservatory, Roger-Ducasse studied piano with Bériot and composition with
Fauré. In 1909, he was appointed inspector of singing and teaching in the Paris public
schools. Becoming prominent as a teacher of composition, Roger-Ducasse succeeded
Fauré as professor at the Paris Conservatory.
The little known and rarely performed Pastorale, composed in 1909, was Roger-Ducasse’s
only solo organ composition; it demonstrates his skillful use of organ colors and requires
much virtuosity. In Pastorale, Roger-Ducasse synthesized the compositional styles
and techniques of impressionism and classicism. In his compositions, Roger-Ducasse
combined classical forms with impressionist harmony and color.
The Pastorale is quite a virtuosic masterpiece; the work encompasses motion and stillness,
and is simultaneously dramatic and calm. It begins with a serene Siciliano theme,
gradually developed with harmonic daring and textural intricacy. Orchestrally conceived,
Pastorale requires many dramatic registration changes in order to bring to life the running
brooks and the storm it depicts as well as the shepherds’ songs. To achieve its goals, it
embraces a large range of tonal color; it builds up to a dramatic climax, before returning to
the peaceful feel of its beginning.
Intermezzo, Op. 118, No. 9
Marco Enrico Bossi
(Born April 25, 1861, in Salò, Italy; died February 20, 1925, at sea)
Bossi, an Italian organist, composer, improviser and teacher, came from a family of
musicians. His father was organist at the Salò Cathedral, which has a one-manual
Fratelli Serassi organ built in 1865. Bossi studied at the Liceo Musicale in Bologna and
the Milan Conservatory; his teachers were Sangalli for piano, Ponchielli for composition,
and Fumagalli for organ. In 1881, Bossi became director of music and organist at the
Como Cathedral, and in 1890 became professor of organ and harmony at the Naples
Conservatory. Bossi made numerous international organ recital tours that brought
him in contact with well-known colleagues such as César Franck, Marcel Dupré,
Alexandre Guilmant, and Camille Saint-Saëns. Bossi also was appointed director at the
conservatories in Venice, Bologna and Rome, where he established and implemented the
standards of organ studies that are still used in Italy today. His resolve was to bring the
organ culture of Italy more in line with the then current European standards.
In 1924, Bossi went on a recital tour to New York and Philadelphia, where he played the
renowned Wanamaker Organ at the Wanamaker Department Store; it was the world’s
largest pipe organ. Bossi died unexpectedly at sea while returning from the United States
and was interred at Como.
Bossi wrote more than 150 works for orchestra, as well as operas, oratorios, choral and
chamber music, and pieces for piano and organ. Except for his organ compositions, his
works are still largely unknown.
Intermezzo is a work simple and intimate in nature, one that could be characterized as
quiet and reposeful.
Allegro from Symphonie VI, Op. 42 (1880)
Charles-Marie Widor
(Born February 21, 1844, in Lyons; died March 12, 1937, in Paris)
Charles-Marie Widor’s long and productive life allowed him to be acquainted with
composers as widely separated in time and style as Rossini and Milhaud. His own family
members were organ builders, and he followed in a similar path. He became the organist
at the Lycée in Lyons when he was only 11. Later, he studied with J. N. Lemmens, whose
organ teachers could be traced directly back to Bach. By 1870, Widor became the organist
at Saint-Sulpice in Paris, a position he held for 64 years. Around 1880, he became the
music critic of a daily newspaper, L’estafette, and in 1890, he succeeded César Franck
as Professor of Organ at the Paris Conservatory. There he also became professor of
composition, and over time, taught Albert Schweitzer, Marcel Dupré, Arthur Honegger, Lili
and Nadia Boulanger, Darius Milhaud, Edgar Varèse, Louis Vierne and Charles Tournemire.
Widor continued performing regularly until he was 90 years old.
Despite his many other compositions, Widor is best remembered as an organ composer,
having composed 10 secular organ symphonies. These compositions demonstrated an
extraordinary musical maturity and a mastery of symphonic form. Symphonie VI, of which
the Allegro is the first of five movements, is one of the greatest of the ten symphonies.
In late 19th century France, organs were developed that could fill the role of symphony
orchestras. Until then, the organ had been generally associated with sacred music, but
by the late 18th century, it was used less because of the anti-clerical mood of the time.
New organs, built with “symphonic” sound, appealed to masses of people, and composers
began to write secular organ symphonies for these instruments, most of which were,
because of size, still located in great cathedrals.
Widor’s organ symphonies, inspired by the magnificent Cavaillé-Coll organ at Saint-Sulpice
in Paris, revolutionized the art of organ playing and composition in France. Widor opined,
“The modern organ is essentially symphonic; for this new instrument we must have a new
language and a different ideal from that of scholastic polyphony.” The orchestral voicing
of the Cavaillé-Coll instrument favored writing of symphonic scope and texture, although
Widor consistently cautioned his students not to consider the organ a substitute for the
orchestra.
In the Sixth Symphony, composed in 1878, Widor displays complete mastery of the
orchestral style that he was perfecting in his earlier symphonies. The tremendously
virtuosic Allegro from Symphonie VI has been judged one of Widor’s finest works, assuring
its continuing popularity in the repertoire. Instead of an opening movement in sonata
form, Widor begins with a theme and variations, featuring a huge, majestic march-like
chordal theme followed by a restless, scalar recitative, which reappears throughout the
movement. Massive chordal progressions are joined with rapid toccata passages that
emphasize color and fluency. The development section is very demanding for the organist
who must manage the initial theme over very soft pizzicato pedals with cross-rhythms in
both hands and feet and then one of the most exciting crescendos in the organ repertoire;
it leads to a recapitulation in which the two themes are combined.
Widor premiered the Symphonie VI on August 24, 1878, at the fifth of the recitals
inaugurating Cavaillé-Coll’s organ at the Trocadéro. Four years later, Widor orchestrated
the first movement, Allegro and the Final, along with the Andante from the Second
Symphony, to comprise his Symphonie pour orgue et orchestre.
Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543
Johann Sebastian Bach
(Born March 21, 1685, in Eisenach; died July 28, 1750, in Leipzig)
Bach seems to have composed the Prelude and Fugue, BWV 543 early in his career,
probably in Weimar, where he served on the Ducal musical staff from 1708 to 1717 (and
where he was thrown into jail for four weeks for having dared to try quitting his job.)
Evidence suggests Bach first tried out this work in the harpsichord Fugue in A minor, BWV
944 of 1708 or earlier. Most of his keyboard works from the pre-Leipzig years survive in
copies made by Bach’s pupils rather than in autograph scores, making reliable chronology
impossible.
From the beginning of his organ composition, Bach took an independent stance contrary
to the inherited 17th century tradition and abandoned the conventional fusion of repertory
of the organ and harpsichord, choosing rather to write specifically for one or the other.
His inflexible use of obbligato pedals is a distinguishing mark of that tendency and of the
distinctiveness of his organ style.
This free form Prelude and the richly textured Fugue make up an elegant work whose parts
are closely related in substance though they are very different, of course, in treatment.
Some commentators feel that this chromatic toccata-like prelude has the style of Bach’s
early, north German-influenced works, while the fugue perhaps was composed later. Bach
frequently adapted or joined together newly composed music with previously composed
pieces to create new pieces.
The dramatic Prelude is a large work with a chromatically descending theme. It has great
weight, becoming more ponderous when the theme occurs in the pedals in the work’s
mid-section. At the climax in the concluding section, an exhilarating passage demands
much virtuosity from the organist. The Prelude and Fugue is a tightly organized tripartite
structure, prelude–fugue–coda, with the three parts tightly organized and the pedal part
very well integrated.
The general public in the 19th century did not known Bach’s music, but composers from
Mozart to Beethoven to Chopin attested to its beauty and its value. Mendelssohn is
often given a great deal of the credit for the so called Bach Revival. It is this piece that
Mendelssohn chose to perform at his first big recital at Westminster Abbey.
Première Sonate, Op. 42
Felix Alexandre Guilmant
(Born March 12, 1837, in Boulogne, France; died March 29, 1911, in Meudon, near Paris)
The French composer Alexandre Guilmant, one of the most famous organists in history,
performed in Paris’ St. Sulpice and Notre Dame, where he became honorary organist
at the instigation of the composer, Louis Vierne. As professor of organ at the Paris
Conservatory, Guilmant’s students included Nadia Boulanger, who became a renowned
teacher of 20th century composers. Guilmant’s teaching led to a vast improvement in the
technical abilities of organists as well as to the quality of organ performance in general.
He was a world-renowned performer and improviser who helped to bring about a greater
appreciation of the organ and organ music. Guilmant made three American tours, the last
of which was in 1908, when he performed 40 recitals at the St Louis Exposition on what
was then the largest organ in the world. (The organ later was transferred to Wanamaker’s
Department Store in Philadelphia and became known as the Wanamaker organ.)
Guilmant’s organ music can be understood as belonging to either of two large divisions,
concert works or works written for church service. Foremost among his concert works
are eight sonatas, written between 1874 and 1907. Guilmant also wrote two symphonies
for organ as well as many masses, psalms and motets. In addition to the music of Handel
and Bach, that of German Classical and Romantic composers, whose pedal technique was
considered revolutionary in France in the 19th century, inspired Guilmant significantly. The
piano styles of Chopin and Liszt also had a formative influence on him. In France, Guilmant
was the first one to introduce the genre of the sonata for organ.
Guilmant composed his classic-romantic Sonata No. 1, in D minor, Op. 42, in 1874 for the
French organs of Cavaillé-Coll. He dedicated the work to and premiered it in the presence
of Prince Leopold II in 1878 at the World Exhibition in Paris.
Although written for the symphonic organ and subtitled Symphonie, the sonata has
an intimate chamber music feel that contrasts with the organ symphonies of his
contemporaries.
The sonata, much influenced by Beethoven, has a stately introduction, Introduction et
Allegro, before the central part of its sonata form first movement. The pedals introduce
the dramatic first subject. The second theme has an expressive long line, and eventually
the two themes are combined. The second movement, a charming Pastorale, Andante
quasi Allegretto, starts with a simple, rustic first subject, and in the movement’s center,
there is a chorale-like theme. Guilmant remarked that this movement depicts the
peaceful, quiet French countryside, interrupted only by monks singing in a monastery.
This pastorale, too, pays its debt to Beethoven. The third movement, Allegro, takes the
form of a rondo with an intense, brisk and turbulent toccata-like main subject. The second
theme, a romantic hymn-like chorale, recalls Mendelssohn’s organ sonatas. The coda, a
majestic march, makes a reference to the movement’s first theme. The finale is extremely
demanding, at times requiring 11 notes to be sounded simultaneously — four in each hand
and three in the feet.
— Program notes copyright Susan Halpern, © 2015
CHRISTIAN LANE
Winner of the 2011 Canadian
International Organ Competition
and Vice-President of the
American Guild of Organists,
Christian Lane is one of America’s
most accomplished, respected,
and versatile young organists.
“A true artist whose gratifying
musical maturity is demonstrated
through playing that is suave,
elegant, and exciting (The
American Organist),” he holds
a bachelor’s degree from the
Eastman School of Music, where
his mentor and teacher was
David Higgs. He subsequently
completed graduate work with
Thomas Murray as a Robert Baker
Scholar at Yale University.
Passionate about commissioning new music and using the organ in collaborative settings,
he frequently performs throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. He has
premiered commissioned works of several composers, including Nico Muhly and Carson
Cooman, and regularly performs joint programs with internationally-acclaimed soprano,
Jolle Greenleaf.
Increasingly established as a pedagogue, Mr. Lane maintains a large and vibrant organ
studio in Boston and has taught on several summer programs, including England’s
venerable Oundle for Organists. As an accompanist, he has recorded several discs with
choirs; his first solo disc was released on ATMA Classique to critical acclaim in 2012, and
two discs, Sounds of the Yard, featuring the new instruments at Harvard University were
released in 2014.
Mr. Lane has been privileged to serve within several of the United States’ most prominent
parish music programs; included are the Episcopal Churches of Trinity-on-the-Green
(New Haven) and Saint Thomas Fifth Avenue (New York City). From 2008 to 2014, he was
Associate University Organist and Choirmaster at Harvard University; he currently serves
as Director of Music at All Saints Episcopal Parish in Brookline, Massachusetts.