Marcel Dupré plays Cortege et Litanie at St Sulpice

[contrebombarde1895]

Those string stops are very loud for strings, it nice to hear dupre play this at st sulpice :)

[organum74]

Yes, the best interpretation, that is right.

And so nice hearing the Master himself, on "his" organ.

The last crescendo is fantastic, incredible !

And a wonderful recording too !

[peteacher52]

What a wonderful sound! Dupre and the great Cavaille-Coll - what more need be said?!

[VicodinAddicted]

thanx for your dupre vids, he's one of my favorite composers

[christianvs1]

Ah....the dignity of the stately Cortege! A most perfect tempo; the Litany was beautiful! When the two were brought together, it was nothing short of an Introit, an 'introit-wihtout-words'. This is the original gift of the Church Organist - to bring together the formal liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church and his gift for music, giving birth to prayer in beautiful sounds rising like incense unto heaven.

[redletterchurch]

I would love to hear a choral version of this! I'd love to see most classical organ music converted into choral music! 'Cortege and Litanie' would be an excellent beginning to a very long and difficult process. Can someone please do this? I would, if I could. But I can't, so I won't!

[robmcw]

I wish Youtube would increase the audio quality. I can hear phasing from the compressed audio. Almost sounds like an 8 bit conversion.

[JFSnail]

@robmcw this was my first video and didn't understand which was the best conversion method. Now I would use HD and sound is much better, Youtube isn't always to blame :-).

[JButterworth16]

@JFSnail Sorry to resurrect an old post, but is there any chance you could re-upload it at a better conversion rate? No need to worry if not! :)

[pipes4life12]

Oops...I've been playing the opening a lot slower. What a fabulous recording!! ♫

[MelosAntropon]

@pipes4life12 : Stick to your guns, friend.  It is often said that "composers aren't always the best interpreters of their own works". Such is the case here in the "Cortege". Dupré himself marked the cortege "Tres Modere", but he plays it "andante con moto" here. The incredible beauty of it just *blooms* at a slower tempo, as many other recordings of it show perfectly. His tempo for the "Litanie" is perfect, though.

[pipes4life12]

@MelosAntropon Couldn't have said it better myself :) Thanks!!

[serassone]

Io non ho mai sentito un'esecuzione così emozionante!

[tenney1119]

I still have the vinyl. Bought it in 1964, and long ago played till I sadly wore it out. Been looking for a digital remastering over the years, but to no avail. Thank you SO MUCH for posting this. Brings me back a bunch of years and pleasure to hear it again.

[64ftContraBombarde]

Wow, listen to those strings!

[normandevalois]

I love the 'frying-bacon' strings !!

[MrBrysonD]

Heavenly!

[Gcizzlito]

Thanks very much for posting this, it's really quite wonderful

[fanny0820]

Saint sulpice a un "côté" grésillant sur les quartes et les tierces

en octave aigües qui blessent "les couleurs" et qui me fait "réticent " sur certains avis autorisés de cette liste .

[fanny0820]

do you know you tube piano+orgue de M dupré concerto en mimineur ?

thanks

[DSM1G90]

The wonderful team of Cozart and Fine from "Living Presence' Mercury Records does it again!

[zeitistda]

A very nice posting, and I appreciate hearing Dupre play his own piece. However, my favorite recording of Cortege et Litanie is the one done by Jonathan Dimmock playing the organ at St. John the Divine in New York City. The title of the recording is "French Masterworks from St. John the Divine," and it was made in 1987. His interpretation of this piece is absolutely sublime. I have many recordings of this work and have heard it live in performance many times, but Dimmock's is the best.

[lebbijan]

This is great, thank you for posting it.

[advisorC101]

This is absolutely gorgeous, Dupre was a pure genius.

[JFSnail]

This is my favourite interpretation of this piece, Dupré gets more emotion and power into this recording than any other. Plus its played on one of the most sublime pipe organs on earth.

[advisorC101]

I am more inclined to think that this is just the pure natural beauty of the work we are hearing here, rather than the composer 'interpreting' his own work. And you're so right, a monumental Cavaille-Coll organ that has not suffered the ravages of "taste" and "new tech", unlike so many of its counterparts... This organ is the one that inspired me to learn.

[dehnerbootboy]

If you'd like another inspiration, go find the recordings of Cochereau at Notre Dame of this and most of the big organ works of Dupre!

Formidable!!

d. dehner

[organmaster2101]

The picture at 2:09 is not the organ at st. Sulpice is it? They have a 5 manual and then pedal board is set up very differently with stop pedals and such with only the swell box expression on the right side correct?

[JFSnail]

The picture is a photograph of Dupré at his house organ in Meudon, it was built by Cavaillé-Coll for his father Albert Dupré and rebuilt many years later with four manuals.

[organmaster2101]

Ok thank you because i know my St. Sulpice organ and that wasn't it haha.

[GJmusique]

@JFSnail

In fact it was originally built for Alexandre Guilmant in 1899. Dupré bought it in 1926 and had it extensively modified by Beuchet in 1934 ;-)

[GJmusique]

@JFSnail

... and the organ on the mentioned picture is neither St. Sulpice nor his house organ. It's unknown to me, so I can't tell you which one it is.

[md95065]

@JFSnail Dupré's house organ was originally built for Guilmant in 1900 - it was acquired by Dupre in 1925 and later was extensively modified - the picture here shows the original console

[27bibi27]

Il s'agit certainement de l'un de ses chefs d'oeuvre.

cette pièce devrait suffire à le placer aux côtés des plus compositeurs ayant jamais exister

[mrMYSTERIUM]

sublime-god how i love all the french romantics=what a legacy.anymore suggestion for great pieces by anyone please let me know

[FromHolbergsTime]

A brilliant recording and a memorable performance. The fireworks seem to reverberate through the air to splendid effect. The ambiance truly is astounding at St. Sulpice. Peter Richard Conte offers a fine version played at the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ in Philadelphia. Michael Murray performs this piece with great power, majesty and clarity in his album of French masterpieces recorded at St. Sulpice in July of 1999 and offered through Telarc in 2002.

[and3583]

Does anyone know what stop/combination drops in at 0.31? Is it physharmonica?

[JFSnail]

I assume it to be the Recit 8' Voix Celeste, the organ is a little out of tune, sounds like one though ;-)

Ironically this organ did have some free reed stops when C-C first built it, but they were removed in the 1930s restoration. The positif gained a 16' Basson and the Bombarde gained 2 mutations.

[and3583]

Thank you, as a lifelong organist now restricted to a harmonium, I am always hoping to find facts which legitimise free reeds! I recently played an 1895/6 Willis newly restored by David Wells, tonal architecture remarkably like C/C and certainly the Swell 8' Voix Celeste sounded that way.

[jmeister321684]

For interest, I rather read the free reed stops were removed under Widor and the 1903 restoration; the 1934 addings were the pedal 16 and 8 Principals, offered at Widor's leaving of St-Sulpice at 90.

[organum74]

So great ! I love Dupré's works, and it's marvellous to hear him on 'his' wonderful organ !

[Organ11]

Stunning piece, a pleasure to hear it performed by the composer.

[wupperfeld]

Wonderful. Thank you for this document !

[nunocarmona]

Great video and audio. Thanks!

[a55b47]

JF, isn't this recording from one that also contains Dupré playing his Lamento, with a vox humana (or, I guess in this instance, voix humaine) that's about 2 steps out of pitch?

[Heaventree1]

A really wonderful video. I was privileged to hear Dupre play in St. Sulpice in 1968. At 82, his playing was as masterful as ever. We got to spoke to Dupre afterward, and it's one of the fondest memories of my life. Such a warm, courtly person, like a figure from the Belle Epoque dropped down into the modern world. A great man, in every possible way.

Thanks for posting, JF.

[marsvltor2]

After too many listenings, this performance still sends shivers down my spine...Thank you for posting JF.

[redletterchurch]

This is probably my favorite Dupre piece. It is straight forward and simple in some ways, yet profound and dazzling in other ways. Sometimes I wonder if church should consist only of music, with no speaking...just singing and instrumental music in grand spaces like Saint Sulpice. Perhaps many people would start attending church again. People could be inspired by the music to think for themselves and come to their own conclusions in their own way and in their own time. Thank-you for posting this.

[ihadaralf]

As near perfect a combination gets. Composer = organist, organ = composer/organist's organ.

Divine.

[Musicantus007]

I love this music. But where can I find this piece? I form LT and we don't have such sheetmusic

[ds1868]

Another gem of a recording, thanks for posting!

[Justedd]

this is probably the best version on youtube, no surprise its a recording of the man himself.

[8891randy]

For such a large organ, the organ loft there is quite small - but what a sound!!

[tjugofyra]

The organcase was ment to contain 69 stops I think:)

[Fozzymaple]

This is the most interesting recording of the Cortege and Litanie I've ever heard, it is also the best one on Youtube. The overall quality of the recording is very good, I mean after all we are talking recording technology c.1960, however, I find that the sound lacks a certain clarity. It sounds amazing, but there is a certain fuzziness to the sound, I don't know what it is, but it almost sounds slightly out of focus.

[JFSnail]

Hello! Sorry, but I made this very quickly and hadn't considered what the conversion from wmv to flv format would have on the sound. I was also worried about file size too! The compression distorts the sound a lot, so in future I will make the transfer rate much higher.

The sound on the source CD is just incredible, warm, crystal-clear sound throughout, please don't be put off by my amateurish efforts :-)

[Fozzymaple]

Please, don't apologize, there is no need, I am a musician (I play many different instruments, and among them is the pipe organ) and as an organist myself, I think it is just so neat to hear the master (or meastro, if you prefer) playing his own works, I love listening to the composers play their own works. This one is even better because it is Dupre, playing Dupre on the instrument this was most likely written on, or at least for. This was marvelous.

[Fozzymaple]

What's better, you can still see the Widor/Dupre console at St. Sulpice, unlike certain other important French churches we might know of (Notre Dame de Paris, well they did keep the Cavaille Coll console, but they stopped using it and hooked something horribly British looking, ick!)

[Justedd]

whats the name of the CD?

[jeanseborg]

Thank you so much for posting this!! I'm suscribing to your channel NOOOOOOOOOOOW!!! ;^)

[marsvltor2]

Definitive. Wonderful playing at his own console. Cochereau - flashy, but in this piece, nowhere near as effective (horizonatal reeds included!). Dupre was phenomenal as both composer and performer...