Paris Pipe Organ Tournemire Plays Tournemire (1)

Recorded at Ste. Clotilde in 1931. For historians, not audiophiles ;-). Charles Tournemire improvised this piece on the Te Deum as one of 5 specifically created for the recording sessions. It was these recordings from which Maurice Duruflé made the famous transcriptions that we play today. An interesting side note: Tournemire ingeniously developed the music so that it would have a natural break at about the 3-minute mark (2:52 here, to be precise), because the old black discs would hold only about 3 1/2 minutes per side.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Paris
• pipe
• organ
• orgue
• orgel
• organo
• Ste. Clotilde
• Tournemire

[tjugofyra]

Does the church don't have much reverb or is it just the recording?

Fantastic to hear tournemire play!!

[a55b47]

It's the recording. Consider that in 1930, portable electronic recording equipment was in its infancy, & the microphone was probably set up in the organ loft. Ste. Clothilde is not huge, but it's got a pretty good reverberation time. Unfortunately, given its heritage (Franck, Tournemire, Langlais) the organ hasn't been recorded very much.

[Organistcomposer21]

Do you mean that is is so famous that it is hard to get too to play?

[a55b47]

Sometimes -- most times -- it's the church management (i.e. clergy) that poses the problem. They are not organ0friendly.And sometimes the organ is not maintained well enough to be playable for performance. Some times it's both. I don't know what the proble is at St.e Clothilde. It's a very prosperous parish, but that probably doesn't mean much these days, when so few of the French actually attend church except for weddings & funerals.

[Organistcomposer21]

Great music. where did you get the pictures?

[a55b47]

Downloaded from the internet. It's amazing what you can fin if you look hard enough ;-)

[gerardbedecarter]

Thanks for uploading this!

[gerardbedecarter]

@tjugofyra ..... Ste Clothilde has an incredibly reverberant and, almost overpowering, acoustic.

[td2901]

Is it me or are there some clear differences between the recording and the transcription? For example, in bar 6, Tournemire plays low pedal Ds on the 2nd and 4th beat but Durufle writes the first of these an ocative higher. And both those beats have a B natural in there somewhere. Significantly changes the harmony.

[Sesquiltera]

WOW! Didn't know that the famous Te Deum came from an improvisation by Tournemire, now I find it even a more brilliant piece!

[Organistcomposer21]

If you listen very very closely, you can actually hear the reverb. It took me a long time to hear it!

[Organistcomposer21]

What a shame. Thanks for the info.