Pipe Organ Chartres Cathedral Duruflé (1)

Recorded by Philippe Lefebvre (the titulaire @ Chartres at the time) in 1981. Since 1985, he's been one of the 3 organists @ Notre Dame of Paris. Maurice Duruflé was not very prolific, but every piece he published was an exquisitely polished gem. The Suite has 3 parts -- uploaded separately. Chartres cathedral is one of the great (& most intensively studied) buildings in the world. There's been an organ there since 1349, but this instrument dates back only to 1971 -- a IV/67/98 Danion-Gonzalez. Everything prior to that (except for the case) was ripped out.

Many thanks to Martin Doering of Die Orgelseite for some of his superb pictures. If you haven't found his organ web site yet, run, don't walk. It's www.die-orgelseite.de -- the best organ-related web site in the world, bar none. He's got a ton of information on the great organs of the world, but even better, he's travelled to a lot of them & taken some of the most spectacular organ pix I've ever seen anywhere. It's a bit German-centric, but that's understandable: Martin lives there. I wish we had someone here in the U.S. who had his interest & commitment.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• pipe
• organ
• orgue
• orgel
• organo
• Chartres
• Cathedral
• Duruflé
• France
• classical

[cyorgan]

I disagree that Durufle was not prolific.

[a55b47]

Well, my definition of "prolific" is "producing a large body of published work." That definition would seem to exclude Duruflé,whose published work ends at Opus 14. Can you give me an example of a composer whose work was as good as Duruflé's who published less?

[cyorgan]

oh, ok, I was basing my assessment on how popular and how often performed the composer's works were.

[a55b47]

Well, we agree, then ;-) Based on the number of times his work is played, he's prolific. Which, I guess, makes him one of the most EFFICIENT composers who ever lived. Small output, lots of performances. As we say here in Washington, "lots of bang for the buck."

[2468HOTROD]

I'm in total awe of all the photos. You really put out beautiful videos, Thank you.

[a55b47]

You know, it's amazing how much great photography you can pull off the internet -- which is what I've done in every instance. Again,if you want to see some amazing photos (particularly of organs), I encourage you to go to Martin Doering's Die Orgelseite. That man is a photo whiz.

[adegres]

OMG I wrote "the most boring thing in the world" for no reason, and found this! XD

[Alleghenymike]

I gotta quit bitching and set this piece, all three movements, for an electronic orchestral transcription - yeah some of you shudder to think...but this piece really deserves to be put into a medium where its real warmth and beauty can be heard. The organ, which ironically I love and hate at the same time - simply cannot bring out all that is in this work.

[saxorgan]

Wow, 9 minutes for the Prélude... Today, they play that much faster...

[choirboyfromhell1]

Whoa-5:00, somebody needs to tune-but still incredibly haunting nonetheless.

[Lureboy]

I play this piece on my jew's harp!

[mathijs1987j]

Could you put this marvelous video up again?

[ryangeo1]

I first came across this piece in an Erato recording by Durufle and his wife themselves in the early 1970's - sends tingles down my spine and always will. In Contrast to many of the french romantic composers the intricacies of Durufle's music often benefit from a drier acoustic or a small building. This I think being particularly so of his Prelude and fugue sur le nom D'Alain

[cyorgan]

no kidding, and the works aren't exactly child's play either.