for Grand Organ and Orchestra The Opening Concert of the Albert Schweitzer Organ Festival Hartford Friday, September 27, 2019, 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, September 29, 2019, 3:00 p.m. Trinity College Chapel, Hartford, Connecticut

The Hartford Symphony Orchestra Carolyn Kuan, Music Director Christopher Houlihan, organ John Nowacki, narrator

Program Notes By Alan Murchie

Charles-Marie Widor (Born February 21, 1844, in Lyon, France; died March 12, 1937, in Paris) Symphony for Organ and Orchestra (No. 6), Opus 42 bis I. Allegro maestoso When Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), theologian, organist, physician, and humanitarian, was detained as an enemy alien at Saint-Rémy during the First World War, he was left for a considerable period without access to a keyboard, unable to play the music that might have helped sustain him through that difficult time. Schweitzer tells us how he survived: He spent hours memorizing music in his head, “playing” one extremely difficult work in particular over and over, so that once he was released he might be able to execute it flawlessly. The work: Organ Symphony No. 6 in G minor by his teacher, Charles-Marie Widor. This poignant snapshot offers a brief glimpse into the deep, multi-layered friendship between these two men. Widor, the elder by about thirty years, was for many years Schweitzer’s teacher. Yet Widor himself tells us how often master wound up as student; how regularly and how naturally these roles were reversed as two kindred spirits found each other in their shared love and reverence for Bach, for balance, for beauty, and, most of all, for the organ. Widor was taken by his student’s unusual insight and compassion; Schweitzer was touched by his teacher’s innate generosity. He would later write: “Many a time, if [Widor] got the sense that my purse was rather slender, he would take me after our lesson to his favorite haunt and invite me to eat my fill.” The two men would ultimately collaborate on a new edition of Bach’s complete works for organ solo; for generations, it was the leading authority for organists seeking a deeper understanding of Bach’s enormously complex music and how to play it. Widor’s Organ Symphony No. 6 is an ecstatic and comprehensive expression of love and reverence for the organ, asking the organist to do just about everything humanly possible to demonstrate its power, its extraordinary range of color, and its enormous expressive and dynamic range. It was thus only natural that, when Widor was asked in 1880 by the Prince of Wales to write a grand work for organ and orchestra for the Royal Albert Hall in London, he simply took this organ symphony (together with one movement from an earlier work) and expanded it to create the Symphony for Organ and Orchestra, Opus 42 bis. For the work’s first movement, heard in this performance, Widor changed very little in the organ writing; the organ solo in the new work is almost identical with its earlier incarnation. There’s a reason for this: it is a superb conception, an innovative and deeply-affecting movement rivaled only by the famous Toccata for popularity among Widor’s works. Music for Grand Organ and Orchestra – Progam Notes by Alan Murchie – September 2019 – Page 1 Formally, its tripartite structure signals traditional Sonata-Allegro Form, yet it plays out to the ear more as a Theme and Variations. The theme, instantly memorable, resembles a dark, insistent chorale in thickly-voiced block chords. It’s followed by a cascading passage that could be considered a “second theme,” but which functions mostly to lead us back to another iteration of the chorale. As the movement plays out, the finds endless ways to weave his chorale theme in and out of the musical texture, playfully throwing it to the organ pedals, then to the left hand, speeding it up and slowing it down, using snippets of it as countermelody or as passage-work. Through it all, Widor maintains a firm grasp on structure, making us wait just long enough for the inevitable moment when the chorale returns ever more triumphantly, giving us the double sonic thrill that Berlioz called “the Emperor and the Pope” — the full organ matched by the lush orchestral voices the composer’s score demands.

Johann Sebastian Bach (Born March 21, 1685 in Eisenach, Germany; died July 28, 1750 in Leipzig) Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C Major, BWV 564 Widor called Bach “the father of us all.” For Schweitzer, too, Bach was the one essential. Widor loved telling the story of Schweitzer’s first organ lesson, at which the 18-year-old sat down at the organ and announced, “I’d like to play something for you.” Widor asked, “Sure. Play what?” Schweitzer responded, “Bach, of course.” It was in their shared exploration of Bach that Widor wound up, to his surprise and delight, learning from his unusually gifted and insightful student an elusive interpretative secret Widor had sought for years. Musicologist John Near tells the story in his study Widor: A Life Beyond the Toccata. Widor had for years admired Bach’s chorale preludes as “models of pure counterpoint.” Yet he had been perplexed by Bach’s musical choices, some of which he found mercurial, odd, quixotic, mystifying. Why would Bach suddenly shift from one texture to another, seemingly without adequate preparation? Why would Bach, in short, violate his own rules so regularly? One day, according to Near, Widor threw the question to Schweitzer as they examined a particularly abstruse prelude. And Schweitzer responded. Bach, as Schweitzer articulated it, was a musical “painter.” While we hear counterpoint and know that rules underlie Bach’s writing, those rules tell only part of the story. Bach painted colors and textures with a palette inspired by the chorales themselves. Each chorale, as Schweitzer saw it, sprang originally from a thought, an idea, a prayer. Bach’s choices were inspired by these thoughts, these prayers, and in his musical responses his choices as “painter” were pre-eminent. For Bach, as Schweitzer saw it, the thought or prayer that lay behind a chorale ultimately took precedence over accepted compositional “rules.” For Widor, this was a game-changing insight. Near quotes him: “I could now see that these small pieces really were less models of correct counterpoint than poems of an elegance and emotional intensity without parallel.” Schweitzer’s goal, over time, was to present Bach anew to the world not just as a musical genius, but as a mystic. He saw Bach less as the dutiful cantor writing German music for the Lutheran church than as a comprehensive composer synthesizing French, Italian, and German styles to craft something we might call “universal” in its scope and comprehension. The Bach of Schweitzer’s synthesis is fully on display in the Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C Major, BWV 564. The work is as Italian as it is German, as worldly as it is introspective, as infectious as it is reflective, as virtuosic as it is simple. Bach wrote it when he was fully in Vivaldi’s thrall: the beat is driving and insistent, the melodies are clear and memorable, and the harmonies are simple; much like Vivaldi’s, Bach’s tunes follow sweet, swaying, predictable patterns. And the performer has a chance to show off, just as the violinist, flutist, lutenist, or trumpeter might in any of Vivaldi’s myriad, enchanting concerti. In fact, showing off may have been a primary catalyst for the work’s inception, for Bach composed this early in his career, when he needed showpieces to demonstrate his — and the organ’s — ability to dazzle. This is, of course, far from the Bach of myth, the dour Lutheran who turned out music to satisfy the clergy, following the rules unsmilingly. And that was precisely Schweitzer’s point.

Albert Schweitzer at the organ

Music for Grand Organ and Orchestra – Progam Notes by Alan Murchie – September 2019 – Page 2 Gene Scheer (born April 2, 1958, New York) Albert Schweitzer Portrait Sandwiched among the music on this program, all linked so closely to Albert Schweitzer, is a much more recent work even more explicitly evocative of Schweitzer’s life and work. The selections by Widor, Bach, and Mendelssohn echo Schweitzer’s musical passions. Gene Scheer’s Albert Schweitzer Portrait, for orchestra and narrator, goes in another direction entirely, focusing instead on Schweitzer’s humanitarian efforts and his personal philosophy, grounded, as Schweitzer articulated it, in a guiding “reverence for life.” Schweitzer had frustrated Widor for a time by leaving behind their collaborative Bach project in order to build a hospital in French Equatorial Africa. Widor knew his friend well enough to understand that this call to service was as essential to Schweitzer as his call to music. “What can you do,” Widor said at the time, “when a man says to you ‘God calls me?’” Scheer’s Portrait serves as something of a musical travelogue as it takes us up the Ogooué River in Gabon, to a time and place in Schweitzer’s life in which he discerned his growing belief in the spirit of compassion that he felt was common to all humans, in the call to reverence for life in all its forms, in our ultimate and essential human connectedness. Schweitzer is so well known to us as musician, theologian, and humanitarian that it’s easy to forget that he was also a medical doctor. In 1913, he founded a hospital in Lambaréné, in the region now called Gabon. A special focus of the hospital was its care for patients shunned for having highly infectious diseases such as leprosy. He served as its director for the rest of his life, and in 1952 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his achievement. Wonderfully and fittingly, Gene Scheer’s Albert Schweitzer Portrait was commissioned by the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship and the Longwood Symphony Orchestra, and was given its first performance in 2009 by the LSO, a Boston-based ensemble composed primarily of healthcare professionals.

Felix Mendelssohn (Born February 3, 1809 in Hamburg, Germany; died November 4, 1847 in Leipzig) Symphony No. 5 in D Major, Opus 107 (“Reformation”) IV. Chorale: Andante con moto; Allegro vivace Much as Schweitzer worked to correct what he saw as misunderstandings of Bach, the man and composer, he sought to do the same for Felix Mendelssohn. For Schweitzer, Mendelssohn was not primarily the creator of drawing-room pieces for the domestic market, the cozy composer of sweet and safe melodies. For Schweitzer, Mendelssohn was, more than anything else, a mystic and a lover of Bach. And that’s all Schweitzer needed to feel close kinship with yet another musical “father.” Schweitzer included Mendelssohn’s organ works in his concert programs and recordings. His favorites? Those based on chorales, of course: Schweitzer saw in Mendelssohn the same devotional impulse and the same ability to “paint” that he’d discerned in Bach, fused with similar contrapuntal fluency. Schweitzer enjoyed telling the story of the young Mendelssohn who, at age nine, found errors in Bach’s counterpoint, including the transgressions known as “parallel fifths and octaves.” Mendelssohn’s teacher, Carl Zelter, was stunned. Within just a few years, Mendelssohn would begin producing regular motets in the “ancient style,” alongside multi- movement sacred cantatas based on chorale melodies. And, of course, when he was just beyond his teens, Mendelssohn assembled choral and orchestral forces for a grand public performance of Bach’s transcendent Passion According to Saint Matthew. The performance was a triumph and little short of an inaugural moment in the “rediscovery” of Bach. Widor would go on to do the same in France several decades later, leading his Concordia Chorale in a comprehensive Bach revival for audiences who (hard as it is for us to understand) knew virtually nothing of Bach’s life or music. While preparing to perform Bach’s Passion, Mendelssohn worked on a commission for a symphony commemorating the 300th anniversary of the moment that had, essentially, introduced Protestantism to the world. How else to go about such a project than to ground the work in a mighty Lutheran chorale? And one, moreover that Bach had set so memorably? The chorale Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (sung in English as “A Mighty Fortress is our God”) is still among the best-known and frequently-sung hymns, across all denominational lines. In his “Reformation” Symphony, Mendelssohn waits until the last movement to introduce the melody, at first in the timorous voice of the solo flute. It’s not long before each set of orchestral voices joins in, with increasing enthusiasm, as Mendelssohn builds inexorably toward the tune’s climactic final statement, rung out in powerful octaves by the full orchestra. Music for Grand Organ and Orchestra – Progam Notes by Alan Murchie – September 2019 – Page 3 Joseph Jongen (Born December 14, 1873, Liège, Belgium; died July 12, 1953, Sart, Jalhay, Belgium) Symphonie Concertante, Opus 81 I. Allegro molto, moderato (In modo dorian) II. Divertimento: Molto vivo III. Molto lento: Lento misterioso IV. Toccata (Moto perpetuo): Allegro moderato Widor’s Symphony for Organ and Orchestra (heard at the beginning of this program) received its American premiere in 1919 before an audience of about 12,000. John Wanamaker’s palatial department store in Philadelphia (designed as a destination shopping experience, and now owned by Macy’s) accommodated not only this enormous crowd, but the entire , led in those days by . In 1926, Wanamaker commissioned Joseph Jongen to write a work for similar forces, expecting a similarly spectacular premiere on the store’s gigantic 455-rank, 28,500-pipe organ. For a variety of reasons, it never happened, and the work finally got its U.S. premiere at Carnegie Hall ten years later. Those in attendance were treated to program notes written by the composer, wherein Jongen wrote that his goal in writing the Symphonie Concertante was to find “the best possible union of organ and orchestra.” And that is precisely what he found indeed, in this stirring, tuneful, engaging, powerful work that organist Christopher Houlihan considers “the best 20th-century work of its kind.” In each of the work’s four movements, orchestra and organ trade roles as soloists, and organ “strings” share duties with orchestral strings in providing a lush backdrop for the work’s constant stream of melodies. The first movement opens, surprisingly, with a fugue and also surprisingly, in the ancient Dorian mode. Jongen’s historicism is short-lived, however, as the fugal passage leads in short order to the movement’s jaunty main theme. The piquant harmonies and gently insistent pulse place us firmly in the 1920s. A divertimento follows that is somehow simultaneously devotional and coquettish, paying homage to the organ’s traditional liturgical role and setting while juxtaposing its ecclesial overtones with playfulness and hints of the dance. A slow third movement follows that Jongen called “the expressive climax of the work.” One hears strong echoes of Richard Strauss in this movement. As a young man Jongen had met Strauss, playing a few sketches for him and inviting the composer’s commentary. Jongen told his brother afterward that Strauss’s comments had been revelatory, “like shafts of light — it was as if a heavy curtain had been lifted from before my eyes.” The work concludes with a justly-famous finale, a brilliant toccata in the French tradition of organist- Dubois, Gigout, and Widor, as taxing as it is thrilling, that brings the work to its sweeping, cinematic, ecstatic close.

Sources Consulted Near, John R. Widor: A Life Beyond the Toccata (Rochester: U of Rochester Press, 2013) Picht, W. R. V. The Life and Thought of Albert Schweitzer (New York: Harper & Row, 1964) Whitely, J. S. Joseph Jongen and his Organ Music (Stuyvesant: Pendragon Press, 1997) © Alan Murchie 2019

Alan Murchie is a versatile musician whose performance schedule includes regular appearances as a solo pianist, organist, conductor, chamber musician, and lecturer. Concert performances include piano and organ concerti with The Knights, a live performance on WGBH Boston with BSO cellist Owen Young, and summer festival performances at the Maverick Festival in Woodstock, NY. As a solo pianist, Alan has toured Morocco and has performed in Vienna, Berlin, Edinburgh, Venice, and Florence. In 2016, Alan traveled to the UK for cathedral residencies in Edinburgh and Lichfield; organ recital venues include the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in New York City. Alan Murchie recently graduated with the degree Master of Divinity cum laude from the Yale Divinity School, where he was Louise H. Maclean scholar. During his time in New Haven, Alan was Organist and Choirmaster at Berkeley Divinity School and Choirmaster for the Episcopal Church at Yale. In 2007, as Director of Music at Trinity Episcopal Church in Southport, Alan founded the Southport Summer Music Festival, which was noted in 2010 by the New Yorker as “an elegant new series” and recommended for its outstanding collaborating artists. Alan's musical career began early, at age 10, when he joined the renowned St. Thomas Choir of Men and Boys. He appeared as treble soloist on St. Thomas’ 20th Century Services. He was graduated summa cum laude from Yale College, where he was named “most promising and gifted composer.” His Paean for brass and woodwinds was chosen to open a concert dedicating the new Yale School of Music campus. After college, Alan returned to St. Thomas as Organ Scholar and as a member of the Choir School faculty. Alan was Organist and Choirmaster for seven years at St. James’ Church, Madison Avenue, and for ten years at Church of the Advent Hope, both in New York City. He is now Rector at Trinity Episcopal Church, Nichols in Trumbull, CT, and Lecturer in Music History at Fairfield University, where he also coaches chamber music. Music for Grand Organ and Orchestra – Progam Notes by Alan Murchie – September 2019 – Page 4