We continue this channel’s exploration of Late Romantic and Impressionist composers in France, in which it seems that everybody knew everybody else. This composer is no different. Charles-Marie-Jean-Albert Widor was an organist and teacher as well as a composer, instructing Louis Vierne (featured elsewhere on this channel) Albert Schweitzer, Darius Milhaud, and Marcel Dupré, among others. A co-founder of the American Conservatory at Fountainbleau (so-called because it was started during the Great War to train American military musicians), he was succeeded in teaching by Maurice Ravel and Nadia Boulanger.
As an organist, Widor was installed on a ‘provisional’ basis at Saint-Sulpice, Paris, arguably the most prestigious in the country, on the recommendation of composers Charles Gounod and Camille Saint-Saëns (with whom he had apprenticed) and Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who had constructed that organ and several other notable instruments. This ‘provisional’ appointment ended up lasting 64 years before Widor retired.
Widor is most known for his organ and piano writing, though he also wrote works for orchestra, concerti with orchestra, vocal pieces, and chamber works. His association with Cavaillé-Coll promote the building of organs of greater compass and expression, while writing music to exploit these new capabilities, to the point that such works were dubbed “Symphonies” despite having only one musician on one instrument. His most famous work is the 5th Symphony for Organ, particularly its fifth movement, to the point that it’s often simply called “Widor’s Toccata”. It is an almost hypnotic repeating sequence, eventually cycling through all twelve keys, with the constant pattering arpeggios marked by chords and strong pedal points keeping the beat on the half-note. Although sometimes played as if in competition to be fastest, Widor himself desired that it be played moderately, but with precision. It is a feature of wedding recessionals, including numerous royal weddings, and is played to close the Midnight Christmas Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica.
0:00 Allegro vivace
10:58 Allegro cantabile
18:50 Andantino quasi allegretto
25:08 Adagio
30:35 Toccata
Score sourced through the International Music Score Library Project/Petrucci Music Library: https://imslp.org/wiki/Special:ImagefromIndex/82912/hfal
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