(Classical, Organ)[WEB] Messiaen, Dupre, Alain - Organ Works (Vera Hermanova) - 2016 (1985), FLAC (image+.cue) lossless

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Appropriately, this album has its dominant track in the extract from Olivier Messiaen’s renowned organ cycle; yet the selection as a whole tends to point out a rare creative contiguity of two successive generations of composers bound by the teacher-student relationship. Coming chronologically first in this line was MARCEL DUPRÉ (1886-1971) whose life’s work was projected into three distinct spheres of French culture. As an excellent organist, Dupré followed up the great tradition of his predecessors C. M. Widor, A. Guilmant, and most notably, C. Franck; he won exceptional recognition as an educator and organizer; and last but not least, he left behind a legacy of remarkable compositions a number of which - especially his solo organ and concertante pieces, the Symphony for Piano and Organ, and the oratorio, La France au Calvaire — have become staple numbers of the international repertory. The Prelude and Fugue in G minor, for organ (1912) represents an earlier creative stage, with the majestic glitter and sublime organ sound, typical of the French romantic synthesis, prevailing in the toccata prelude and in the sparkling double fugue with solemn finale.
The second in the line, OLIVIER MESSIAEN (b. 1908), a one-time member of the artists’ association Jeune France and organist in the Paris church of the Holy Trinity, trained organ playing under Dupré, and in the field of theory — particularly as regards the method of developing the melodic idea - he was the direct continuator of Dupré’s work as outlined in the latter’s study, Traité d’improvisation. Apart from the symptomatic tonal charm of their music, the two share the qualities of reflectiveness and well thought- out expression. Messiaen’s supremely rational approach is accountable for his being the more constructively-minded of the two, a level on which he combines original compositional procedures with a wide variety of oriental or nature-inspired intonations, and/or exploits the universe of symbols and mysticism. Of Messiaen’s best known organ compositions (La Nativité du Seigneur, Messe de la Pentecôte, Livre dürgue, Méditations sur le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité), the cycle L’Ascension (1934 following an orchestral version from 1933) is the one most widely performed. Its firm order, permeated by mystical visions and simultaneously involving a rich sensuality of timbre, leaves no doubt as to the author’s French origin, and as to his following in the footsteps of Berlioz.
The prematurely deceased French composer JEHAN ALAIN (1914-1941), Messiaen’s coeval, was also a pupil of Dupré. Like Messiaen, Alain too earned early fame as an organist whose playing was admired between 1935 and 1936 by visitors of St. Nicolas’ church in Paris. The almost 100 orchestral, chamber and lieder pieces that the young author was able to produce in a few years, without showing any explicit attachment to a particular contemporary school, are sometimes characterized, by virtue of their original harmonic and restlessly dramatic instinct, as a typically French analogy to the work of L Janáček. The numbers selected for the present recording are from Alain’s key collection of organ music, L'Œuvre dOrgue, written between 1929 and 1939.

VERA HEŘMANOVÁ (b. 1951), a pupil of Professors Vladimír Havlík at the Brno Conservatory and Alena Veselá at the Janáček Academy of Musical Arts, represents the young generation of Czech organists. In 1974 she won the organ contest organized by the Janáček Academy, a year later she was a finalist at the competition in Bologna, and in 1981, while on a post-graduate course in France, she was awarded the ‘Unanimous First Prize’
by the Conservatoire de Saint Maur. Besides that, V. Heřmanová has acquired further experience at a series of specialized courses (Haarlem, Paris, Geneva, etc.), has made a number of studio recordings, and has appeared in concert performances in Czechoslovakia, France, Austria, Denmark, Sweden and the FRG. She has earned considerable acclaim for her festival recitals, most notably at the Amager Musik-festival, in Copenhagen.