Jean Guillou: Souffles Héroïques, Les Grandes Transcriptions pour Chœur et Orgue

Description

Polyphonic vocal music, with its diversity of languages, is a particularly fertile field of experimentation for today’s composers.
Jean Guillou’s work includes a variety of examples of choral writing, such as the Judith Symphonie opus 21, the oratorio Le Jugement dernier (without opus number), the Missa Interrupta opus 51, and Echo opus 60. Two other more chamber-like works are written for a small number of solo voices: Peace opus 43, for eight mixed voices and organ, and Aube opus 46, this time for twelve mixed voices and organ. In these last two works, the organ is not to be considered as an ‘accompanying’ instrument in the traditional sense, but as a character in its own right, whose confrontation with all the voices, the other protagonists, will weave a very special dramaturgy, intended for the musical translation of the poetic text that constitutes both the support and the source of inspiration.

Guillou: Ihr himmel, luft und wind, Op. 76
Ihr Himmel, Luft und Wind opus 76, a later work, is the composer’s only a cappella piece for an ensemble of eight voices. It is based on a sonnet by Martin Opitz, dating from 1625. Opitz is generally regarded as the father of German poetry in the Baroque period, and even a theoretician of it, notably thanks to his Buch von der deutschen Poeterey. Beyond the text chosen, this poetic symbolism, extending the very subject of the work, is particularly enlightening, for a composer who openly claimed the poetic dimension as constitutive of his language and expressive aims, and who was himself a poet (Jean Guillou, Le Visiteur, recueil de poèmes, Christophe Chomant Editeur, 2014). The interweaving of the different solo voices, at times diffuse harmonic ether, at times clamour, at times scansion, seems to want to embrace and enshrine at once all the dreamlike virtues of the German poet’s verses, to exalt them even more. One of the sonnet’s tercets, bearing the personal dedication, was deliberately omitted by the composer to allow the work to be performed in a religious context. Completed in February 2010, the work was premiered on 18 April of that year at the Basilica of Altenberg in Germany, on the occasion of Jean Guillou’s eightieth birthday, by the Olivier Messiaen Choir of Saarbrücken, conducted by Jörg Abbing, its dedicatee.
Vincent Crosnier (November 2023)

Mozart: Sancta Maria Mater Dei and Regina Cœli
Sancta Maria Mater Dei as well as Regina Cœli, belong to the great Mozart’s motets for choir and orchestra, and are especially dedicated to the Virgin Mary. They are undoubtedly chronologically close in date of composition. The first – Sancta Maria -, composed in 1777, reveals the admirable freshness of Mozart’s inspiration, while the second – Regina Cœli -, probably dated from 1779, appeals to the listener with its vigour and jubilation.
The orchestral accompaniment has been transcribed here for the organ by Jean Guillou.
(Vincent Crosnier)

Guillou: Suite pour Rameau, Op.36
This suite of 9 short pieces was written for the 3rd centenary of the birth of J. Ph. Rameau and was commissioned by his home town of Dijon. Most of the pieces are based on titles used by Rameau himself, but in a very different style, as one might imagine. Their style is singularly elliptical. These works are, in fact, a kind of miniature, sometimes suggestive of euphemisms, in which the female characters are musically described or rather suggested, in a spirit that might be described as ‘anacreontic’ and which, it is true, has almost always held sway over French music.
This suite includes a piece entitled ‘Diderot’, which is nothing more than a musical setting of an extract from the philosopher’s Treatise on Harmony, ‘Le Devoir de l’élève’ (The Pupil’s homework) which he published simply in figures. So I did it, believing that this piece, known only to specialists, deserved to emerge from its abstraction and feature in a tribute to the musician who suggested Diderot’s famous novel ‘Le Neveu de Rameau’ (Rameau’s Nephew). I took great pleasure in expressing my admiration for this philosopher in this way, while at the same time blending reality and creative fiction.

Franz Liszt: Psalm XIII
It was on 6th of December 1855 that Franz Liszt conducted one of his most memorable concerts for his contemporaries at the Singakademie in Berlin, in the presence of Frederick William IV and Queen Elysabeth. The programme included the following works :
– Les Préludes, symphonic poem
– Ave Maria for mixed choir and orchestra
– Concerto No. 1 in E flat, for piano and orchestra, performed by Hans von Bülow
– Tasso, symphonic poem
– Der XIII Psalm, for tenor solo, choir and orchestra.
Poorly received, as usual, by the local critics, this concert can be described as a historic event in the development of the music of the period. Another historic event was the concert given in Brunswick on 15th of October, where Liszt conducted his two symphonic poems: Orpheus and Prometheus, which I have also transcribed for organ. Apart from the ‘Poems’, Psalm XIII is one of Liszt’s most representative, well-written and moving choral works. The solo part is a model of profound and accurate expression, at the same time as a blossoming of the voice in the purest spirit of the “Bel Canto”. The score is written for full orchestra, with woodwinds in pairs and brass in fours, and its orchestral writing is on a par with his Poèmes or the Dante Symphony, with two fugues: one lyrical and sombre, the other rhythmic and powerful. Psalm XIII must be considered one of the great works of the century in the field of sacred music. Having had the opportunity to play it myself on the organ, I thought that the transcription thus worked out and experimented with could be offered and enrich the repertoire of all the “Kantors” who, loving this work and thus avoiding the expense of an orchestra, would offer an audition which, I believe, can give a fair measure of this masterpiece. My work has endeavoured to bring out all the lyrical and dynamic elements of its orchestral writing, through the registrations and the distribution of voices on the keyboards and pedalboard. I wanted the organ to truly replace the orchestra, shedding a different light on it.
(Jean Guillou – Esprit de Suite