Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessible music related to each.
Duruflé’s Op. 5
On today’s date in 1935, at the Church of Saint François-Xavier in Paris, organist Geneviève de la Salle gave the first complete performance of the three-movement Suite, Op. 5, by the French composer and virtuoso organist Maurice Duruflé. If you sing in a choir or are a fan of choral classics, you probably know Duruflé’s serene and tranquil “Requiem,” Op. 9, which premiered some 12 years later. Now, if Duruflé’s Op. 5 premiered in 1935, and his Op. 9 in 1947, you might reasonably conclude the composer was a slow, meticulous worker, which he was. In all, Duruflé’s output comprises less than 15 published works, of which seven are for organ. His Organ Suite, Op. 5 consist of a brooding Prélude, a Sicilienne that evokes the harmonies and inflections of Ravel, and a brilliant, concluding Toccata. Duruflé’s music is firmly embedded in the French tradition of organ composers like César Franck and Louis Vierne, and Duruflé’s own composition teacher, Paul Dukas. The great French organist Marie-Claire Alain described Duruflé’s music as “… perfectly honest art. . . He was not an innovator but a traditionalist … Duruflé evolved and amplified the old traditions, making them his own."