Finally! Some more Falcinelli on CD.

[acc]

Festivo are announcing the release of a CD (see here) with Rolande Falcinelli playing Franck, Dupré, her own works, and improvisations.

Falcinelli (born 1920) is a student of Marcel Dupré, and she succeeded him as organ professor at the Paris Conservatoire from 1954 till 1986. Her tenure was not devoid of difficulties: many people (me included) resent her refusal to take into account the rediscovery of baroque performance practises during the 1960s, while she remained faithful to the tradition of her master Dupré, a tradition rooted in the 19th century (Lemmens, Widor). This was of course fine when it came to teach her students to play works by Widor or Dupré, but for Bach, it was another story. In 1986, the contrast couldn't have been greater, when she retired and Michel Chapuis was named as her successor.

Unfortunately, those resentments incited many people (me not included !) to disregard her heritage entirely. This was unjustified, since she has been a top-notch organist, both musically and technically (I put her on par with Jeanne Demessieux, who so far has had some more "media attention" within the small organ world). Her Dupré interpretations are in my opinion still unsurpassed. I once heard her live in an improvised fully-fledged four part symphony - incredible!

It has therefore been all the more regrettable that so far, she has featured on CD only three times: Dupré's Chemin de la Croix at Notre-Dame, two tracks on the CD "Große Organistinnen" (published by organ), and a CD recorded in the St-Brice church of Tournai (Belgium), with a rather confidential dissemination.

The Festivo issue is therefore likely to be a welcome addition to the legacy of this great organist. I'm certainly going to grab it as soon as it comes out!

[giovannimusica]

Hi acc,

Thanx for the tip and link - I've just ordered it.

Cheers,

Giovanni

[Thomas Dressler]

Yes, ACC, thanks for telling us about it, and for the extra information, as well. It's nice to see someone take a balanced approach in evaluating an artist!

[hugues huddlestone]

I ordered the CD with Rolande Falcinelli as interpreter, improviser and composer. I have been listening to it over and over again and as I am writing this message I am still listening to it through earphones! this is something not to be forgotten, such a display of virtuosity, such moving, beautiful music in her improvisations! "le Rhin qui coule à Basel" really brings tears to your eyes, it has something wagnerian in it. I knew Rolande Falcinelli well, though I never studied with her; she was a very impressive lady, with a lot of charm, very knowledgeable, it is a pity that in France she was hold at a distance by the media and other so called organists. She certaintly surpasses them all. attending her concerts was always experiencing a great and valuable musical moment.

[acc]

I've ordered the CD as well, but it has not yet arrived. But I'm not surprised at the "wagnerian" character fo her improvisation - Falcinelli always considered becoming an organist as an "accident" in her career, and her true love is musical writing, i.e. composing herself, but also analysing works by others - and she has a particular fondness for Wagner.

As for her being "held at a distance" by other organists, I think it has a lot to do with her aesthetic views, especially on interpretation of baroque music. Her professorship at the Paris conservatoire spanned the years 1954 till 1986, and that was precisely the period in which a revival of baroque performance practises took place. By and large, this revival was (in my opinion) a healthy development, though of course some people's approach in the 1960's and '70's may have been too extreme - but then, Rolande Falcinelli became, kind of, a symbol of the opposite extreme, so a conflict was bound to happen.

Her own character didn't always help, either. True, she has a lot of charm - but she could be bitterly cold sometimes. Or, as Pierre Cochereau once put it, "Rolande is a rose - but with thorns".

[hugues huddlestone]

RF lived for a short period of time in Douai, which is a small town not far from Lille where I live and indeed I contacted her to give a lecture on Wagner. She kindly accepted and came to Lille to lecture on Wagner's Tetralogy; that was of course very interesting as she analysed the whole work, illustrating the analysis with numerous examples on the piano. Of course she could be a bit cold and distant sometimes,but some people put that down to shyness. Having known her fairly well, I can say she was a good, human person, one had to get to know her; Acc you seem to know her well too, can I ask you how?

[acc]

I don't know her personally, but I've always had a keen interest in her personality since I first heard her live in a concert in the 1980's. I've got a number of recordings of her, and I've even invested into buying the third item of http://www.anrtheses.com.fr/ThesesCarte/SCat_1040.htm, a work I find highly informative.

[hugues huddlestone]

Stéphane Detournay, a Belgian organist from Tournai has always been impressed by RF's personality, I know that he did a doctoral thesis on her work; he played a lot of her organ works for his concerts and he has been very faithful to her cause though he never studied with her, or did not always approve of her position as far as Baroque music was concerned but he never bore her a grudge for that... it is in fact through Stéphane that I knew and met her several times; he also made an interview of her that has become a book.

[acc]

I received the CD yesterday. It is indeed very beautiful. Franck's Choral in E Major is one of the most musical and poetic versions I've ever heard. I also agree with Hugues about the improvisation in Basel, which does indeed conjure up the spirit of the author of Das Rheingold. Equally touching is her Offertoire (which I didn't know), an innocent-sounding yet beautiful and refined piece of music.

I only have some reservations about Dupré's Carillon, especially since I have a (noncommercial) recording of 1986 in Bonn where she plays this piece flawlessly (and just as compellingly as in Basel)! Of course, I don't blame her for the mistakes in Basel - that can happen to anyone during a live performance - but I do think the producer should not have included this track in the CD.

Anyway: get it!

[hugues huddlestone]

We do think alike, though it may well be in the second Esquisse -which must be tremendously difficult to play,especially in concert- that you get some wrong notes, not particularly in the Carillon, but I may be wrong, what do you think? anyway, the whole thing leaves you speechless, musically and technically.

[acc]

We do think alike, though it may well be in the second Esquisse -which must be tremendously difficult to play,especially in concert- that you get some wrong notes, not particularly in the Carillon, but I may be wrong, what do you think?

It's not the wrong notes per se that bother me. Whatever wrong notes she plays in the Esquisses never make her lose momentum, whereas in the Carillon, she does lose momentum, in particular at a crucial moment, namely the beginning of the crescendo-ostinato (at around 2:15-2:20, and again at 2:40-2:45).

Anyway, I'm really only nitpicking here - that should prevent nobody from getting the CD!

[hugues huddlestone]

A second CD is about to be published in which RF plays "Evocation" by Dupré, "Gargouilles et Chiméres" by Vierne and a few other pieces, it should be released at the end of the month; the recordings were made in Belley's cathedral (on a "revisited" Cavaillé-Coll) during the "Semaines musicales de BELLEY" that RF held from 1973 till about 1987 and in which many prominant organists took part: J.Langlais, Jeanne Joulain, Micheline Lagache, MJ Chasseguet, SV Choplin, Yves Castagnet and many others..... not to be missed!

[hugues huddlestone]

A second CD is about to be published in which RF plays "Evocation" by Dupré, "Gargouilles et Chiméres" by Vierne and a few other pieces, it should be released at the end of the month; the recordings were made in Belley's cathedral (on a "revisited" Cavaillé-Coll) during the "Semaines musicales de BELLEY" that RF held from 1973 till about 1987 and in which many prominant organists took part: J.Langlais, Jeanne Joulain, Micheline Lagache, MJ Chasseguet, SV Choplin, Yves Castagnet and many others..... not to be missed!

FORGOT TO SAY THE CD IS PUBLISHED BY HORTUS EDITIONS

[acc]

A second CD is about to be published in which RF plays "Evocation" by Dupré, "Gargouilles et Chiméres" by Vierne and a few other pieces

Indeed, I've had word of that, too:

None of her LPs and CDs published so far have included Évocation, so I'm looking forward to that.

The "few other pieces" are Franck's Prière and Cantabile - considering how beautifully she played the Choral in E on the Festivo CD, I'm certainly looking forward to these, too.

[acc]

I got the Hortus CD.

Dupré's Évocation is incredibly precise and detailed, while still retaining all the necessary musical qualities: poetry and mysticism in the 2nd part, pride and heroism in the 3rd part. I'll probably find most other versions to be somewhat muddy, after listening to this one.

Franck and Vierne are nicely done, but don't really add anything, in my opinion, to the existing versions of those works. But if only for the Dupré, this CD is certainly worth getting!