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Gregorian Chant and L'Orgue Mystique of Charles Tournemire
St. John Cantius Church Chicago, IL
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Gregorian Chant and L'Orgue Mystique of Charles Tournemire
12:00 pm Latin High Mass, 1962 Missale Romanum (church) 1:15 pm Lunch in Café San Giovanni (lower level) 2:00 pm Talk on L'Orgue Mystique (church) 2:30 pm Organ Recital (church)
Charles Tournemire (1870-1939), the renowned organist titulaire of Sainte-Clotilde in Paris, was a prolific composer and an improviser extraordinaire whose greatest chef-d'œuvre was his magnum opus, L'Orgue Mystique. Written between 1927-1932, L'Orgue Mystique is a two-hundred-fifty-three movement cycle of liturgical pieces based upon over three-hundred Gregorian Chants. This musical monument transformed the sound of the organ world, welcoming organ music into modernity while vesting it in the eternal musical heritage of the Church. Although cited by scholars as a pivotal point in ecclesiastical music, L'Orgue Mystique is shrouded in popular obscurity due to the dark cloud which enveloped Europe at the time along with Tournemire's sudden passing during the chaotic onset of World War II.
Organist, Richard Spotts, a native of Bucks County, Pennsylvania and a graduate of Westminster Choir College here in Princeton, has set out to perform and educate the public of this seminal work, with the ultimate goal of performing the complete fifteen hour cycle in a recital series over a period of ten days. This project has taken him parishes and cathedrals far afield such as the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Denver, Trinity Copley Square in Boston, and the National Cathedral in Washington, DC in addition to churches in Atlanta, Miami, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Toronto, and Québec City. So far Mr. Spotts has given over sixty recitals involving fifty institutions in the United States and Canada and he is now in the process of writing a book on the subject.
Mr. Spotts' recital features movements from Charles Tournemire seminal work, L'Orgue Mystique. Although today Tournemire is shrouded in popular obscurity, Tournemire was one of the greatest organists of his day with his mystical organ style directly influencing the works of Olivier Messiaen, Ermend-Bonnal, Joseph Bonnet, Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur, Jehan Alain, Maurice Duruflé and Jean Langlais. Born in Bordeaux in 1870, Tournemire, who was a student of César Franck and Charles Marie Widor, became organist of Sainte-Clotilde in 1898, a post Tournemire retained until his death in 1939.
Location
St. John Cantius Church (View)
825 N. Carpenter
Chicago, IL 60642
United States
