Subscribe to our mailing list to get news, specials and updates:     Name: Email:

[Unpublished] Meet Patrick Larhant (PLRT) - A Frenchman with a multi-national musical style, skill, kindness and humility, fire and compassion!

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Notice

Message: Undefined variable: current_cotm

Filename: articles/preview_article.php

Line Number: 21

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: Invalid argument supplied for foreach()

Filename: articles/preview_article.php

Line Number: 21

The things that always strike me about PLRT's uploads are the diversity and the quality!

You'll hear music by Naji Hakim, Percy Whitlock, Dietrich Buxtehude, Francois Couperin, Charles V. Stanford, and MANY others.  All of them played with artistry, mastery, an obvious attention to detail, and a genuine love of the organ and the music it produces.

For a long time, I wondered just who PLRT was, and how/why he selected that as his "screen-name."  Well, at last, the mystery is solved and the truth can be revealed!  PLRT is none other than Patrick Larhant, and I know that you will enjoying reading about his background, and just how he has developed into the performer that you hear in his superb uploads.

Patrick Larhant, our very own PLRT, and Zerable, the star of the show!

Patrick lives in France, and has the opportunity to "travel around" places like Nice and Monte Carlo.  He's very devoted to his beloved cat, Zerable.  Actually Zerable, who originally lived in Brittany, is his mother's cat, but the celebrated and famous feline  now resides with Patrick in Paris!  At the age of 17, it is an impressive animal, but from what I understand, is a sweet and kind cat - as cats go... :-)

Patrick's "written English" is so "good," that when I would read his comments I thought that surely he MUST be an Englishman!  I mean, HOW MANY French organists play the music of Stanford?!?

PLRT has an interesting story to be sure, as he's a former sailor in the French Navy!  Surely, this must be unique amongst our Concert Hall members!

As with most of these "interviews," I asked the featured uploader to tell us about themselves, so, I'm going to let Patrick "do the talking," only "adding" a few words here and there.

Patrick is here seen imbibing a rare French beverage.


MUSICAL BACKGROUND (an example not to be followed)



I began piano at nine, mainly because I was then a rather obeying boy. But I had no interest in it and my work was close to zero during four or five years. My teacher was a very kind and patient old man who was also the city's cathedral organist. He was also very talkative, and my dunce strategy was to launch him into telling musical anecdotes ; so, I had to play a minimum of notes during the lessons. Obviously, the result was a completely flat learning curve : at 13-14, my "warhorse" was still Mozart's "Valse favorite".



The turning point was the day when my teacher asked me to bring a poster for an organ concert to the priest of my village, in Brittany. This one told me : "Oh, you study music ! You may go and play the church organ whenever you want". Poor kind guy ! He didn't realize he had just introduced a permanent squatter into his church ! So, I spent most of my free time to discover these strange and poetic names as tierce, nasard, bourdon, cromorne, and played, obviously, "Valse favorite" and other Diabelli's sonatinas with what must have been very very odd registrations for very very odd organ music.



I asked for organ lessons, but my teacher replied I was far too bad in piano for that. So, I got Dupré's organ method and began to learn alone the pedalboard, the substitutions and so on. After a while, I began to add cautiously some pedal notes under the dear "Valse favorite", and then tried the easiest of Bach's 8 little preludes (without the fugues, obviously !), and then, and then...Sure there were very strange sounds under the village church's arches during this period but, happily, we may consider that the statute of limitations has now expired.



But this had a collateral effect : I also began to like the piano and to work on it, so that I continued piano lessons, with pleasure this time, and didn't ask again for organ lessons. The organ remained a kind of a "private garden".



The time for post-high school academical studies came soon, with not much time left for music ; so, I left piano aside, but continued to play the organ each time there was an opportunity. After graduating, I joined French Navy, which meant long and frequent trips far from home...and not much music, though some from time to time.



Around 40, the job schedule became more sedentary and it became possible to have organ lessons. I had the incredible luck to get a very, very good teacher : her explanations were always crystal-clear and, during five or six years she made me discover new musical worlds. Previously, among many equivalent examples :


- I still played Bach conforming (or trying to) with Dupré's "laws" : all legato, a good deal of heels and substitutions, etc.


- I had strictly no idea about, for instance, French baroque music playing. Beginning a trill on the upper or on the lower note was not a concern to me ; anyway, any kind of ornament was not a concern : they were so sparse in Franck's and Vierne's music;


- I ignored any kind of organ-building which was not Cavaillé-Coll. Sure I knew that things called "German baroque organs", or something like that, were reputed to exist somewhere, but no matter : as they were not Cavaillé's, they could be at best second rate organs (please, be kind enough not to send me to Siberia : each one has had his youth's sins !) ;


-I was persuaded that the job was completely done once the notes were played in - roughly - the right order


- a quarter note could be sometimes 2,5 eighth notes or more, sometimes 1,5 eighth or less, but very seldom, and quite unvoluntarily, 2 eighths.



Well, some organ lessons were not exactly superfluous.....



Fortunately, my deserving teacher was also the organ teacher at the Paris regional Conservatoire and insisted for me to meet and listen to her conservatory's pupils. So, I made the acquaintance of young (15-25) very gifted people (some of them are presently good friends), who played far better than me and seemed to learn the most difficult things at the lightning speed ; it was a most stimulating, interesting and fine period.

 

PLRT at home with Zerable.  (Check out that face! - the cat's, I mean!)



 


MY MAIN MUSICAL REGRETS



Having really wasted my first five piano years and not to play the piano anymore ;



Not knowing improvisation.

 



 

Hiking above Monte Carlo, not too far from Nice.



 MY MAIN MUSICAL WISHES



That some lucky scholar discovers suddenly original (and playable) organ works by Ravel, Rachmaninov, Debussy, Tchaikowsy and Prokofiev.



To have one day the opportunity to play ten minutes at Saint-Ouen and as much at Saint-Sernin.



To become a bit more at home with music which is outside the "French Holy Trinity" (Franck, Vierne, Widor) and his major and minor Saints (Dupré, Boellmann and so on)


The old console.  I know a Viscount when I see one! 




ABOUT HAUPTWERK



In one word, there should be a Martin Dyde's statue in every city ! It's truly fantastic to have access, from home, to instruments of so varied styles even though one could not have the opportunity to only hear them in "real world". Many books about organ building, organ sound and registration have suddenly become clear once it has been possible to "touch by myself" that a North-German prinzipal doesn't sound like a thuringian prinzipal nor like a Willis diapason, or that on a German romantic instrument one has to find solutions with an infinite shades of 8' flues but with almost no reed and no "big Swell", or to experiment directly what the devil a ripieno can be. Foreign stop names suddenly became sounds and not only words. Sometimes, I disconnect Hauptwerk and use my old Viscount native sounds...just to have the multiplied pleasure to go back to Haupwerk after a while !



Favourite sample sets : Caen (consequence of favourite repertory), the Big Marc (IMHO by far the best - and almost alone - modern eclectic sample set), Salisbury and some more I dont'use very often (consequence of the gaps in my repertory) but like very much : the Trost, Kreszow (a kind a of a Trost with more acoustics), Smecno, Stade, Ebersmunster, Saint-Maximin, Zoeblitz. And, to reharse austerely (it doesn't happen often and never lasts long), the small Marc with 100% direct, 0% diffuse and 0% rear !



And, obviously, whatever one wants to play, the idiomatic sound can be found somewhere in one of the sample sets. However, it would be nice to have a good sample set of Saint-Ouen or Saint-Sernin (or both) and of one of the fine Klais organs as Ingolstadt or Altenberg, which are IMHO suitable for a wide span of music, especially 20th and contemporary music. However again, this most enjoyable wealth of samplesets also drives me (enterely by my fault !) into two kinds of trouble :



- the first one is an addiction to "organ zapping" and to never take enough time to explore deeply an instrument so as to become really familiar with it as with an old worn pair of shoes ;



- the second one is to mostly use the "right organ" for each piece and to apply mindlessly all-made solutions "by the book". Sure they work rather well, but then no time is devoted to the pleasure of looking for more personal solutions and of experimenting some "stops cooking" as one has most often to do on a real organ which cannot render any kind of music by the book.



But that's much too serious talking and what really matters is that everyone can find pleasure in his own way with Hauptwerk ! Music is for pleasure first, and only secondarily a field for erudite research, scholarly considerations or (worse)....normative injunctions !




ABOUT CCH



It's an invaluable pleasure to play not only for the benefit of one's headphones but to have the opportunity to share music and to listen to other people's music. It also allows to get new ideas about playing, registration, repertory and helps not to remain confined into one's own old ideas. After all, ordinary amateurs like me have not so many opportunities to talk about organ and organ music in the real world !



But, above all, CCH is a friendly, tolerant and kind place and that is invaluable. And, through the choice of pieces, the playing and the mood of the commentaries, one has the impression to "know" some people, I would dare to say "some friends" - even if virtually only. Let's keep this spirit in the virtual organ world !


The new console appears to have grown another manual.  Cat is optional, and not standard.


So, now you know LOTS more about Patrick Larhant - PLRT.

If you are a listener who only "selects" an item here and there to listen to, be certain to select the next upload by PLRT.  You'll be uplifted, enlightened, and very pleased that you chose his upload as your selected listening.  At the moment, he has some 145, and MANY of these are "multiple version uploads," meaning that he has included "comparative versions" of the same piece on different organs within the one upload - sort of a special gift, which shows just a touch of his kindness, generosity of spirit, and, of course, his considerable talent.

THANK YOU, Patrick!  It is a pleasure to know you and to have the opportunity to listen to you!