Paraphrase-Carillon

L’Orgue mystique, Op. 57, No. 35: Paraphrase-Carillon
Composed between 1927 and 1932, Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique comprises 51 liturgical offices based on Gregorian chant. The Paraphrase-Carillon, concluding Suite No. 35 for the Feast of the Assumption, transforms its chant material into a brilliant evocation of bells, combining modal melody, chromatic harmony and increasingly elaborate rhythmic figuration. Its ternary design moves from an energetic Allegro through a remarkable, subdued Andante before returning to the brilliance of the opening.
The central Andante is perhaps the most revealing passage: Tournemire takes material from the opening section and transforms it into the distant, muted resonance of a carillon. The delicate registration—Cor de nuit against Gambe and Voix céleste—creates an almost spectral sonority, its harmonic ambiguity anticipating aspects of Messiaen. The music then gradually reawakens, the carillon figure returning with renewed brilliance.
The work reflects Tournemire’s intimate knowledge of the organ at Sainte-Clotilde, where he was titulaire from 1898. In 1933, under his direction, Joseph Beuchet enlarged Cavaillé-Coll’s original 46-stop instrument to 56 stops, extending the manuals to 61 notes and the pedal to 32, while retaining the original Barker-assisted mechanical action. The enlargement added, among other resources, a new Récit windchest with Quintaton, Nazard, Tierce, Plein-Jeu and Bombarde, and expanded the tonal palette of the Grand-Orgue and Positif. Thus Tournemire’s music inhabits a fascinating point between Franck’s Cavaillé-Coll tradition and the more exploratory sound-world of twentieth-century French organ music.

Given all of that and the looking towards Neo-Baroque colours Nancy seemed like the perfect fit especially coupled with its vast acoustic! Certainly lends an aura of the incense-laden atmosphere of L'Orgue Mystique!