(to listen to excerpts from the Livre d'orgue volume III, please click on a title)
The French livres d'orgue make up one of the more colourful chapters in the history of organ music. In the central period of its development (in works by Nivers extending up to those by de Grigny) the organ book was intended to provide churches in Paris with liturgical music in accordance with the ceremoniale parisiense. Gregorian chant is the main source for this music, and the earlier works stay close to chant in spirit and character. During the period from Clérambault to Balbastre, however, influences from secular dance and opera become stronger and eventually gain the upper hand. Thus, compositional styles vary, but for much of the period registrations remain almost standardized, reflecting stable principles of organ building: these were extended with little change from Titelouze's Crespin Carlier organ in the cathedral at Rouen about 1600 to the mid-eighteenth century Clicquot organ at Versailles and were codified in L'Art du facteur d’orgues (1766-78) by Dom Bédos de Celles.
Dom Bédos's principles were followed closely by Hellmuth Wolff when he built the organ for Redpath Hall at McGill University in Montreal in 1981. The result is one of the most interesting organs on the North American continent, excellently suited for the French baroque repertoire. The nature of this instrument, and the great livre d'orgue tradition, were the main sources of inspiration for Bengt Hambraeus when he accepted to write the inaugural work for the McGill organ. But, as he points out in the Preface, an instrument based on historical models must also function for music of our own times. Therefore, his Livre d'orgue is not eclectic or historicizing. It reflects such external characteristics as the organisation of the pieces into suites, beginning and ending with a prelude and a postlude on the Plein Jeu or Grands Jeux; pieces such as Tierce en taille, or Basse et Dessus de Trompette have the essential structure of the baroque pieces by those names, and their registrations are close to those recommended by Dom Bédos. But the internal substance makes Hambraeus's Livre d'orgue an entirely personal document.
While not its original purpose, a livre d'orgue has traditionally been of great pedagogical value, and not only in France, as witnessed by J.S. Bach's Orgelbüchlein. Hambraeus's organ book is explicitly meant for teaching. The work progresses pedagogically in terms of organ technique through the four volumes, exemplified by the rapid manual changes in the relatively easy Perspectives (vol. 1), the decidedly difficult Repercussions (vol. 3) and the virtuoso Duo (vol. 4). Contemporary compositional techniques form a natural part of this learning process, e.g. various kinds of clusters (as in Champs, vol. 1) or the manipulation of timbres (as in Les timbres irisés, vol. 3) by partially drawing stops or slowly pulling or pushing them, or by shutting off the motor. (These techniques, which have been employed in a number of contemporary organ pieces, such as Ligeti's Volumina, were actually suggested by Hambraeus as early as 1961 in conversations with Ligeti and Karl-Erik Welin in Stockholm, Sweden).
The exploration of organ timbres that Hambraeus offers the performer is pedagogical in a very special sense. When Dom Bédos presents in his treatise a list of registrations for the various compositions typical of a livre d'orgue, he remarks that they represent a change in taste from the registrations used by the great composers half a century earlier. Registration practices have also changed since Dom Bedos's time. Applying the earlier composer's words to his own situation, Hambraeus takes the performer through a series of timbral revelations that could well serve as a compendium for contemporary organ music. The manner of organising a particular performance reflects another extension of older principles. Since the organ books were meant to accompany liturgical functions of varying lengths, some of them contain pieces with many possible ending points (see, for example, Gigault’s Livre of 1682). Thus, the form of the present work is "open" in that the performer selects the pieces freely (even taking them from different suites) and combines them according to taste and practical requirements.
Whether intended by the composer or not, Hambraeus's Livre d'orgue could also serve as an excellent introduction to improvisation in a contemporary idiom. His approach to the sonic materials has an improvisational character in the best sense of the word, for there is an immediacy and spontaneity that makes the music appear created at the moment it sounds, no matter how intensely calculated it may have been at the drawing board. While experiencing this creative shaping and molding of compositional materials, the organist also absorbs ways to develop original ideas at the keyboard.
The third suite (i.e., Volume 3), performed on this recording by John Grew, begins with a Prélude that brings to mind Dom Bédos's suggestions for the appropriate use of the Plein Jeu: "great harmonic sweep, interlaced with syncopations, dissonant chords, suspensions and harmonic audacities." It is an eruptive music, full of vitality, with fast approaches to heavy blocks of sound counterpointed by the slow beating of minor seconds in the pedal. Répercussions offers the challenge of maintaining a flow of quickly changing colourings of a sparse selection of sounds. Toward the end, the range of sounds increases, but the continuity is increasingly interrupted as if by random filtering, a technique found also in the ostinato bass of Ronde des tierces en couple. The "Dansant; tempo di swing," given as a performance instruction in the score of this piece, can be seen as an hommage in contemporary terms to the dependence on dance music so evident in 17th- and 18th-century organ books.
The tierces are among the stops that made the French baroque organ unique. In his 1676 organ book, Lebègue characterises the sounds of tierce en taille and cromorne en taille, as "the most beautiful and most distinctive" on the instrument. Both in Ronde and the preceding piece, Récit de Tierce en taille (II), Hambraeus enhances the peculiar effect of the tierce in ways which also offer a key to the harmonic dimension of his music. In Ronde, the registration makes the single notated lines yield parallel major or minor thirds and, occasionally, complete major triads. In this way, the middle section of the piece builds complexes of sounds from which the composer extracts families of chords that recur as "favourites" throughout the Livre. Similarly, a specific harmonic area is emphasised in the Récit when the solo line culminates in a series of parallel tritones of extraordinary beauty. From piece to piece throughout the work, and even at times within a piece, the character of the music shifts, gradually or by contrast, with the changes from one such harmonic area to another.
Fanfares on the pedal Clairon in the Trio are followed by mysterious sounds in Les timbres irisés: half-drawn stops create the impression of distant sounds carried on the wind or heard under water. At one level things happen extremely slowly in this piece; at another level events follow each other at a tremendous speed; these latter are fast "microscopic" events caused by interference among partials and quick changes in air pressure. Here, then, is another key to his style: Hambraeus has been much influenced by East Asian ritual music where events "inside" a tone often mean more than the tone itself. If one approaches Les timbres irisés with a traditional Western attitude it is easy to become bewildered—or even bored. Once discovered, however, the rapid fluctuations of coloristic detail make the piece endlessly fascinating. To varying degrees, these two levels of motion affect the listener in all of the pieces: long sound blocks may seem static until one's attention is drawn to the turbulent inner activity.
Obviously, many aspects of Hambraeus’s musical language are directly inspired by organ sounds, even by specific instruments from different eras and in different parts of the world. Some of these aspects are enhanced by special features of the Wolff organ. The sensitive articulation that every piece in the Livre d'orgue requires comes very naturally to the organist thanks to the tracker mechanism, and the interaction of high partials becomes especially vivid because of the way the slider chests make the harmonic spectra of different stops support and reinforce each other. Micro-events within sounds of long durations are intensified by the flexible wind system, an historical principle which contemporary builders are rediscovering. Without making them prerequisite for a successful performance, Hambraeus takes full advantage of these resources.
In Basse et dessus de Trompette (II), several intervals compete in ostinato configurations, joining and separating, like constantly changed crystaline structures. The piece moves urgently in a vigorous, almost joyful, anger. The subject of the Fugue grave sur les fonds reminds one of Bach's D-sharp minor fugue in the first volume of the Well-Tempered Clavier. There, as well as in some of the fugues in Bach's Die Kunst der Fuge, the subject is a participant—through its gradually changing shapes—in an evolving organic polyphony. Basse de cromorne (II) refers motivically to Récit de tierce en taille (II), but possesses an even more vital and ornate solo line.
The registration in Stratifications separates the sounds into three clearly distinct ranges where clusters of greater or lesser density move slowly over pulsating beats from the pedal. After several interruptions break up this complex, the Cymbale joins the upper range and the motion becomes faster and wider in each of the three ranges. Then the Cymbale is slowly brought into silence, and the piece returns to its initial state. At the end, the tremulant gives a clear, bell-like character to the upper clusters. In retrospect, the sparkling interferences within high ranges of harmonic partials typical of bell sounds have been approximated by pitch constellations in most of the pieces. In fact, throughout his compositional career, Hambraeus has been fascinated both by bell sounds (e.g. in Rota 77, 1963) and by the partial series as determinants for his harmony.
Récit du Hautbois, du Jeu de tierce, de la Voix humaine et du Cornet offers a festive interaction of some of the most characteristic timbres of the French baroque organ. The long-held chords, (as well as a single long reed note) are enlivened by myriads of microevents. The soft reeds in this piece are replaced by the full reed choirs in the Postlude sur les Grands-Jeux. The harmonic materials here refer back to the Prélude, but the motion is more traditional, with a regular pulse in 6/4 meter. Within this metrical framework arises a quotation from the passion chorale "O Traurigkeit, o Herzeleid!" and two chromatic passages that form a musical symbol of the crown of thorns.
The organ has always been at the focus of Hambraeus’s compositional interest. His total production for the instrument represents one of the most significant bodies of organ music by a contemporary composer. Especially noteworthy is his "composition family" Constellations (1958-83) where the organ interacts with electronic tape and vocal ensembles. His reverence for the organ also goes hand in hand with his religious attitude to the function of creative arts, a non-denominational attitude for which the Latin word religio retains its original meanings of commitment and conscience. In his own words: "Most of my own works are inspired by religion, in many cases also by the tradition of the church and above all by the space and acoustics of the large church hall which has become for me, just as for many of my composer colleagues in different centuries, an image of cosmos and the universe." Among his sources of inspiration have been Russian orthodox icons (e.g. in Icons, 1975), ancient Greek mythology as treated by Handel (La Passacaille errante, 1984), Japanese, Chinese, and Polynesian religion, or St. Paul's praise of liberty in II Corinthians 3:17-18 (Constellations V, 1982-83). Thus, the guiding principles for this organ book provide a larger framework than the ceremoniale parisiense. The range of expressions from devotional to angry or humorous should reach anybody whose religio is concerned with a more universal liturgy, one where composing, performing and listening all are acts of reverence, offering and sharing.
Bo Alphonse, 1986