Organ Recital

The 2024 Cathedral Organ Recital Series welcomes first-rate organists to play Truro’s acclaimed Father Willis Organ. This week we welcome Andrew Wyatt. This recital will be live-streamed on this page at 13:10 (please scroll down) and our YouTube channel

Litanies by Jehan Alain (1911-1940)

Jehan Alain was a near contemporary of the great composer and organist Olivier Messiaen, possibly rivalling his vision and genius, but Alain’s life was cut short when he was killed in action at the age of 29, just five days before France withdrew from World War II. He had received his first organ lessons from his father, and then progressed to the Paris Conservatoire. He became a brilliant keyboard player and a compulsive composer, who saw music as revelatory of states of the soul, and who was drawn to music’s power to create a sense of mystery rather than express emotions.

Litanies began as an organ piece called Phantasmagorie from which Alain drew some material for the later work which he originally called Supplications. The plainsong phrase which opens the music is repeated continually, propelled by a locomotive rhythm to an ecstatic climax. Alain once wrote about how to play Litanies. ‘You must create an impression of passionate incantation. Prayer is not a lament but a devastating tornado, flattening everything is its way. It is also an obsession. You must fill men’s ears with it, and God’s ears too! If you get to the end without feeling exhausted you have neither understood [Litanies] nor played it as I would want it.’

The score itself is headed with a quotation which can be related to the death of one of Alain’s sisters in 1937, the year in which it was written: ‘When the Christian soul is in distress and cannot find any fresh words to implore God’s mercy, it repeats the same prayer unceasingly with overwhelming faith. The limit of reason is past. It is faith alone which propels its ascent.’

Prélude, Adagio et Choral varié sur le thème du “Veni Creator”, Op 4 by Maurice Duruflé

The Prélude, Adagio et Choral varié sur le thème du “Veni Creator”, Op 4, the first of the three major organ works, opens with the flute stops spinning a fine web of sound based on the opening phrase of the plainsong melody. A reed stop in the pedals announces a contorted version of the second phrase of the plainsong theme. The triplet figure returns on the flute stops before the third phrase of the plainsong is adapted. The reed stop returns before the fluttering opening triplet figure brings the Prélude to a close. A short section marked ‘Lento, quasi recitative’ leads into the Adagio proper which starts in G minor and moves unpredictably to G major before plunging into the key of B flat minor where a darker mood gradually assumes more prominence. This passage may well be Duruflé’s finest for the organ: the music becomes increasingly chromatic and the transition from the opening Adagio to the climax is achieved in the most seamless manner. Finally the Choral which has only been seen through a glass darkly, as it were, is presented in full by the organ, and followed by the four variations.

The first variation is written in four parts. The theme appears in the pedals whilst the right hand plays an elaboration of the theme. The second variation is for manuals only, whilst the third variation is a canon at the interval of the fourth. The final variation is a brilliant toccata, introducing the theme in canon between right hand and pedals. The music winds up to a glorious climax; Duruflé saves his master-stroke for the coda marked ‘tempo poco più vivo’ when he presents the plainsong ‘Amen’ (only hinted at in the organ music until that point) in the pedals on full organ.

Biography

Andrew Wyatt is the assistant director of music at Truro Cathedral, Director of the St Mary’s Singers and an Honorary Membership of Birmingham Conservatoire. Andrew plays the famous Father Willis organ for services and recitals and regularly directs the cathedral choirs in rehearsals and services. Educated at Aldenham School, he studied organ with Andrew Parnell and gained an Entrance Scholarship to Birmingham Conservatoire where his organ teachers were David Saint and Henry Fairs. Working concurrently with his four-year course, Andrew held the organ scholarship at St Philip’s Cathedral in Birmingham. After holding the organ scholarship at Canterbury Cathedral and being awarded the Associateship of the Royal College of Organists, Andrew became assistant organist at Hexham Abbey in September 2012 before being appointed assistant organist and later assistant director of music at Chester Cathedral in 2015.

Live-stream

The series runs from March to October and each recital lasts around 45 minutes. There is no charge to attend or listen to these concerts. We rely on your support to help with the cost of maintaining the cathedral’s famous Father Willis Organ. Keeping the cathedral’s musical instruments in first-rate condition enables us to put on such recitals.

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