Charles-Marie Widor: Symphony No. 5: Organ: Instrumental Work

Charles-Marie Widor’s Symphonies for Organ Op.42 No.2. Charles-Marie Widor (b. Lyons 1844 d. Paris 1937) first began his studies in his hometown but later pursued them in Brussels taking lessons with Nicolas-Jacques Lemmens on the Organ and composition lessons with François-Joseph Fétis. In 1868 he inaugurated the Organ at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. He also deputized for Saint-Saëns at the Organ of La Madeleine and then in 1870 he was provisionally nominated organist at Saint-Sulpice. It was not until 1933 that he relinquished this post in favour of his pupil Marcel Dupré. Followingthe death of César Franck in 1890 it was Widor who was requested to direct Organ studies at the Paris Conservatoire and he followed this by taking charge of the composition class in 1896. Among his very many students were figures such as Louis Vierne and Charles Tournemire. Widor was a founder member of the Casa Velasquez in Madrid and the American Conservatoire in Fontainbleu. He was an exceptional virtuoso who could be heard in concerts in France and throughout the whole world. He left numerous works but it is above all his Organ music that is most performed today.

This work is one of the most important organ compositions of the end of the nineteenth Century. It was written in the years 1894/95 though the earliest fragments date back to 1890. These had their origins in improvised Magnificat versets played by Widor at the inauguration of the Cavaillé-Coll organ of St. Ouen in Rouen. This new edition of the Wiener Urtext edition is based upon the first edition (no manuscript scores have survived) and on further editions published during Widor’s lifetime.A recording made in 1932 of Widor’s own playing has been studied in conjunction with the printed source materials. The varied ending played on that recording isincluded as an alternative. It bears witness to the composer’s improvisational treatment of his own work and the spirit in which the whole composition was originally conceived.

Charles-Marie Widor is best known for the Toccatta the finale from his Fifth Symphony for Organ but the real heart of his compositional oeuvre lies in the ten Organ symphonies and there is much to be discovered in the rest of his compositional output. This Mass was originally written in 1878 for a choir of Baritones the Chorus of the seminary next door to St Sulpice in Paris the church where he was temporary Organist for sixty-four years and mixed Chorus and two Organs. Although Widor lived in Paris during the years of the radicalism of the decades following World War I he retained a conservatism in composition and musicianship that is evident in this powerfulMass.The entire work has been transposed one half step lower ‘to avoid the awkward key of F sharp major’.

Charles-Marie Widor founded the French form called Symphony for Organ; large-scale academically 'sonata form' works of great power often containing a toccata-like conclusion. Guilmant continued the development of such works although he called his eight works in the form sonatas. This is his work Quatrieme Sonate from Opus 61 for Organ Solo.

The Toccata is the fifth movement of Charles-Marie's Symphony No. 5 Op. 42 and is a delightful piece for performance on organ.