Louis Vierne - 24 Pièces en style libre (Ben van Oosten)

Information

Composer: Louis Vierne

CD1

• Messe basse, Op. 30
• 24 Pièces en style libre, Op. 31, Livre I

CD2

• 24 Pièces en style libre, Op. 31, Livre II
• Verset fugué sur 'In exitu Israël'
• Allegretto, Op. 1
• Prélude funèbre, Op. 4
• Communion, Op. 8
• Prélude

CD3

• Messe basse pour les défunts, Op. 62
• Trois Improvisations
• Triptyque, Op. 58

Ben van Oosten, organ

Date: 2000

Label: Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm

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Review

Van Oosten seems to be recording the major part of the French organ school, including all Widor’s and Vierne’s symphonies on Cavaillé-Coll instruments. Here he turns to the smaller pieces of Vierne, most of which are best heard separately, and in the appropriate atmosphere of quiet thought. Not that the 24 Pieces in free style lack variety, and there’s a bravura scherzo among them, one of the genres Vierne was best at. Vierne let his ear for subtle harmonic exploration lead him where it would, and I often feel he should have edited himself more rigorously. The earlier Allegretto is memorable precisely because of its limited means. Yet the Postlude of the 24 Pieces might have gone on longer, and sounds gorgeous here on the medium-size Cavaillé-Coll organ in Saint-Antoine des Quinze-Vingts in Paris. Vierne had a sad, even bleak, life in many ways, and his last work, Messe basse pour les défunts, is a grim, brave record of this fact. It is much more rigorously constructed than most of the music on these three discs, and some movements concentrate obsessively on one motif. Both instrument and player seem ideal.

— Adrian Jack

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Louis Vierne (8 October 1870 – 2 June 1937) was a renowned French organist and composer. Born with severe visual impairment, he overcame significant challenges to become one of the leading figures of the French organ tradition. Educated under influential musicians including César Franck and Charles-Marie Widor, Vierne developed a distinctive style characterized by rich harmonies and symphonic textures. His most celebrated works include six organ symphonies, numerous fantasy pieces, and sacred choral compositions. He died dramatically while performing at Notre-Dame, fulfilling his wish to die at the organ console.

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Ben van Oosten (born 8 April 1955 in The Hague) is a Dutch organist, pedagogue and author. He graduated from the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam in 1979, then completed advanced studies in Paris. Van Oosten subsequently became one of the greatest practitioners and interpreters of organ works of the French Romantic Organ school of the 19th century. Among his recordings are the complete works of Charles-Marie Widor, Louis Vierne and Marcel Dupré, as well as the sonatas of Alexandre Guilmant. He is titular organist of the Grote Kerk in his hometown and is an organ professor at Rotterdam Conservatoire.

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