Music Director
Charles-Marie Widor (1844-1937)
Symphony for Organ and Orchestra in G, Opus 42
Charles-Marie Widor (pronounced Vee-dor) was born in Lyon, France. His grandfather was an organ builder of Hungarian descent, and his father was an organ builder and performer. After studying with his father, Widor became the organist at Lyon's lycée when he was just eleven years old.
The organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, a close friend of the family encouraged Widor to go to Brussels to study composition with Francois-Joseph Fétis, director of the Brussels Conservatory. He took organ instruction from J. N. Lemmens, who was a direct descendant of a line of teachers connected to J. S. Bach. Lemmens taught Widor to play traditional German interpretations of Bach's works.
Widor returned to Lyon in 1860 to take over his father's position as organist at Saint-Francois. In 1870, Widor went to Paris to become organist of Saint-Sulpice, which was home to Cavaillé-Coll’s 1863 organ with 100 stops. The appointment was to be for only one year, but Widor remained there until 1934!
Widor's ballet La Korrigane had a successful premier at the Paris Opera in 1880.
He began conducting Concordia, a choral society that performed oratorios. Widor also became a music critic for I'estqfette, a daily publication. His pen name was 'Auletes.'
César Franck died in 1890, and Widor took his position as professor of organ at the Paris Conservatoire. Widor later became professor of composition as well. The Academic des Beaux-Arts inducted him in 1910.
Widor's most important works were the ten organ symphonies. With the inspiration of César Franck's Grande Piece Symphonique, Widor added to the style of 19th century orchestral and piano music, the great variety of sounds available from Cavaillé Coll's instrument.
Charles-Marie Widor's Symphony for Organ and Orchestra in G Minor (1882) is one of the four symphonies for organ and orchestra, (1878-1887). It is a hybrid work in that it has elements of symphonic and concerto form. The symphony actually uses three movements from Widor's solo organ symphonies. The first and third movements are particularly close to the earlier works.
Widor finished the sixth solo organ symphony in time for the inauguration of Cavaille-Coll's organ installed in the Trocadero exhibition hall at the 1878 Universal Exposition in Paris.
The true nature of Widor's work became appreciated when the composer formed the Symphonie pour orgue et orchestra, op. 42, using the first and third movements of the sixth symphony with the third movement of the Symphonie No. 2 as the second movement.
Leopold Stokowski led the Philadelphia Orchestra and the great Belgian virtuoso organist Charles Courboin in a performance of the work for "Musician's Assembly" at the Grand Court of Wannamker's in 1919. Over 12,000 music lovers attended this event and it remains a highpoint in the history of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Musical America reported the overwhelming success of the event:
Allegro is triumphantly martial with a
vigorous melodic swing. Andante Cantabile is gracious and charming. Finale a succession of glorious fulmination, a thunderous harmonic proclamation, never blatant in its immense volume of sound and yet a terrific surge of resounding polyphony.
The work was performed again by the Philadelphia Orchestra in July of 2002 (with James David Christie of Holy Cross College at the organ) as part of the closing ceremony for the American Guild of Organists National Convention in Philadelphia.
Program notes by Beth Bergman Fisher