Suite

Between the two world wars, Paris sold itself as the capital of progress and modernity—the birthplace of bold new ideas in the arts. Yet the city was also home to brilliant traditionalists and others, like Maurice Duruflé, who made a convincing synthesis of past and present in works that have a timeless quality about them. Duruflé’s Suite, Op. 5 is among the great wonders of the organ repertoire, a towering masterwork that speaks of its composer’s formidable gifts and of the riches of the French school of organ building. Duruflé dedicated the piece, which he created in 1933, to Paul Dukas, his composition teacher at the Paris Conservatoire. It dates from the early years of Duruflé’s time as titular organist of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont in central Paris, where the organ had been revised and enlarged in the 1860s by the illustrious organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. The instrument, in many ways like a symphony orchestra but with an even greater variety of colours, was the ideal vehicle for the three contrasting movements of Duruflé’s Suite. Duruflé begins with a “Prélude” in the sombre key of E-flat minor, unsettling in its ambiguous harmonic language. Its single theme, evocative of Gregorian chant, is developed across a movement that fluctuates in intensity and, as the composer put it, “gradually accumulates the power of the organ”. The “Sicilienne” contains three sections built from a folksong-like theme and two contrasting episodes, the simple structure of which is enhanced by kaleidoscopic shifts of colour. The Suite ends with a thrilling “Toccata”, introduced by a flourish of fast passagework and marked by a mighty theme hammered out on the organ’s pedals.