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Cochereau Improvisation Transcriptions


Malcolm Kemp

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The Chantraine editions are available through J. Butz Musikverlag (www.butz-verlag.de) - the full Chantraine catalogue is here. I bought a few scores from them last year, and I seem to remember that they were a little cheaper than those available through UMP (www.ump.co.uk) - they have a comprehensive organ catalogue on their website which lists all of their Cochereau scores.

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I've been told by Muscroom that the following items have been deleted from my order because they are out of print:

 

Rachel Laurin Suite Breve

Hovland Toccata

Cochereau Sortie sur Adeste Fideles

Scherzo symphonique

Berceuse a la memoire de Louis Vierne

 

I'll try Butz for the Cochereau but a supplier I use a lot reports that Butz has been erratric lately.

 

Disappointing!

 

Malcolm Kemp

 

Having had a PM from another member of the Board (for which I am very grateful - surely what this Board is all about) I've spoken to Allegro Music and discovered that these and other items that Muscroom say are unobtainable are either in stock with them or easily obtainable by them. Next time I shall know where to go first! Very grateful.

 

Malcolm

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  • 11 months later...

This was a most informative thread last summer and I went out and bought the Scherzo Symphonique. Am only just getting round to learning it, but need a bit of advice from anyone else who either plays it, or who has a recording of it.

 

-how good/accurate is Filsells transcription overall?

 

-It must be difficult to tell, but are the tremolos that are a big feature of the left hand measured triplet ones, or are they played rather like the trills, as quick as possible?

 

-how fast does he play it? All those repeated chords must have been tricky at a very brisk pace.

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Filsell's are pretty accurate, in my experience, yet not so fussy as to put the performer off learning the dots. He chooses to 'correct' splashes and the like, and I don't blame him, although the more the recordings get under your skin, the more the splashes become integral to the spirit of the original. The choice is yours. Don't be too literal. IMHO no transcription can perfectly capture either the texture or rhythms of the originals.

 

Yes, 'bricolage' is very much part of the texture - thumb and forefinger of each hand often. Fast tremolandi. Don't bother measuring them (just go watch any decent improviser in this style and you will be persuaded). Remember, acoustic, voicing and size of instrument will all have a bearing too. The only way to hone your performance after learning the transcriptions is to listen to the originals until they are completely under your skin; nay, until they wake you in a state of arousal at 5 am!

 

Interestingly, one ends up at the oft-repeated mantra that one's playing should always sound like an improvisation... If your playing of Cochereau sounds wooden, or that you are 'reading', then don't bother...as one could say of Bach, Mozart, Vierne et al, of course.

 

And yes, Cochereau's chord repetition could out-Erlkönig the finest pianists! Technically, they are very demanding.

 

Have fun!

 

Ian

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Thanks Ian for that, your answers are much as I had hoped for! A number of the points you mention are the sort of thing one might expect to read in a preface to an edition like these, particularly in the trill/tremolandi figuration.

 

Is there a recording of the piece available on cd?

 

You also raise an important question about whether we as organists should be playing other organists' transcriptions at all. Perhaps that is something for further discussion....

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Thanks Ian for that, your answers are much as I had hoped for! A number of the points you mention are the sort of thing one might expect to read in a preface to an edition like these, particularly in the trill/tremolandi figuration.

 

Is there a recording of the piece available on cd?

 

You also raise an important question about whether we as organists should be playing other organists' transcriptions at all. Perhaps that is something for further discussion....

Recordings: scroll down here and you'll get the relevant reference numbers (mainly Philips France and Solstice): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Cochereau. The Scherzo you're working on is one of the two on the widely available Solstice boxed set Pierre Cochereau: L'organiste de Notre-Dame. You can order direct from Solstice or Discovery have it.

 

Desert island improvs (for me) on this box set include CD3 tracks 1, 8, 9 (enough to move the stoniest heart to prayer), 16 (I want this at my funeral, along with Communion from Messe Dominicale on this) and of course the excerpts from the St Matthew improvs (his very last).

 

I am not one of those sad puritans who "can't see the point". Any artistic endeavour which broadens the mind and opens the heart has got to be worthy of attention. At the very least, study of Coch ought to help one become a more generous, big hearted, inventive, risk-taking and inspirational musician (helps you use the Octatonic scale sexily too!)

 

Kind regards

 

Ian

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I am not one of those sad puritans who "can't see the point". Any artistic endeavour which broadens the mind and opens the heart has got to be worthy of attention. At the very least, study of Coch ought to help one become a more generous, big hearted, inventive, risk-taking and inspirational musician (helps you use the Octatonic scale sexily too!)

 

Thanks again, most helpful.

 

I'm in agreement here, partly because I think its hard to play almost any 20th century (and more modern) French without coming to the conclusion that they the pieces all started life as an improvisation, either in private or otherwise. This, even in smaller scale pieces, and particularly in Hakim (another improviser). I bought a set of pieces based on Danish hymn tunes by Hakim and have learned a couple, and they are in a similar vein.

 

I hadn't given the 'splashy chords' as you describe them the same thought, but I suppose when you're going for effect as an improvisor, sometimes the harmonic content of the chord is less important than the impact it makes (particularly at speed). Perhaps we English are a little too safe with our improvisations!

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Recordings ordered!

 

I also saw there was a DVD available on the Solstice site. Does anyone have this and is it worth buying from a visual, as well as aural point of view?

 

Few music but many words in it.

 

Buying filmed archives is so expensive that Solstice has prefered to interview people who have known PC....

 

Nevertheless worth getting it.

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This was a most informative thread last summer and I went out and bought the Scherzo Symphonique. Am only just getting round to learning it, but need a bit of advice from anyone else who either plays it, or who has a recording of it.

 

-how good/accurate is Filsells transcription overall?

 

-It must be difficult to tell, but are the tremolos that are a big feature of the left hand measured triplet ones, or are they played rather like the trills, as quick as possible?

 

-how fast does he play it? All those repeated chords must have been tricky at a very brisk pace.

 

To be honest, I am not sure why the Filsell 'transcription' of the second Scherzo Symphonique of Cochereau was published. It is erroneous in many details, the most obvious being: incorrect octave registers (b. 26, 53 - 57, 159 - 165, 233 - 239, 284 - 286 and 288 - 289), missing treble clefs (LH, b. 68 - 70), a missing pedal trill (B/B-flat, b. 91 - 94), missing LH notes (b. 101, last beat, LH treble B-flat crotchet, with quaver rest; b. 102 LH treble F with quaver rest and treble E-flat with quaver rest), missing registrations (b. 106 ôtez anches), missing note b. 134 LH B natural, missing accidentals (b. 168 should have F naturals, with the F sharps reinstated in b. 169. At b. 220, the direction ajoutez anches is missing. The section commencing at b. 230 - 232 is utterly wrong. Here, Cochereau obviously plays a D major scale in triplets (in octaves, between the hands), commencing on As, ending with a D major chord with an [accidentally clipped ?] E-flat. The passage as given by Filsell is banal in comparison. At b. 248 - 249, the highest RH note should still be an E-flat, with the E natural not appearing until b. 250 - 251. At b. 253, the pedal should rest, the A natural ending a bar before the written score. At b. 274, there is a missing quaver to complete the first beat (as opposed to a dotted crotchet). At b. 282, instead of P. Flûtes 8, 2, the registration should read Récit Céleste avec octaves aigües. *

 

Personally, I think that it was a shame that Filsell felt that he had to 'improve' or 'correct' Cochereau's improvisation - the original has a rather different feel to the score. I prefer greatly the more realistic accuracy of the Briggs transcriptions (although there is one point in the Suite de Danses [VI: Gigue, b. 36 - 40] where Briggs clearly forgets that Nôtre-Dame has a fifty-six note compass, and directs the player to play the RH stave an octave higher than written - which would require notes that do not exist on the claviers. The first note of this movement is also incorrect; Briggs wrote it as treble G crotchet and quaver - as given in the theme provided for Cochereau by Msgr. Jehan Revert, whereas Cochereau actually commenced the movement on a single dotted crotchet G, one octave higher which, to me, sounds better).

 

 

 

* I do not claim that this is a definitive list.

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Have just bought a copy of the Symphonie en improvisation, having been captivated by it as a teenager when the BBC broadcast it once a very long time ago. Purchased from the stretta website at a very reasonable price. Now all I have to do is sink my mind into a different idiom, particularly as most of my thought through improvisations have more inspiration from Britten and Tippett.

 

AJS

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.................. as most of my thought through improvisations have more inspiration from Britten and Tippett.

 

AJS

 

This makes my day to read and quite encouraging to know. We have remarkable indigenous styles to assimilate and consider in the UK which for some reason get overlooked by many - not intentionally, I think, but overlooked non-the-less. Having been a player in my teens under Tippett (the conductor for a change), I have found much structure and texture in his works that needs careful inspection. Tippett/Corelli and the Double Concerto (slow movt especially) are glorious works and as a pianist with him I fondly remember the Handel Variations too. Child of our Time is remarkable. Peter Grimes and Death in Venice offer much too of course from Britten, not forgetting the War Requiem. Most distinct harmonic language.

 

The organ for me is basically a 'linear' instrument par excellence and to not involve voices in improvisations seems such a shame. Granted a dose of yack-a-tack can add excitement for a moment when the music demands, but contrapuntal texture really shows up the 'men from the boys' in my experience. The modern, but early impressionistic French style beloved by many, is entirely suited to the instruments of the Symphonic School. It rather encourages what we hear now from burgeoning improvisers because of the ff vivo excitement - much of course coming from how the player reacts to the instrument. I would go as far as saying that the very earliest recordings of improvisers playing the organ were just that - without a thought to the showman side of it all. Rather, perhaps, a moment of historical scientific pioneering that totally intrigued them. For the first time they would hear themselves and the organ. What fun! Many early things were liturgically based and offered I am sure in the same ecclesiastical way as any on a Sunday. My own recordings (except those at Lichfield Cathedral) of improvisations were done at the conclusion of a repertoire recording session just before the microphones came down. Under those circumstances the improvisatory muse has been restricted by the compositions. The spontaneous recorded works were almost all created to use the instrument and stops in a totally different way so that I could enjoy the new adventurous timbres and textures unsuited to the 17th and 18th Centuries. To come across on one great organ the opportunity of playing a remarkable Fonds d'orgue after three sessions of recording Lutheran counterpoint in Lorraine was a moment of intense pleasure that was utterly transcendental and even now I still cannot hear the track without a lump in the throat or a tear in the eye. These moments are so private and in reality shouldn't be shared. But market forces prevail ..... and of course, the rest of world needs to hear what extraordinary beauty is actually inspiring the player. A privé moment indeed. Debatable too.

Therefore, as an improviser of sorts, I personally really can't see the point of transcribing recordings unless the performer had an ear for them to be done when playing. Who knows? As a form of devotion to a teacher or colleague - perhaps, yes; but only just. I almost can come to terms with that. But we have the recordings which to me are far more important to have. That is the end result surely. Let's listen and learn how to communicate music and performance. That to me is what they are doing supremely well - sometimes erring more towards 'performance' than the other. So did Beethown and Chopin! So why not? I think to eradicate some lesser musical moments in transcription (which no doubt get carried by instrument and acoustic on a recording), I imagine there is the temptation to judicially change. In the cold light of day ...... How many people have bought transcriptions (certainly of M. Cochereau) and only played them without hearing a recording? If you hear a recording while learning a transcribed work, aren't you just aping the original player and trying to fit the dots to what you hear? One must trust our own instincts to perform a work to maintain identity. No cloning! If music is written (from any source or way), I think it is then for us to interpret it how we would like to project it - not a pastiche creation of the original, even if it was firstly recorded by them. So why not perform what everyone has done, I say? I have still to get my head around all this though, as you can read!

When I play I honestly think that nobody can capture neither the musical spirit of the occasion nor the instantaneous 'combustion' of the moment - all of which hinges on the instrument and place and thus, a musical 'atomic' fusion with the improviser. It's all so personal and the laying bare of the inner soul is quite painful to share with anyone - even a microphone, let alone a pen and paper.

 

All this from Tippett and Britten! Sorry.

Best wishes,

N

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I agree with Nigel's post, up to a point. I'd like to make two points. First, it was not the ff vivo that attracted/attacts me to Cochereau; it is the extraordinary beauty of his slow movements and the unparalleled 'Cochereau crescendo', both of which are often perfect fusions of linear counterpoint and sensual harmony. Indeed, it is often PC's countermelodies that hold the ear, astonishing in their beauty and complexity, yet utterly satisfying. Sure, we've all read contemporary accounts that PC was more attracted to harmony in improv classes, but why should this be viewed as some kind of 'dark side'? I've heard too many deadly-dry fugues improvised by Dupré, for example. To be able to improvise fugues using regular countersubjects might be impressive, but sometimes the results leave one cold.

 

The important thing is that one's improvisations are not constantly trying to ape one style. Having worked with someone who can 'do' PC standing on his head (and he was frequently asked to!), one was equally as likely to hear improvisation inspired by others, including Brits from Tallis to MacMillan (certainly encompassing Purcell, Elgar, Tippett and Britten, perhaps with Whitlock for fun). But before I'm reminded that such things are nothing more than party pieces if they are mere pastiche (which, by the way, I don't agree with), I did say 'inspired by' i.e. "assimilated and considered" en route to finding ones own personal language - which I think was Nigel's point.

 

Secondly, I don't quite understand the point being made about transcribing and listening to recordings. Surely transcription by another can be as valid as composition by the performer, since improvisation (by a skilled practitioner) is spontaneous composition? Where that performer has neither the time nor inclination to compose much, one has to make do with transcriptions (if only someone had transcribed Bairstow, Massey or Pryor!). Especially so when sometimes, just sometimes, the end results are as 'good' as if they had been written down and laboured over using pencil and eraser. Indeed, perhaps that flash of inspiration might have been dulled somewhat by the temptation to tweak at leisure...

 

I submit that capturing a moment of inspiration at one's desk or piano, pencil in hand or Sibelius booted up, is surely on a par with someone else (duly skilled etc) capturing it on the creator's behalf. Of course, the creator loses artist control, but no more so than when he hands over that completed manuscript to a performer, who doesn't even have the benefit of a recording of what the composer thinks he has written (pace Sibelius or midi!). If the creator doesn't want to run the risk of ephemeral utterances being transcribed for posterity, then he should not agree to them being recorded.

 

However, to learn or simply study an improvisation from a transcription where a recording is available and not listen to the original is a negation of duty, in my book. If there were recordings of Bach playing his own works, would we not wish to hear them? Of course one can never capture the spontaneity of the original, but one can try, and learn a great deal along the way. How many dry-as-dust performances of the Tournemire/Duruflé transcriptions do we hear? There's simply no excuse these days. I often find myself asking "if ONLY they'd listened...". Cloning should of course be avoided, whether it's of your favourite edited recording of a Bach P&F or of Cochereau improvising for the Pope. But I certainly do see a point both to transcribing good improvisations and to informing one's understanding of creative and communicative art by listening. Which brings me to 100% agreement with Nigel: "Let's listen and learn how to communicate music and performance" :unsure:

 

IFB

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As I said - there is always debate, which is healthy and necessary. Everyone has different methods of learning and everyone is affected by what they hear in totally dis-similar ways quite often. Also people glean something of 'this' or 'that' from what they hear. Ian enjoys the slower movements which others would not prefer as they perhaps like or are attracted by reedy, clattery things that proceed as like a glorious TGV. Some detest Cochereau, others adore and some are betwixt the two. Again, it is all so individual and one can champion such idols like sporting teams. Music is not a contest between players. So I hope that my comments are taken as being my Friday afternoon thoughts. They could change on Monday when I hear something else! I am as fickle in my musical likes and dislikes, just as like the English weather; hot and steamy one day and icy the next. When you get to my age, you are allowed a little indulgence and a few mad paragraphs that are rather self-centered at the end of the week.

Best wishes,

N

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OK, recordings arrived, and now in ipod. I jumped straight to the Scherzo discussed earlier, and the whole piece takes on a new meaning at the speed PC takes it at. I can now see that my earlier questions are a little invalid, the speed he takes it at there is no difference between the triplets and trills. Points also noted about the 'splashy' nature of some of the chords. However, there are several of the chords where even on repeated listening, and slowly, that it must be almost impossible to tell what the make up of the chords are.

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However, there are several of the chords where even on repeated listening, and slowly, that it must be almost impossible to tell what the make up of the chords are.

 

In my book that's musical camouflage and the improviser's way of making a work impossible to reproduce correctly - just like adding certain anti- counterfeiting features to a £50 note I imagine.

 

But seriously, what you allude to is surely the lurching of the stylus phantasticus into the more contemporary age and therefore is a singular feature that only works under the fingers and feet of that particular exponent. Fine, as a higher-level of dictation if you have the time, but I still maintain that it is not necessary as it is mostly a 'filling out' of the texture. This is an example I think of 'grey area' between composition and improvisation. ( But I suggest that Chopin's mercurial right hand passages show exactly his technique and musical DNA. I think he struggled more to capture on paper his arabesques than most things as they are flights of the finest moments of improvisation we have from an improviser/composer and he has to go from piano to paper to get exactly what he is simply letting flow from the ends of his fingers over the Erard.) One thing that I don't think has been written here concerning the differences between improvisation and composition is the fact that an improviser will go beyond the normal bounds of technique and on to a far higher level that can only be achieved through total immersion in the performance and 'at one' with instrument and inspiration. To reproduce such music is really hard, (perhaps well-nigh impossible), and from one who has attempted in youth to write down such 'scores floating in the ether', it is in retrospect far more rewarding to hone it so that at least the music is more accessible to a greater number of people and also to yourself. You still have to learn it! I found it a far better piece too as in improvisation a vast percentage of notes can easily be discarded and the texture and positioning of chords made more powerful. A maxim for me could be in relatively fast movements:s 'the louder the piece, the less notes you need'. On the organ you have added ranks in differing pitches that compensate. I revel in musical clarity and not muddy waters.

 

I like to sometimes think what the birds thought of Messiaen creating Oiseaux exotiques and and the 7 vols of Catalogue d'oiseaux and whether it was all entirely correct in their estimation. I think we must hear the originals (as Ian suggests) to get it right! This is dictation (and dedication) at the highest level. I bow down to such ornithological brilliance and the fact that Messiaen actually knew he was hearing a Rufous-tailed rock thrush - or not. (Vol 6 I think).

Perhaps we are dealing with the problem of transcribing every note in the wrong spirit. Perhaps it is the harmonic framework that should be distilled to paper and the continuo-like modern figurations left to the individual to perform. Those idiosyncratic moments are his, and his (Cochereau's) alone. I like to hear individuality in others which is their personality - not musical Rory Bremners - brilliant as they may be as pastiche. I fear that it has all been said far finer by the original person. Grand to use as models in private and behind closed doors.

It is such musical fun though - don't get me wrong. I thought the Maître had 'come down' when I once went into a great French church in the twilight and moved around only in the flickering incense mist of votive candle light following Vespers. Michel Gaillard (not a public figure, I might add in the musical world - but should), is in my estimation the greatest exponent of the Cochereau style alive (whom I have heard in any form, as yet). It was he who crept down from the tribune after he had played only for the Angels. But it also in someways, was his style too - an assimilation of style that has been brought about through listening - not the page. Michel does not read music but plays many of the pieces to which a number here allude. He is attracted by sound to play - perhaps the long-lost reason why we also became musicians who quite unbeknown to us gradually and latterly got so caught-up with The Page. (I don't teach a young pianist beginner to read music for about 6 lessons or more). It is surprising how much more fast they progress without the page because I think it is rather a let-down to only play with a few fingers on the same number of keys when what they really want (and thought they would be doing!) is to Make Music. (With any language, surely the most important thing about it is the communication first. Then to learn the grammar when fluent(ish). If 'twere the other way round we wouldn't get very far would we?) On those instruments where the player needs to make the sound, in my opinion a blistering technique is nothing if the sound is meagre and under-nourished.

 

 

On a tangent - and as a little story about assimilation of style - I had once a piano student who at college came to me for lessons. The first time he came he put a volume of the Beethoven Sonatas on the piano music desk. I asked which one he was going to play and he said the Pathétique. But he didn't start. "What's the matter? Do play!" said I. "But you haven't said which version you want" said he, "do you want Ashkenazy, Bishop or Richter?"

This guy could not even sight-read Gd I piano standard, but he could play Chopin and Beethoven without seeing (or understanding) clefs or the dots. But I must say of almost all the pianists I have taught, the sound he produced was extraordinary. His ability to make the most of any piano was humbling. The Guildhall once filmed me teaching this person. It is still one the 'moments' in my teaching life. Hearing is greatly undervalued I say.

Best wishes,

Nigel

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Are you certain? It is not listed in the catalogue currently accessible on-line. The only symphonie is that which was actually written by Cochereau.

 

Chantraine

 

If the above link does not work, try this:

 

http://www.angelfire.com/oh/chantraine/CochereauA.html

 

If this is the case, I would be pleased to track it down, since I have liked this improvisation ever since I first heard it. A few years ago, DJB mentioned to me that John Scott Whiteley had transcribed it and intended to submit it for publication.

 

JSW played the first movement -Agitato-after Evensong on Saturday. Whetted my appetite to hear the rest !

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