Alain Litanies

[stewartt]

I've just noticed that Marie Claire-Alain, in her YouTube performance, omits at the bottom of the penultimate page the quiet recit passage and the following repetition of the rather tricky left hand passage and jumps straight to the Tutti conclusion section. Does anyone know why and is this common practice?

[sjf1967]

I don't think there's a version published which has this cut. It's one of the few works that JA prepared for publication, and he provided a very precise MS for the engraver which does not omit the passages in question. It's possible that: a) MCA had her brother's authority to abbreviate, but this was never enshrined in print, b) she had a memory lapse in the recording (unikely), or c) there were problems managing the necessary registration change with no assistant on this instrument (some earlier registration changes aren't observed in the recording, probably for the same reason). If you can track down the 'Critical Notes' Leduc published alongside the 2001-2003 version of the Alain edition, there might be info there; from memory, they don't mention a cut at this point in any of the several MSS of the piece. I've never heard anyone else make a cut here.

[DHM]

Are there other places in this piece where cuts have been made, and if so, is there any authority for them?

[sjf1967]

'Authority' in Alain can be a fluid thing... In the sense that he notated (or is known to have given explicit written permission for) any cuts, in any of the known sources, the answer is no. But there are quite a few things enshrined in the pre-2001 Leduc editions that are based on MCA's recollection of his own playing habits or his verbally expressed preferences, and it's hard to argue with that. Litanies is a bit of a special case, because the piece was put into a final, definitive form by JA for publication.

[DHM]

Thanks, SJF. That's really interesting and helpful. I've just learnt a lot of stuff that I have never been aware of (e.g. recent editions).
I bought my copy as a teenager in 1967. It's Leduc, but says copyright 1939, 1943 and 1952.
Are there many (or any) significant differences in later editions?

[innate]

Something that has always worried me in Litanies is the pattern that starts on the last two bars of this screen grab [from a self-published edition on IMSLP—the piece is now public domain in Europe and Canada]. The registration implies that the Pos. is louder/more present than the Récit but in these two bars that would take away the 3+3+2 rhythm and make it sound (to anybody not looking at the score as thought the Pos. and Ped. are on the beat and it’s a straight 4/4 pattern with the first two Rec. quavers being an upbeat. Can anyone explain what the intention is here?