Described by his teacher, Marcel Dupré, as ‘a phenomenon without equal in the history of the contemporary organ’ Pierre Cochereau (1924-1984) was Organiste Titulaire of Notre-Dame de Paris from 1955 until his death, at the age of just 59. He was one of the twentieth century’s greatest ambassadors for the organ, pursuing an international recital career which took him all over the world. Although famed as an interpreter, principally of the works of Vierne, he was best known and is best remembered for his incredible skill as an improviser. In this discipline he was at his most inspired and crowds flocked to Notre-Dame from all over the world to hear him improvise both liturgically and in concert.
In addition to his work as a performer, he was Director of the regional music conservatoires at, successively, Le Mans and Nice and finally at the prestigious and newly established Conservatoire Nationale Supérieur de Musique at Lyon. As is so often the case for men who occupy the very highest echelons of their chosen career ladder, both for his fame as a performer and for his prestigious securing of the post at Lyon Cochereau became the subject of some intense professional jealousies and towards the end of his life had to tolerate all the negative consequences of these. Many people close to him felt that the enormous strain under which this put him contributed in no small measure to his early death. There were, undoubtedly, those who hoped that his memory would fade rapidly after his death but what was initially a fairly small, cult following has grown over the years and now, twenty-five years after his death, a thorough re-evaluation of his contribution to the history of organ music and a detailed examination of his improvisation style is long-overdue.
My researches, based at the University of Bristol, England, seek to examine firstly his interpretations of the music of other composers and to establish a much more accurate picture of his recording career than has been possible to date. Examination of both of his popular and mainstream recordings as well as numerous less well-known ones from all stages in his career feed into this. His performance style is examined in detail, including questions of speed, registration and the issue over which he is often most criticised – note accuracy.
Throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s he was signed exclusively to Philips Classics as a recording artist and the recordings which date from this period represent the best, and the worst, of his performances. His greatest recorded improvisations were those which were created for three L.P. recordings on the Philips label, and there are some fine interpretations of organ works by Bach, Liszt and Vierne to be found there also. In addition however, are the recordings which the label persuaded him to make against his better judgement which included tasteless and overworked arrangements for organ and brass ensemble of works by Bach, Purcell, Handel and others. When his contract expired he did not hesitate in being the first artist to sign for Disques FY, a new venture set up by his friend and tireless administrative assistant, recording engineer François Carbou. Carbou had first met Cochereau early in the 1950s, before his appointment at Notre-Dame and was present in the tribune on Pierre’s first Sunday there in 1955, as he would be on his last in 1984. It had been Carbou’s inspired idea to place a pemanent microphone installation in the Notre-Dame tribune towards the end of the 1960s which enabled the recording of every Cochereau improvisation and performance, something about which Pierre took a fair amount of initial persuasion.
The move to Disques FY (and its later second arm – Disques du Solstice) liberated him at last to record what he wanted and how he wanted it. Landmark recordings of works by Dupré and the complete Vierne symphonies date from this period as does the recording of improvisations which he decided would be his last – ‘L’Art de l’Improvisation’. Fortunately for us, following Cochereau’s death, François Carbou took the decision to begin a meticulous combing of his recording archive, which contains many hundreds of hours of liturgical and concert improvisations, to put together and release some very fine albums which FY/Solstice have continued to produce periodically ever since. Whilst these may not have Pierre’s official sanction, they have immeasurably enriched our understanding and appreciation of the extent of his genius.
Examination of this genius forms the second part of my research. Traditionally cited as a product of Dupré, my research will reveal that there is actually a much wider sphere of influence in Cochereau’s music and Dupré’s influence may in truth be much less significant than has been thought. New transcriptions of little known improvisations are used to support this aspect of the research and the whole project is set against a consideration of the evolution of the organ at Notre-Dame during Cochereau’s tenure, which had a profound significance for his performances. Often praised and villified in equal measure for the alterations he made to the instrument, the alterations are dealt with in greater depth than in any other published source known to me and are also considered as a product of their age.
The research project was completed in 2010 and was be published as a book in September 2012, by the University of Rochester Press, Eastman Studies.