“Few of us will ever forget April 15, when the 12th-century Cathédrale de Notre-Dame de Paris caught fire,” writes Sarah Bryan Miller in Sunday’s (7/7) St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “The idea of the Bastille Day Marathon of French Organ Music was born. From 4 to 8 p.m. July 14 at Christ Church Cathedral [in St. Louis], more than two dozen area organists will perform French music on the Episcopal cathedral’s great Aeolian-Skinner instrument. A free-will offering will be collected, and the funds sent to Paris to help pay for the restoration of Notre Dame’s two organs…. There are musical connections between Paris and St. Louis. The great French organist Alexandre Guilmant came here to perform on the organ at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. In the late 1960s, the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Co. … brought another pair of outstanding performers, Maurice and Marie-Madeleine Duruflé, to record a program of French organ music on Christ Church Cathedral’s mighty Aeolian-Skinner instrument.” St. Louis’ Christ Church Cathedral Music Director William S. ‘Pat’ Partridge says “he’s most concerned about the three full-time and two part-time organists at Notre Dame, who are currently out of work.”
Posted July 10, 2019
