Widor vs. Joby, Part 4: Symphony No. IV

This is the fourth installment in my series on my take on playing the complete works of Charles-Marie Widor. See the first post in the series for an introduction and my philosophies behind this blog series. And as always, refer to John Near’s edition for important corrections in the scores that I might not necessarily mention.

Symphony IV is up today. Visit my program notes on the piece. And of course, feel free to order the recording.

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Symphony IV was my least favorite at recording time, but hey -- a guy can change his mind.

Movement I: Toccata

No, not that Toccata. The first two movements are an ‘old-style’ Toccata and Fugue, Widor’s nod to his pedagogical forebear J.S. Bach. (We won’t go into how tenuous that pedagogical pedigree is, but the two do share a mind for technical details, that’s for sure.)

There are quite a number of corrections in John Near’s edition. Depending on which version you’re playing from, you may be missing some ornaments, and you may have lots of wrong notes in measures 35-37, among other places.

Careful with the tempo. Sixty is perfect, which you will discover in the thirty-second and sixty-fourth notes to come. Those need to be crystal clear, and a too-fast tempo will destroy them.

Okay, we need to talk about Widor’s trills. By his time, ornaments were executed before the beat and beginning on the main note, whereas in “earlier” times, they were executed on the beat and on auxiliaries. Perhaps most folks play the trills in measures 6, 8, 10, 12, etc., as little more than pre-beat grace notes consisting of the main note and the upper neighbor and back. I have trouble accepting that as Widor's intention. I like to think that had he meant that, he would have written the actual grace notes. (We’ll have this conversation again for the trills in the beginning of Symphony V.) At any rate, I try to get at least two “wiggles” out of each trill in this Toccata. That requires musical time, but the good news there is that Widor had no patience for scurrying. And knowing that he is nodding backward to Bach with these first two movements, I sometimes can’t resist beginning ornaments on the beat. Who will find it in their heart to forgive me?

Measures 13-16 and other places: Careful with dotted eighths followed by two thirty-seconds. Make sure that the 32nds sound like real rhythms and not like arbitrary grace notes. Widor made his choice of notation between the two, so keep the rhythm clean accordingly.

Measure 18: Maintaining legato is easier in the beginning of this measure than the end. The later notes there and going into m. 19 (also 48-49) have a martial flavor, and I feel a certain liberty to detach them, despite Widor's absence of such markings. I know that I have been preaching the legato gospel, but even I can’t resist temptation sometimes.

Measure 21 into 22: To eliminate hand crossing, I find it easier to play the last two notes of the right hand with the left hand and play the Great chords with the right hand. Ditto measure 23 into 24.

Measure 32: I crescendo to prepare for the mezzo forte in 33. Notice that the crescendo can then continue naturally with the changing manuals.

Measures 38-39: The left hand has the recap melody there, and so I keep the right hand on the Positif to allow the left hand ‘out.’ I restore the right hand to the Great on beat 3 of measure 39.

Measures 46-47: John Near has an interesting notion about some possible engraving craziness there. I choose to play these measures a piacere but with the beat never far away.

Movement II: Fugue

Measures 14, 16, 21, 23: If you’ll refer to John Near’s edition, you’ll find some manual change options that Widor indicated in different pencil colors in his revisions. For the record, I like what Widor indicated ‘in blue.’

Movement III: Andante cantabile

Although original, this movement sounds like a Scottish folk tune that Widor borrowed. I have trouble keeping the grace notes in Widorian style, pre-beat. They just seem to want to be played on the beat most times, to my ear, as in the tune “Her name was Barbara Allen.”

Measures 27, 31, 39: The alignment of the sixteenth with the final triplet would not be unheard of. One always has to be careful with those, lest they sound frantic otherwise.

Measure 48: The change of Great registration will be heard in the Pedal, since that coupler is still on. I mitigate that by removing the coupler in 47. I also make the move to the céleste on the final three eighths of 47. It makes a smoother transition to the new registration.

Measure 57, beats 2-3: the octave parallelism between melody and first tenor seems particularly glaring to me. There are lots of little parallelisms in this entire passage, but none quite as “loud” to my ear as this one. I left it unchanged, despite the theory professor sitting on my shoulder.

Measure 58: The Pedal’s second note sounds ‘good’ as good goes, but it seems it ought to remain D-flat. Again, the theory professor on my shoulder says, “A V7 chord is weakened if it proceeds to V.”

Measure 64: Holding all those Récit notes is impossible if the manuals are not adjacent for thumbing, which they were not for Widor. But what's a Frenchman to do? But even if the manuals are adjacent, the notes Widor is asking to be sustained on the Récit are spread past a normal handspan, when one has to sacrifice a finger to hold the melody A-flat on the other manual. I had just enough finger length for the left hand to hold the first five sixteenths (from F up through Ab). But what's the non-contortionist to do?

Movement IV: Scherzo

The registration for this movement was the most problematic of all in my recordings. It’s virtually inaudible, and for all the notes that have to be practiced for this movement, it's almost not worth it! Seriously, I had to open the box quite a bit, because the Great 16' kept covering up the Récit closed tight.

Measures 53-54 and 188-189: I'll bet that if Widor had had high F# and G on his pedalboard, he would have written them in the Pedal here. So I recorded it that way! Given the sparse registration, it amounted to only one extra pipe per note. So don’t have me arrested.

Measure 116, beat 4: The Pedal rhythm in the upper voice is different from its sisters in measures 100, 104, and 120. Error? Composer prerogative? I recorded it as written.

Measures 130-135: An expressive Positif is assumed here, but Widor didn't have that. I suppose he could have played those measures on similar stops on his Récit and then made a quick change in 135.

Measures 242-243: Those reaches in the right hand are impossible without some left hand assistance just before the leap, which would have to be offered from an adjacent manual. Man I/II Transfer to the rescue once again. But what's a Frenchman to do?

Movement V: Adagio

The organ where I recorded this piece has a “nanny goat” stop (Widor’s pejorative term for the voix humaine, which he nevertheless calls for here).

Measures 53 and 57: I reduce the Pedal and/or Pedal couplers to balance. As always.

Measure 68: It is possible to assume the right hand lower voice remains legato while the upper is staccato. When Widor goes to the trouble to give two voices separate stems, he also uses separate articulations. But not always. Sigh.

Measures 102, 103, 107, 108: In a slow tempo, staccato could mean three-quarter value, rather than half value. I opt here for three-quarter value, holding those quarter notes for a dotted eighth, rather than an eighth. It gives them a little more ‘bloom.’

Movement VI: Finale

The cadences (measures 14-18, 58-62, and 135-140) in this movement are taken directly from Mendelssohn (whether or not Widor would admit to it!). I’d say the even more uncanny Mendelssohn moment is the second movement of Symphony VIII, but we’ll get there later.

This is another one of those movements where manual chord detachment may be assumed due to the grand style but is never so marked. I opt for detachment on quarter notes and dotted rhythms, and legato for eighth notes.

Measures 71-74: I recorded an earlier revision for these measures, given in John Near’s appendices for this Symphony. History allows us to do that now, especially if the earlier version is just too good to miss.

Measure 87: The Pedal is fully coupled, but the hands are only on the Récit. One might think that the Pedal has some sort of melody there, but it’s not so. And so OFF with the Pedal couplers!