I have been listening to the great French Baroque organists over the last few days. The more I hear from men such as Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, whose first organ book in 1710 is linked above, the more I ask myself why they aren’t better known today.
We have a (not entirely unjustified) reverence for the German/Dutch Baroque organists, but do we unfairly assume that they were the greatest simply on account of men like Scheidemann, Sweelinck, Schildt, Pachelbel, Böhm, Reinicken, Buxtehude, Handel, and Bach?
The French were no less great, producing Coupérin, Clérambault, de Grigny, Marchand (alleged to have challenged Bach to an organ duel but chickened out), Raison, and many others beforehand (Titelouze, Japart, Nivers, Du Mont etc).
Given the popularity and huge influence of French musical styles on princely courts in Germany, is it fair to assume that the works of French Baroque organists would have been similarly admired?
For example, we know that Bach admired the keyboard works of François Coupérin and that they even exchanged correspondence. Bach also used André Raison’s theme from the Trio en Passacaille to write his own Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor.
I was shown an article many years ago in an organ magazine, which asked why more organists didn’t play the music of French Baroque organ, which the author argued was harder than German repertoire. A good question!
