GUILLAUME CONNESSON, THIERRY ESCAICH, LOÏC MALLIÉ, VINCENT PAULET, THIERRY PÉCOU, Livre d’Orgue. Gérard Billaudot, 6091 (Theodore Presser Co, sole selling agent). $32.95. This collective work was commissioned by the City of Paris and Musique Nouvelle en Liberté in 1995 for the inauguration of a new organ at Saint-Ferdinand des Ternes. In principle, all five movements bear reference, however loosely, to a given theme––the Ave Maris Stella. Guillaume Connesson’s Nihil durare potest tempore perpetuo (“Nothing is harder than commanding perpetual time”) is cast, appropriately, in the manner of a perpetual motion, at least in the first section. It is athematic throughout, and the composer ought to have seized some opportunity to introduce the cantus in the pedal in the first and third sections, where the pedal does not otherwise seem to have much impact. The slow middle section begins with sustained tremolandi in the outer parts and moving triads in the middle, and, as elsewhere in the piece, there is frequent suggestion of bitonality. The pedalboard at Saint-Ferdinand des Ternes must have come equipped with a low B, since that note appears indispensibly in mm. 19–22. Vincent Paulet’s Verset sur Ave Maris Stella is mostly for the manuals and consists of several sections, each rather rigidly worked out in terms of two- and three-part atonal writing, including three-part writing in which the upper part is rendered chordally. The work seems aimed at a very precise, exacting mode of execution, though the extensive performance notes (including registration for six pistons) are overblown, given the straightforward, non-problematic nature of the piece. Thierry Escaich’s Récit involves a considerable expansion of the concept of its title. The récit in this case is a sputtering, disjunct formulation, which is always attended by an ominous ostinato-like succesion of quarter-notes taken from the incipit of the cantus. At strategically well-timed places, this is interrupted by short fortissimo chordal interjections that emerge directly from the ostinato. Eventually, the entire piece builds to fortissimo, and the récit evolves into mighty chord-clusters marked fff. The formal progression in all this is absolutely masterful, with the récit initially confined to the left-hand (en taille), with the outer voices at the interval of three-octaves-and-a-minor-third; later it moves to the two hands together (at first in staccato chords, and then in legato chords and octaves), and finally into the chord-clusters. An atmospheric coda ends in pianissimo. Thierry Pécou’s Ecco la Fiera (after a verse from Dante’s Inferno) is reminicent, at first, of some of the work of Jean-Pierre Leguay, with its long, dissonant, subtlely moving chords and clusters. A second section in trio texture gives way to a long conclusion in which a 4’ flute, flageolet, and tierce combination (and later, the 2’ flute alone) sing over long-held chords. Loïc Mallié’s Angles is notated more progressively than any of the other pieces, without barlines and with occasional metrically indeterminate note-beamings, and this notation seems to serve the music well. A “change of events” is often denoted in the disposition of the very long-held pedal notes, and the cantus appears quite overtly in some places.

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