Charles-Marie Widor

Charles-Marie Widor

Photo: Paul Berger

Bibliothèque Nationale de France

Source: Wikipedia

Born on 21 February 1844 in Lyon, France, organist Charles-Marie Widor composed for chamber, chorus, stage and orchestra, along with songs and a considerable number of pieces for solo organ and solo piano. He was the son of an organ builder who was a friend of with whom Widor's career was intertwined: organ builder, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. Widor composed a lot of music especially for the Cavaillé-Coll organ, also premiering their installment at locations such as Notre-Dame de Paris, Saint-Germain-des-Près, Saint-Ouen de Rouen and the Trocadéro. Just what sort of organ we're talking about is such that, though Widor's "symphonies" were written for one organ alone, they were called such due to the wide orchestral range along with other features that helped the Cavaillé-Coll organ to approximate symphonic effects. Cavaillé-Coll planted organs all over Europe: Mainz-Bretzenheim; Manchester; Paris: St. Sulpice; Tarn; various. As a performer, however, Widor's venues extended widely beyond only those for the Cavaillé-Coll organ, he having traveled internationally including Russia (where is built another Cavaillé-Coll organ in the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory).

It was Cavaillé-Coll who got young Widor sent to Brussels in 1863 to study organ under Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens and composition beneath the director of the Brussels Conservatoire, François-Joseph Fétis. Widor's Opus 1 is assigned to a work for piano titled 'Variations de concert sur un thème original' published circa 1867. By 1868 he was ready to become assistant to Camille Saint-Saëns at the Catholic Eglise de la Madeleine in Paris in 1868. In 1870 he became organist at the Catholic Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, where he remained until 1933.

It was 1870 that Widor wrote 'Sérénade' in C major Op 10 for piano, flute, violin, cello and harmonium. He published 'Organ Symphony No.1' in C minor Op 13 No.1 in 1872. The first of two piano concertos arrived in 1876. Continuing with earlier works, 'Organ Symphony No.5' in F minor Op 42, the most famous of his organ symphonies, premiered at the Palais du Trocadéro in Paris on 19 October 1879. Widor himself recorded the Toccata from this work at Saint-Sulpice in Paris in 1932.

'Sérénade' in C major Op 10   Charles-Marie Widor

For piano / flute / violin / cello / harmonium

1870 published 1871

Flute: Thies Roorda   Violin: Junko Naito   Piano: Alessandro Soccorsi

IMSLP   Score   This album

Organ: Suzanne Chaisemartin   1988

IMSLP   Score

Piano: Ronald Brautigam

IMSLP   Nigel Simeone

The first edition of Widor's 'Vieilles chansons pour les petits enfants' ('Old songs for little children') arrived in 1883 containing 28 pieces. Of his ten Suites, his fourth which was Op 34 in four movements arrived for flute and piano in 1887. He published 'Quatre Pièces en Trio' for violin, piano and cello circa 1889, the fourth movement of which is the Serenade.