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Referncias
McVicker, W. (2002). Exotic melodies. Choir & Organ, 10(5), 26.
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Exotic melodies
The long-awaited critical notes on the organ works of Jehan Alain have just been published. In Paris, Marie-Claire Alain talks to William
McVicker about her brother and his music
The composer Jehan-Ariste Alain was born on 3 February 1911 in St Germain-en-Laye. His death at Saumur on 20 June 1940, fighting to defend his
country, amid a group of German soldiers, robbed the musical world of a burgeoning talent for composition. He was not the only musician in the family:
Marie-Odile (191437) was a pianist, organist and a singer; Olivier (191894) was a prize-winning composer, an accompanist, music critic,
musicologist and director of several music conservatories. The youngest member of the family was Marie-Claire (b.1926) who has become one of the
most well-known organists of our time and has been described as a living legend. Their father, Albert Alain (18801971), published a large amount of
music for organ and choir some 460 pieces in all, including several oratorios. He was well acquainted with Gigout, Dupr and Guilmant and his own
works are beginning to find favour once again.

Jehan Alain studied with Paul Dukas, Maurice Emmanuel and Roger-Ducasse, says Marie-Claire Alain. He was not very obedient to the rules of
music he had too much personality but I still have the copies of his exercises in harmony and counterpoint and they are models of what should
be done. He was so fond of Paul Dukas; he was a man full of humour and knowledge in general. Unfortunately Dukas died and Roger-Ducasse took
over and that never really worked for Jehan.

Jehan studied the organ mainly with his father and Marcel Dupr. Andr Marchal was a great friend of my father's and he came to our home often. We
were not strictly pupils of his but he helped us and influenced both my brother and myself. Dupr gave us excellent techniques and good shapes for
improvisation. He wanted the performance to be correct but did not teach much about interpretation. His own performances were much more lively
than those we were allowed to give. I think he wanted his pupils to be from the same mould. We had great admiration for him.

At home we had a four-manual organ that my father built. Jehan spent time working on it and practising on this instrument. He was interested in
technical things, including radio and electricity. He built his own radio set and he loved his motorcycle. If you rode a motorcycle in the 1930s you had to
know how to repair it because it was always falling apart. He was also an acrobat on his motorcycle. He got a ticket from the police in St Germain
because they had seen him riding with a friend sat on the handlebars. When his first child was born his wife asked him to take the baby to my parents'
house and so he drew the baby along in the pram with his hand whilst riding his motorcycle. Some friends said we knew your son was bizarre, but he
is really crazy! I remember him climbing the outside walls of the house like a monkey and then jumping from the first floor to the ground. I cannot
explain why his music is so sad because he was so full of fun. He was always laughing and making faces a real clown. You only have to look at his
drawings to see this. His catalogue of his music has a drawing of himself lying under a book of his own compositions entitled The Trash of Alain!

Many composers came to see the Paris Colonial Exhibition in 1931; there were musicians playing music from their own countries such as India and
Indo-China (later Vietnam). He was attracted to this kind of music with its new rhythms. Both Messiaen and Alain were pupils of Maurice Emmanuel
who influenced Jehan greatly through his knowledge of the Greek modes the chorales on the Phrygian and Dorian modes reflected that influence.
Emmanuel wrote an article for an encyclopedia about these modes and also one on Indian music. At home we read The Arabian Nights and there was
a strong air of exoticism around at that time. The Deux Danses Agni Yavishta (1932) and the ler Fantaisie on the poetry of Omar Khayyam (1933)
reflect that exoticism.

Speaking of this piece I remember when I was six or seven years old I would knock on the door and he would say come in and keep quiet; I am
practising. I remember listening to him playing this Fantaisie.

It says a lot about the lyrical nature of the music and it exactly gives the accents for performance of this phrase. He said who cares about musical
develoment? Anyone can write variations. The best musician is the one who can find a beautiful melody. When I teach his music to students I always
try to encourage them to think of the melodies as vocal music you can put words to most of the pieces. The rhythms are complicated within the
beats and the tempo rubato and rhythmic freedom is difficult to find. It needs to be free without becoming wild. First, the music needs to sing and
second, the rhythms need to dance.

Is the famous Litanies connected with the death of Marie-Odile?

Litanies was written on a train and the rhythm of the train on the tracks is in the music. It dates from 15 August 1937. My sister Marie-Odile died in a
terrible mountain accident later, on 3 September, when I was ten or 11 years old. He wrote the quotation for the piece later. Perhaps the piece became
a vehicle for emotion. My sister Marie-Odile was with my brother Olivier. He fell down the mountain and she moved to help him and fell instead. He was
rescued and she died. So the family said that she had saved her brother that she sacrificed herself to save him. It is for this reason that Jehan
dedicated to her the second of the Trois danses which is marked Danse funbre pour honorer une mmoire hroque. Of course Jehan died only a
few years later and so to lose two children in the family was a terrible shock. I was 12 when Jehan left home for the War. For many years he gave me
regular lessons and very soon I was able to play little pieces at the church, although I was not studying the repertoire at that time, I was mainly
studying the piano. I became a professional organist in 1942 or 1943 partly because I thought I needed to replace Jehan as he was no longer there,
but I was really too young to take over. It gave me courage to practise very hard and to learn to play his music that I had heard so much in my home
where I had been able to hear Jehan practising all the time. I knew the music from memory without having learned how to play it.

Messiaen often has juxtapositions of complex chords followed by a simply harmonized melody. Are there similar features in Jehan Alain's work?

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Yes. In the ler Fantaisie there are big seven-part textures followed by a simple melody. Perhaps Durufl also aspired to this search for melodic purity,
I'm not sure. Jehan was a pianist; he played a lot of Debussy and Ravel and also loved the humour and the colour of the music of Satie. He also
enjoyed Franck and Bach. He loved jazz, the music of Stravinsky and the Russian composers. He searched for music by baroque French composers
that were almost unknown at that period. He loved the improvisations of Tournemire and he went as often as he could to hear him play.

I think that there are not really many composers of that period who had much influence on him. He refused influence as he was such an independent
person. He rejected musical development because he thought that a musician should constantly find something new; he felt that strict form was for
composers who had no inventiveness. He was asked by Jolivet and Messiaen to join La Jeune France but he declined he thought he would lose his
independence and freedom as a composer. They shared many things in the 1930s an interest in exoticism, Indian music, monody, the modes but
I think that Messiaen was a little hurt by his refusal because he was very fond of Jehan and his music. This did not spoil their relationship and they
remained good friends; they met often and he gave a recital at La Trinit in 1938. Messiaen spoke warmly of his friend Jehan Alain after his death in
1940. Despite the influences they shared, their music is completely different. They chose to go in two different directions.

The first edition of the organ works of Jehan Alain was made by my father with the help of Jehan's friends in 1942 and 1943 and was hastily prepared.
I was too young to be involved. Remember that very few of his works were published when Jehan was alive. He left a set of manuscripts and the first
edition was prepared from them. Many changes of tempo and accidentals were missing and the registrations were not definitive. Ten years later my
brother Olivier and I thought we should make corrections and so in 1952 we produced a second edition. I produced a third edition in 1971 because I
was tired of answering so many questions from students but there were still many mistakes. I was criticized for daring to make changes to the
registrations! I changed these to reflect the organs we had in the 1970s and not the neo-classical ones that he wrote for in the 1930s.

When Jehan Alain's wife, Madeleine, died in 1975, I discovered at her home many manuscripts and drafts of his music, and so I undertook the
preparation of the fourth edition. The discovery of the manuscripts was something of a comfort to me. My brother must have changed some of his
music when he copied it out and so I was able to collate some things according to my memory of him playing at home. An interesting error is to be
found is bar 50 of Le jardin suspendu, where the pedal B flat occurs a crotchet beat early. He must have copied this incorrectly as the other
manuscripts show the note one beat later. (Ex.2). I was always troubled by this when I played the piece and now I am happy that this coincides with
my memories of Jehan's playing. I needed to have some other sources because I could not change this note without any evidence!

Many other friends of Jehan's had manuscripts of his pieces but they never thought of showing them to me until they were older. He seems to have
been more careful when writing manuscripts for his friends than the ones he wrote out for himself. In all there are 23 sources of his music and these
are listed in the Critical Notes. The Suite pour orgue, for example, has eight sources and there are many differences between them. I have quoted all
these inconsistencies and this is the first time that a genuine level of scholarship has been applied to his music.

How would you evaluate the work of your brother? Which works are the great pieces?

His gorgeous Messe modale en septuor (a missa brevis for two women's voices, flute and string quartet published by Doblinger) should be heard
more often it would work very well for children's choirs. It can be performed with organ, but is better with the quartet. The other great piece is the
Messe de Requiem for four voices (published by Schola Cantorum); both works date from the last months of his life and are very good original works
with exquisite counterpoint.

Of his organ pieces I should say the second of the Trois danses is one of the best because I always sense a special silence from the audience as they
listen to it. Also the Scherzo of the Suite and the 2ime Fantaisie are fine works. The Intermezzo, too, is also a great piece, although it is difficult to
play. Jehan Alain was very fond of Rudyard Kipling. He loved to quote from his books. He was searching for something magical in his music that
Kipling has in his work Jehan wanted to do something more than simply to create music.

The Jehan Alain website can be found at www.jehanalain.com. Critical Notes on the music of Jehan Alain is published by Alphonse Leduc, Paris. The
French edition is distributed in the UK by United Music Publishers Ltd, 42 Rivington Street, London EC2A 3BN. Tel +44 (0)20 7729 4700, fax +44 (0)20
7739 6549, info@ump.co.uk, www.ump.co.uk. The new English edition is expected to become available early in 2003, through United Music
Publishers.

Choir & Organ readers' offer in association with United Music Publishers
United Music Publishers will give a SPECIAL 10% DISCOUNT on any items of music ordered by Choir & Organ readers before 31 December
2002.
To qualify for the discount, simply telephone the retail department on +44 (0)20 7827 8109 and quote reference CO902 with your order.

UMP's new Christmas catalogue is available along with separate choral and organ price lists.

opposite Photo Erato/Jacques Sarrat

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above The Trash of Alaina typically self-depreciating commentary by the composer

~~~~~~~~
By William McVicker

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