by Daniel Hathaway
On this date in 1986, French composer Maurice Duruflé (pictured) died in Paris. Appointed titular organist of St-Étienne-du-Mont in Paris in 1929 while he was still Louis Vierne’s assistant at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Duruflé held the post for the rest of his life, eventually sharing it with his wife, Marie-Madeleine.
A severe self-critic, Duruflé wrote only a few pieces which he kept revising, and only played some of them in public. Listen here to his own performance of the Prélude et Fugue sur le nom de Alain, which encodes the name of fellow composer Jehan Alain (Duruflé plays the Cavaillé-Coll organ of the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles in 1953).
The most famous of Duruflé’s works is his 1947 Requiem, which reveals his lifelong commitment to Gregorian Chant. Watch a performance by Matthew Robertson and The Thirteen from 2018, recorded at the Church of the Epiphany in Washington, DC, with Jeremy Filsell at the organ. [Read more…]