Organ Masterworks II: Jean Roger-Ducasse: Pastorale for organ.

I first heard Roger-Ducasse’s Pastorale at a remarkable recital given by Sarah Dawe during a Celebrity Organ Recital in Wellington Church, Glasgow on 23 November 1977. Other music featured at this concert included Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E flat (St Anne), BWV 552, and the Messe pour les couvents by François Couperin. The twentieth century Flemish tradition was represented by Joseph Jongen’s Chant de mai and Flor Peeter’s Suite modale. The programme concluded with French composer Jehan Alain’s ubiquitous Litanies.

Sadly, Jean Jules Aimable Roger-Ducasse is nowadays only remembered for his Pastorale. Yet, behind this seeming underachievement lies a long and distinguished career. He was born in Bordeaux on 18 April 1873. After study at the Paris Conservatoire with the now largely forgotten teachers Émile Pessard and André Gédalge, he had further lessons from Gabriel Fauré. In 1902 he obtained the second prize for his cantata Alcyone in the Grand Prix de Rome. Much of his career was spent in teaching. He was Inspector of Singing in the schools of Paris from 1909 and succeeded Paul Dukas as Professor of Composition at the Paris Conservatoire in 1935. Distinguished pupils were the French composers Jacques Ibert, Jéhan Alain and the sadly ignored Scottish composer, Francis George Scott.

Roger-Ducasse wrote in a wide range of genres. This included an opera Cantegril (1931), and a mime drama Orphée (1913). Several major orchestral pieces include a symphonic poem with chorus, Au jardin de Marguerite (1905), after the Faust legend and Epithalame (1923) featuring some then “popular” dance movements. There were a few chamber works as well as motets, songs, and piano music. A recording of his large-scale Mahler-esque Ulysse et les sirènes (1937) for chorus and orchestra remains a desideratum for his admirers. In 1919, he completed and orchestrated Claude Debussy’s Rhapsody for saxophone and orchestra (1911).

Jean Roger-Ducasse died at Le-Taillan-Médoc near Bordeaux on 19 July 1954, aged 81 years. (Grove’s Dictionary).

The Pastorale was completed in 1909 and was published in that year. It carries a dedication to the celebrated French musical educator and conductor, Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979). The premiere was on 20 April 1910 given by Alexandre Guilmant during the inaugural concert of La Société Musicale Indépendante, which had been founded the previous year by Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel and others. A review of the premiere (Le Monde Musicale) suggested that it “seemed long, tedious and opaque.”

Pastorale can be analysed as a classical “storm piece” or ternary form (A-B-A) with a quiet and peaceful beginning and ending, contrasting with a powerful and violent middle section. The opening theme, a Siciliana, was originally conceived in 1904 as an exercise in writing canon. The piece can also be understood as a theme, with eight variations, transitions, and coda. It subtly unfolds as Roger-Ducasse increases the tension with more complex rhythms and with ever-increasing harmonic daring and textural intricacy. Pastorale exploits an enormous range of the instrument’s tonal colours.

Two fundamental stylistic influences can be heard in the Pastorale. Firstly, Impressionism which is reflected with various compositional devices. This includes parallel triads, ostinatos, the whole tone scale, and arpeggios. Harmonically, much use is made of seventh, ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth chords, often with added dissonances. On the other hand, Roger-Ducasse was also attracted to classicism, as represented by pre-nineteenth century “styles and forms, albeit in a contemporary musical vocabulary.” There are similarities to J.S. Bach’s Pastorale BWV 590, both works being in the key and time signatures, F major and 12/8 respectively.

It must be recalled that Roger-Ducasse was not an organist by profession – he did, however, play the piano. The Pastorale is the only solo composition for the instrument that he produced.

I found a review of Sarah Dawe’s recital in the Glasgow Herald (25 November 1977). “T.R.” suggested that her account of Bach’s St Anne Prelude and Fugue “showed off the diapasons and mixtures” of the rebuilt organ, whilst the “lovely flute stops” enhanced Jongen’s Chant de Mai. Equally impressive was Dawe’s reading of Flor Peeters’s Suite modale which exploited “almost the entire range of the organ.”  He was less impressed with the lack of French voicing in Couperin’s Messe pour les Couvents, however the ‘Plein Jeu’ and the ‘Dialogue’ “sparkled.”  The critic noted that in Roger-Ducasse’s Pastorale the quieter stops were a “feature.” Finally, the organ was “given full rein in the authoritative performance of Litanies by Alain – a tremendous piece with which to finish any recital.”

From my own recalling of the performance, I remember being most impressed by the Pastorale. So much so, that I bought the score the following day, from Biggars Music Shop in Sauchiehall Street. Its technical prowess was beyond me then and has remained so ever since.

With thanks to Jung-Won Kim’s Analysis of Roger-Ducasse’s Pastorale pour Orgue, a dissertation, prepared for the Degree of Doctor Of Musical Arts, University of North Texas, May 2012 for much helpful information. 

With thanks to the Glasgow Society of Organists Journal where this essay was first published.