Louis Vierne, organist of Notre-Dame in Paris, died dramatically in 1937 during a recital at the console of the cathedral's organ, after suffering a heart attack just as he began to improvise. Two years later the society Les Amis de l'orgue published In Memoriam Louis Vierne, which contained Vierne's memoires (Mes Souvenirs) and a series of individual memorials written by his colleagues, students and friends. In one memorial, Alexandre Cellier lamented the relative obscurity suffered by Vierne's music for instruments other than the organ.Footnote ¹ Charged with commenting on Vierne's instrumental and vocal music, Cellier cited several works he considered most important. Among the fourteen works mentioned was but one for piano solo, the Suite bourguignonne, op. 17, published in 1900, which now reappears in the first volume of the new Bärenreiter edition of Vierne's piano music. The editor, Brigitte de Leersnyder, also notes in her introduction (p. ix) the unfortunate obscurity in which this music has rested, just as Cellier did over seventy years ago. Certainly, the time to rectify this situation is overdue, and this new edition will aid in this effort.

As is often the case with composers associated with a particular instrument, Vierne's non-organ music has not entered the standard repertory of musicians as much as it deserves. This handsome volume now makes an under-exposed repertory readily available, and it should stimulate interest in this worthwhile music. Pianists will find in this volume one of the most playable scholarly editions available. Few editorial indications interfere with the legibility of the score, and editorial corrections or suggestions are clearly indicated as such. The paucity of available sources for many of these works certainly allows for less editorial clutter in the visual layout of the page.

This edition marks the first publication of Airs de danse (ca. 1911–12). Two movements are published here (the third movement is lost). The critical report indicates that the autograph for only one movement (‘Les esprits de la nuit’) has survived. The second movement, ‘Le vieux berger’, has been recently attributed to Vierne, according to de Leersnyder, ‘based on an anonymous manuscript copy of the period’ (critical commentary, p. 59). ‘Le vieux berger’ is a pastorale in B minor with a lilting melody gracefully floating above a gently rocking accompaniment. Modal inflections in the melody (lowered seventh scale degrees) and accompaniment (major mode subdominants) lend it the character of a folk tune. The influence of Franck is evident in the tonal areas related by thirds, as well as in the placement of the melody in different ranges, first in the soprano and later in the tenor. Although idiomatically written for the piano, the treatment of the melody and accompaniment bears the hallmarks of a composer familiar with the capabilities of the organ. ‘Les esprits de la nuit’ is a scherzo in F-sharp minor. The melody of this movement, with its conjunct sixteenth-note triplets followed by a leap, bears a striking similarity to the second theme of ‘Feux follets’ from the second suite of Pièces de fantaisie (1926) for organ. The compositional similarities between the two works, and their common subject of creatures of the night, suggest that Vierne may have used the earlier piano work as a point of departure for the later, more complex piece for organ. Other figurations in ‘Les esprits de la nuit’ (such as the arpeggiated chords that descend chromatically in each hand) foreshadow similar gestures found in the ‘Toccata’ for organ (also from the second suite).

All other pieces in this volume are founded on first editions published during the composer's lifetime, with the exception of the Deux Pièces (ca. 1893–95, originally published separately) which are based here on the second edition; annotated differences between the first and second editions of Deux Pièces are provided in the critical report. Nevertheless, there are numerous places where discrepancies occur, requiring the editor to choose the most appropriate reading.

In addition to the benefits for pianists, this volume will also be useful to organists endeavouring to view the better-known organ works – particularly the Pièces en style libre (1914) and the relatively late Pièces de fantaisie (1926–27) – within the totality of Vierne's keyboard music.Footnote ² The creative origins of these two canonical sets of organ pieces lie in the early piano works published here. Many of the titles found in these early piano works reappear in the later organ works, including ‘Idylle’, ‘Divertissement’, and ‘Légende’ (all from the Pièces en style libre), as well as ‘Aubade’ and ‘Clair de lune’ (from the Pièces de fantaisie). But titles alone are not the only continuity. Similarities between the earlier piano works and the later organ works show that Vierne often returned to the same subject and approached these subjects in similar ways, as in the case of ‘Feux follets’ and ‘Les esprits de la nuit’ described above. On the other hand, sometimes works that share a name can be quite different, as in the case of ‘Aubade’ from Suite bourguignonne and the similarly titled opening piece from suite four of the Pièces de fantaisie. The latter work (gentle and lyrical) is quite different from the exuberant piano piece. The earlier piano work greets the dawn with a tenor melody and bell-like accompaniment later punctuated by open fifths in the bass, a texture frequently found in ‘carillon’ pieces in the organ repertory.

The pieces in this edition answer questions and often confirm what Vierne said about his early compositional influences. Given the early nature of the piano works published here, and the exploratory nature of their genesis, the introductory essay might have supplied more information about Vierne's influences, models and inspirations. De Leersnyder notes the music of Chopin as a personal favourite of Vierne's. She also highlights Franck and Widor as Vierne's significant organ teachers but barely mentions their influence on him as a composer. Their influence, and others’, is heard in many pieces in this volume. In ‘Impression d'automne’ from Deux Pièces, the primary tonal areas again recall Franck's use of third relations; in the ‘Intermezzo’ the influence of Chopin is evident in the whimsical virtuoso writing for the right hand over a waltz-like bass. From Suite bourguignonne, the lush harmonies of ‘Aubade’ recall the harmonic vocabulary of Debussy in Suite bergamasque (ca. 1890), and ‘Idylle’ again recalls Chopin's style with its plaintive, meandering melody. ‘Divertissement’ suggests the influence of Schumann. Beginning in medias res, its coquettish melody weaves in and out of arpeggios that swirl both above and below. These early works do more than just point to past influences; they also display nascent elements of what would become hallmarks of Vierne's mature style in form and texture.

The introductory essay by de Leersnyder provides a brief overview of Vierne's life as well as a sketch of his relationship with the piano. The brevity of the essay is understandable for this type of publication, and she provides several sources for those interested in further information about Vierne's life and music. Readers of the English translation of the essay, however, may find one aspect problematic. The French text is written in the historical present tense (common in French writing), and the English translation retains this tense. While not technically incorrect, it reads awkwardly and feels excessively literal. The translator could have taken the license to put it into past tense as the German translator has done, which would read more idiomatically in English.

Just like volume one, volume two of Vierne's Complete Piano Works is a welcome addition to the piano repertory, offering much of the same level of quality. While volume one contains works that reflected a period of stability in Vierne's life, the works of the second volume reflect a period of increased turbulence. To approach these works, we begin again with Vierne's memoires: ‘1906. Le début des catastrophes…’.Footnote 1 With these words (and punctuation), Vierne began a new section of Mes Souvenirs marking the beginning of serious professional and personal hardships. That year Vierne broke his leg in a fall that threatened to end his playing career; the next year he nearly died of typhoid fever. After he had recovered, Vierne's marriage began to dissolve, and it ended in divorce two years later. In 1911, Vierne's mother and his beloved mentor, Alexandre Guilmant, passed away within a week of each other; his son André died two years later. Such was the incessant stream of physical and emotional suffering that afflicted Vierne in the years preceding the First World War. The following of this tumultuous period marks the beginning of the second volume – The First Word War (1914–1916) – of the new Bärenreiter edition of Vierne's complete piano works.

Commentators have been quick to point out the autobiographical nature of Vierne's output, as its character appears to follow loosely the trajectory of personal tragedy in Vierne's life. Indeed, it is not difficult to trace a generally darkening tone in his music through the second and third decade of the twentieth century, as potentially simplistic as such an interpretation may be. Yet despite the devastating hardships Vierne endured, his writings in Mes Souvenirs do not reveal a tormented soul suffering from debilitating depression or inconsolable grief. What emerges is a man who has embraced both the good and the bad in life, even if the bad seems to predominate. The music in the present volume reflects this emotional dichotomy.

While the first volume contained both previously published and unpublished music, the second volume contains two previously published suites: Douze Préludes, Op. 36 (1914–15) and Trois Nocturnes, Op. 35 (1915–16). The former is based solely upon the first edition (Geneva: Henn, 1921 and 1924), as the manuscript is lost. The latter is based on both the first edition (Paris: Senart, 1923) and a photocopy of the manuscript. As expected, discrepancies between the two sources are indicated in the critical report. In these pieces, one can detect the salient elements of Vierne's life and personality in the early twentieth century, embracing suffering and joy, anxiety and hope. The individual movements of Douze Préludes reveal this dichotomy with titles such as ‘Pressentiment’ versus ‘Nostalgie’ and ‘Évocation d'un jour d'angoisse’ versus ‘Souvenir d'un jour de joie’. The Nocturnes show a similar set of emotions on a grander scale but without the direct autobiographical implications. These longer pieces reveal a more developed sense of musical imagery and greater compositional refinement over longer musical structures.

The editor of this volume, Olivier Gardon, is an accomplished pianist who has recorded the bulk of Vierne's piano works.Footnote 2 For this edition, he provided a short preface along with the series’ general editor, Helga Schauerte-Maubouet. Musicologist Jean-Pierre Mazeirat provided the introductory essay that briefly discusses Vierne as a pianist in light of his legacy as an organist. Vierne was, as Mazeirat notes (p. x), one of few French organists who could claim an equal talent on both the organ and the piano. There is some disagreement between Gardon and Mazeirat as to how idiomatically Vierne wrote for the piano, although both agree that it would be difficult to identify these pieces as the music of an organist. Gardon, who clearly has intimate knowledge of how these pieces feel at the piano, has the impression that the pianistic writing is ‘admirable and completely mastered’ (p. vii). Mazeirat suggests that the piano repertoire – when compared with the organ repertoire – has ‘neither the weight nor the ingenuity idiomatic to the instrument’ (p. x). Although their opinions differ, they highlight a subtle tension in the piano works noticeable when considered as music of a composer fully aware of the organ's capabilities.

This balance is on full display in the ‘Prologue’ of Douze Préludes. The opening is dominated by relentlessly full chords (often with seven or eight pitches each) and passages where both hands play in octaves, which suggests Vierne trying to emulate the massive sounds of an organ roaring down the nave of a large church. A brief transition, however, glides into a delicate passage of pianistic arpeggios below a gently soaring melody similar to comparable passages in piano music of Schumann and Liszt. A turbulent transition announces the return of the opening material to close the piece. The next movement, ‘Tendresse’, also displays characteristics of organ music distilled for the piano. The individual ‘voices’ that weave in and out of a constantly varying texture suggest a stratification of musical material not unlike that achieved when an organist places hands on different manuals while balancing the sound by an independent part for the pedals. Only pianists with the largest hands can play all the notes without making numerous adjustments. A later movement, ‘Par gros temps’ – although thoroughly pianistic and also showing the influence of Schumann and Liszt – adapts the tradition of the French organ toccata to the piano with its melody in the bass below a virtuosic whirlwind of arpeggios and figurations.

Each movement in Douze Préludes explores an emotion evoked by the title in ways that display the influence of Vierne's favourite composers, most notably Schumann, Schubert and Chopin. The Nocturnes add another composer to the mix of influences: Debussy. With the title of the first nocturne, ‘La nuit avait envahi la nef de la cathédrale…’, it is impossible not to think of ‘La cathédrale engloutie’ (Préludes, book I) and ‘Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut’ (Images, set II), as Gardon notes (p. viii). Vierne's nocturne is surely more than homage to Debussy; not only does it evoke Vierne's musical home in the tribune of Notre Dame, it is – as Mazeirat explains (p. xiii) – directly related to a visit that Vierne paid to the immense abbey church of Saint-Ouen in Rouen. After visiting the church and playing the colossal Cavaillé-Coll organ, Vierne set about recording his memories in music, curiously for the piano and not the organ. In this piece – as in so much of Vierne's music – influential composers of the past and experiences of the present coalesce into a distinctive musical work.

The third nocturne, ‘La lumière rayonnait des astres de la nuit, le rossignol chantait…’, will be of particular interest to organists. Much like Vierne's early piano works, the pieces in volume two share similar subjects and compositional techniques with his organ works. This particular nocturne is rightly lauded by Mazeirat as a masterpiece and bears considerable similarity to one of Vierne's most popular organ works, ‘Clair de lune’, from the second suite of Pièces de fantaisie (1926). Among the shared characteristics of each piece is the key (D-flat major), a soaring melody that is gently syncopated and slightly angular yet graceful due to the very slow tempo, and similar accompanimental figurations such as calm arpeggiations and a rocking, syncopated pedal point often in the middle and lower parts of the texture. As noted above, Vierne often returned to similar subjects for inspiration; the night and sources of nocturnal light (perhaps appropriate for a nearly-blind musician) were among his favourites.

Like many devotees of Vierne's music, Gardon and Mazeirat wonder about the lack of attention afforded to these pieces. This fine, eminently playable edition should encourage pianists and those seeking to expand the repertoire to acquaint themselves with this worthwhile music. Both suites were very well received at their premieres and subsequent early performances. It would not be hard to imagine these pieces receiving similar acclaim at their much-deserved renaissance nearly a century later.