''Symphony No. 3, for organ and orchestra?'' ''Bound to be by Saint-Saens.'' ''Wrong, Widor!'' ''Oh, Symphony No. 3 in E minor, for organ and orchestra. Probably another version of the E minor Symphonie pour orgue, the third and least often played of the set of ten''. ''Wrong again! It's quite a different work.'' At which point you listen to the disc and read the documentation.
Just as an Englishman, a director of Rolls-Royce, was partly responsible for launching in 1920 the international career of Widor's successor, Marcel Dupre, by arranging a Royal Albert Hall London debut for him in the presence of the Prince of Wales, so another Englishman, Sir Daniel Fitzgerald Barton, wealthy Consul-General in Switzerland, must take credit for this fascinating original score by Widor. Sir Daniel was President of a Genevan orchestra that needed a hall. So he had one built, and, as a loyal Englishman he called it the Victoria Hall. He also wanted a suitable organ installed. It was. And for the inauguration of hall and organ he commissioned his Parisian friend Widor to compose an appropriate piece. Completed in 1893, and undoubtedly indebted for its general shape to the already famous example by Saint-Saens, this two-movement Symphony No. 3, Op. 69, for organ and orchestra, was first played at the Victoria Hall in the following December. It was subsequently heard in Berlin London, Rome, Barcelona, Paris, Strasbourg and other centres. If there has been another London performance during the past 60 years, I must have missed it. Meanwhile, I am revelling in my late discovery of a beautifully scored piece. Good quiz material, it reveals a master of harmonic spacing stranger neither to Franckian harmony nor to Berliozian orchestration; understandably, for Widor succeeded Franck as Organ Professor at the Paris Conservatoire, and updated Berlioz's treatise on the orchestra in his own Technique de l'orchestre moderne. Binding together the component parts of the Symphony is a conjunct chorale, perhaps not out of place in Hymns Ancient and Modern, that eventually carries the deft score to its grandiose final page.
Only slightly better-known is Widor's later Sinfonia sacra, Op. 81, composed in 1908, several years after the last of his ten solo organ symphonies. Its three parts are based on Num komm der Heiden Heiland, the Advent chorale familiar from its treatment by Bach. Widor's colleague, Albert Schweitzer was closely concerned with the work and his poetic appreciation of it is included in the notes. As easy on the ear as Op. 69, the Sinfonia sacra here enjoys an equally persuasive performance. Both were recorded at public concerts to make this excellently live as well as revelatory disc.'