Date of composition: 1925
Premiere: not known
Duration: 6 minutes
Performances by the Berliner Philharmoniker:
for the first time on 11 December 2025 directed by Andris Nelsons
During his lifetime, he was arguably the most famous organist in the world: the Frenchman Marcel Dupré, who had studied with Charles-Marie Widor, played the grand Cavaillé-Coll organ at the Parisian church of Saint-Sulpice during services, and taught an organ class at the Paris Conservatoire. Olivier Messiaen was one of his students and admiringly called him the “Liszt of the organ.” Dupré regularly toured: in total, he gave 2,178 concerts, many of them in the United States. When he visited New York in 1921, he played a newly composed piece for friends on the piano: Cortège et Litanie, the second part of a stage music for chamber orchestra. Following this, he was commissioned to create an organ version for the gigantic instruments of the Wanamaker department stores. Dupré was happy to accept – and he even provided an alternative version for organ and orchestra.
The work begins with a calm, chorale-like melody, the Cortège, which means “escort” or “procession.” Dupré lent it considerable enchantment, colouring it with harp sounds, but after just 36 bars, the second part, the Litanie, begins. Its theme, initially played by the flute, is then repeated 23 times with subtle variations, like a litany with endlessly recurring formulas. In the end, however, Dupré overlays both ideas, fusing them in a rapturous finale.