Over the last few years I've had much pleasure going to organ recitals in the UK, mostly not too far from my home in Milton Keynes, but some further away - notably the annual commemorative recital in October at Liverpool Cathedral. I'm now looking at a visit to the church of St Ouen in Rouen, Normandy, and specifically to hear the organ by Cavaill?-Coll.

What I'm having no success at is finding out when there are recitals at this church, or any other church in Normandy. I've emailed the Tourist Office asking specific questions, and had a quick response but no information. At the moment, I'm awaiting their brochure, and unless it's much better than their website which is totally silent on the subject, I'll be lucky to find the information I seek. Has anyone here been on a coach tour or similar in Normandy with organ recitals as their theme?

Many thanks for any pointers.

Not a lot of help, but I was in St Ouen last July and absent-mindedly noticed a poster about recitals. Since nothing coincided with my stay I didn't memorise the details, but I seem to remember that there wasn't much going on and that recitals for organ and trumpet featured as prominently as recitals of pure organ music. I think perhaps the recitals may be mainly a summer thing.

The organ in Rouen Cathedral looks quite imposing too, but you never hear anything about that. Is it any good?

I believe the organ in St Maclou is worth hearing. The choir I was accompanying was originally supposed to be giving a concert here, but the arrangements fell through and we ended up going elsewhere - alas!

It is a marvellous instrument, and is thought by many to be the finest Cavaille Coll organ in France.

Jeremy Filsell recorded his popular Vierne set on this organ. You can get a pretty good idea of the overall sound from these recordings

Does the church itself not have a website?

I presume there are organists' associations in France as there are here, who would be keen to publicise any events. Maybe some of our French members here would know?

Alternatively, you could ask somebody at the local Tourist Office to look out for any posters on your behalf!

SB

I don't live anywhere near Normandy but where I live there doesn't seem to be any very good publicity for concerts either. The local theatre/concert hall produces a list of "what's on" at the beginning of the academic year but concerts in churches seem to be very hard to find out about - I usually discover they're on when I see a poster up in the town somewhere.

Some of the concerts find their way into the town magazine (published every three months) so it might be worth looking on the website for the Mairie. Another possibility would be to contact the organ teacher at the Conservatoire.

As Swellbox says the church itself might have a website, or you the Diocese might.

I've visited Rouen a number of times, including the churches you mention, and I don't remember 1) hearing any of the organs playing, or 2) seeing any publicit?. (They tend to have piped music playing - don't they! often a British cathedral choir or similar).

The organ at Evreux is fairly new, and was being 'explored' the first time we went there - great fun to listen to, but it was not easy to find information about it ('oh, you need to go to the tourist office' - which we did, but it was still a bit of an initiative test).

We were lucky another time (although OT as it wasn't Normandy). On the way home from one of our summer trips we stopped overnight in Bourges. We caught the last of their summer series of organ concerts - a totally improvised one by Nigel Allcoat.

I don't know that much about organs in France but what I have gathered is that someone is appointed to the organ chair (if I can call it that for want of a better term). Cathedrals are interested in the organist's name on a piece of paper rather than whether s/he actually lives in the town in question and will play the organ regularly. If someone else wants to play the organ for a church service s/he has to obtain permission from the official organist who may (or may not) wish to grant permission. If the official organist refuses permission then no-one plays for the service.

Our official organist lives in Paris and rarely comes here, occasionally the music school borrows the organ for a concert for the organ pupils, in the summer there are sometimes concerts both by the official organist and invited organists but the rest of the year it remains unplayed.

I thought that since Normandy is an easy train ride from Paris the situation would be different there, but maybe not.

Thanks everyone for your replies.

I've thought of adding to my CD collection, but would really like to combine a short holiday in the area with an organ recital for me, and a visit to Giverny for my partner. (and Giverny does have a decent website!)

You seem to have confirmed what I found after doing an extensive web search. Unless I've missed it, there's nothing like the UK's organ recital website, nor the "music" section on the websites of individual churches.

What I have found for Rouen is one of those directory style websites offering me links to:-
" Comite Normand Du Recital D'Orgue Cnro Committee Normand From Organ recital CNRO

Promote organ music for public events and recitals by both whole Rouen in Normandy.

Organ concerts at the Abbey St Ouen
8, rue Maussion 76000 Rouen
Tel.: 02 35 60 21 93
Fax: 02 35 60 21 93 "

which sounds promising, except that the links seem to finish at the quoted paragraph. At least there's a postal address which I could try writing to.





My persistence seems to have paid off:

This looks like an organ recital listing

It even includes what's on at my local cathedral, St Albans!

That's St Ouen! The Rouen Cathedral instrument is apparently a Jacquot-Lavergne of 1956.

I have Filsell's recording of the Vierne Symphonies. Wonderful performances!

Sorry about that, Vox. Blame it on lack of coffee

No probs. There, but for the grace of God...etc!