Colorful character pieces
A new organ cycle by old master Jean Guillou that is not easy to play. The title "Enfantines" refers to the sister work "Scènes d'enfants", but is difficult to pin down in terms of content.
They are not "childlike", the six short pieces that the Parisian old master Jean Guillou (*1930) presents here under the title Enfantines is not "child-friendly" - whatever that may mean - either, and whether they have a "naïve" effect on the listener and as works of "unbiased purity", as suggested in the preface, is probably not guaranteed either. As in the significantly more virtuosic and expansive sister work from Guillou's pen, the Scènes d'enfants op. 28, are character studies; where Guillou wanted to portray a childhood that could be equally "angélique et diabolique", he understands it here as "natural and unselfconscious".
Guillou's tonal language, in which expressive-recitative moments, rhapsodically twitching phrases and staccato-martellato chords alternate in an associative sequence, unfolds in the six miniatures in the usual manner, albeit with great concentration and manageable dimensions. Technically, however, this does not make the pieces any easier; the manual part seems very pianistic, and the pedal part in particular, with its huge intervallic leaps, glissandi and double trills, places high demands on the execution and calls for dupré-style pointe-paragraph technique. The movement also requires a pedal range up to g1 and a manual range up to c4 relatively often, which cannot always be solved by rearranging the corresponding passages, except with complex registration maneuvers. The sound of the composition calls for Guillou's instrumentation, which ranges from 32' in the Pedal and various aliquots to the characteristic reed color of the Ranquette 16'; analogous to Guillou's own practice, however, flexible adaptations to smaller instruments should not be a problem here as long as the "basic colors" are respected.
Conclusion: Anyone who likes Guillou's style and has the necessary technical skills will be delighted with this new cycle, which expands the Parisian maître's repertoire with short and therefore versatile concert pieces.
Jean Guillou: Enfantines op. 81 pour Orgue, ED 22063, € 16.50, Schott Music, Mainz 2015
