GUILLOU & LISZT Symphonic poems for organ. Double SACD album

Dear friends, Maybe you know about my love to the music of my teacher Jean Guillou and of Franz Liszt… Jean Guillou was a teacher, who changed my life as musician, who learned me to believe in the beauty of music and in strenght in myself. What I recieved from him, I would like to give the to the world, to give hope, love, belief through the music, to make it yet more beautiful place to live in. Last November I was very happy to finally be able to record a double album in St. Eustache in Paris! It has always been a dream of mine to record some of my favourite compositions of my beloved teacher Jean Guillou there, on his organ. The extraordinary Van den Heuvel organ in St. Eustache, the largest the Dutch firm ever built, has a very specific sonority, which is absolutely unique in the world. More than any other instrument, its speaking and singing voices and characteristic colours, it gives you the possibility of playing crescendo from the softest whisper to the loudest cries and the feeling of a real orchestra under your fingers! One of the most prestigious organs in France, this organ was inaugurated in 1989, has 101 stops and more than 8000 pipes. This organ will be renovated soon and this may be the last recording which allows to hear it in the unmistakable sound Jean Guillou knew so well and which inspired him during most of his artistic life… For me Jean Guillou (whose teachers were Olivier Messiaen, Marcel Dupré and others), comes from a long line of post-romantic composers. Envisioning the organ sound of the 21st century, his language is unquestionably very personal but nonetheless rooted in the French organ tradition. He makes use of this very tradition in order to establish his absolutely new and authentic way of the organ sound, with his typical expressivity in melody, dramatical rhythm and outstandingly complex harmony. Simply said: from the post-romantic tradition to the modern vision! He has often been hailed as a sort of « Franz Liszt of the 20th century »…Many of the works by Jean Guillou which I chose for this CD show that both composers shared a predilection for the symphonic style and more precisely for the form of the « symphonic poem ». Hence, quite naturally, I decided to pair them with the music of Liszt himself by including Guillou’s complete transcriptions for organ of works which Liszt had originally written for orchestra or piano. But especially recording Liszt’s symphonic poem « Tasso » felt as one of the most special moments of the recording. It is the last transcription from the hands of Jean Guillou… Unfortunately he never played it himself, but over the past years it became an absolute concert favourite of mine. I am always glad to play it for him and am very grateful that I could record it as a world premiere now. There are some other personal connections, which make this recording special for me: Ballade ossianique Temora is the first composition Jean Guillou composed after becoming « organiste titulaire » of St. Eustache and the first of his compositions I played for him at St. Eustache. Pensieri pour Jean Langlais is the softest composition from Jean Guillou I know, a silent mediation on the beautiful « flûtes célestes »… Regard is one of the last big compositions for organ by Jean Guillou, which he liked to play in concert towards the end of his life… All this explains why this project is so important to me. It is all about passing on Jean Guillou’s music and teaching as authentically and at the same time as personally as I may. For me it is about expressing my gratitude to him beyond the grave for everything he offered us, his students, his friend and his admirers. But in the end and for everyone it is about continuing to love the beautiful music and live for it! Thank you from the depth of my heart for your friendly support and for your donation! Yours, Zuzana Jean Guillou at the organ of St. Eustache