With his wife, Marie-Madeleine, Maurice Duruflé was arguably the last great proponent of the French romantic school of organ playing. An uncompromising artist, he performed with impeccable virtuosity, and with the same eloquent lyricism, the same poetry, and the same sense of nobility and grandeur for which his predecessors were renowned. Moreover, his supple playing exhibited a controlled sensitivity and an apollonian personality that neither intruded upon the works he played, nor distracted attention from their composers’ purposes.

Despite his early technical prowess, it took a longer time for Duruflé to achieve the personality for which his playing would later be known. One of his earliest recitals in Paris to be reviewed, if not the first, was the one he shared with Jenny Joly on April 20, 1928, under the auspices of Les Amis de l’Orgue. He was twenty-six years old. The reviewer [M. P.] wrote that Duruflé

As he matured, Duruflé objected to such rigid performances and believed that the interpreter's personality should be evident in the playing. He also acknowledged that at some point every student must wean himself from his teacher and develop his own interpretive style. He said, “I think that the student, at a certain time in his life, is no longer a student. He is his own teacher, if you will, and his personality develops. At that moment, he has only to listen to his own instincts. He has no need to study with this one or that one who will influence him in the matter of style.”